One Summer in Italy

by Sue Moorcroft

  ‘Levi? Levi?’ Amy felt as if she was going to faint and actually did have to put her head down to her knees for a moment. Voices swam in and out of her ears. The lady – if she was Bryan’s wife then it looked as if she was Amy’s grandmother – crouched down beside Amy and patted her shoulder.

  Tyrone went off somewhere and came back with a glass of cold water. ‘Can you sit up? Have a few sips.’

  Amy did. It seemed to stop her skin from pumping out sweat. She looked around at the three concerned faces. Levi. It had to be the same Levi from Casa Felice, the nice guest who’d helped Amy out with Davide. The guest who stayed ages at the hotel, painting watercolours and who had such an obvious liking for Sofia. She looked at Tyrone again. That’s why he’d seemed familiar! Not because she’d recognised her father but because of the resemblance he bore to Levi. She sipped from the glass until it was empty, than she put it down. Her hands clenched into fists so tight that her nails dug into her palms. ‘Sorry,’ Amy managed to say to Tyrone. ‘But I was told he worked here and the boy outside told me that you did.’

  He nodded, comprehension in his eyes. ‘I work in the garage with Dad but Levi has an office in the building, too. Upstairs. For his own business.’

  The lady glanced at Bryan. ‘It would explain why Levi made such sudden plans to spend time in Europe.’

  Bryan heaved a great sigh as he gazed at Amy. ‘You’ve just beaten him here by a day or so. He’s due back tomorrow. I think you’d better talk to him then.’

  At the idea of facing Levi, the Levi she’d known for weeks, the Levi who’d kept it secret who he was, Amy’s anger reared up again full force. Talk to him? Talk to him? The man who was too cowardly and deceitful to admit to being her dad but put on a pretence of being a kind stranger instead?

  Suddenly the power came back to her legs and she jumped up, making the older couple – her grandparents – shuffle back from their crouched positions on the floor before her. ‘That won’t be necessary!’ she barked, like her mum did when she was outraged. Then she blundered past everybody, uncaring if she bowled anybody off their feet. Her legs told her to run.

  And so she ran.

  Unaware of her feet touching the floor she ran out of the building and onto the pavement outside, past the boy still working on the white car. Behind her she could hear a man’s voice shouting, ‘Amy? Amy!’ She thought it was Tyrone but she closed her ears and pushed her legs faster until she almost tripped.

  When she finally stopped, her breath like fire in her throat and her chest aching, she was in an unfamiliar part of town where black iron benches were artistically arranged amidst flower tubs on a paved area, a refuge from the road running alongside. As if in stark counterpoint to the prettiness, she saw a young man hunched on a sleeping bag in a shop doorway, hair tied back and clothes grubby. Amy sank down onto one of the benches, legs like rubber. Her hair slid down to shield her face while she tried to make sense of her once-pleasant-and-predictable life.

  Her thoughts raced even faster than her heart.

  What the hell had Levi been playing at? She felt stupid, humiliated, that he’d known who she was when she hadn’t had a clue about him. Even if she couldn’t summon a coherent argument to support it, her overwhelming feeling was one of betrayal. She closed her eyes, adrenalin draining from her system so fast it made her light-headed.

  What the hell should she do next? Jean had told her she could reserve the room at the Airbnb again tonight if she texted by noon. Soon, she promised herself. Soon. Once she knew the answer to ‘What the hell should she do next?’

  It was disorienting to realise she’d nothing to stay in England for, but she had nothing to go anywhere else for either and the mere idea of making decisions, going on the internet and paying for things, made her feel sick with anxiety. Should she return to Italy? The idea of her still having a job at Casa Felice was laughable and finding another would take time. Back to the secrets and betrayals of home? That made her feel as if sadness had set like concrete inside her. Then again … the prospect of never seeing her family made tears slip down her face.

  When it came to it, she had no more direction than the homeless guy over there. He looked to be about her own age and she didn’t want to end up sharing his doorway.

  She could contact her grandparents in Hendon, but the fact that there hadn’t been a stream of calls and texts from Nana this summer told her that Amy’s mum hadn’t rushed to share the news of the family upset with her own parents. Wearily drawing up her knees and resting her forehead on them she supposed that it didn’t matter how old you were, your parents always thought they could poke their noses into your life and Mum probably wasn’t super-keen to hear Nana’s thoughts on what had happened.

  The bench turned cold beneath her as the sun went in and the wind sharpened its edge. She stopped trying to think. Everything was too difficult. The world was too tough a place to live in. She felt empty and drawn in.

  After a few moments, she recognised the feeling as hunger. When had she last eaten? She’d been too nervous to eat breakfast at the Airbnb and had drunk orange juice instead; Jean had been jokingly exasperated with her turning down Full English.

  Sitting up, she noticed the homeless guy watching her from his doorway. He didn’t look away when he saw her looking at him. Maybe living on the street made him immune to the usual conventions. Or maybe he was so used to people hurrying by without catching his eye that he thought he’d become invisible.

  But not invisible to everyone, it seemed, because at that moment an old Ford Fiesta slowed at the point where the road met the paving and young men hung out of every window pointing and hooting at the homeless guy, jeering, shouting things Amy didn’t catch. The homeless guy gave a roar of rage and leaped to his feet, kicking away the sleeping bag and racing fruitlessly at the car as it accelerated just enough to keep ahead of him as he screamed, ‘Fucking bastards!’ after it.

  Giving up the unequal race, he returned to his doorway with slow, beaten-down steps, wiping his eyes on the cuffs of his hoody. He dropped back down to the ground and glanced around to see whether anyone had taken any notice. When nobody showed a sign of it, his shoulders heaved on a sigh and he returned to just sitting, gazing down the street with a distant stare.

  Shaken by the casual cruelty of what she’d just witnessed, Amy stumbled to her feet and hurried across the paving towards a nearby McDonalds. Inside, she chose at the touch-screen, having to concentrate as she was used to the German version. When the order was ready to collect she asked for a separate bag for each of the meals.

  Outside again, the two warm bags clutched against her and the aroma of fresh fries wafting up to her, the task she’d set herself seemed suddenly enormous. But she looked at her destination doorway, squared her shoulders and began to walk. This wasn’t even the hardest thing she’d had to do this morning.

  The homeless guy looked up as she approached, his eyes on her bags of food but without any hope or expectation. He didn’t raise his eyes to her face until Amy stopped a step away from him. She cleared her throat. ‘Chicken McSandwich or Big Mac?’

  His eyes widened. ‘Me? Why?’

  ‘Because,’ Amy shrugged weakly, not really knowing how to explain the urge to feed him just like she’d fed that dog in Montelibertà.

  ‘Oh. Um, Mac, please.’

  ‘Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Coffee. Please.’

  His expression turned from disbelief to delight as she checked she had the right drink before handing it to him along with one of the brown paper bags, wishing him ‘Guten appetit.’

  ‘Thank you! Thank you so much, that’s really kind!’ he called after her as she went over to one of the black benches to begin her own meal, cringing inside that she’d wished him guten appetit. Could she have said anything more likely to highlight the differences between them, she from her solidly middle-class family and well-travelled background, he from a doorway of a charity shop that had closed down? Why hadn’t she just served his M
cDonald’s up with a linen napkin and on a silver tray?

  She snorted with unexpected laughter at the thought that Benedetta would no doubt have snapped at her to carry her tray up on her shoulder as she’d been taught.

  Then suddenly she was aware of the homeless guy approaching her, casting a look back at his sleeping bag as if to check nobody was going to steal it while his back was turned, cradling his McDonald’s to his chest. Hesitantly, he sat down on the bench beside hers, a move that seemed to be calculated to be close enough to talk while showing her he wasn’t about to encroach on her space.

  ‘That was so nice of you,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ Everything about him was just less than clean and very worn. Though his hair was tied back it looked unbrushed.

  Amy felt shy. ‘I felt bad for you. Those guys in the car …’

  He laughed bitterly. ‘Yeah. They were the bullies at my school and they think it’s funny. My name’s Matt and I live in a doorway so they call me “Doormat”. Hilarious, eh?’

  She suddenly realised that that was what the horrible men had been shouting. ‘Hey, Doormat!’ ‘I hope they crash their shitty car!’ she declared.

  He laughed again, properly this time. ‘Me, too. Well, thanks again.’ He rose and returned to his doorway, settling again onto his sleeping bag to eat fries as if savouring every one.

  And that was when Amy realised the difference between her and him. She had choices.

  She stopped feeling defeated and, flushing with mortification at her recent pity party, acknowledged that the number of her choices was magnified by having money and someone to turn to.

  ‘Stop snivelling,’ she told herself aloud. She took out her phone and scrolled down her contacts list until she could tap on Sofia Bianchi.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  After only snatches of sleep overnight on the train and plane as she tried to make up Amy’s half-day head start, Sofia climbed aboard the Peterborough to Bettsbrough bus just before midday, dragging along her suitcases and a giant headache. Having booked online for two nights at the Bettsbrough Travelodge, she was grateful to a kind lady bus-seat partner who told her when it was her stop and ensured the driver gave her time to heave all her luggage onto the pavement. By the time Sofia had lugged herself and her belongings to her room all she wanted to do was sleep.

  She threw off her clothes and dropped into bed, not even having the energy to unpack a nightie. Cool sheets. Soft pillows. Bliss …

  She dreamed she was back in Italy, trying to talk to Levi on the sun-soaked terrace of Casa Felice. Benedetta bore down on them, but a familiar tune was emerging from her pursed lips instead of angry words. It was just like the jingle of Sophia’s phone when it rang.

  Waking with a start, she realised the noise actually was the ringing of her phone. Groaning because she felt as if she’d hardly slept at all, she scrabbled to pick up her handset. Then, reading the name on the screen, she blinked herself to full consciousness. ‘Amy?’

  ‘Hello,’ said a flat little voice.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Suppose. Why is everything so crap?’

  ‘Life does get a bit like that sometimes.’ Sofia rubbed her eyes, hoping she was sounding sympathetic and philosophical but also truthful. She pulled herself into a sitting position. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In Bettsbrough.’

  Sofia laughed. ‘Me, too.’

  For the first time in the conversation Amy sounded something other than dreary and lost. ‘Seriously? Why?’

  ‘Well …’ Sofia screwed up her eyes and crossed the fingers of the hand not holding the phone. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I wanted to see you were all right. I promised … you that we’d move on together.’ She’d nearly said promised Levi I’d look out for you. ‘So I followed you over. You seemed to have a lot on your plate.’ She waited, apprehensive in case Amy took umbrage.

  But Amy choked, ‘Mind? Of course I don’t mind! You’re so fantastic, Sofia. Have you really come all this way just to be with me? When everybody else in my life is feeding me shit it’s you, someone I’ve only known a couple of months, that’s there for me. I found out today …’ Her voice wobbled piteously. ‘I found out today that my real dad’s Levi! That’s why he was at Casa Felice! He knew who I was all the time and ne-ever said a thing.’ Then Amy burst into tears.

  Shoving guilt aside, Sofia swallowed hard. ‘How did you find that out?’ she demanded in what she hoped was an astonished tone. Her shame at having been in possession of this knowledge for ages brought tears prickling to her eyes but she recognised that if there was ever a time to come clean with Amy, this definitely was not it. If Sofia had been cast in the role of ‘only friend’ or even ‘only hope’ then what was best for Amy was for Sofia to live up to expectations.

  Amy launched into a story of imperfect research and mistaken identity, sniffing all the while, as Sofia tried to get the gist of this latest episode of the younger girl’s recently chaotic life. ‘It all sounds incredibly upsetting for everybody,’ she concluded. Then, just to put something positive out there, ‘He must have been at Casa Felice for some reason though, don’t you think?’

  ‘Mum sent him to spy on me, obviously!’ Amy all but snarled.

  OK, so Amy was not yet open to positives and as, actually, she wasn’t too far from the truth, Sofia decided to focus on what she hoped would be the most immediate and practical help. ‘Give me some idea of where you are and I’ll come and find you.’

  ‘I’m on some seats in a pedestrian area near McDonald’s in the town centre,’ Amy said with a loud sniff.

  ‘I’ll head your way now. Sit tight until I get there.’ Having received the necessary assurances, Sofia ended the call and stumbled out of bed. Knowing she was no good to Amy shambling around like a zombie, she staggered into the bathroom and switched on the shower. While she waited for it to heat up she typed the meeting-place details into her Notes app and saw from her phone’s home screen that it was 13.47 on Friday 6th July. No wonder she felt as if she’d hardly had any sleep.

  She’d hardly had any sleep.

  ‘Less than one hour,’ she moaned piteously. Nevertheless, she forced herself to stagger into the shower. She had to go and find Amy.

  It was another hour, following directions kindly furnished to her by the desk clerk, before she passed McDonald’s, homed in on the nearby benches and spotted Amy’s blonde head with a heart-thump of relief.

  As Sofia hurried over she realised Amy was talking to someone on the next bench. ‘There you are!’ she sang gaily, as she arrived, trying not to look too askance at the shabby young man Amy was talking to.

  Breaking off the conversation, Amy leaped to her feet and flung her arms around Sofia’s neck. ‘I can’t believe you came back to England just for me! It must have cost tons.’

  Gladly, Sofia returned Amy’s hug. The thin shoulders within her embrace made Amy seem newly vulnerable. ‘Are you OK? Did you find somewhere to stay?’ The scruffy guy had risen too and was watching them with a wary expression. He glanced over his shoulder at where a sleeping bag lay in a shop doorway.

  Amy disengaged, wiping the corner of her eyes with her fingers but beaming through her tears. ‘I Googled “cheap places to stay in Bettsbrough” and got an Airbnb. It used to be a granny annexe at the side of a house.’ She half-turned, including the scruffy guy in the conversation. ‘This is Matt. We’ve been swapping hard-luck stories.’ Amy’s smile faded and worry clouded her blue eyes instead.

  ‘I just came over because she seemed upset,’ Matt put in swiftly, shuffling back as if he expected Sofia to object. He glanced at the sleeping bag again.

  Bemused, Sofia smiled politely at Matt, taking in his possessions in the doorway and his dishevelment. Amy had befriended him? Most people confined their contact with the homeless to the occasional purchase of The Big Issue.

  Matt looked still less comfortable. ‘Right, well, good to meet you, Amy. I hope things work out. Thanks again.’ He backed away a
few steps then headed back to the doorway, scooped up his sleeping bag and backpack and hurried off.

  Amy watched him go. She sighed as she turned back to Sofia. ‘Poor Matt. He’s in a fix because his stepdad told the council that he’d left home of his own accord, even though it was his stepdad who actually told him to leave because he was eighteen and it was time he looked after himself. So the council have to decide whether Matt’s intentionally homeless and he’s not getting much help while it gets sorted out. He sleeps on his friends’ floor once a week so he can at least get a shower and put his clothes through their washing machine so he doesn’t stink too much. They say he can stay more but he knows they’ve hardly got any money and they’re looking for someone else to move in. He thinks no one would agree to live there and share rent if he was dossing in the sitting room. It’s really shitty. He’s scared of the hostels so he’s roughing it on the streets for the summer and crossing his fingers that the council will have offered him something by the time the cold weather comes. He hates the idea of going to one of the homeless charities. He desperately needs a job but it’s not as easy as you think.’

  ‘Wow, I hope he gets sorted out,’ Sofia said inadequately, gazing after the diminishing figure sympathetically. She waited to see if Amy had more to say, and when she remained silent, suggested, ‘Shall we chat over coffee? I’m parched.’

  Amy nodded immediately. ‘Yeah, McDonald’s, because I’ve had an idea about them.’

  Sofia decided not to ask.

  A few minutes later, over coffee for her and Sprite for Amy, Sofia learnt what had befallen Amy at Gunn’s Motors.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it when they said the name of Levi and that he’d been in Europe for weeks,’ Amy declared indignantly. ‘I never heard his surname, I suppose.’

  ‘Working in Il Giardino you’d never have to know it.’ Sofia watched Amy squeaking her straw in and out of her Sprite before asking gently, ‘Any ideas of your next step?’

  ‘Not really.’ Amy frowned.

  ‘What about the Gunn family? Were they nice people?’ Sofia felt a little shock of realisation. Levi had never replied to any of her texts or voicemail messages! The fact had flitted in and out of her mind while she’d been travelling but she’d told herself she’d sort it out when she got to her destination. Instead, she’d fallen into bed.