The Night Falling Read Online Free PDF Page B

contend with. Few silences at all.
    Once they reach the room Marcie clasps Clare’s hands for a moment, gives a happy little shrug and leaves her to change. A steady quiet settles in her wake. Clare turns around, sees the book Boyd is reading and his glasses, placed neatly by the bed. The room is large and square, and faces south, and Clare opens the shutters to a rush of hot air and the slanting yellow light of evening. The walls are a rich ochre colour, the ceiling a high spread of dark wooden beams, the floor terracotta. There’s a painting of the Madonna above the fireplace, and one of Paris above the bed, which has an ornate brass bedstead and a mattress sagging visibly in the middle. When a servant brings in the luggage, the door howls in protest. It’s made of the same aged wood as the ceiling, and has massive hinges to cope with its own weight. Like a door in a castle, Clare thinks. Or a jail. She leans over the window sill and looks out at the clustered red rooftops and the narrow streets. Immediately behind the Cardettas’ house is a small, neat garden with more paved walkways than flower beds. There are fig and olive trees for shade, and a vine-covered veranda where a long table waits, covered with a linen cloth. There are herbs but few flowers, and no grass. One of the fig trees is alive with small birds – Clare can see them all, rattling the leaves, hopping about like fleas. They chatter rather than sing, but it’s still a nice sound.
    The door moans again as Boyd comes in. He has a way of moving, a way of standing slightly curled in on himself, that looks faintly apologetic. Clare smiles and crosses to him, to be folded into him, against the smooth fabric of his shirt and the slight give of flesh underneath. He is that much taller than her that her hair gets caught up with the sharp points and buttons of his collar. He has a faintly sour scent about him that she doesn’t remember smelling before. Or perhaps once before. It makes her uneasy.
    ‘I’m so happy to see you,’ he murmurs into the top of her head. Then he holds her out at arm’s length, studies her intently. ‘You didn’t mind coming?’ Clare shrugs. She can’t quite bring herself to deny it, not completely, because she did mind. She likes the unhurried habit of their home life in Hampstead, and taking Pip to their favourite places in London during the holidays. She doesn’t like to admit to herself that she’d been glad when Boyd announced he would be going to Italy, but it’s true nevertheless. It was better for him to be working, to be occupied; it was better for her and Pip that they had the house to themselves, and could keep their own hours and counsel. That they could make as much noise, and be as silly as they wanted. Say what they wanted. For a brief while the summer had stretched out ahead of her, wonderfully long and serene, until his phone call from Italy curtailed it.
    ‘I was surprised. You wouldn’t normally ask me to travel – not all this way. But I had Pip with me for the journey, so of course it was fine.’ This much is true, at least.
    ‘I know it might seem a bit peculiar. But Cardetta wants me to stay for as long as it takes to finish the designs, and I can’t … it’s too good a commission to turn it down. I mean – I’m happy to work on it. It’s an interesting project.’ He kisses her forehead, one hand on her cheek. ‘And I couldn’t bear the thought of so many weeks without you,’ he says. Clare frowns.
    ‘But when you first telephoned you said that it was Cardetta who wanted us to come out – Pip and me? Why would he? To keep Marcie company?’
    ‘Yes. Probably. Anyway, he only suggested it, and it gave me the idea. He had to offer the invitation first, of course. I couldn’t just ask and oblige him to accept.’
    ‘I see.’
    Clare disengages herself from his arms and goes over to open her bags. It hadn’t seemed like that when they first spoke about it, soon after Boyd’s arrival in