A Postcard from Italy: The perfect summer beach read

by Alex Brown

  ‘Georgie, I don’t think we nee—’ the guy called Tom started, but the woman carried on with,

  ‘And a Russian businessman. I escaped from his car after he tried to seduce me with some massaging seat contraption and, you know, it turned out that he was an illegal arms supplier to the Bratva – that’s the Russian mafia in case you didn’t know. So, come on … step away from my cat. Pass her through the railings right now.’ And the woman pushed her arms out towards Ellis.

  Grace held her breath, hoping Ellis would oblige as she could see out of the corner of her eye that the gorgeous-looking guy was shaking his head, but she couldn’t be sure if he was bemused by the way the woman was handling things, or if he was sizing Ellis up to give him a punch in the face if needs be.

  ‘Ellis, please. Hand the cat over,’ Grace said, then turned to the woman and added, ‘I’m really sorry, we didn’t mean any harm. We came here hoping to find someone who might have known, um … err, a friend of ours. She used to live here in this villa—’

  ‘It’s true,’ Ellis chipped in, ‘and then we spotted Gypsy,’ he gave the cat a farewell stroke before handing her over, ‘with her little paw caught in a rut in the path – she’s fine,’ he hastily added, on seeing the woman’s face crease in concern. ‘But I thought it best to hop over the gate and help her, just in case,’ he finished, not daring to meet Grace’s gaze as she lifted her eyebrows in shock at his blatant untruth.

  ‘Then, we must thank you for helping,’ the man stepped forward and put out his hand, which Ellis shook politely. ‘My wife adores Gypsy and when we saw you on the security camera with her in your arms … well, you can imagine how it looked.’

  ‘Yes, I can. I’m so sorry,’ Ellis said, having got himself back over the gate and onto the path in record time.

  ‘I thought you were trying to steal her,’ the woman called Georgie grinned, and then quickly followed with, ‘sorry if I got a bit carried away with telling you about my previous encounters and all that. Anyway …’ she turned to Grace, ‘tell me more about your friend, what’s her name? We might be able to help you out.’

  ‘Oh, that would be great,’ Grace said, surreptitiously wiping the sweat from her top lip.

  ‘But it must have been a long time ago that your friend lived in the pink villa because my grandmother bought it back in the Nineties, more than twenty years ago,’ Tom said.

  ‘Ah,’ Grace started, taking in this new information and wondering if it was then that Connie had returned to London to live in the flat in Blackheath. And if so, why? It must have been around the time when Giovanni died, but why didn’t she stay here in their beautiful home with such a glorious view?

  ‘Her name was Connie, or Constance di Donato. She lived here with her husband, Giovanni – he was an artist, and a recluse – he died over twenty years ago, we’ve been told,’ Grace explained to them, rummaging in her handbag for the paper fan that she had bought last night from a little shop near the promenade.

  ‘And we’ve since found out that he’s an eminent artist. You see, I work for Sackville and Bush auctioneers in New York and we’ve auctioned some of his work,’ Ellis said, ‘and Grace.’ He paused. ‘Sorry, we didn’t introduce ourselves properly, I’m Ellis and this is Grace …’ He gestured to her. Tom and Georgie quickly shook hands with her and confirmed their names before Grace took over and explained more about Connie, and that they were trying to track down a living relative to inherit her estate and the contents of the wonderfully presented storage unit.

  ‘Wow!’ Georgie said. ‘It’s a proper mystery. How exciting.’ And then turning to Tom she asked, ‘Would your Nonna Maria be able to help? Maybe she knew Grace and Ellis’s friend, or might remember something to help them find a relative.’

  ‘I’m sure she will if she can. But she’s very old and her memory is affected by the dementia,’ Tom told them, and then explained, ‘Maria is my grandmother, on my mother’s side. I’m happy to ask her. Let’s swap numbers and I can call you later,’ and he put a hand in his jeans pocket to presumably pull out a mobile to type the number into, but it wasn’t there. ‘Do you have your phone with you, Georgie?’ he asked, patting his back pockets to be sure.

  ‘No, I’ve left it by the pool – it was all such a rush,’ she said, giving Gypsy a kiss on the top of her head.

  ‘And mine is flat!’ Ellis said, sighing as he inspected the screen of his phone.

  ‘I have mine,’ Grace said, starting to rummage in her bag. ‘Or we could come back another time if that’s easier for you,’ Grace offered, desperate to get in the shade now, figuring it must be at least 40 degrees and the fair, freckly skin on her arms was starting to burn, and she really wished she hadn’t worn jeans and trainers for the hike up here. Georgie had the right idea in sparkly flip-flops, a swimsuit and kaftan, and Grace made a mental note to see if she could find something similar when they went to the shops in Portofino tomorrow.

  ‘Look, instead of trying to do all this out here when it’s absolutely roasting,’ Georgie started, grinning at Grace, who smiled in agreement, ‘why don’t you come in with us now and we can exchange numbers in the shade of the terrace? And you’re welcome to join us for a cold glass of homemade lemonade, if you have time?’ She grinned kindly at Grace who could have given her a massive hug and a kiss right there, such was her relief at the thought of escaping the scorching sun.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Ellis asked, sheepishly, ‘I mean, we were trespassing …’

  ‘Err, you were,’ Georgie teased, laughing, ‘but technically, Grace wasn’t. And so come along, darling, let’s get out of this heat.’ And she gently tucked Gypsy under one arm and looped her other through Grace’s arm and led her towards a side gate as if they were best friends who had known each other for ever.

  ‘You’re both very welcome,’ Tom smiled to Ellis. ‘Come on,’ and as they followed behind, Grace could hear Tom telling Ellis about an old school pal who had gone to work at Sackville and Bush auctioneers years ago and wondered if Ellis might know him, and soon they were chatting away as if they were old friends too.

  *

  Later, having swapped numbers, Grace was sitting on the edge of a magnificent infinity pool sipping delicious ice-cold lemonade as she dipped her toes in the refreshingly cool water. It turned out that Georgie and Tom and some of their friends were staying in the annexe in the grounds of the main powder pink villa, which was why the shutters were still closed up at the front. Apparently, Tom’s Nonna Maria was reluctant to let them have free run of the pink villa as a pool party some years ago had got out of hand, with someone spilling red wine all over an exquisite oriental rug in the library that had come with the villa when they had purchased it.

  Grace wondered if Connie had originally chosen the rug. She also felt disappointed that they weren’t going to see inside the home that Connie and Giovanni had lived in, but it was wonderful to be in the garden, admiring the lush palm trees that were so tall they must have been just the same when Connie lived here.

  Grace could imagine Connie pottering around the garden with a basket looped over her arm in which to gather sun-ripened figs from a huge tree situated in the sunniest spot. Or sitting on one of the many verandas, enjoying a cocktail as she gazed down at the blissful view and inhaled the delicious scent of oranges and lemons from the array of fruit trees. The scent of frangipani too lingered in the warm breeze. Grace glanced towards the far edge of the pool that – with its infinity effect giving on to the ocean beyond – made her feel as though she was on the top of the world.

  Closing her eyes, she drifted the tips of her fingers in the cool water and imagined she was back in the 1950s with a handsome truelove mixing her a martini, just as Connie would have been. She then imagined Connie, Giovanni and little Lara here all together, blissfully happy away from the critical eye of Connie’s controlling mother.

  Then her thoughts floated on to the current day and she inwardly pinched herself at the surreal nature of the moment. The thrill of acting spo
ntaneously, even if she had panicked when Ellis had climbed over the fence. With hindsight, she was pleased that he had, for otherwise she wouldn’t be sitting by Connie’s pool right now and enjoying the magnificent scenery all around her. And for one bizarrely strange moment she wondered if this was what Matthew and the Perky Yoga One’s lives were like. Sunbathing by infinity pools in paradisiacal places.

  Hmm, maybe it had been at the start, but then she remembered the last time she had looked at Matthew’s Facebook page. It had been on that evening when she’d been at a low ebb after Cora had created such an almighty fuss about the spa trip. On Facebook, Matthew had been bemoaning the lack of sleep that came with having toddler twins, and how he was having to ‘swerve the rugby boys’ weekend away this year because of FAMILY COMMITMENTS’ followed by the rolling eyes emoji, but he ‘wouldn’t have it any other way’ … so perhaps not.

  Maybe the grass wasn’t greener on the other side after all … and she had spent all those lonely evenings stalking her ex-fiancé to see what she had perceived as being perfection, a gloriously happy life, when in reality it was all just an airbrushed façade. She could see it now. Or perhaps it was because right now, right here, she felt happy in herself and so the need to live vicariously, and with a degree of self-loathing and inadequacy, had vanished. She was content.

  The next day, and Grace was feeling very fragile as she climbed inside the taxi that had arrived to take them to Portofino to visit the jeweller’s. One look at Ellis and she could see that he felt the same way too, with his Ray-Ban shades firmly in place and a pale tinge to his usually tanned face. His dark brown curls were much messier than usual too.

  They had ended up staying at the powder pink villa until late in the evening, having watched the stunning sunset over the Italian Riviera and eating al fresco on the veranda. An exquisite feast prepared by a local chef of ham and mozzarella Stromboli followed by scallop and pesto linguine, then marinated cherries with mascarpone and amaretto biscuits. Many bottles of locally sourced prosecco accompanied the meal, finished off with grappa shots so strong that Grace had gasped and pressed a hand to her chest on trying one. Ellis had been spared the grappa experience as his mobile had rung, having recharged on Tom’s charger, and it had actually been Jennifer calling to talk to him. Grace had heard him say something to her about it being late here in Italy and that he’d catch up with her properly in the morning, but she must have been insistent as Ellis had wandered off to the far side of the pool for some privacy.

  And then later, even through her own merry state, Grace remembered him being unusually monosyllabic in the taxi back to the hotel. Or maybe it was the hare-brained way the driver had chatted on in Italian without drawing breath and gesticulating animatedly as he tore around the hairpin bends in the road, boldly close to the cliff’s edge. Grace recalled gripping the door handle so tightly that her knuckles had still been aching when she’d climbed into bed what felt like just a few hours ago. She pulled her own shades on and sipped some more water from a bottle in her hand.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, seeing that it was almost ten past eleven on the clock on the dashboard and they had agreed to meet outside the hotel at 11 a.m. ‘It took me longer than usual to galvanise myself into action.’

  ‘No worries, Grace,’ Ellis said, more formally than usual, continuing to look out of the window and away from her. She pulled the seatbelt over her shoulder and wondered what was up with him. She hadn’t seen him hungover before so maybe this was just his way, detached and quiet.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she checked.

  ‘Sure. You?’ he replied, folding his arms.

  ‘Yes, just about. I’m not used to late nights or grappa shots, come to think of it. But I had a great time. Did you?’ she tried again.

  ‘Yes. A great time.’ He didn’t expand any more than that and stayed staring out of the window. Grace, not wanting anything to spoil their last whole day here, decided not to question him further, and so instead settled back in the worn leather seat and focused on admiring the view as the driver set off. She was grateful to be on the sea-view side of the car and stared, mesmerised, at the magnificence of the rugged, rocky shoreline as the taxi zipped along the costal road, imagining herself to be Audrey Hepburn in the Galaxy chocolate advert with ‘Moon River’ playing in the background. With the timeless, pastel-coloured houses coming into view and the lack of the commercial petrol stations, Costa coffee outlets and suchlike that were on every corner in London, Grace was able to imagine being back in the Fifties and to experience the view just as Connie had done when she had travelled in the open-top car to Portofino and then on to San Fruttuoso, which she wrote so beautifully about in her diary.

  On arriving in Portofino, Grace stepped out of the taxi and was delighted when the driver told them they weren’t far from the main piazzetta square, just a short walk away in fact, and where the bustle of the shops and cafés were beside the water’s edge.

  ‘Shall we head to the harbour first?’ Grace said, keen to see if she could find the spot where Connie had been standing in the photo that had fallen out of the back of her diary. The one where she couldn’t be sure if Connie was feeling sad or shy.

  Grace had scanned it and was now searching on her mobile to find it. ‘Here it is.’ She turned her screen towards Ellis.

  ‘Cool. Let’s do that and I can take a picture of you in the same spot,’ he smiled, and Grace’s spirits lifted on seeing that he seemed to have perked up. He had most likely just been feeling as fragile as she had in the taxi. She couldn’t expect him to be upbeat for every second of the time they were here together. They were just two … She paused her thoughts to wonder what exactly they were, before settling on ‘friends’, then swiftly changing it to ‘colleagues’, after all, who had kind of been put together.

  Moments later, and Grace was sure that she had found the same place where the black-and-white photo had been taken by the water’s edge. To her left she could see the rows of tall, narrow houses, only in real life they were warm, earthy tones of sun-faded orange and yellow, pink and white. Colourful bunting buffeted between lampposts, giving the place a special carnival atmosphere, even though it was an ordinary day for the people lucky enough to live here. The cafés and shops below, with their awnings extended and paper lanterns swaying in the warm breeze, were exactly the same all these years later. And the domed building on the cliffside, which she now knew from Google was called Divo Martino church, was in the same spot, she could see, as she lifted her phone and placed the picture of the photo up in the air beside it. So it had to be where Connie had stood. And it was glorious and marvellous and thrilling to have time-travelled almost, back to when Connie, a woman in her twenties, had been here too. But the moment was tinged with sadness because Grace couldn’t help wondering how Connie had gone from being here, surrounded by such beauty, to a sparse flat in London.

  ‘It’s awesome to think that Connie and Giovanni were right here,’ Ellis said, lifting his shades to get a better look at the screen of Grace’s phone. ‘I reckon Connie was just about there …’ He pointed to a spot in front of them.

  ‘I think so too,’ Grace beamed, her heart lifting on taking it all in, and determined to savour the experience of being here instead of dwelling on Connie’s eventual fate.

  ‘OK. Strike a pose and I’ll take a picture,’ he said, taking her phone from her hands. Grace had just tidied her hair and straightened her sundress when an older man wearing a black cap came along and said something in Italian to Ellis, motioning with his hands for Ellis to move next to her, presumably so he could be in the picture too. Ellis responded in Italian but the man was insistent, saying,

  ‘Show her you love her,’ in heavily accented English, and literally took Ellis by the arm and placed him next to Grace. ‘Bellissime,’ he declared, touching his fingertips to his lips in a kiss before majestically lifting the now open hand up to the air. Only, he still wasn’t satisfied, and motioned for Ellis to place his arm around Grace.


  ‘Do you mind? If only to make an old man happy,’ Ellis whispered out of the side of his mouth, treating her to a big burst of his citrusy scent as he moved in close.

  ‘Of course not,’ Grace replied, through a smile, and as Ellis put his arm around her and gently cupped her shoulder, she secretly allowed herself a moment to believe she was here with him as more than a colleague, or indeed a friend, because her whole body was tingling from the close proximity of his touch. It was unlike anything she had ever felt before, yet it made no sense, as her head knew that he was with Jennifer, but her body clearly hadn’t cottoned on. And she most definitely wasn’t mistaken in sensing that he felt it too, as he was drawing her in even closer now as she instinctively lifted her arm and let it move around his firm back. She could feel his taut abdominal muscles under her fingertips as they curled around his body.

  After a scrumptious seafood-topped pizza and a restorative glass of red wine in one of the harbour cafés, they had found the jeweller’s and pressed the buzzer to be allowed in.

  ‘They must have some very expensive diamonds in here,’ Grace said, as an extremely glamorous Italian woman with long, glossy black hair and wearing a beautifully cut cream trouser suit came sashaying towards the door.

  ‘Ciao, per favore entra,’ she smiled, standing aside to let them in. They stepped inside and she closed and locked the door behind them.

  And then it hit Grace.

  The perfume.

  The woman was wearing Van Cleef and Arpels, one of the perfumes from that day when Grace had been shopping in Selfridges with Matthew, the day he’d proposed to her over lunch. She stopped walking.