The Italian's Token Wife

He was staring at her—simply staring at her—as if she’d sprouted extra arms and heads. She blinked, puzzled. Had she done something wrong? She looked away again, feeling her heart beating faster than it should. Was she behaving inappropriately? Was that it? Shouldn’t she be putting herself forward and joining in the conversation, asking his uncle questions or presuming to answer them?

Then, across the table, she heard the professor say to Rafaello, ‘Your wife will keep you busy for quite some time, my boy—you must take her on a tour. She has everything to see.’

She bit her lip again. The last thing Rafaello would want would be to be landed with taking her sightseeing.

‘Oh, no,’ she put in hurriedly, ‘that would not be possible—my little boy…’

‘I am sure your son will be quite content to be looked after by Maria and myself,’ Signora Calvi replied calmly. ‘This is ideal weather for touring.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Magda, disconcerted. ‘Please—really— I couldn’t leave Benji.’

‘It will be good for him to develop the ability to be happy without your constant attendance,’ pronounced Rafaello’s aunt. ‘You need have no anxiety about leaving him with us. Maria is extremely experienced with children, and she tells me he is a very good, well-brought up child, well advanced for his age. He is a credit to you, she tells me.’

She gave her benign smile, and Magda felt her colour rise. Her throat went tight. She stared down at her plate. Suddenly she felt a light touch on her hand.

‘It has been hard for you, I think, no?’ said Rafaello’s aunt quietly. ‘People will often make harsh judgements.’

She threw a deliberate look at Rafaello, who tightened his mouth. Then, with a deliberate change of subject, she said, ‘Ring for Giuseppe, Rafaello. He may serve the next course.’

The remainder of the meal passed with relative ease. The professor, having discovered an eager listener in his nephew’s bride, required very little prompting to continue his discourse, which ranged extensively over the history of Tuscany and that of Italy as a whole. Apart from a nagging worry over whether Benji was all right—even though she knew perfectly well that the smiling maid Gina was babysitting him—Magda found herself feeling less and less uncomfortable. It helped, too, that Rafaello said almost nothing, and that both his aunt and uncle seemed quite happy to let him remain as silent as he did.

It was not until Signora Calvi informed Giuseppe that they would take coffee in the drawing room, and they got up from the table, that Rafaello was able to ask the question that had been infuriating him all evening.

As they stood back to let the professor and his wife leave the dining room, Magda felt her arm gripped.

‘Perhaps you would like to tell me why,’ demanded Rafaello, with a grim note in his voice that made her feel alarmed, ‘given that you are quite evidently an educated woman, you earn your living in such a menial occupation.’

Magda stared up at him. He was too close to her again, but this time that was not the sole reason for her startled reaction.

‘Educated?’ she echoed.

‘You have an excellent knowledge of history, for a start!’ elucidated Rafaello bitingly. ‘And you are obviously intelligent. So why do you work as a cleaner?’

Her face cleared. She was able to answer his question. ‘I have no qualifications—I’ve always loved reading, but that’s all. School was…difficult.’ No need to bore him with the difficulty of being a child from a care home at a school where that was a cause for derision and mockery by more fortunate pupils. ‘Although I did manage to get some GCSEs—they’re the basic school leaving exams—I wasn’t able to study any further.’

No need to tell him that that was the period when Kaz had first been diagnosed. ‘But one of the things I would like to do, and you have made it possible—’ she swallowed ‘—is to pursue further studies so that when Benji starts school I may be able to get some qualifications and get a better job eventually. I wouldn’t work full time, of course, just during school hours. So I am always there for him.’

‘Rafaello.’ His aunt’s voice came imperiously. ‘Allow the poor child to have her coffee.’

Her arm was released and she was ushered with polite courtesy through to the drawing room.

‘Come and sit beside me,’ commanded Elizavetta Calvi, having cast a shrewd look at her nephew and his wife, and she patted a space on the exquisite silk-upholstered sofa. ‘Rafaello—Bernardo would like a cigar, but he is not to smoke in here. Be off with you both to the terrace, if you please.’