I dressed quickly, packed my things and checked out of the hotel. Thank God Zina had suggested visiting this villa. I could forget things so easily with Zina. And they’d never find me there. I got a taxi and drove straight out to the Villa Carlotta.
Zina’s big, cream-coloured Fiat was waiting at the door as I drove up. Roberto was in the driver’s seat, lounging over the steering wheel. He didn’t smile at me. His eyes looked black and sullen and I had a sudden feeling that he hated me. The good-looking youth in the bathing trunks seemed to have become coarsened into a surly peasant.
I was shown into the room where I’d met her before. The powder-blue walls and furnishings seemed colder, more artificial. The view from the balcony was bleak and grey and the air was heavy so that my shirt stuck to my body. On a table in a corner was a photograph in a heavy silver frame — Zina in a white wedding dress, her hand resting on the arm of a tall, uniformed man with a drawn, leathery face. The door opened as I was putting the photograph back on the table. ‘You like my husband?’
I swung round. Zina, in a pale green silk frock covered with scarlet tigers, was smiling at me from the doorway. I didn’t know what to say. The man looked more than twice her age.
She gave me a quick, angry shrug. ‘What does it matter? He is already a part of the past.’ She smiled.’ Shall we go?’
I realised then that it had never occurred to her that I should not come.
‘You look tired,’ she said as she took my hand. Her fingers were very cool.
‘It’s nothing,’ I answered. ‘Just the heat. What’s wrong with Roberto this morning?’
‘Roberto?’ An amused smile flickered across her lips. ‘I think perhaps he is a little jealous.’
‘Jealous?’ I stared at her.