Page 8 of Storm in a D Cup

‘I need to speak to Julian.’ No ‘May I?’, no question mark, no please.

I cleared my throat. ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Foxham isn’t available at the moment. May I take a message?’

Dead silence.

‘Hello? May I ask who’s calling, please?’

‘Never mind,’ the voice said. A voice I’d heard before. ‘I’ll call his cell phone.’ And with that, the line went dead.

Nowyoutry to get to sleep after a call like that.

Eventually I did drop off, but woke up to the sound of the phone again, groaning as my fingers grasped the dreaded thing. I wondered if it was that American woman again, and how she’d managed to get Julian’s cell phone number of which, by the way, he was extremely secretive.

‘H’llo?’ I rasped. At least I think it was me. Jesus, no more Chianti after ten. And no moretagliatelle al sugo di lepre, either. I just couldn’t stomach that wild food anymore.

‘Signora Cantelli?’ came an unfamiliar voice. A man, this time, and Italian.

‘Sì?’

‘Mr. Julian Foxham’s wife?’ the voice persisted.

‘Yes?’ I sat up, instantly awake. ‘Who is this?’

‘I’m sorry,Signora. There’s been an accident.’

‘What?’

‘IlSignorFoxham… he didn’t make it to the hospital. I’m sorry.’

I reached out, feeling for Julian’s warm, strong body, finding the bed empty. But that was OK because he wasn’t supposed to be back until the morning. Somebody was just playing a prank, that was all.

‘Is this a joke? Who is this?’ I said, thinking that none of this was actually happening.

‘You’re dreaming. Wake up,’ I said to myself. ‘Come on, wake up, dammit!’

‘SignoraCantelli?’ continued the voice. ‘I’m sending you a squad car.’To identify the body, of course.What else for?

I kept smacking myself in the head but couldn’t wake up, like those nightmares you somehow, masochistically cling to, so you have one helluva story to tell over breakfast the next morning. ‘Where… did it happen?’

‘Just outside Cortona…’

Cortona? ‘Impossible. What was he doing in Cortona? He’s away on business.’ Apart from the fact that we didn’t know anybody in Cortona. Did we?

‘He was on his way to see… someone.’

‘Who?’

‘A… friend.’

As if it mattered. I tried to think of who the friend could be. But we knew the same people. And then, like giant psychedelic pink and purple mushrooms taking over your brain-space, the words formed in the few cells I had left. Julian had a lover. And he had been going to see her. In the middle of the night. So much for his bloody meetings with his agent. So much for the loyal husband bit.NowI understood his restless attitude, his listless behavior. My husband of seven years had finally tired of me and wanted out. The other shoe had finally dropped.

And now he was gone.Gone.

‘Signora Cantelli?’

The man had been babbling on and on and I hadn’t got a single word of it. ‘Oh, yes, sorry.’

My husband, my beautiful, kind husband had gone without even saying goodbye. And then it was like being at the bottom of a well, or maybe even the ocean, I don’t know. There were too many things, it suddenly hit me, that I didn’t know.