The Perfect Couple Read online

  The sound of sirens snapped me out of the memory. Even though I was long past being a teenager, I still shuddered at the thought of my father. My finger traced my cheek as if the memory were a scar, still burning my skin after all these years.

  I closed my window, relieved to have passed the nightlife area, and vowed never to go through it at this hour again.

  I picked up speed as I got closer to the lab, wondering if Sarah had found something and why she didn’t want to discuss it over the phone. It was the first time in our marriage that she had gone back to an excavation site in the middle of the night. She wouldn’t just go on a hunch; something solid must have driven her there.

  I reached the top of the steep incline, where the tall walls surrounded the thirteenth-century castle. I had never been there at this late hour, so when I got out of my car I stopped for the briefest moment to take in the sprawling night panorama of the rolling hills and the town centre of Firenze, which was usually defined by terra cotta rooftops as far as the eye could see but was now just scattered gold lights flickering below the full moon. When I turned around to face the castle, the first thing I noticed was that all the lights were out. Not only was Sarah a stickler for following safety procedures, but it was near impossible to work in darkness – this made me think that she didn’t want anyone to know what she was doing there.

  I looked behind me before I unlocked the heavy iron door to the grounds. In one of the castle’s many incarnations it had been used as a World War II prisoner-of-war camp, and as I walked through the gardens alone in the blackness, with only the light of my phone to show the way, I had the eerie sense that the brutality of its history was lingering in the stone walls. The rectangular crenellations cast dark shadows along my path.

  I rushed past the castle’s drawing room and caught a glimpse of a replica of a Sandro Botticelli painting depicting a half-man, half-beast being tamed by a woman with a halberd. I loved the original artist’s work but I hated that particular painting, even more so at this hour when her accusing eyes seemed to be watching me through the glass. I ran down the stairs and past the sunken grotto until I reached the lab building. It was locked, so I retrieved my set of keys to the first door and then went through to the lab, where I punched in the combination code.

  ‘Sarah?’ I said, relieved to be inside and anxious to know why she was there.

  I found her sitting at the lab bench, staring intently at something. She was wearing gloves but I could see smatterings of soil up her bare arms. She flicked her red hair from her eyes and looked up at me, smiling, a line of dirt on her cheek. I recognised in her expression a sense of wonder that I hadn’t seen since some of the earliest finds in our career.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked as I neared but she said nothing and merely gestured for me to come over and see for myself.

  My heart was pounding in anticipation. I could almost feel the throb of adrenaline pulsing through my veins. When I stood behind her and saw what captivated her, I almost lost my balance.

  My eyes first fell on the box. There was no mistaking it.

  ‘Is it …’ I asked, too shocked to finish my sentence.

  She turned to face me and nodded, her eyes alight with awe.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ I said as I stepped towards it. She stood up and I felt her small body close around me. I wanted to push her off me; I couldn’t wait a second longer to see what was inside the box. But instead, I forced myself to wrap my arms around her. It was the most intimate we had been in months. I’d almost forgotten the way her hair smelled of green tea, rosemary and sunflower.

  ‘Sit,’ she said when we pulled apart. I noticed that she had already prised the box open. I peered beside it and froze, tears welling in my eyes.

  It was there. Right in front of me in all its radiant beauty. The glistening diamonds, the magnificent sapphires, hundreds of finely cut rubies, the thirteen gold meshes, the striking emeralds, the crosses and brooches. Every last detail that I had spent most of my career studying. I could barely believe my eyes. My hands started to tremble. I felt hypnotised.

  ‘It’s more magnificent than I ever imagined,’ Sarah said, breaking me from its spell. Her eyes were so alive with exhilaration that they seemed almost the same colour as the emeralds.

  I dared to run my fingers lightly over the invaluable piece of jewellery, admiring how perfectly it had been preserved. ‘Sarah, it’s incredible,’ I said breathlessly. ‘I can’t believe I found it – the most precious jewel in the world.’

  She rubbed my back. ‘You were right. All along. If not for you, the world would have believed the necklace was lost to the sea forever. The repercussions of this discovery are huge, Marco,’ she said as she handed me a pair of gloves and sat down on a chair beside me. I pushed the flexible arm of a magnifying lens over the necklace and, together, we admired the intricacy of its design.

  Sarah guided my hand to a Latin-shaped cross. ‘Look closely at it,’ she said, her voice animated. I leaned my eye over the lens and peered down at the exquisite hanging cross that had alternating diamonds and rich green emeralds. ‘It appears simple in its structure but when you look at it close up, you can see how complex its construction is, especially in the end of the stone setting. This was the cross donated in thanksgiving to San Gennaro after its owners escaped an attack a few steps from the Duomo.’

  She took my finger and guided it further across. ‘There’s the red ruby gemstones symbolising the blood of martyrs.’

  Sarah was so excited that she could barely wait to point out to me the pieces donated by various nobility that we’d researched so thoroughly. I cast my eyes over a pendant of diamonds and peridot. I stared in awe at the deep-olive hue of the peridot, an ancient gemstone formed from the mineral Olivine and dating all the way back to the Pharaohs of Egypt. Then I focused the lens on a cross of velvety-blue sapphires and its surrounding glistening diamonds.

  I couldn’t draw my eyes away from the necklace. My life’s work was literally right in front of me. And for that, I had my wife to thank. ‘Where did you find it? And how?’

  Sarah told me how she had come to her conclusion about where the necklace was hiding.

  I kissed her cheek. ‘You’re amazing, Sarah, you know that?’

  When she blushed I realised how little attention I’d paid my wife lately. I barely remembered the last time I gave her a compliment. Fortunately, although I hated to admit it, I knew when to bring on the charm and flattery and it usually worked.

  ‘Let’s take some photos of it,’ I suggested. My phone battery was almost flat, so we used Sarah’s and took a number of snaps, capturing the pietre dure box, then the necklace as a whole and close ups of the finer details. I could already see the newspaper articles in my mind – a picture of me holding the necklace and looking down the photographer’s lens, and another action shot of me gripping a handpick at the bottom of the trench.

  ‘Should we call the police and have them take it somewhere secure overnight before we alert the antiquity authorities in the morning?’ Sarah said.

  I knew that if we called the police, we would have to tell the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the Superintendent for Archaeological Heritage in Tuscany first thing in the morning, and then they would make the announcement of the discovery and I would be pushed aside. Of course the necklace would still make the papers and television news across Europe, but my contribution would be relegated to a line at the bottom of the article or a minor interview on a poor-rating station when the antiquities ministry was unavailable for comment.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ I told Sarah. ‘Can we really trust the police with something like this?’

  Sarah scratched dry soil off her cheek. She stared at the necklace, deep in thought. Seconds stretched out. ‘You’re right,’ she said finally, turning her gaze back to me. I exhaled with relief. ‘But where will we leave it?’

  ‘In the lab’s safe overnight. It’s the most secure place for it. No one will be back to the
site until morning and we’ll make sure we arrive here before the rest of our team.’ I stood up and went to my computer. My mind was buzzing with excitement. ‘We should email the media and let them know we’ve made an extraordinary discovery. We can announce it tomorrow morning.’

  Sarah narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t you think we should wait until we’ve analysed it properly to make absolutely certain it’s the genuine necklace? Plus, we should notify the Superintendent before we tell the media.’

  It was typical of Sarah to want to cover all bases and tick off every box before letting her guard down. I have always been the more impatient archaeologist, open to bending the rules.

  ‘Sarah, sweetheart,’ I said, softening my tone, ‘there isn’t a doubt in my mind that this is the real thing. Why make the world wait any longer to see it?’

  She shrugged and opened her mouth to say something but then closed it again. I went over to her and took her hand in mine. ‘It’s a lot to take in, I know. I’m feeling the same way. It’s almost too surreal to be true. But the necklace is here. In this lab, on that table. And after two centuries buried beneath the earth, we found it. We’ve made history.’

  She smiled and I could feel her fist relax in my hand. I went back to my computer and read aloud to her as I typed. ‘Please gather outside Vincivoli Castle at eleven am sharp tomorrow for an exciting announcement.’

  I sent it to our team and my list of media contacts. Then I sat back and smiled to myself. Tomorrow morning, they would wake up to the email in their inbox and a few hours later, the world would know my name.

  SARAH

  It’s the first time since we arrived in Florence that Marco is looking at me the way he used to. Back when we were both PhD students, it was the glimmer in his eyes that I recognise now that made me sure he loved me. Other women might have preferred words, or a marriage contract, or the promise of buying a house and starting a family to feel secure in a relationship, but not me. I have always been about reading signs that speak greater volumes. That look in his eyes was all I needed. ‘Sei tutto per me,’ he would say to me back then. You’re everything to me. ‘You’re amazing, Sarah, you know that?’

  He said those same words to me tonight.

  At his suggestion, we place the necklace back inside the ebony box and lock it in the safe. As we turn to leave, I hesitate. Marco’s email has been sent to our entire excavation team and who knows how many media outlets, meaning the safety of the necklace could be compromised. It was an irresponsible thing for Marco to do, but he seemed so happy that I didn’t want to start an argument by insisting he didn’t send it. I don’t want to shatter this moment but if I don’t say something now, I know that I will have a sleepless night.

  ‘Marco, I’m just wondering if we should hide it somewhere else overnight now that you’ve sent that email out. If someone is awake and reads it now, they might get curious and come looking. We can’t risk the necklace being stolen.’

  Marco has the faraway look in his eyes that he gets when he’s made a decision he won’t waver on. He places a warm hand on my shoulder. ‘Sarah, you worry too much. No one is going to read that email at midnight. And even if they did, they don’t know the announcement is about the necklace. There’s no way for the media to get into the lab and no one on our research team would risk the safety of such a priceless antiquity. The safest place for it is right here, in the lab, in the safe. Come on, Sarah.’ There is frustration in his tone. ‘Look, you’re tired. You’ve worked really hard. I think the best thing to do is head home and get a few hours’ sleep. We’ll be the first ones here in the morning. We can come at six am if you like. That’s in six hours – what could possibly happen between then and now?’

  I shrug. This is an argument I’m not going to win. And I guess he’s right. What could occur in such a short window of time? ‘Okay,’ I say reluctantly and together we check for the third time that safe is locked securely.

  As we put on the alarm and lock the lab doors behind us Marco can barely stop himself from smiling. This discovery means everything to him and I can’t help but feel grateful that I’ve allowed him to reach his ultimate dream.

  He kisses me softly on the cheek as we reach our cars. ‘I just have to fill up with petrol on the way home.’

  He waits for me to get in my car before he walks to his. I smile back at him, feeling like this could be the link we need to repair any breaks in our marriage.

  My husband will be full of passion when I get home. His desire has always been fuelled by fruitful days on the field, and nothing could top today. I think about what lingerie I’ll wear to bed and can almost picture the hunger he’ll have for me, imagining it to be like he did when we first met. I haven’t been intimate with Marco for so long that I’m excited and even a bit nervous at the prospect.

  It’s only when I drive off that exhaustion hits me hard. The sustained adrenaline has worn off, leaving me feeling fatigued and desperate to climb into bed with my husband. I picture myself running my hands down his back, breathing in his scent of dirt and spicy cologne, pulling him to me, our bodies intertwining, reacquainting ourselves with the familiarity of each other. Despite the distance between us lately, I love my husband unreservedly. I realise now that it is probably the slowness of this excavation that has driven this wedge between us. One that will now swiftly fall away.

  The streets pass by in a blur. I feel almost drunk with exhaustion and I worry I’ll fall asleep at the wheel. To keep myself awake, I open the window and make myself observe my surroundings instead of driving in an automatic state.

  The moon is round and low, and there are pale pink streaks in the sky that look as if they were made with a painter’s brush. Tonight, the energy of Florence seems different to me. I can almost feel it, a sort of pulse of history and the present merging, two parallel universes coalescing in this beautiful storybook landscape. I pass people dancing on the cobbled streets, a couple sharing a gelato on a bench outside a crowded gelateria, a street artist twirling ribbon under a street lamp, a man in a tailored suit riding his bicycle through the woodsmoke-scented narrow lanes. I dreamily pass historic buildings lit up at night, exquisite churches, sculptures and monuments, so many history-laden places of beauty in this enchanting place. Finding the necklace has made me even more enamoured by this Tuscan city now that I know firsthand that beneath the ground we walk upon, secrets of the past lie waiting to be uncovered, stories waiting to be told.

  I go a different route home and when I am a few blocks away, I notice a car idling, with its lights off, outside an apartment block with peeling ochre shutters. A man and a woman lean against the car, their bodies close. I don’t know why it grabs my attention but I slow to gaze out and watch the lovers share a passionate kiss.

  A cold chill comes over me as I pass them, taking in the blue chipped paint on the car. The man’s hand cupping the dip of her back. The mess of brown hair. The dark hair on his arm. I pull over in a darkened alleyway out of their view and crane my neck as I try to see the woman’s face, but the angle of his body hides it from my view.

  He takes a strand of her hair and moves it behind her ear. And that’s when I realise the shattering truth, with a pain that stabs through my chest like a knife.

  I am not looking merely at two Italian lovers sharing a romantic late-night kiss.

  I am witnessing my husband embracing another woman.

  SARAH

  The shock hits me full barrel. It grips my heart and lungs like a vice, knocking the air out of me.

  I speed to get far away from the street. I try to hold myself together as I drive a few blocks, searching for somewhere out of view to pull over. I reach a deserted dead end and stop under a tall cypress tree and then let myself fall to pieces.

  The tears come quickly, barraging me in a storm of grief. Before I know it, I’m heaving for air, choking like a drowned woman gasping for breath. Why, of all nights, did I not only witness his affair, but see him hold her as if she were his trophy for something
I did? This was our moment, our discovery. The passion and hunger I could see so clearly in his body language should have been reserved for me.

  Sitting in my car, trying to absorb what I have just witnessed is like trying to process the seven stages of grief in a matter of minutes.

  First there’s shock and denial. I cocoon myself in false beliefs to avoid the pain: It wasn’t his car. It wasn’t him in the arms of another woman. He’s at home in bed waiting for me. My exhausted state has made my imagination play tricks on me.

  But I snap myself out of it. I’m no fool. I saw what I saw.

  Then there’s raw pain. The hurt and betrayal is so all-consuming that I feel physically ill. Nausea embeds itself into my chest, a fiery bead of reflux. My body trembles.

  When that falls away, anger takes over. The bastard. How could he? All that tenderness tonight. You’re amazing, Sarah, you know that? The kiss to my cheek. His hand on my shoulder. That damned look in his eyes. I fell for it all. It had nothing to do with me. It was all about him. I can’t believe I found it. His career. His moment. His discovery. I was just a pawn in his grand machine.

  I replay again and again the way he kissed her so openly on a street, not bothering to hide his dirty affair. He probably assumed I was in our marital bed, waiting for him, the dutiful wife. He would have come home with some story prepared about how his car broke down after he’d been to the petrol station, or how a man had a punctured tyre and he stopped to help him change it, and I would have swallowed the lies whole.

  I turn my anger inwards. I saw the signs. The absent nights. The endless tirade of experts he had to see and things he had to do after hours. Avoiding eye contact with me. The lack of intimacy. I knew how to read those signs. And yet, I pretended they weren’t there. That’s a mistake an archaeologist shouldn’t make.