Summer Fever, page 21
Laura can’t seem to get her breath. ‘Look,’ she manages to push out. ‘Please just leave it. It’s all so long ago.’ She intends to sound impatient, almost bored, but it comes out desperate.
Lou is squinting into the sun. ‘I just wish I’d stayed. I tried to make up for it afterwards, but I’ve never really forgiven myself. I didn’t even tell you I was going home.’ Her voice is barely audible over the roar of the autostrada, strangers shouting goodbye, a plane coming in to land.
‘We were all drunk that night. Everyone was.’
‘Oh, so you do remember, then?’
She adjusts her sandal strap to avoid meeting Lou’s eye. ‘I just think you’re being a bit OTT about it. You always had such a chip on your shoulder about Bastian’s lot. You never really gave him a chance once you knew he had money. That whole working-class-hero thing, like Nick does, though at least he actually is. Unlike you, with your violin lessons and your place at grammar school. Like your mum wasn’t deputy head there.’ She tells herself Lou deserves it.
‘Yes, because this is really about me and my hang-ups. You’re lying to yourself, Laura.’ She looks like she might cry, suddenly, all her ferocity melted away. ‘I’m really worried about you.’
‘Well, don’t be. I don’t need it.’
Three short blasts of a horn make them turn. It’s a taxi, and Laura realizes she’s parked in a rank, that all the other cars are cabs too. She holds up a finger.
‘I should go,’ says Lou, shortly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she begins. ‘I just … Do you remember that evening we were up on the roof? It was the most amazing sunset.’
Lou sighs. ‘Not really. You mean in the third-year house?’
‘You must remember.’ There’s a pleading note in her voice. ‘I told you we had to remember, because it was this real moment. It was like the moment; this weird kind of epiphany that we were at the beginning of everything. Like the threshold of our lives, or something.’
‘OK, maybe. It rings a bell.’
‘I felt so alive. I want that again.’
‘But you can’t go back. None of us can. Most of us wouldn’t want to. I hate to say it, Laura, and I’m saying it with love, but you need to grow up.’
The taxi driver hits his horn again.
‘You’d better move.’ Lou nods towards the car. ‘We’ll talk tonight, OK? I’ll Skype you when I get home.’
They pause. Laura’s face is hot. She feels breathless and she doesn’t know if it’s from hurt or fury or humiliation. They’re slightly too far apart to hug without one of them going towards the other and she’s glad of it. Lou doesn’t move towards her either. Laura knows they won’t speak tonight.
After Lou has disappeared through the automatic doors, Laura doesn’t get straight back on the road. She drives to the quietest corner of the short-stay car park and allows herself to cry for five minutes, timing it on the dashboard clock so she has to stop. Afterwards, she tells herself that Lou has no right to judge her, that she’s been a crap friend and that perhaps they’ve finally outgrown each other. But none of it rings true. What she actually feels is abandoned.
The drive back towards the villa is done entirely on automatic pilot. She only notices where she is when the exit for Castelfranco jogs her brain. Suddenly reluctant to face the others, eyes still red, the urge to cry not yet entirely suppressed, she decides to drive into the town, maybe have a coffee. They could do with a few supplies anyway, and perhaps saving Nick that job later will smooth things over with him.
It’s blessedly empty in the central piazza, though preparations have begun for the annual festa: workmen disgorging metal poles from the back of a van in the far corner, speakers already mounted on streetlamps. It’s just past three and the sun is intense. It perches on the rooftops like a searchlight, giving the whole place a stunned air. The market stalls have been cleared away for the day and only a few tables are occupied outside the café. One patron, sitting alone, stands out from the ageing locals with his pale jacket and Panama hat. Ivan. She hovers, deciding whether to pretend she hasn’t seen him, but then he waves. As she makes her way over, she realizes she’s glad he spotted her before she could run. There’s something undemanding about him, calming.
‘Hello, there,’ he says, in his quaint way. Old sport. ‘You look a little lost.’
She smiles, senses that it must look unconvincing, thinks of Lou and finds herself on the verge of tears again. Some of this is her usual monthly hormones, she knows, but some of it is also a kind of grief.
‘Oh dear,’ says Ivan, getting to his feet. She knows he’s going to produce a perfectly laundered handkerchief before he brings it out and hands it to her.
‘Ignore me, I’m being ridiculous.’ She laughs shakily and swipes at her eyes as Ivan beckons over the sullen waitress.
‘What would you like to drink?’ he says. ‘Will we have Prosecco?’ When he smiles he looks like a boy.
‘I shouldn’t.’
‘But would you like to?’
She nods and he speaks to the girl in swift Italian.
‘I can only have one, though, I’m afraid. I’m driving.’ She sinks into the chair, forces her tense shoulders down. ‘I don’t want to end up like whoever was driving the Alfa that went off the side of the road.’
‘Ah, yes. That’s been there for a long time. Raoul used to say that it was like art, that it represented the corruption Italy can’t seem to free itself from. He talked for a time of having it brought to the garden, so we could dangle it off something there, like an installation.’ His eyes dance as she laughs. ‘Fortunately it wasn’t to be. It’s not still there because the police can’t be bothered to remove it. It remains as a warning. Or so rumour has it.’
‘A warning?’
‘From one family to another. Some labyrinthine vendetta no one can remember the origins of. Two households, both alike in dignity in fair Castelfranco. Or perhaps not.’
‘But surely if there’s some sort of feud that’s even more reason for the police to take it away.’
‘Not if someone high up in the police is a member of the same family.’ Seeing her expression, he raises his eyebrows with a smile.
The waitress reappears and he takes the bottle from her to pour it himself. She stalks away.
‘She always spills it,’ he said confidingly. ‘I think she does it on purpose. She doesn’t like foreigners.’
‘Like strangers.’
‘Yes.’ He lifts his glass. ‘Here’s to new friends, no longer strangers.’
They clink, and she feels herself start to let go for the first time that day. The Prosecco is good: perfectly cold and dry. Her arms, resting on the table, feel cool where they touch the metal and hot where the sun hits them. She closes her eyes. ‘I’ve just come from the airport.’
‘Your friend has gone, then? I liked her. She was great fun.’
‘Yes. I’ll miss her. Although …’
Ivan doesn’t say anything when she tails off and it’s quiet between them for a time. It’s unusual to feel so comfortable with someone so recently met.
‘I already miss her,’ she says eventually. ‘And I’ve missed her every day since we moved here. But I’m also relieved she’s gone. She was making me worry about some things, and I can’t quite cope with it at the moment. I’ve got enough on my plate with the guests.’
Ivan nods. ‘Perhaps when you have more guests, you will by necessity keep them at arm’s length. That will be easier, less … consuming. When I met you and Madison, I thought you were close friends. I thought you had all known each other for years.’
‘I didn’t think I’d like Madison,’ she says, without intending to, ‘but I do.’
‘I like her too. I thought when I came to dinner, How lovely these women are! But then I always like women so much. If only I could want them too.’
She laughs. ‘That’s what Lou and I always say. Men have a lot to answer for.’
‘They do. We do.’ He tops up her glass. ‘Leave the car, if you like. Giulia is coming to collect me in a while. We can drop you off. But only if you want to, of course.’
She nods, smiles. ‘I really would. Thank you.’
‘It was an interesting combination of people the other night,’ he says, after a time. ‘I was surprised to see Angelo there. I suppose Nick asked him.’
‘Oh.’ She sits up a little straighter. ‘He said you did. Well, more or less. Something about you already having dinner with Angelo? Nick wasn’t very clear. And then, of course, the girlfriend had to come too. I don’t think she uttered a word all night.’
Ivan takes off his horn-rimmed glasses and begins to polish them on his shirt. ‘Angelo is not my friend, as I think I said before. But it pays to get on with him. It makes things easier round here. We were talking about the car that went off the road …’
The Prosecco has already begun to loosen Laura, but this cuts through the pleasant haze. ‘Angelo’s family are involved in the vendetta?’
‘Do you know, I think half of it is made up for the likes of outsiders like us, who have watched the Godfather films too many times. But his is certainly a big, important family in these parts. They have … What is the phrase? … fingers in every pie.’ He points to the men erecting some sort of stage from the poles. ‘They work for Angelo, for instance.’
She sits up a little straighter.
‘As long as you stay on the right side of him, he’s fine. How have you found his work? He’s pressuring me to use him for some of my own projects – I am undoing the worst of Raoul’s excesses, as I told you – but I’m not sure yet whether to give in to him.’
‘Oh, he hasn’t really done much yet, just a bit of paving around the pool when our original builder couldn’t finish the job. I’ve actually been clashing with Nick about it, though. He’s paid for more work that I didn’t even know about. It infuriates me that Nick is incapable of being assertive with men like Angelo. It’s not like we owe him a favour or something, so why not just say no?’
Ivan is frowning at his glass.
‘Sorry, I’m going on. It’s just that …’ She pauses, then says it anyway. ‘Well, we don’t have bottomless savings. If we’re going to spend what money we do have, I want it to be on things for the guests – stuff that might actually earn us some more money back, not a well.’
‘No, I wasn’t … You’re not going on.’ He tests out the idiom. ‘It’s just that I thought Angelo had quite a lot of work planned for you already.’
‘Oh.’ Laura doesn’t know what to say. Incomprehension tightens her chest. ‘But he can’t have. I mean …’ She tails off.
Ivan turns up his hands. ‘Perhaps I’m mistaken.’ He sips his Prosecco, then seems to decide. ‘But, actually, I’m quite certain I’m not. Angelo himself mentioned work he had coming up at Luna Rossa months ago.’
Laura’s chest tightens even more. She makes herself breathe out slowly. When Ivan holds up the Prosecco bottle, she nods gratefully.
She stands on the drive for long minutes after Giulia and Ivan have dropped her off and driven away. It’s early evening now, and the shadows have stretched out. The one cast by the cypress stretches almost to the wall where the gap used to be, a long finger pointing: a reminder to be wary.
She doesn’t need a reminder.
The house, rose-gold in the rich light, looks as much part of the permanent landscape as the rocks and olive trees. From this angle, the Americans’ car just beyond her peripheral vision, it could be abandoned, albeit in a picturesque way. One of the roof tiles has slipped and looks like a crooked tooth.
It strikes her that if they were to leave tomorrow Luna Rossa would be just like Giuseppe’s House. People would wander through the rooms and make up stories about what might have happened to make the last occupants flee. She thinks about Giuseppe – actually Nico, the Italian for ‘Nick’, it suddenly occurs to her – and wonders if he’s dead. She thinks about the vendetta.
Nick is in the kitchen, chopping herbs. The kitchen is full of their vivid scent and his fingertips are green. He turns as she puts down her bag but says nothing. It makes her feel like walking straight back out of the house and down the Roman path until she reaches Ivan’s. She knows she would be welcome there. Giulia would show her to a guest bedroom. The sheets would be pressed and cool. The soft hum of expensive air-conditioning would lull her into a dreamless sleep.
‘I was beginning to think something had happened to you,’ he says eventually.
‘I texted and said I’d bumped into Ivan.’
‘That was ages ago. Did you drive over the limit?’
‘No, I got a lift. I left the car in town.’ She thinks about getting into the conversation they need to have, and feels another wave of exhaustion. ‘Do you want a hand?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Come on, let me.’ She opens the dishwasher and pulls out the top drawer, clean glasses tinkling.
‘Leave it, will you? I’m doing it.’
‘Nick, let me help. Don’t be such a martyr.’ It’s out before she can help it.
He puts the knife down, wipes his hands very precisely on a tea-towel and turns to face her, his mouth a thin line. ‘How drunk are you?’
‘I’m a bit tipsy. I had a few glasses of Prosecco in the piazza. I felt like I needed them.’
‘Yeah, and why’s that?’ He folds his arms.
She meets his eye. Maybe it’s the alcohol still moving around her blood, or maybe it’s Nick being so prissy, but she doesn’t feel like running away now. ‘Look, I know you’re angry with me because I’m back late, and because you think I’m not pulling my weight here –’
‘There’s a bit more to it than that,’ he cuts in.
‘Go on, then, spit it out. Let’s do this.’
Bastian appears in the doorway. Neither of them had heard his approach.
‘Hey, you’re back,’ he says to Laura. He smiles at her as though Nick isn’t even there. It seems glaringly obvious there’s something between them.
‘Give us a minute, will you, mate?’ Nick’s voice is cold. There is so much hostility in that last word that Laura wonders what she’s let herself in for.
‘You OK, Laura?’ Bastian hasn’t acknowledged Nick. He’s still looking at her.
She glances instinctively towards her husband. His arms are still folded but his fists are clenched now.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she says hurriedly, resisting the urge to usher Bastian out. ‘Absolutely fine. Dinner will be about an hour.’ She has no idea if this is true but she’s desperate to get rid of him before Nick blows. He hardly ever loses his temper but when he does it’s dramatic. ‘I’ll call you and Madison then, OK?’
Bastian nods and leaves, thank God.
‘It’s a fucking joke,’ says Nick, when they’re alone again.
‘What is?’
‘The way he looks at you, like he’s already had you.’
‘Nick –’
‘Oh, don’t act the innocent. You fucking love it.’
She hates it when he sneers like this. She knows it’s because he’s hurt and needing reassurance, but it inspires the opposite reaction in her at the worst possible moment. ‘Please don’t be like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘So aggressive. We need to talk properly.’
‘About him?’ He swallows as he waits for her answer. They’re as scared as each other, only about different things.
‘No, not him.’ She makes herself meet his eye. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s something Ivan said. About Angelo.’
Nick turns back to the chopping board but he doesn’t pick up the knife. He’s tense, waiting to find out what she knows, what she’s found out. It feels as though the ground beneath her is beginning to open, revealing a sinkhole that’s been there the whole time.
She moves to the counter so she can see his face. ‘Ivan seems to be under the impression that Angelo has been involved here for ages. That it was his men working on the pool from the start, rather than Massimo’s. You said to me before that it was just a bit of finishing off. Was that a lie?’ Something else occurs to her. ‘Was Massimo’s wife really ill or did you make that up because you’d met Angelo in the bar and given him all the work instead?’ She can imagine this scenario: Nick wanting to impress, show he had money to spend, that he was in charge of this big ambitious project. It reminds her of her own email to Bastian.
Nick has never been a good liar. He looks like a child caught out, guilt-racked and miserable. Now, he looks guiltier than she would have expected, and this sobers her up.
Something else comes to her. She has let everything with Bastian and Lou and the rest of it distract her.
‘Nick, look at me.’
He does, but only briefly. His face is pallid where it was red before.
‘Tommaso said something weird to me last week. About the boundary.’
She watches her husband shift about on the spot as if he’d run if he could. Instead, he yanks open the fridge, gets out a beer and drinks half of it in one go.
‘Nick, you’re frightening me. I told you last year that I couldn’t deal with you keeping things from me again.’
He puts down the bottle with a heavy clink. The beer starts to fizz out and he has to clamp his mouth to it. The scene feels like a bad joke.
‘It’s OK,’ he says. ‘I’ve sorted it now. There was a bit of an issue but it’s fine. It wasn’t so much a boundary thing, although there was an element of that because …’ He tails off.
‘Hang on, what? You’re not making any sense. Start at the beginning.’
‘Are you sure you want to do this now? I really need to get this dinner started. You said it would be an hour.’
‘Forget dinner. They can wait.’
She leads him outside so they can’t be overheard. Nick is clutching his beer. She wishes she had one too, but she wants a clear head. Any traces of the Prosecco haze seem to have gone.
