Sofia: Welcome home! Phew, indeed. I feel as if Amy needs a bodyguard. When I caught up with her she’d just made friends with a guy her age who seems to be homeless so now she’s sighing over his bad luck. Re. her feelings towards you, she’s a teenager and an underconfident one in many ways. Therefore she acts with hostility if anyone does anything unexpected. But it’s a front. She’s scared and angry and she needs support. Let me think for a few minutes …
She sent that and then saw his second text and her heart skipped. In fact, she found she was thinking more about the fact that Levi missed her than about what she was meant to be thinking about – how to get Levi together with Amy.
While Amy laughed at an ancient episode of Dad’s Army, Sofia tried to work through the options. Should they meet Levi by ‘accident’? She could suggest to Amy they eat at the nearby pub and let Levi know so he could ‘happen along’? No, she felt instinctively that this would be wrong, and the same went for Levi turning up at the Travelodge unannounced. If Amy were to smell a setup then she could easily stop trusting Sofia and the longer Sofia remained the good guy the more support she could be.
Finally, she picked up her phone again.
Sofia: I think we should be as truthful as possible. I’ll tell her you’ve messaged me, give the gist and ask Amy if she’ll agree to meet you so you can explain the reasons behind not telling her your identity in Italy. I’ll emphasise that you’re upset and want to see her. What do you think? x
Levi: Agree. It’s good of you to take on the intermediary role and I’m grateful. I feel really nervous. x
Sofia: Now you’re making me feel nervous! I’m going to offer her time to think about her response so she doesn’t feel under pressure.
Sofia waited until the credits rolled on Captain Mainwaring and his platoon. Then she cleared her throat. ‘Levi messaged to ask if I’d heard from you. He’s arrived home to a phone call from his brother telling him what happened earlier and he’s frantic that you’ve vanished.’
Amy sent her a wary look from beneath her lashes. ‘Oh?’
‘I’ve told him I’m with you and he’s dead relieved. But he wants to know if you’ll meet him so he can explain.’ She paused to try and gauge from Amy’s expression how that idea was going down.
Amy wasn’t giving much away, however. She picked up the TV remote and flipped to the on-screen menu as if more concerned with what else she could find to watch than whether to allow her natural father into her life.
Sofia added, ‘Look, you don’t have to decide right away. In fact, I think you shouldn’t. It’s a big deal. I’m hungry. Why don’t we go get something to eat? You can think about what you want to do. That pub next door looks good and—’
‘I’d rather go back to McDonald’s.’ Amy kept her eyes on the TV screen while her thumb worked the remote. ‘I want to see if Matt’s about.’
‘OK. Let’s do that,’ Sofia agreed, trying to convey an equanimity she didn’t feel at the prospect of having to walk back into the town centre, still feeling washed out from minimal sleep. Also, it was typical of Amy’s tender-heartedness to want to help Matt, who was so obviously in need of a helping hand, but Amy needed support herself.
Amy’s needs weren’t as evident as Aldo’s had been but something about the mixture of uncertainty, shyness, vulnerability and grim determination had awoken a response in Sofia from the first. Maybe she’d become entrenched in the role of caring while she’d been looking after her dad? Whatever, it seemed natural to locate her bag and jacket and fall in step beside Amy as they headed back towards the town centre.
It took them just over twenty minutes on foot, passing a couple of pubs and a clubs. Judging by the groups of girls in tall shoes and high hems, Bettsbrough’s Saturday nightlife was stirring.
It wasn’t actually raining but the July sky was still as grey as if it had fast-forwarded to October. As they stepped onto the beginning of the pedestrian zone Amy asked with what Sofia recognised as carefully contrived indifference, ‘Suppose I do meet Levi, where’s he hoping things will go from there?’
Wary of being underqualified for such an important conversation, Sofia chose her words carefully. ‘I expect that’s one of the things he wants to discuss. My impression is that he wants to be in your life, but I suppose you ought to hear that directly from him.’
She was congratulating herself on carrying that off quite well until Amy answered grumpily, ‘I’ve done OK without him so far. Had to, haven’t I?’ She pointed to her left as they passed Market Square, presently untenanted except for a banner advertising a farmers’ market on Tuesday. ‘If you go up there and follow the road at the top, Gunn’s Motors is just round the curve. Apparently Levi has his own business in the same building.’
‘Yes, he runs—’
‘Look, there’s Matt!’ Amy interrupted, beaming and waving in the other direction.
Sofia hovered in the background as Amy hurried to meet Matt, who detached himself from a group of three other lads and came forward tentatively, hands in pockets. Amy pulled out her collection of coffee bean cards, which Matt, nodding enthusiastically, accepted. Amy, looking a few degrees more relaxed, shrugged and gave a half-laugh. One of the other lads came over and spoke to Amy too, and she smiled shyly from behind her hair.
The boy clapped Matt on the shoulder. Matt nodded and waited until he’d moved off before speaking to Amy again. Amy replied and twice Matt shook his head. Then he backed off with a smile and a hand lifted in farewell, turned and jogged off in the wake of the rest of his group.
Sofia moved up to Amy’s shoulder. ‘OK?’
Amy shrugged disconsolately. ‘I offered Matt a McDonald’s but tonight’s the night he gets to stay at his mates’ place and they’ve got food for him.’
Sofia patted her arm comfortingly, feeling her friend’s confused emotions at not having her offering accepted. ‘Do you still want to eat at McDonald’s? Because I can see an Italian on the other side of the market place. We could check out whether it’s as good as the real thing.’
Amy smiled faintly as she sent a last look after Matt before turning away. ‘Pizza Margherita sounds wicked.’
Sofia tried to chat brightly as they covered the distance to the restaurant, Bella Bella, which promised an authentic taste of Italy in large gold letters across the top of its window. The aromas issuing forth as they opened the door certainly gave the right impression and they hung up their jackets, took a table near the window and prepared to let others wait on them for once.
Amy was mainly silent. Sofia, feeling the need for the bracing qualities of alcohol, ordered a glass of Frascati. Amy went for pear cider but played with the glass more than drinking its contents, staring out of the window at the people coming and going across the square.
When they’d shared a pizza and side salads she sat back. ‘What do you think Levi means about being in my life? I know you said I should ask him. But what do you think?’
Acutely aware that her opinion might sway things, Sofia considered. ‘Nothing negative. He’s not looking to tell you off for not getting your homework in on time or anything like that.’ Amy’s blue-eyed gaze didn’t waver so Sofia knew she wasn’t going to get away with anything that superficial. ‘I assume he wants to continue to get to know you. To be in your life in some form. He’s very focused on knowing you’re OK and stepping up if you need him. But you know that, right? Because that’s what he did in Montelibertà.’
Amy gave combined nod and shrug, as if her agreement was reluctant.
‘And have you heard of The Moron Forum?’ Sofia added, hoping to impress. ‘He owns it. Or shares ownership with a friend, anyway.’
‘Seriously? That’s cool. It’s on the list of stuff we can’t access at school but I’ve read it on my phone. Is he, like, seriously rich then?’
‘He said he’s doing OK.’
Amy fiddled with her napkin, frowning again. She peeped up at Sofia. ‘Were you sort of … seeing him?’
There was noth
ing to gain from lying. ‘Sort of.’ Sofia flushed. ‘If you decide not to meet him, you wouldn’t mind if I did, would you?’
Amy shrugged again but this time looked faintly surprised, as if it was dawning on her that there was more involved here than just her feelings and needs.
They ordered coffee. Sofia floated the subject of the future. Amy looked uncertain. ‘What about us going on somewhere together?’
Sofia was surprised how relieved she felt that Amy was still thinking of them as a unit. She was beginning to realise that her desire to help Amy weather her storm was stronger than her wish to be free from ties and cares. In fact, after the past few weeks of companionship she wondered how much she’d enjoy going solo. ‘I don’t go back on my word. But the summer’s passing by and we’ll probably only get opportunities in Europe until the end of September. After that we’d have to follow the sun and the tourists and look further afield. Or wait it out until we can go to a snow resort and be chalet girls to the skiing fraternity in the Dolomites or the Alps.’
Amy looked interested. ‘I’ve done skiing at home. Germany gets a lot of snow and you don’t have to go that far from Munich to find ski schools.’
As if wanting to join in with their conversation Sofia’s phone began to vibrate in her pocket. She would have declined the call but when she glanced at the screen Chiara’s name flashed up. ‘It’s my cousin in Montelibertà, I’d better answer.’ She did so, speaking quietly in the hopes of not offending anyone’s idea of restaurant/phone etiquette.
Chiara greeted her enthusiastically. ‘Do you know your shifts next weekend yet? We’re having a little party in the hotel gardens for my parents’ wedding anniversary and I wondered if you could come.’ She laughed. ‘I have to be honest, I have an ulterior motive. I hoped that if you were here to help celebrate then Mamma might thaw, and you might find you like Hotel Alba—’
‘Oh, Chiara, I’m sorry,’ Sofia broke in awkwardly, wishing she’d thought to ring her cousin before this. ‘I’m afraid I’m back in the UK at the moment. Something came up and I had to come home.’ Her cheeks heated up.
It was Chiara’s turn to say, ‘Oh.’ Then she sighed. ‘But you said you wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.’
‘I know, I am sorry,’ Sofia repeated wretchedly.
‘Will you return?’ Chiara sounded hopeful now. ‘Papà still has hopes you might—’
‘I’m sure I’ll come back some time,’ Sofia said brightly, wilfully misunderstanding her. ‘I loved Montelibertà. And I’ll keep in touch, I promise.’ She ended the call after a few moments more, conscious of her cousin’s disappointment and Amy’s narrow gaze.
‘You’re going back?’ Amy said.
Sofia shrugged, deliberately downplaying how sorry she was to have disappointed Chiara and making a mental note to call her again soon to apologise again for doing a disappearing act. ‘Sooner or later, I expect.’ Never again seeing Montelibertà gave her a hollow feeling but it seemed unlikely that there would be a job for Amy at Hotel Alba and now was not the time to be drawn into any plans that would exclude her.
But Amy wasn’t fooled. ‘Go if you want. They’re your family,’ she murmured, though her anxious expression said that Sofia going was the last thing Amy wanted.
Tinkling piano music began to swirl from speakers in the corners of the restaurant. It was almost full now, lots of couples out on date night or groups of friends forgetting the working week for a while. Sofia made her voice very soft so occupants of neighbouring tables wouldn’t hear. ‘You actually can trust me, Amy. I said we’d go on together and we will – unless you decide you’d want to go home or something.’
But Amy was shaking her head even as the words hit the air. ‘Not yet. I don’t feel … safe. I need to get my head round things on my own. My mum, she’s quite bossy. If I went home she’d be all right for a few days then gradually start taking over again. And I’d think, like, what gives her the right? If she could keep something incredibly important from me for my whole life?’
A waiter came and lit the tea light on their table, checking whether they’d like to order anything more. Sofia asked him for another latte to justify continuing to occupy the table. ‘Everybody makes mistakes,’ she went on when the waiter had gone, quite glad to have turned the conversation from Chiara’s call because there was no point letting it unsettle Amy. ‘I don’t mean to sound like I’m taking your mum’s side, or Levi’s side, but I think one of the hardest things about becoming an adult is accepting the fallibility of other adults.’
Amy looked struck. ‘Did you have that with your dad?’
‘Of course!’ The waiter returned with the latte and Sofia waited for the cup to be set before her with a little pot of sugar lumps, breathing in the aroma and thinking of Aldo’s love for milky coffee before continuing. ‘I loved my dad to bits but he could be stubborn. Sometimes he refused to follow doctor’s orders so either hurt himself or went through a bad health patch as a consequence. That had a direct impact on me as his carer. He’d do something he wasn’t supposed to and fall and gash his head for example, which would then become infected and he’d be poorly with a fever.
‘Sometimes it made me angry and there would be a heated exchange of views. It took me a while to accept that he was just making a decision based on his wish not to be such an invalid, to do things for himself. In time I became more capable of seeing things from Dad’s point of view. One of those coming-of-age things, I guess.’
Amy’s eyes widened. ‘I thought you and your dad had this fantastic relationship and you’d been like that Florence Nightingale woman.’
‘Life’s rarely that simple,’ Sofia admitted sadly.
‘Why does everything have to be so hard?’ A tear gathered at the corner of Amy’s eye. ‘Matt said I’m lucky because he’d like a dad who wanted a relationship with him, rather than a stepdad who chucked him out when he was eighteen. His real dad moved away and lost touch with Matt when he was only little.’
Sofia’s heart went out to both Matt and Amy, struggling with such serious issues in their young lives. She passed over a clean napkin and stroked Amy’s arm consolingly until she’d finished blotting her eyes, leaving little crescent moons of mascara across the napkin’s white surface.
Just as Sofia was about to suggest they wander back towards the Travelodge Amy heaved a sigh almost big enough to blow over the pepper grinder. ‘OK. You can tell Levi I’ll meet him.’
Only just preventing herself from laughing at Amy’s martyred air, Sofia smiled understandingly instead and took out her phone. ‘I’ll send you his number and you can arrange it with him direct.’
Panic raced across Amy’s features. ‘But you’ll be there with me, won’t you?’
Wrong-footed, Sofa paused. ‘I hadn’t thought of it. I can be, if you want.’
‘I do. And please can you be the one to text him, as well? I don’t know what to say. And I don’t want to meet him tonight.’
Amy sat back and folded her arms as if throwing up a fence but, beginning to feel the effects of fragmented sleep over the past couple of days, Sofia was quite glad to hear they weren’t instantly plunging into another drama. ‘OK. I’ll try to arrange it for tomorrow.’
Amy screwed up her face in thought. ‘Can it be Monday? At McDonald’s for lunch?’
Sofia gazed at her friend, wondering whether Matt was going to get an invitation to join them, but she didn’t want to derail the peacemaking process by questioning Amy too closely. ‘OK. The motel doesn’t seem full so I presume we can stay a bit longer.’ Any way that got Levi and Amy talking was a good way.
And it meant that Sofia would see Levi again.
Chapter Twenty-four
Levi endured an uncomfortable Saturday evening. Once he’d received reassurance that Amy was safe but he had to wait for her ruling on the matter of meeting up, he decided he’d better visit his parents at home and clear the air.
It was surreal to sit in the lounge of the house in which he’d
been brought up and talk to them about the existence of his daughter of eighteen. They were understandably concerned about what had befallen her since she scarpered from Gunn’s Motors but to say they were stunned by the whole episode and disappointed in the way he’d handled it was an understatement.
‘Why didn’t you just tell us?’ they kept demanding, his mum slightly tearful and his dad showing signs of the pugnacity that had earned him his nickname.
Levi lost count of the number of times he went over it. ‘I wanted to be certain of the facts before I told you, and then I wanted to give you the news in person.’
Val instantly moved on to ‘Why didn’t you tell her who you were?’
At the same instant, Bryan demanded, ‘But are you certain? What about a DNA test?’
‘Don’t be silly!’ Val countered. ‘He doesn’t need a DNA test, you only have to look at her. Her eyes are exactly the colour mine were when I was younger, and she’s got the Gunn chin.’
Bryan stuck out the chin in question. ‘That’s not very scientific.’
‘She’s mine,’ Levi put in quietly. ‘I’ve known from the moment I saw her. I’m sorry you’re shocked but I had no idea until Freya got in touch with me in May.’
Bryan shook his head and took his glasses off to polish them on his shirt. ‘May? But it’s July! Why didn’t you just tell us? It’s been a funny summer. I feel as if I hardly know my own son. And that Octavia woman Wes took up with. Do you know her?’
‘Of course he does,’ Val interrupted. ‘She’s the one who found his phone when he lost it, just before he went away. But she’s very odd, Levi.’
Warily, he nodded. ‘I thought so too. But why bring her up now?’
Bryan put his glasses back on. ‘She was supposed to be working in your office upstairs but she hung around downstairs all the time.’
‘There’s no Ladies upstairs,’ Val pointed out.
‘She had to come down for that,’ Bryan allowed. ‘But she didn’t have to hang round asking twenty questions about Levi, did she?’
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