The Italian Romance by Joanne Carroll Page A

he did, he was frightened by the blackness that was him. He hadn’t known it about himself. That was what terrified him more than anything, more than being recaptured, or shot. What would his own blackness drive him to? Was there an edge that it knew, had known always, he’d be led to? And after it, there was nothing. The nothing terrified him. All the rest, the good spirits, the gooddeeds he had tried to do, buoying up his father all those years, the infinite excitement he’d felt in his gut when he went up to university, the patching himself together after the heartbreak of Serena’s goodbye letter, the nights of plying himself and his mates with whisky in the melancholy of young men intent on cutting out the diamond, the willing himself into life again in the army, life that would stretch his soul, and then effort after effort to protect his men, from the thirst as much as anything else in that miserable, godforsaken desert, pushing on, on. Was it for nothing? Nothing the destination after all? And all the rest the dream? Who was this, who knew this terrible thing? Jack, in his mind’s eye, saw himself drop to his knees, put his face in the dirt.
    But he didn’t. He darted across the pathway, and made his way up the grassy rise. He sank to his haunches as he entered the coppice. He could hear his breath. He heard the lonely rise and fall of it. Below him he saw the house, and the boy, stopped in his tracks now, balanced on one foot while he seemed to be picking a splinter out of the other, little beggar. There was a well-tended garden. It surprised him. Bushes, and real hedges, English hedges. If he could get down to that garden before the boy reached the house, he’d see what was going on. He rose and ran at a half-crouch, his eyes on the open French doors at the side of the house.
    The boy was running again, too. As Jack threw himself behind a flamboyant bush, four or five feet thick, the child looked around, hearing something. Jack tried to get his breath. He wiped his arm across his forehead. The sun was cruel, lost in its own haze. He made the mistake of gazing up at it. He was blinded for a number of seconds. ‘Christ,’ he said softly. He held his arm against his eyes, closed them. His shirt smelled of his own skin. He was so thirsty. Unconsciously, he moved his mouth to make saliva.
    He reached out his fingers to hold down a branch, so he could get a clear view. The boy had moved. He’d come to the back door and he seemed to be creeping in on his toes. Jack smiled. ‘Little beggar,’ he said.
    Jack’s thighs were tightening. He danced his feet around to a slightly different angle and held the branch a little firmer, trying to see in through the French doors at the side. A white, fine curtain blew out and tossed in the air. His heels were chafed; the makeshift shoes were a misery. He put his thumb into the back of his shoe, to give the heel relief. And then he saw the woman. He knelt, and concentrated. She had walked across the doorway. Was she with someone? She didn’t appear again for a full minute, then she stood still, and looked out. Her hands were by her sides. Limp by her sides, he said to himself. What was wrong with her? He could feel it from two hundred yards away. It was the way gravity pulled at her, though she stood erect, the way blood drained into her limp hands. He thought he saw some strands of her hair fall to her neck. Yes, she slowly raised her hand now and combed the hair up into the loose bun on her head. She was dark. Her white blouse threw her skin into shadow. She gave up on the hair and let it fall down again. She must be too hot to have all that hair, the dark, thick winding of it, loose about her neck and shoulders.
    And then she looked straight at him. He carefully withdrew his hand from the branch. She can’t see me, he said to himself. He looked up quickly to the rise. He wouldn’t make it with her standing there.
    He had