by T A Williams
She followed his advice and bought two bottles of Chianti Classico and a couple of bottles of white wine from a store dedicated to locally produced wines. By the time she had filled her bag with other supplies, she had a hard time staggering back to the car with all her shopping. Back home, she unloaded the food into the fridge and decided to go for a walk, rather than a run, as the temperature was very high. Because she was already familiar with it – or so she told herself – she retraced her steps up the hill, past the entrance to the villa of the wasps and onwards up the road. When she got to the track leading off to the left towards the old tower, she had no hesitation in heading in that direction, but there was no sign of man nor dog. She paused by the gate and even toyed for a moment with the idea of pressing the bell, before telling herself that would just be far too needy. Instead, she returned home feeling frustrated, but also annoyed with herself for the way this Matt thing was starting to obsess her.
Over the next couple of days, she repeated the process, but each time without success. In fact, she didn’t see a single person or vehicle as she walked, or ran, up and down the road each morning. It became a recurring disappointment and she couldn’t help feeling almost abandoned. After seeing Matt in Greve, she had been hoping to bump into him again as soon as possible, but he had disappeared and she almost wondered if this was on purpose. She did her best to ignore him but found it impossible. Her brain stubbornly refused to give her peace.
Each time she passed the entrance to the villa of the wasps, she wondered if Conrad Chesterfield had arrived and, if so, in what sort of mood? Hopefully she wouldn’t run into him, seeing as she had turned down his job offer. She dropped into the cafe every morning around nine o’clock for a cappuccino and chatted to Rita behind the bar, who was quickly becoming a good friend. Needless to say, the Englishman living in the tower came up in conversation, but Rita confirmed that he hadn’t been in for a few days. Helpfully, she suggested he might have gone away on holiday. The irony was not lost on Alice that she might have chosen to take her holiday here at the exact same time as he and his canine companion had decided to go off somewhere else. She managed to choke off a snort, but it was one of annoyance at herself for what was becoming a fixation.
Determined to try to put the Matt thing behind her, she set off on a series of visits to places of interest in the area and it was while she was in the ancient little church of San Leolino – with its delightful cloister, just outside the charming hilltop town of Panzano – that she made a discovery. After admiring the stunning glazed terracotta works by Giovanni della Robbia and a magnificent fourteenth-century triptych above the altar, she went out into the tiny cloister and came upon a carved stone slab on the ground with a familiar crest on it. Although worn smooth by the passage of thousands upon thousands of feet over many centuries, there could be no mistake – it was the same coat of arms with the wasps that she had seen on the wall of Conrad Chesterfield’s villa. Unfortunately, the name on the stone was now illegible and the date in Latin numerals equally indecipherable. Could it be that this slab commemorated or even housed the tomb of one of the forebears of the person responsible for building the villa? She took a number of photos and resolved to research it further.
One evening she decided to try the restaurant in the village that Signor Innocenti had mentioned. As he had warned, the exterior didn’t look promising. It was in a side street off the square – barely a three-minute walk from her home – and the building looked extremely old, maybe even medieval. It was pretty clear that nothing much had been done to the façade over the intervening centuries since its construction, and it looked a bit down-at-heel, with lizards living in cracks in the wall and what looked like a remarkably healthy sapling growing out of the roof. However, once inside the door, she realised that her landlord had been dead right. The dining room was clean, bright and unexpectedly smart. Rather like her own little house, the restaurant had a garden at the rear, but this one was considerably larger than her little patch of dry grass and weeds, and it was full of tables where people were having dinner.
She received a cordial welcome from the middle-aged man behind the bar – quite probably Giovanni himself – and a waitress showed her to a small table in the corner of the garden, from where she could sit back and observe the other diners. At this time of the evening the whole area was already in the shade and the temperature outside was perfect. As she sipped a glass of the same excellent sparkling wine that Signor Innocenti had given her, she checked out the occupants of the other tables. As her eyes roamed around, they encountered another pair of eyes trained upon her. These belonged to a young red-haired woman who gave her a quizzical – but not unfriendly – look, followed by a hint of a smile, and then turned her attention to the menu.
Alice was familiar with the scenario, although she had got out of the habit of being recognised – it was just about the first time since arriving in Chianti that she had encountered somebody who presumably thought she had spotted Polly the flirt. At least, she told herself, it was a woman, rather than a man, so she was unlikely to be pestered. The woman was sitting at a large table set for eight people, opposite a man in a pink shirt, who had his back to Alice. Evidently, the rest of the party still had to arrive.
The waitress brought the menu, written on a blackboard that she held up, so that Alice could decide what to have. There was a lot of choice, but she finally ordered mixed bruschetta as a starter and then her favourite, fritto misto, as a main course. This delightful mix of lightly fried prawns, octopus, squid and whitebait was a dish Alice often chose when she was in Italy. Whether it was thanks to the oil in which they were fried, the amazingly light batter coating them or just the excellence of the raw materials, it had been delicious each time and it had become her go-to choice.
She was sitting back, looking forward to a good meal, when the rest of the party on the big table in the middle arrived and her evening suddenly took a most unexpected turn.
Hearing the voices of the new arrivals, she glanced up and did a double-take as her heart sank. Leading the group was none other than Conrad Chesterfield, her erstwhile boss, the man whose offer of employment she had just refused. With his sleek black hair and upright stance, he looked ten years younger than the sixty-year-old she knew him to be. At his shoulder was his stunningly attractive wife, Amber, along with a younger couple and their two little children. They hugged the red-haired woman and her partner, and they all sat down. As they did so, the waitress arrived with Alice’s starter and by the time she had moved away, Conrad Chesterfield’s group were all chatting animatedly – and Alice was relieved to see that he and his wife were sitting with their backs to her. She did her best to make herself inconspicuous, resolving to make this the fastest meal in the history of eating so she could get the hell out of there just as soon as she could.
Her plan failed.
The red-haired woman who had recognised her earlier was leaning towards Conrad Chesterfield, talking into his ear. Seconds later, just as Alice took a big mouthful of Tuscan bread, topped with sumptuous tomatoes and dowsed in olive oil, her former boss swivelled round and looked across at her. Recognition dawned on his face and she gave him a nervous little wave, doing her best to chew and swallow as fast as she could. To her relief, he smiled and rose to his feet.
He came striding across, hand outstretched, and she jumped up to meet him, hastily wiping the olive oil off her lips and fingers. ‘Alice, great to see you again.’
‘Mr Chesterfield, good evening. Paolo told me you were coming over.’ She would dearly have liked to grab her glass of wine and drain it in one, but she resisted the temptation, deciding the best thing to do would be to clear the air as far as Pals was concerned, but he got there first.
‘Call me Conrad, please. We’re on holiday. Sorry you aren’t going to join us for the new show. Quite understand.’ His words were as staccato as ever. ‘You’ve chosen a different career path. Congratulations are in order, right, Doctor Butler?’
Alice
was impressed. It came as no surprise to find he was well-informed. ‘Thank you… Conrad. Yes, I’m sorry not to be part of Pals Forever, but I’ve got an interview in a few days’ time for a job in the art history field, my speciality.’ She glanced across towards their table. ‘But please don’t let me drag you away from your family. I’ve rented a little house in the village for the rest of the month, so maybe we’ll meet up again some time.’
‘Excellent. Come up to the villa some time. Meet the family properly. My two daughters are over there. I’ll give you a call. Well, enjoy your meal, Alice. Good to see you.’
As she sat back down again, she reflected that he had been unexpectedly nice but, then, she had always got on pretty well with him, right up until the last few months five years ago, when it had all turned sour. It was with a considerable sigh of relief that she reached for her glass and took a big mouthful before returning to her bruschetta.
Chapter 14
She was woken at three o’clock in the morning by her phone. She opened her eyes and reached for it, wondering if it might be David, as she relished the prospect of giving him a piece of her mind. To her extreme annoyance, it was Richie. She dismissed the call, gave an infuriated sigh and lay back down again. She was just drifting off to sleep five minutes later when the phone bleeped and she saw that it was a text message from him. She was about to delete it and turn off the phone when a couple of words attracted her attention: so stupid. Propping herself on her elbow, she read it through. It was short and far from sweet.
Hi Al, I’ve been so stupid. Carrie got her revenge for being dumped and it affects us all – and the studio. Check out this link. The story’s all over the internet and it’ll be in the papers tomorrow. I’m really, really sorry. R.
She clicked on the link and felt a wave of anger wash over her. This website – just about the most popular Hollywood insiders’ website – was full of talk of Pals Forever, and on the very first page there was a photo of Layla and Alice, both wearing bikinis, lying on sunbeds by the pool at the villa. Carrie must have taken the shot one day the previous week. The caption underneath read: Layla and Alice say no to new show, in spite of looking hotter than ever. Alice nearly threw the phone across the room in fury, but she controlled herself and read through to the end.
There was no getting away from it: Carrie had done a thorough job of spilling the beans. She had even managed to take a most unflattering photo of Richie with a glass of wine at his lips, no doubt intended to give the impression he had a drink problem. That didn’t bother Alice in the slightest – in fact, if it had been a photo of him lying in a cowpat, she wouldn’t have minded. How could he have been so stupid as to bring a woman he had, by his own admission, only known for a matter of a few weeks to a sensitive meeting like this and then, to compound his stupidity, dump her so callously? She even wondered whether this article might have been Carrie’s plan all along. Maybe, rather than working in public relations, she was in fact a journalist who had cynically used Richie for her own ends. Wherever the true blame lay, the result was infuriating.
Alice lay back in the darkness and seethed. There was no doubt Carrie had got her revenge and, after the way Richie had treated her, Alice couldn’t blame her for that although she resented the way she and Layla had been dragged into it. She wondered what Conrad Chesterfield would say when he saw the article – and he would, holiday or no holiday. As far as she knew, no press release had yet been circulated to announce the cast or to give any advance information about the premise of the new show. Of course, there was the chance Conrad might look upon it as ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’, but he might take the opposite view and go ballistic. Alice consoled herself with the thought that at least she was now out of all the dog-fighting, and this finally allowed her to get back to sleep.
When she got up, she turned on the TV as she made herself a cup of tea and almost choked on it as that same photo of her and Layla, both wearing very little, appeared on the screen. If even Italian television had picked up the story, then there could be no doubt that it had gone viral. She watched as their ‘Hollywood correspondent’ went on to repeat almost word for word what Alice had read in the middle of the night and, needless to say, a series of photos flashed up on the screen of her wearing her revealing ‘Polly’ outfits. The cat was well and truly out of the bag and now, after five years of trying to lay Polly the flirt to rest, here she was again.
Alice was furious.
Still seething, she set off up the hill at a fast pace, muttering dire imprecations under her breath as she went along. By the time she got to the gates of the villa, she was sweating profusely and when she reached the top, she was gasping. She stopped for a rest in the shade of an umbrella pine and leant forward, her hands on her thighs, sucking in lungful after lungful of air, as sweat dripped down her nose and onto the bone-dry pine needles at her feet. Such was her state of physical and mental turmoil, she didn’t hear the approaching footsteps until they were upon her and she received a hefty push on the bottom, almost knocking her over. She straightened up, fists clenched, and swung round, ready to defend herself, but then the culprit gave a happy whine and launched himself at her a second time, standing up on his hind legs and scrabbling at her waist with his big front paws. Unclenching her fists, she caught the dog’s big head in her hands and ruffled his ears.
‘Guinness, how good to see you.’ And it was. And even better was the sight of his master only a few yards away, hurrying towards them. As Matt approached, he called out to the dog.
‘Guinness, get off! No jumping up. We’ve been through this time and time again.’ As Guinness gave no sign of obeying, Matt addressed her directly, ‘Hi again, Alice. I’m sorry about Guinness. He’s clearly very pleased to see you. Just push him away.’
She gave him a big smile in return and was delighted to see an answering smile from him. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and he looked fit and extremely appealing. ‘Good morning, Matt, it’s good to see you and Guinness.’ She almost told him she’d been looking for him at the cafe the past few mornings but managed to stop herself in time. That would have made it sound as if she were stalking him. ‘And I don’t mind him jumping all over me in the slightest.’ And, she found herself thinking, if his master felt like doing the same, she wasn’t going to object. But he clearly didn’t. He just stood there for a few moments and she could see that he was trying to think of something to say. When he finally found his voice again, it was hardly romantic.
‘You look absolutely boiling.’
Alice followed the direction of his gaze and saw that her light-grey top was now mostly dark grey and sweaty – and plastered tightly across her chest. As a look, it was revealing rather than stylish, and his eyes remained trained on her body for some seconds before he raised them again.
‘Did you sprint up here?’
Doing her best to sound unflustered, even though the feel of his eyes on her had given her goose pimples, she nodded. ‘A bit too fast, really. I was feeling annoyed and that made me overdo it.’
‘That happens to me all the time. I even outrun Guinness on occasions when I’m really angry. Can I ask what you have to be annoyed about?’
His tone was quite innocent, so maybe he hadn’t seen the news yet or maybe he still didn’t recognise her. Certainly, with sweat pouring down her cheeks, her face the colour of the tomatoes on last night’s bruschetta and wearing her soggy running kit, she was a world away from those photos of her by the pool in her bikini or Polly the flirt in her provocative tops. She decided not to enlighten him as to her identity or the source of her annoyance.
‘Oh, just stuff. A friend did something really stupid.’
‘I bet it was a man. We do stupid stuff.’ He hesitated for a moment or two. ‘It’s really good to see you again. I’ve been away for a couple of days and I was hoping to bump into you when I got back.’
‘It’s good to see you, too. Now that I’m a resident of the village for a few weeks, hopefully we can meet
up again. I’d like that.’
A smile appeared on his face. ‘I’d like that, too. Maybe tomorrow?’
Alice shook her head with real regret. ‘Not tomorrow or the next day, I’m afraid.’ She saw his face fall and felt a little tremor of satisfaction. It really looked as though he’d miss seeing her. ‘I have to go back to the UK for an interview tomorrow and then I’m staying with my mum for the night. I’ll be back late on Friday, so hopefully I’ll see you at the weekend? The little house I’ve rented is just a short way from the piazza. Rita at the bar knows where it is.’
‘Fantastic, I look forward to it.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Anyway, Guinness and I need to get back. Virgilio’s coming over and we’ve got a busy day ahead.’
‘Virgilio?’
‘My next-door neighbour – you met him last week. He’s spent his whole life as a farmer here and he’s my agricultural guru. What he doesn’t know about vines and olive trees isn’t worth knowing. He lives on the farm just beyond my property and he’s been a mine of information.’
‘Well, don’t let me hold you up. Hope to see you at the weekend.’
‘Absolutely. Guinness, come on, we’re off.’
He turned away, and the Labrador dropped back down onto four paws and followed him, leaving Alice almost regretting having the interview tomorrow. Matt had definitely sounded interested, and judging by the way he had been eyeing her, maybe there really was a spark there. As she set off back down the hill again, this time at a much more moderate pace, she knew she was very much looking forward to seeing him again.