‘Thank you,’ she said, and rushed off, her mind buzzing.
There were no princes in life – women needed to rescue themselves and they helped each other. That was one fact Toni knew for sure.
Out on the terrace, Angelo had brought Lou down some stone steps into a beautiful circle set with stone benches and several classical busts set on ivy-covered columns. There were steps in front of them that would no doubt lead down the jagged coast to the sea.
‘It’s so beautiful here,’ she said, ‘I was thinking about your home in Easkey when I drove here and how different it was.’
‘It’s very different,’ agreed Angelo. ‘But there is the same sense of being on the edge of things. In the West, you’re on the edge of Europe facing out into the Atlantic. It’s a very powerful place to work. But then so is Whitehaven. Whitehaven was different. I went there to work in the studio of a painter I admired in the 1970s and that’s how I met your mother.’
‘I know nothing about it,’ said Lou simply.
‘I’ll tell you some of it,’ said Angelo. ‘My family had links with Sicily. My grandmother came from Syracuse, and, after my time in Whitehaven, Ireland got too small, too painful for me, so I came here to paint and I’ve never left. Renata and I found this house many years ago and it reminds me of home in a strange way even though the water is warm and the wind is warm.’ He gestured out at the sea. ‘There is the same sense of staring out at the waves, knowing you’re on an island – separate from everywhere else.Allora. Tell me about yourself.’
He sat close to her. Again, his hands found hers and he held them loosely.
He seemed to want this connection and Lou didn’t find it odd that this man she’d just met was holding her hands. Bizarrely, it reminded her of her other dad. Bob was a tactile person and loved to touch people affectionately.
‘My father is dead,’ she said. ‘I really wish he was alive because I could talk to him about this. I don’t want to hurt you, but he is my real father.’
‘Of course he is,’ said Angelo. ‘I am the one who gave you life, but he is the one who took care of that life. That’s different. Very, very different. I do not want you to say I am your father, but I would be honoured to be allowed to be in your life.’
‘Why didn’t you come and look for me then?’ Lou blurted out.
Angelo looked pained but Lou had to know. This was the crux of it all. ‘I left under a cloud, you could say. Your mother and I were both with other people when we ...’ He paused. ‘When we came together that time. It should never have happened. I was stupid. Your mother was angry when she found out she was pregnant. She was...’ he paused again, ‘I don’t know what you know. I don’t know how to tell you this. It should come from her.’
Lou found a core of strength within herself. ‘My mother, and I’ve only just discovered this, doesn’t like to deal with the truth. She could have told me a long time ago. But she chose not to. And when she did tell me, she told me in anger, when drinking.’
‘Ah, the old complaint. Telling things in drink is never a good plan,’ said Angelo, sighing. ‘Never good. She was a complicated person when I knew her.’
‘Still is,’ said Lou wryly. ‘If you could tell me something, I would love to know.’
Angelo looked out to sea. He looked every bit of his eighty-something years. ‘It’s a difficult story,’ he said, ‘and I did not expect to be the one telling you. It starts with a woman I was seeing in Whitehaven...’
Chapter Twenty-one
‘I was in love with her and then, your mother came along—’
He looked out to sea and sighed.
‘There was a solstice party. Whitehaven was full of artists then and we liked to shock, you know, so we had a party that was a little wild on the beach. The woman I loved didn’t come but your mother did and we came together. I regret it so much because of those we hurt, but never, never, because of you. She told me, eventually, but not for some time. At first, I was sad because we had both betrayed people we loved.
‘I am so sorry for my actions,’ he said. ‘I knew your mother was engaged to your father, I take the blame. I hurt...’ he paused. ‘I hurt the other woman very badly too. I broke her heart. She could not forgive me.’
Lou felt pity for the other unknown woman in the triangle, but had most pity for her father. He’d had to live with Lillian’s betrayal.
‘Two people were involved,’ said Lou. ‘It wasn’t just you. My mother was engaged at the time.’
‘He was a good man, your father.’
Lou nodded, feeling a strange mixture of emotions. ‘You’re my father, biologically, and yet not my father. That was Bob,’ she said. She didn’t want to hurt this lovely man who, despite his tanned skin and great mane of thick wiry grey hair, was clearly older than her mother, eighty maybe. But she wanted to be truthful with him.
Truth mattered, she realised. Not always absolute truth. Not ‘no, I hate that skirt you’re wearing’ truth. But the essential truths. This new relationship, whatever it might be, even just an acquaintance, would not be built on the foundation of a lie the way Lou felt her relationship with her mother was.
Lillian had lied – often lied, Lou was now realising. And Lou had let her, sometimes even made it easy for her. But Lou would not take that anymore. When she went home, it would be different.
‘When did my mother tell you she was pregnant?’
‘Two months later, perhaps? I had gone back to my home, and she wrote. The baby was certainly mine because she ...’ He looked pained. ‘Your father thought they should wait till their wedding night.’
