Page 9 of The Affair
She watched as the waiter poured mineral water into their glasses, Dinah taking a long draught, then sighing gratefully. ‘We did the stunning cathedral, then the Garibaldi place, which was a trifle dull, I thought. The others were off up to Brunate in the funicular, but I simply can’t do heights any more. So Jared, bless him, organized a cab.’ She gave her godson an apologetic smile, patting his hand across the table. ‘I feel bad, depriving you of all those marvellous views, darling.’
Jared shook his head. ‘I’ve seen them before, Dinah. Much nicer to sit here with you, having a nice cool drink, than be stuffed into a lurching tin box, forced to listen to oohing and aahing in six different languages.’
Connie gave a dutiful laugh, but eyed him, thinking he was being unnecessarily derogatory about his fellow tourists.
‘It is maddening being old,’ Dinah said wistfully. ‘I used to love funiculars, ski lifts, views from the tops of mountains.’
Jared’s voice was suddenly full of kindness. ‘There’s lots of other things to enjoy. We’ve got the Villa Cipressi gardens tomorrow. You’ll love them. Maybe thewisteria will still be out.’ He turned to Connie with a charming smile. ‘Are you coming with us?’
Feeling bad for her hasty initial assessment, she nodded. ‘So you’ve been here before?’
‘Absolutely,’ Jared replied airily. ‘Travelling is my thing.’
She realized he was unusually tanned for an Englishman in early May and wondered where else he had been.
At dinner that night she sat with Ruth and Ginty, friends from college, now in their late sixties, who met up every year for a holiday without their husbands. Connie always ate with her flock, but moved around to sit at different tables, so that by the end of a tour she had engaged with everyone at least once. The group tended to form their own allegiances, making friends and pairing up as the week went on. Sometimes she was eating with five or six, sometimes only two. A solitary traveller could pose a problem – she had to make sure he or she was accommodated and never left to eat alone.
Connie occasionally found supper conversation heavy going, but mostly her fellow diners were buzzing with what they’d seen that day and eager to chat about what was coming up tomorrow. Tonight would be easy: Ruth and Ginty were lively, mischievous and loved nothing better than a good gossip.
‘So, the godson.’ Ginty lowered her voice and widened her blue eyes dramatically at Connie. Jared and Dinah were tucked against the wall on the far side ofthe large dining room, whose windows looked out onto what was now a breathtaking indigo and gold sunset. ‘I’m thinking he might be gay. But Ruth insists otherwise.’
They both waited expectantly for Connie to reply.
‘You know I can’t comment,’ she said, with an amused smile.
‘No, no, of course not.’ A fair-skinned blonde with a rounded figure she liked to show off, with clinging fabrics and low necklines, Ruth chuckled. ‘Ginty’s reasons for thinking he’s gay are totally spurious. She says no straight man would be so kind and good-tempered with his godmother – who’s obviously a bit of a handful, however gracious she pretends to be.’
‘Unless, of course, she was about to leave him her fortune … I hadn’t thought of that,’ Ginty mused, as she shot a sneaky glance across the room towards the pair in question, who were deep in conversation.
‘Stop staring! He’ll think you fancy him,’ Ruth hissed, playfully cuffing her friend’s arm and causing them both to break into schoolgirl giggles – fuelled, no doubt, by the copious quantities of Soave they’d consumed.
Connie had not, so far, considered Jared’s sexuality. He was certainly not a flirt – at least, not with her. Her overriding impression was of well-mannered reserve. She agreed with Ruth, though, that kindness certainly wasn’t exclusive to gay men, remembering Devan’s numerous acts of kindness over the years. Such as the hours he had taken patiently explaining – over andover again until he must have been nearly mad with irritation – the various tests and their significance to her frightened sister, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, years ago now.
She tried not to stare at Jared, although he and his godmother were in her direct line of sight whenever she looked up from her plate of delicious grilled sea bass and courgette fries.A dark horse, she decided, as the women chattered on.
The following day, Luca Pozzi, their guide, leaned against the stone wall near the jetty where the ferry docked, close to the tiny harbour in Varenna. He had a cigarette cupped furtively in his palm and tucked behind his right thigh, from which he took swift, shifty drags.
‘They know you’re smoking, Luca,’ Connie teased, checking the straggle of tourists taking final photos of each other against the backdrop of the lake as they emerged from the narrow streets after an afternoon in the pretty lakeside town. ‘The clue’s in those fumes pouring from your mouth.’
Smoking was supposedly forbidden for employees of the tour company, but Luca, who looked like the clichéd ageing Lothario with his tan and improbably gleaming white teeth, his turquoise open-necked shirt and dyed black hair, gave her a wide grin.
‘Che importa?’ He shrugged, then patted his chest proudly. ‘Tutti mi amano.’
And it was true: they all did love Luca. His Englishwas impeccable, although still lyrically Italian, and he was so knowledgeable, so charming – he had a degree in Italian history, he was always keen to point out – that he had the whole group eating out of his hand.
As she waited for them all to gather before boarding the ferry, Connie checked her phone again. There was still nothing from Devan in response to her message nearly two days ago now. She felt a small spike of worry, suddenly visualizing all the things that might have happened to him. Maybe his back had seized up and he couldn’t reach the phone. Or he’d fallen in the shower. She dismissed the doomy scenarios.I’ll call as soon as we get back to the hotel.
Looking up from her screen, she saw Terry, Sandra’s husband, approaching at a run, his face a picture of concern.
‘It’s Walter, Connie. He’s come over faint and says he can’t walk.’ Terry spoke breathlessly, his normally solemn face suddenly animated. ‘Sandra’s with him. And Jared. But we don’t know what to do.’
Connie and Luca hurried after Terry to the café-bar, a short way up one of the town’s narrow streets. Walter – a tall American from Ohio in his seventies, who seemed to wear exclusively beige, even to his cotton flat cap – was sitting at an outside table. Sandra was beside him, self-consciously holding his hand, Jared and Dinah hovering nearby. His face was pale, with a sheen of sweat, his breathing shallow.
Connie bent down, a gentle arm around his shoulders. ‘Walter?’ She knew, from their pre-trip phonecall, that he had a heart condition. But he had assured her it was under control with a battery of daily drugs. ‘Do you have any chest pain?’
‘No, no.’ He glanced up at the sound of her voice and seemed suddenly to become aware of the ring of concerned faces looking down at him. ‘Just give me a second, I’ll be fine. This happens sometimes …’
‘Do you have your medication with you?’
