She sifted through the envelopes once more and selected one that was postmarked 20 October, 1944.
Carissima Romily,
You have brought such happiness into my life, but I do not deserve it. All this time in the days since we met – since that fateful day when your aeroplane crashed – I have kept something from you. I am ashamed of myself for my deception. I have become the type of man I never thought I would.
I said that this war would tear us apart and it will. For when the fighting is over and I am free to return to Italy, I will be reunited with my wife. There, at last I have admitted the truth to you. I am married. I never meant to deceive you, but I have and for that I know you have every right to hate me. Why would you not, when I hate myself so much? Before you rip this letter into many pieces, please let me try to explain. I had no intention of falling in love with you, but the more time I spent in your company, the stronger my feelings became, and then before I realised it, it was too late and I could not bring myself to tell you the truth. For I knew that once I confessed my sin and guilt to you, that would be the end of my happiness.
This is no justification for what I have done, but my marriage is not a happy one. My wife, just as my family did, wanted me to be someone I could never be. I have been a great disappointment to my wife. I have never matched the expectations Maria had for me. I believe that when we married, she had the strongest confidence in her ability to make me the man of her dreams. Instead, I am the man of her nightmares of whom she is ashamed. I am weak in her eyes. And perhaps I am.
But far worse, in her eyes, I have failed Maria in my duty to give her a child. In my heart I want to believe that God did not want us to have children, that it would have been wrong to bring a child into the world whose parents did not love each other in the way they should. For me this is both a blessing and a curse. Is it arrogant of me to think that I would be a good father? I believe I have lost the opportunity ever to know what it would feel like to hold the hand of my child. But I tell myself that it is better this way. Better that Maria could not manipulate a child against me. For surely as I breathe, I know that this is what would happen.
Why do we not divorce? you ask. Maria would never agree to that. When it suits her, she wears her faith in the Roman Catholic Church with fierce devotion. I have asked her before to free us both from our unhappy marriage, but she refuses to agree. She believes it is a far greater sin to divorce than it is to make another person miserable.
I now have to accept that in writing this letter I have made you as unhappy and angry as Maria. I will not waste my time in asking you to forgive me. It would be asking too much, and more than I deserve.
You have given me more joy in these few months than I have ever experienced in my life. It is a precious gift I will treasure always.
And now I must accept the inevitable, that I will not receive a reply to this letter. But how ever you feel about me, my dearest Romily, my feelings for you will never change.
With love and sincere regret
for causing you pain,
Matteo
Her eyes blurred with tears, the pain returned to Romily afresh of that day when she had read the letter for the first time.
Married ... wife ... Maria ...
The words had leaped off the pages at her, like a knife repeatedly thrust through her heart. How had she not suspected he was married? Why hadn’t it crossed her mind to ask outright if there was a wife or a girlfriend back in Italy waiting for him? Because she had assumed he would have mentioned one if such a person existed.
That’s what she had told herself for a long time. Until she had eventually confronted her own part in his deception. She had deliberately chosen not to ask him if he were married because she hadn’t wanted anything to burst the bubble of her happiness. In doing that she had deceived herself as much as he had lied to her through omission.
Now, in the soft light cast from the lamp on her desk, and thinking of what followed, she gave an involuntary shiver, as if a shadow had passed across her. Seeing that the fire had burned down to a faint glow, she stood up and carefully added some logs from the basket.
Perched on the soft leather of the fender, she waited impatiently for the fire to spring back into life and to warm the chill that had seeped into her bones. A biting cold easterly wind had blown in from the North Sea today, she could hear it still hurling itself against the windows, and the forecast was for a heavy fall of snow in the nexttwenty-four hours. With a wry smile, she thought how much she had enjoyed the more temperate climate of Palm Springs back in October, and how well it had made her feel.
The thought inevitably led her to think of Red. She wondered what he was doing right now. Counting the time difference in her head, she worked out that it would be late morning for him. She pictured him in his garden with the stunning mountain backdrop in the distance. But then just as vividly, she pictured the scene over lunch when she had offended him. She had touched a nerve and wished now that she hadn’t. Everybody was entitled to theirno-go areas and inadvertently she had trampled all over his.
She gave an exasperated sigh at the futility of her regret, and with the fire now burning brightly and its warmth spreading through her, she returned to her desk and the bundle of letters.
She selected the one dated 30 October, 1944. It had been in response to her carefully worded letter to him, a letter she had known would be read by the censors. Just as his to her would have been.
Carissima Romily,
I know I said before that I would accept that you do not want to see me again, but after reading your letter which arrived today, I would give anything for you to visit me so that we can talk properly, and in private. You say you are unwell, and that is of great concern to me. Please my darling, I know you are strong and resourceful, like no other woman I know, but I cannot bear the thought of you being unwell without me to help you.
You must believe me when I say that when this awful war is over, I will make my wife agree to a divorce. I will then return to you, I swear. Nothing will stop me! Not now!
You say that I have a duty to be with my wife, but I see it differently. I now have a bigger duty to be with you.
Please, I beg you, write to say that you have not given up on me. Or on us.
With all my love,
Matteo
With tears in her eyes once more, Romily carefully refolded the letter, and slid it back inside its envelope. She was about to return it to the wooden box when there was a ring at the doorbell. With nobody else in the house, she went to answer it.
