Mio Tesoro: My Treasure

By Margaret Weise

Love should not hurt.

Caroline has been married once before, and is wary of another error of judgment in the wedded bliss stakes. She is introduced by well meaning friends to a charming, handsome foreigner, who, for reasons best known to himself, is determined to make her his wife in as short a time as possible.

A probable cause of this haste is that if she really got to know him well before he slipped the ring on her finger, she would not have him at any price.

Too late Caroline discovers that he has a very dark past and an even darker present with which she will attempt to come to terms, or die trying.

Yes, love should not hurt but Caroline’s eternal question remains: is this really love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Margaret Weise
• Release date: Mar 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781497750708

Book preview

Chapter One: A Meeting of Minds

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Feigning an air of indifference, Caroline Bourke sat in the back of the over-stuffed station wagon surrounded by her friends’ various sized children. Full of misgivings, she wondered forlornly why in the name of all that was sacred was she allowing herself to be taken to the city on a blind date. The long and short of it was, she reminded herself firmly, blind dates were notoriously awkward and unsuccessful ventures and in addition manage to be mind-numbingly boring as a rule.

Very much unnerved, beset by all manner of fears, she examined her consciousness to see if she was still sane or had taken leave of her senses. Every instinct within her cried out, ‘This is not for you. Go home where you belong.’

Her long time friends, Linda and Terry Grehan had a good friend of a good friend whom all and sundry had decided would hopefully be just the shot for Caroline and Caroline for him. Apparently the man was becoming depressed and reclusive for the want of some female attention. The consensus of opinion seemed to be that he could do with a little livening up by someone of the female persuasion and Caroline was elected in absentia.

It had even been mooted around that all things being equal, (which they so seldom are), he would be wise to take unto himself a wife to buck him up a trifle. While Caroline was not sure she was a starter in the marriage stakes, she was at least along for the ride. With the best intentions, her happily married friends saw marriage as the optimum state of well being.

The Grehan couple was ideally suited, fulfilling the time-honored convictions about marriage being the perfect state in which to live out a lifetime, comfortable in each other’s company, relaxed, cooperative, sharing and laughing together and able to agree to disagree on certain issues without resentment. Ideal indeed.

Neither was Caroline too confident about the concept of marriage being the superlative status in her own case, as her marriage had been so far from ideal as to be fraught with unbearable frightfulness and danger. But at the back of her mind lurked a sneaking belief that her friends were probably right. Always providing that a person could be lucky enough to find a reasonable partner who was prepared to give and take a little while participating in one of the luckiest dips of life.

The glorious golden dreams of her youth had come to nothing and she had been alone for years. She appreciated her friends’ concern, convinced it would be churlish of her not to go along for the outing that had been masterminded by her friends, their relatives and the Italian gentleman’s friends who had been rallying around him over the previous weeks.

Expecting nothing, she was in no danger of being disappointed and was in no way anticipating a pleasant surprise despite the description of him filtering through the grapevine proclaiming him as ‘very nice indeed.’

To her friends’ credit, she was certain they would not be transporting her across miles and miles of geography simply to introduce her to a deadhead or a fathead or the local village idiot or a Dr. Svengali or a Quasimodo or...about here, her imagination failed her.

However, she found some small consolation in this thought, reminding herself to bear the matter in mind for the rest of the day and not be prejudiced against the phantom being. But then on the other hand, Linda and Terry had not met him themselves and were relying heavily on hearsay. She stopped herself before her vivid imagination ran riot.

What could possibly go wrong?

She marshaled her thoughts and applied a coat of pink lipstick to unsteady lips, motivated by speculation that she may perhaps like him enough to wish she had freshened her make-up. As the car sped through the wet, brown countryside barren with winter, her mind raced ahead to the event. Her stomach was doing strange things at the thought of this person who was reported to be ‘just the shot’ for her; knotting up, turning over and generally objecting strongly to the situation.

Caroline had a keen sense of self-preservation and was loath to die of embarrassment. On a fractured sigh, she moved restlessly, transferring a small Grehan elbow from her ribs, smiling apologetically at its owner and trying to still the prickling in her spine.

Not possessing an adventurous cast of mind, she was far too preoccupied with her jumbled thoughts to join in the general hubbub of conversation in the car. Suppositions writhed in confusion. Lamentations were made to herself as she calculated her chances of escape if she should happen to summons the courage to throw herself out of the car onto the road at the next set of traffic lights.

Under normal circumstances she was in the bloom of health, forty-two years old, fresh-faced, amply fleshed with bright blue eyes. Sitting in her dazed condition, she was featuring fawn linen slacks and jacket with a fluffy jade green sweater, a casually smart outfit that normally gave her confidence in her appearance.

But in this particular instance the outfit was failing abjectly to give her the boost she required. Laying no claim to being a fashion plate, she tried to do the best she could with what she had been given to work with while not worrying unduly about physical attributes.

As they zipped along the road with mind-numbing rapidity, she remained beside herself with the expected agony of the day ahead, in spite of assurances that whether the day went well or badly it did not matter a rap. As Terry drove with skillful aplomb through the outskirts of Brisbane, she caustically studied the heavy flow of traffic, hating every roundabout and set of traffic lights in sight.

Further and further into suburbia her mind kept repeating, ‘You don’t belong here, never could, never will. Get while the getting’s good, girl.’

The day was gray and dreary, but without the chill wind that had been whistling around the mountaintops in their hometown of Flagstone when they started for the city. The low-slung clouds lived up to prospects by drizzling miserably then teeming for a while, coming and going in cycles. Cars sloshed by, houses flashed past as Caroline was overcome with a bout of profound and repeated longing to jump out at each intersection.

Despite the awful weather, the car full of people—with the exception of Caroline—were all in high glee at the prospect of the Hernandos’ barbecue, quite the highlight of their social set. The small Grehans chattered incessantly, trapped in their seatbelts, wriggling in anticipation, while the larger Grehans in the front discussed hearing another installment of Frankie Hernando’s colorful stories about his riotous work mates in the world of bulldozing.

Caroline sat in her corner feeling like a permanent lost cause.

Eventually the blue Volvo station wagon arrived at the house, a double-story rust-red brick veneer set at the end of a cul-de-sac. The drizzling clouds had thinned. The sun peeped out as if to give a watery smile, then slipped away behind an encroaching cloud.

The Hernandos’ garden, heavily planted with tropical palms and exotic shrubs, rustled in the light breeze blowing in from the ocean several blocks away. In the street, myriad vehicles were parked around and a multitude of people were milling in and out of the ground floor and the attached garages.

Appalled at the number of partygoers, Caroline’s mouth fell open in dismay, as she had been under the impression this was to be a modest event for eight or ten adults and accompanying youngsters. To her there seemed to be a cast numbering at least a thousand faceless people.

Passionately disinclined to draw attention to herself, she suffered even deeper consternation, speculating on the prospect of being terminally embarrassed before such a large throng of strangers.

A shiver of panic edged its way along her spine and crystallized as she glanced at her watch, wondering how many hours would have to pass before they again loaded themselves into the Volvo and headed for home. A rush of prickly heat at the back of her neck heralded an impending attack of intense shyness. Dry-mouthed and perspiring, she found her compact and dabbed a little fresh powder on her nose that was shining a lovely bright shade of red, thanks to the brand new head cold she had awoken with that morning.

Caroline wanted to be violently ill from sheer mortification, her mind fragmented and bewildered, understanding in only the vaguest way that her life could be changing from this day on and she knew that she would have to tread carefully for fear of making another error in the marriage stakes .

She climbed out of the car and managed somehow to paste on a party smile. Out they all tumbled into the street, large and small Grehans and Caroline, mortified with embarrassment.

In the chilly dampness outside the car, she pulled her jacket tightly around her with a rapid thought of returning for a heavier coat. Thinking better of it, she decided to seek anonymity by entering amongst the Grehans, attempting to float in without being noticed. Her imagination meshed into high gear as they walked up the driveway with the children frolicking ahead of them in high hopes of Frankie Hernando’s battered hot dogs on sticks and Bridie Hernando’s luscious French fries.

They trooped into the double garage where a majority of guests were hovering before being seated in stackable chairs. The host and hostess bore down upon them, welcoming them with beverages, hot or cold, soft or hard according to age and inclination. The adults jostled their way to the chairs scattered in small groups around the rumpus room inside the house.

With whatever dignity she could muster, once seated Caroline’s eyes swept the crowd, but she could not make out which one of the guests was the Italian she was supposed to fall heavily for and she prayed that he had not fronted. Apart from the host, who was of Spanish extraction, none of the males had a Latin look worth getting into a stew about, and she was aware of constraints lifting from her.

Harmony was miraculously restored to her existence, as, warm with coffee, her cold medication kicked in, her eyes glazed over and she was utterly, drowsily at peace, sitting slumberous and blinking as she listened to the hum of voices and the beat of the Beatles, her goose-bumps of terror subdued.

‘I’d say he’s not here,’ Linda, a fair-complexioned, slight woman in her mid-thirties with a mass of blonde curls cut short and attractively on her neat head, whispered aside to Caroline. ‘Hasn’t appeared. Don’t be too disappointed, Caroline. What a shame.’

‘Isn’t it, though?’ Caroline replied with a show of nonchalance as her glance slid around the milieu while hiding a relieved heart. ‘I was dying to meet him, too. He sounds like the ant’s pants.’ With a smile of the most perfect sincerity she added, ‘Perhaps he’ll come before the day’s out.’

The thought of his absence continued to act on her like magic as she settled down to enjoy savories and a glass of wine, chatted about nothing of consequence and was generally at ease. With her face devoid of nervousness, thankful to be spared the ordeal that looked as if it would not happen, Caroline kept her own counsel, relaxing visibly while reluctant to admit to her friend how happy she was that the blind date had fallen through. Periodically, she checked the throng, looking for a dark and swarthy man, but could see none.

Happily, she shelved any plans for the foreseeable future, as she still viewed matrimony in a dim light and was not anxious to stroll down the path to the altar again.

I feel like someone who’s been threatened with an enema only to get a last minute reprieve, she mused happily, slipping a tasteless savory into the roots of a pot plant. If my nervous system wasn’t already shredded to exhaustion I might enjoy this party.

But He had indeed fronted. As the meal was served and the rest of the guests flocked to the rumpus room to take their places at long trestle tables, she found herself sitting next to a rotund, blue-eyed man in his mid-forties with a heavy frame, a chubby but muscular male with a handsome face, fair hair and creamy skin. He wore a sky blue shirt and sweater that complimented the azure of his eyes. His gray trousers, the waistband of which was a little further south than originally intended, were belted beneath a solid protuberance of stomach exhibiting a fondness for nourishment with a promise of corpulence not too far down the track.

This couldn’t be the Italian widower for whom God had created her! Weren’t Italians dark? At least Caroline had the preconceived idea they were. His eyes seemed to be devouring her in their curiosity, so she gathered that there was preparation for something to be going on between the two of them in the course of time.

Good grief, could this eager, glowing yet rather coy-looking person be my Kismet? He to whom the fickle finger of Fate has pointed me? Hastily she tried to decide what expression to wear as a burst of bright color flooded her cheeks. At least the cheeks will match the nose, she thought sardonically.

She and the stranger gave each other a mutual glance of recognition, unable to speak for a time.

Finally, ‘You passa da salt an da sauca?’ he said softly, leaning over until he was almost breathing into her face. With a start she peered closer at him through stinging eyes, dismayed by his presence as he gazed into her eyes with a demure expression. For a moment she was tempted to make a run for it, but with commendable calm, stuck to it bravely.

He smiled, appraising her candidly, speculating as to whether she would fit the bill or not, Caroline assumed. His face changed, revealing a deep, charming dimple in his cheek and another, large and vertical, in his chin.

Caroline could not deny the signs, so took his statement for a clear sign that it was in fact He, this person of sturdy masculinity and scarlet cheeks, her destiny brought to her by courtesy of the matchmakers.

She passed the condiments with a feeble attempt at a smile, hoping to give a semblance of normality. For the life of her she could not think of a thing to say. An awkward silence dropped like a pall.

He seemed to have a small battle with himself to get his mouth ready to bring forth another sentence. He sucked his cheeks in, expressly for the purpose of getting his mouth to work.

‘Lorenzo,’ he said briefly with another equally enchanting smile. When he had managed this they stared at each other some more until from somewhere deep within Caroline came the appropriate response.

‘How do you do? I’m Caroline Bourke,’ she answered meekly, cheeks aflame. Her panic, combined with the antihistamines and glass of wine, caused her to be overcome by light-headedness.

She speared an arrangement of asparagus and pineapple in the middle of the table with a fork. A slice of pineapple flopped limply over the edge of the plate and came to rest on the tablecloth. She ignored it as though the accident had nothing to do with her, hoping the meatily handsome man at her side had not noticed her clumsiness and attributed the cause to his presence.

‘Frankie, he say he come introduce us soon,’ the terrifying individual informed her, his brief summary punctuated by expressive gestures that were stymied by lack of elbow room. Still giving every evidence of pleasure at the sight of her, with his eyes all lit up and gleaming, he inquired gallantly, ‘Vino?’

Her face poised to sneeze, she said rapidly in order to get the words out in time, ‘No, thanks. Medication. Already had a glass. Hardly seem to need Frankie now,’ and closed her lips abruptly in an attempt to stifle the sneeze.

He bared his gleaming teeth at her gloriously while she sought in vain for something to say, surprised by the way he was causing her attention to fix itself to him.

My God, this is painstaking work, she thought drearily.

‘You eat now,’ he ordered, making ceremonious gestures at her as if she had trouble understanding the language. ‘I’m man of world. Know when iss time to eat. How iss to haf cold,’ he added kindly as an afterthought.

She waited to see if there was more coming, but apparently not. Her eyes were watery and her voice was raw from her sore throat, but she was much too disturbed to take all this into consideration in the mating game.

Another sneeze threatened but she took a deep breath, then once certain it was safe to do so, bit into her burger. To her dismay a large piece of beetroot landed with a soft plop into her lap, but Lorenzo did not seem to notice her gawkiness, absorbed as he was with poking all the contents of his burger neatly into the bread roll then tucking into it with a passion bordering on religious. The conversation languished as she fumbled with her napkin and the stray beetroot.

His eyes shone with delight and relief that she seemed to be a civil woman, if perhaps a shade clumsy, and he continued to fling himself at his tidied-up, uninteresting but nourishing burger, engrossed by it, treating it ruthlessly with those lovely, shiny teeth. As the sharpness of his hunger was slaked, he surfaced at intervals to reassure her of his approval with meaningful eye contact.

Almost paralyzed by embarrassment, Caroline regarded the remains of the meal before her for which she seemed to have lost all appetite, the fruits of the dating game bitter on her tongue. Nose and cheeks ablaze with her head cold, she was not at all in a festive mood, lapsing back into feeling unable to contribute one ounce of wit or wisdom to the occasion.

Lorenzo appeared not to notice her maidenly reticence, bending heartily towards his second hamburger then trotting over to select a large plateful from the range of sweets on the side table.

He fell upon the new and intriguing range of foodstuffs, still glancing at her from time to time with a twinkle in his eye that she took to be one of admiration, and a continuing smile displaying that set of strong, even teeth for her to admire.  Beneath her confident exterior her nerves thrummed and twanged with gay abandon.

It came to pass during lunch they had precious little to say to each other except for a garbled discussion about the weather conducted briefly around their burgers and sweets. Both were disconcerted by the strategy of the arrangement they had agreed to in absentia, but the uncomfortable sensation of being pawns moved about on a chessboard of romance did not deter Lorenzo from getting his message across in an inarticulate way.

He fiddled with the crumbs of bread roll on the tablecloth, opened and closed his mouth a few times in preparation for speech, then lapsed into a smiling silence, clenching and unclenching his jaws.

But one thing led to another and it seemed as if they were paired off, like it or lump it.

As the eating slowed down towards the end of the meal, Caroline began to work herself into a lather, acutely aware that she would soon be expected to speak again and her social skills were failing her in this unfamiliar setting. She wondered if Lorenzo was suffering from a similar discomfort, fairly certain that he would be.

With wariness bordering on paranoia, she scampered nervously off to help clean up while he fixed her with his unblinking eyes. Once the dishes had been done she could think of nothing else to do except resume her seat beside Lorenzo, who waited, face wreathed in smiles.

As she joined him he looked up at her expectantly; his face flushed a ruddy color as he rose to help her into the chair beside him, moistening his lower lip with his tongue as if in anticipation. She grappled in silence with her demons, starting to entertain visions of going for a walk along the street in the pouring rain.

Finally, she decided this would be ungracious unless she asked him to accompany her. Disinclined to do so, she settled into the chair with an inaudible groan. This scenario was positively too complicated and at this stage she simply didn’t want the trouble.

Meanwhile, he was flashing a smile that positively radiated warmth. He trotted off to get a cup of coffee for her, which she accepted gratefully. After filling his glass from the beer jug at his elbow, he lifted the glass and stared into her eyes solemnly. He toasted her health with a solemn gesture, murmuring, ‘Salud,’ before taking a dainty sip of beer and resuming smiling at her.

Despite their lack of verbal communication he remained seated in his chair beaming joyously away as if the experience suited him down to the ground, so she gathered that this nuggety man was kindly disposed towards her. If his attention strayed from her face at all, it was merely to take her in from head to foot and back again.

After a while she was unable to reconcile herself to simply being smiled at, so she excused herself to go to the powder room, prolonging the sojourn as long as she could by inspecting every pot plant lining the kitchen and hallway on the way through, then again on the way back.

There seemed little left to do except return to her allotted space alongside bull-necked Lorenzo with his crystal-blue eyes. She squared herself with a long, soft sigh, as she wandered back into the rumpus room, straggling along mopping her streaming eyes and nose.

Lorenzo reached up to assist her into her chair as though she were not capable of seating herself without aid, holding onto her hand rather longer than was strictly necessary. Satisfied with his scrutiny of her, he said, drinking her in, ‘You look very nice in dat liddle whats-a-name.’

He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully, his voice low and taut with what Caroline assumed was passion.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured politely. Lavish praise indeed, she told herself with a sullen stare at her handkerchief which was growing increasingly sopping. The conversation again broke down. Dear God, just let me survive until I get home, she pleaded with her Maker..

As she settled down he said, thinking hard to be sure to get the words right, ‘Woman’s work is never done, isnee?’ and gave a laugh of immense jollity.

Surprise spread over Caroline’s face as she laughed awkwardly. I wonder where he thinks I’ve been? Helping Bridie? Do I have to explain I’ve been to the loo? Coming from nowhere, a sneeze erupted with enormous violence, taking her unawares. She could only hope she had not sprayed him with her virus.

Bridie Hernando with her pixie hair cut happened to be passing and heard the non sequitur, and shrieking with laughter, screamed appreciatively,

‘What a card he is, our precious Lorenzo. He clearly stops at nothing. Lorenzo, you are a naughty wretch,’ with a playful push at his shoulder. ‘Fancy saying that when Caroline’s been to the little girl’s room.’

She toddled off, her high, shrill voice echoing around the area as she moved from group to group. As she sailed on her way rejoicing, her tight slacks revealed lots of action as she passed to and fro.

‘Liddle girls room?’ Lorenzo said, mystified. ‘Where’s dat?’ For a moment he lost his pep, and Bridie could be heard giggling freely on the other side of the room, telling others how comical Lorenzo was.

Caroline was not willing to enlighten him as to the truth of her mission while away from his side and sincerely wished to be able to give him the slip. She gave another high-pitched, uneasy laugh, replying,

‘How true. Never done,’ hoping he would be finished with the subject.

The conversation came and went in spurts, giving her a little breathing space to think of the next topic.

Over coffee, as they tentatively tried other subject matter, then the weather again, Lorenzo’s English became lost in a welter of incomprehensible phrases and semaphoring hand gestures. Whatever the topic was she felt compelled to let it go completely, not knowing him well enough to be his interpreter. Her blood pulsed in sympathy with his difficulties.

‘Sorry. No speaka English too good,’ he said so sadly that any heart would have been moved by compassion. He clenched and unclenched his jaws again as a symptom of his discomfort, opening and closing his sinewy fists in frustration then staring mournfully at the back of his hands.

‘Please don’t worry about it. I’m sure this must be very difficult for you. Speaking for myself, I’ve always thought blind dates were a form of torture,’ Caroline replied, trying to console him with soft words. ‘You’re not under any obligation to try to make conversation all the time.’

‘How’s dat?’ he asked, unsure. He cocked his head waiting for clarification.

‘It’s okay. You haven’t got to entertain me,’ she hastened to explain loudly, shaping the words roundly, hoping she had been lucid enough.

A lengthy hiatus in the chitchat resulted as a consequence of their joint uncertainty, during which space Caroline sat watching the grass growing outside the window and Lorenzo stared intently at her feet.

She wondered how she could get through the intervening hours until it was time to go. She saw with a pang that it would be quiet some time, as the others were enjoying themselves immensely.

After a while she lost herself in meditating on the theory that anticipation is often worse than the event, but not in the case to hand. They sat in what would appear to outsiders as companionable silence but was in fact, not.

But at another level she had perceived a frailty of confidence in Lorenzo that struck at her maternal instinct, sensing a softness that was remarkably like gratitude towards her for sticking it out beside him. These tiny inklings into his mentality touched her, speaking volumes about his loneliness and isolation in an alien land.

He stuck to her side manfully, and eventually as his spirits settled again after Bridie’s hysterical outbursts, and his placid laugh and bright, alert eyes returned to working order.

No power on earth could daunt him from staying beside her for the balance of the afternoon, seeming to have come to the conclusion that she deemed him acceptable as a romantic prospect. There was little Caroline could do except resist the temptation to bolt at all costs in spite of her sympathy for his awkwardness.

She felt forced to remain put while brazening it out, not wishing to appear ill- mannered. Only too conscious that they had been assigned to entertain each other for the day, later on she made an effort to appear as if she were in her element, telling herself it was only one day out of her whole lifetime and there were, after all, only sixty minutes in every hour.

From time to time Lorenzo turned to her with a wide, gracious smile while looking deeply into her eyes with his penetrating gaze, all of which was assumed to be a substitute for conversation.

Feeling exceedingly odd and uncomfortable under his unrelenting scrutiny, she returned his smiles politely before lapsing off into reveries about the things to be seen to at home during the week, drifting away from her immediate surroundings to the doctor’s surgery, the supermarket, the school library and principal’s office where she had much paper work to fight her way through.

At one late stage he waxed verbal with observations about the rising moon with wistfulness in his voice, but Caroline could not comprehend the content of the story and he subsided into blissful silence again.

He looked into the middle distance with an expression that Caroline could only guess was disgust at his inability to communicate.

‘Pliss don’t tink I dim-witted, or anyting,’ he threw in once, smiling at her feet in admiration while blushing fiercely.

Raising the corners of her mouth gingerly, uneasily, she chose each word with extreme caution, unwilling to offend him as she thought his defenses would probably be rather fragile.

‘I’m sure you’re nothing of the kind. You simply haven’t had enough time in this country to be comfortable with the language.’ She found this notion dismal indeed, wondering how long it took for a foreigner to assimilate.

He rested his hands across his ample stomach and sucked at his teeth.

‘Yes, isnee. Not nuff time,’ he answered amiably, content that she understood his problem to a tee. He gave her a small, rueful smile and turned his strong profile towards her.

She sighed and dabbed at her stinging eyes, between Lorenzo and her cold considering herself drained of all strength and energy.

The afternoon had worn slowly away and the atmosphere between the duo had grown less strained while the grass hardly grew at all. They had made hesitant and irregular progress in communicating, waxing at interludes almost into familiarity, so reluctant were they both to injure the feelings of the other.

Time had passed on little winged feet, it seemed to Caroline in her excitement at getting going.

And then it was time to leave! In the late evening as Caroline and company departed for home, Lorenzo walked to the car with her, beaming radiance right and left. While the children, fretful and fractious packed themselves into the back seat, Lorenzo lost his luminosity and stood looking pensively at his new friend’s feet.

Caroline glanced quickly down at her tan pumps, wondering if there was some problem there as she had noticed Lorenzo paying them much sidelong attention during the day, contemplating them with an air of great interest during various lulls in conversation. It was to be some time before she discovered his foot fetish that had no doubt been brought about by the fact of his late wife’s having only one foot.

After a quick check she was satisfied her shoes were definitely on the appropriate feet and she had not trod in anything unwholesome, she said pleasantly,

‘Bye, Lorenzo. Nice meeting you. Thanks for keeping me company.’

She turned to squeeze into the car but he placed an urgent hand on her shoulder, whispering, ‘One momento, pliss.’

She swung around, disconcerted.

‘Mmm?’ she said, trying to arrange her mouth, tired as it was from smiling all day, into yet another smile of comeliness. Hours of sitting pretending to be relaxed had reduced her emotions to dull numbness.

His fresh, handsome face was lit up once more with exuberance as his eyes flashed, crinkling briefly at the corners. He took her hand and held it as if it were some rare and precious object.

‘I see you again? You come back wid you friends?’ He gazed at her expectantly, continuing to glow with a cheery smile. She noticed that he had cut his chin while shaving and this caused her to experience a pang of commiseration for a nervousness that must have equaled, if not exceeded her own. She observed a gap between his front teeth that looked almost attractive to her.

He really does have the nicest, most remarkable smile, she assured herself as she did a few mental gymnastics to try to decide whether she wished to continue the acquaintanceship.

‘We’ll see. Probably,’ she replied with more aplomb than she felt, trying to control the nervous tic in her right eye. Her smile was remote, not even causing her lips to open or her eyes to become involved. With her head telling her to avoid him as if he had the plague and all her instincts on red-alert, she was flustered with the strangeness of the situation, never having had much to do with foreigners during her rural upbringing.

Overcome by her innate politeness, her heart told her to react in a moderately positive mode in case she should decide to see him again.

With a rapid motion as though afraid she would take a swipe at him, he leaned forward to plant a chaste kiss on her cheek.

‘Be seeing you, I hope,’ he said, voice firm with expectancy, head cocked to one side in question as he did a kind of shuffle to get as close as possible..

Terry yodeled, ‘All aboard who’s coming aboard.’

She crammed her nethermost region onto the seat, Lorenzo completed his farewell ceremony by draping the seatbelt across her and checking where those two matching feet were before closing the door cautiously and the Volvo hared off towards the Western Highway with Caroline and the children wedged in the rear seat amicably poking parts of their anatomy into one another.

Head for home and don’t look back, she told herself firmly.

Great clouds were scudding across the gray-blue sky while to the west the sun had set redly. Directing her thoughts to a cerebral image of him as they drove through the suburbs, she had shaken off the stupor of unease that had been engulfing her