Читать книгу Two Drops Of Water - Nicola Rocca - Страница 18

CHAPTER 8

On reaching the roundabout at the intersection of Via Paglia and Via Carducci, she'd considered doing an about turn and heading back home. But a little voice inside her head had told her she couldn't leave town without saying goodbye. So she'd gone round the roundabout three times before taking the exit towards the clinic.

Giancarlo Moretti was in bed, the covers pulled up to his chest. Beads of sweat glistened on his furrowed brow. His eyes were closed, shutting out the world that had robbed him of his wife a year earlier.

He was asleep. Perfect. She no longer needed an excuse not to talk to him.

Chantal breathed a sigh of relief, but immediately felt like a coward: she had neither the courage nor the desire to enter the room and talk to the man who had always been a perfect parent.

Nearly always, she corrected herself.

Chantal watched her father and reflected on the unfortunate circumstances that had brought him there.

Giancarlo Moretti had led a troubled life but had always got by, even when his problems had seemed insurmountable. But the premature loss of his wife had floored him for good. He'd let himself go one day at a time, alcohol the only point to his existence. The drinking had started the week after the funeral. Before being admitted to the rehab clinic, he would get up in the middle of the night and guzzle whatever he could lay his hands on. Whatever could make him forget the sad reality of life.

Chantal knew what he was doing, but he'd always denied it. That was, until he came home in the early hours one morning and collapsed on the living room floor. The colossal crash had woken Chantal with a start. She'd feared they were being burgled, and her instinct was to lock herself in her room. But then she'd recognised the sobbing and phlegmy coughs of her father. She'd turned on the light and headed towards the noise. And there he was. She'd walked over to him, helped him to his feet, looked him straight in the eye and seen a pitifully drunk old man.

Having struggled to get him to bed, Chantal didn't sleep a wink that night - unlike her father, who was out for the count and snoring within minutes.

The binges became increasingly heavy and frequent, and he started to get nasty with her.

Then he hit rock bottom. He came home one night and Chantal went in to find him sprawled on the sofa, a knocked-over bottle of whisky by his side and vomit down his greasy shirt. His head was back and he was foaming at the mouth.

Chantal was petrified. Her hands shaking, she'd fumbled around in her handbag for her phone and rung the emergency services. They'd managed to save him, but the doctor told her he would be better off in a rehab clinic. He'd advised her to take her father to the nearest SerT, a public drug treatment centre. After all, they couldn't afford private care. So that's what she had done, hoping that he would respond well to treatment and make a full recovery.

But months later, Giancarlo Moretti was still in the clinic. The detox process had resulted in a string of psychiatric problems that had put even more strain on the father-daughter relationship.

Chantal came back to the present, pulled a tissue from her bag and dabbed at her eyes. She glanced over at her father and couldn't help but cry. She raised a hand to her mouth and blew him a kiss.

"Good luck, Papà. I just came to say bye," she whispered.

But she feared it was more than just goodbye:

"Farewell, Dad."

She took a couple of steps away, then turned around and looked back through the glass wall of her father's room:

"I love you. I've always loved you."