What Happens in Tuscany...

by T A Williams

  Nando knew straight away. As Tom had told her at the garden party, it was a short drive away, over the hills to the south. ‘In my van, maybe half an hour. In that sporty German car, you’ll do it in half that time, I’m sure.’

  ‘He’s put his phone number down, Victoria. Why don’t you call him?’

  ‘Rosina, is there a telephone here in the villa?’

  Rosina shook her head. ‘When your father informed us he wouldn’t be coming over for a while, he told us to have it disconnected. We have a line at our house you are very welcome to use. Or, of course, you can use your mobile.’ Victoria nodded. Here on the hillside there should be no trouble with a signal, and they could access their email via their phones. She finished her tea and looked across at Katie. ‘I don’t know about you, but I could do with a shower.’

  Katie nodded in agreement. After the long drive, that was exactly what she wanted as well. She caught Rosina’s eye. ‘Could we go to our rooms now? It would be nice to freshen up.’

  Rosina jumped to her feet and led them up the broad curving staircase. Katie smiled as she saw the expression of resignation on the face of the Labrador, abandoned on the ground floor. Their rooms were on the first floor and they were magnificent. They were side by side, overlooking the terrace along the front of the house, directly above the main steps leading up to the door. Victoria disappeared into her room, uttering little squeals of delight. Katie had to work hard to avoid doing the same as she opened the door to her own room.

  It was enormous. A massive wooden bed, a wardrobe the size of a bathroom and a huge chest of drawers lined the walls. Through a half open door she spotted a bathroom big enough for a rugby team. Thought of rugby teams reminded her of Martin. She had spoken to him on the phone a couple of times before leaving the UK and had enjoyed hearing from him again. She definitely got the impression that he was very keen on her, as Jenny had said. For her part, she found him very appealing. Her eyes flicked across to the huge double bed, but she shook her head impatiently. He was in England. She was in Tuscany, and that was that, at least until she returned to England.

  She walked over to the open window and pushed the louvered shutters which had been closed against the heat. Warm air and bright light flooded into the room. She leant out of the window and took a good look round. To the west, the brown ribbon of the river Arno meandered off in the direction of Pisa and the sea. To the right, just visible through the branches of the trees, was Florence. By standing on a chair, leaning perilously outwards and squinting hard, Katie was just about able to make out the familiar rounded shape of the Duomo, shimmering in the haze created by a mixture of heat and pollution. This was another awesome house in an awesome position. Victoria’s father certainly had an eye for the right property in the right place. What was it they said; location, location, location? Katie closed the shutters once more and set about her luggage.

  Their bags had been brought up to the rooms while they were having their tea, and she spent some time unpacking her clothes and hanging them in the enormous wardrobe. When the bags were finally empty, she stripped and headed for the shower. As she was walking into the bathroom, she heard her phone. She turned back, picked it up and looked at the caller ID. It was Jenny.

  ‘Hi, Jen, how’s things?’

  ‘Hi, Katie, have you got there yet?’

  ‘Yes, we just hit Tuscany a few hours ago. It’s an absolutely magnificent villa, and I’ve just been looking out over the river Arno towards Florence. Not too shabby at all. How are you?’

  ‘Cold and wet. The weather’s absolutely bloody awful’ They chatted for a few minutes before Jenny came to the point. ‘So who did I see in the Crown last night?’

  ‘Just don’t tell me it was Dean.’

  ‘No, no fear on that score. My spies tell me he does his drinking at the Dog and Duck nowadays.’

  ‘So, if it wasn’t him, who was it? Martin?’

  ‘Bingo! And he didn’t stop talking about you the whole time.’ There was a pause. ‘You’ve definitely made a conquest there, Katie.’

  ‘Well, he’s going to have to wait a month or so. Let’s see how I feel when I get back to Bournemouth.’

  ‘He told me he’s starting a new job in London this summer.’

  Katie had forgotten that. ‘Of course. Well, we’ll see when I get back to the UK.’

  ‘Anything you say, but you could do a lot worse. Tall, handsome, brainy; don’t leave it too long, I might have a go at him myself. You don’t want to lose this one.’

  ‘Like I say, we’ll see.’

  ‘You said that before.’ Then Jenny decided to let her off the hook. ‘Now, you enjoy yourself and get a bit of sunshine for me too. I’m off to put on a jumper.’

  ‘I’m sitting here stark naked and I’m still hot. Thanks for the call, Jen. Bye.’

  Katie dropped the phone back on the bed and stood up. She thought long and hard about what Jenny had said. She was still thinking about it as she dried herself after a wonderful cool shower. There was a tap at the door. She wrapped the towel around herself and opened it. It was Rosina.

  ‘Excuse me, Signorina Caterina. Would it be convenient if we serve dinner in half an hour?’

  ‘Of course, Rosina, as long as that suits Victoria.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve already spoken to her and she said to ask you.’

  ‘I’ll be down in five minutes. And, Rosina, please just call me Katie. No need for the Signorina.’

  ‘Katie…Katie…’ She experimented with the sound. ‘Of course. From now on, you are Katie.’

  ‘That’s great and please, Rosina, tell your husband too. OK?’

  Ten minutes later Katie went downstairs to find Victoria out in the courtyard, sipping a glass of white wine. ‘Here, Katie, you have to try this, if you haven’t before. It’s vin santo.’

  During her year in Florence, Katie had already tried and enjoyed this naturally strong wine, more like a sherry than a table wine. She accepted a small glass and sat back, still mulling over what Jenny had told her. On the one hand it was nice to be wanted. On the other was the doubt about whether she was ready for launching into another relationship.

  Victoria had also been thinking about a man. ‘I phoned Tom. He’s asked us over for lunch tomorrow. He said to bring our swimming things as they’ve got a pool.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘He’s there with his sister Beatrice and her daughter. You remember them, don’t you?’

  Katie had to admit that the prospect of a good lunch and a swim sounded very good. ‘Sounds great. This’ll give you a chance to show off one of your new bikinis.’ Victoria had bought two in Geneva, along with a sleek one-piece costume. Katie had deliberately averted her eyes when the total was rung up. In an exclusive boutique inside a five star plus hotel, she knew they wouldn’t come cheap.

  She caught Victoria’s eye and sensed insecurity. ‘Bit of a daunting prospect?’ Victoria gave her a little smile.

  ‘You know me so well, don’t you?’ She took another sip of wine. ‘It’s a pretty scary proposition, really, when you think about it. For me, any social event is a bit intimidating after my years of seclusion. Add to that the fact that I’ve never worn a bikini before and never spent time half naked in male company. Then there’s the male company itself. I’m not used to that at all, especially attractive male company.’ She was blushing by this time. Katie was about to do her best to bolster her spirits when Rosina arrived to lead them in to dinner.

  ‘I’ve set up in the small dining room, seeing as there are just the two of you. I hope that’s all right.’ They both nodded their agreement and followed her into an enormous room. The table could happily have seated twenty people. As Rosina went off to the kitchen, Katie whispered to Victoria.

  ‘Thank God she’s put us in the small dining room. We’d have needed megaphones to talk to each other in the big one!’ Victoria giggled.

  ‘I wonder where my father used to eat. At least there are two of us, but he would have been all alo
ne down here. Surely not in here. Maybe in his study.’

  Rosina reappeared immediately with a large plate loaded with slices of toasted bread, some covered with pieces of tomato, some with pâté, some just rubbed with garlic and drizzled with olive oil. They were amazing. She told them the unlabelled bottle on the table contained last year’s red wine that her husband had been raving about. Lunch for the girls had been an ice cream at a motorway service area somewhere in Piedmont, so both of them were hungry. It all looked and smelt delightful. Nevertheless, Katie issued a few words of warning.

  ‘If we eat like this every day, we’re going to double in size!’ The expression of fear returned to Victoria’s face, not helped by the arrival of Rosina with a huge plate of sliced ham and different types of salami. Katie set about cheering her up. ‘Victoria, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re slim, you’re young, you can eat and drink whatever you want and you’ll still look great. It’s old women like me who have to be careful.’

  ‘Thirty is old?’

  ‘Well it’s five years older than you.’ Katie picked up the bottle and poured the wine. Predictably, it tasted every bit as good as Nando had said.

  Victoria reached across and clinked her glass against hers. ‘Cheers, Katie, and thanks for all the driving, and all the other stuff.’ Katie gave her a big smile.

  ‘As for tomorrow, Victoria, you’ve nothing to fear. Umm, this ham is really, really good. You are going to enjoy yourself immensely tomorrow. I promise you it’ll be a great day. What’s not to like? Food, sun and an adoring man.’ Catching Victoria’s eye, she elaborated. ‘And he will be adoring. You look great, you have that air of mystery and, although brains don’t always rank too high on male radar, you are very intelligent.’ She deliberately omitted the fact that she was also a multi-millionaire. ‘It’ll be a great day.’

  Victoria didn’t look convinced, but the food and wine helped, as well as Katie’s words. By the time Rosina appeared to remove the remains of the antipasti, she was feeling a good deal happier at the prospect of the next day’s lunch. The arrival of a steaming bowl of pasta reduced them to stunned silence until Rosina returned with a pair of huge raw T-bone steaks and asked how they would like them cooked. They both managed to beg her not to give them meat, after everything else they had already eaten, for fear of dire consequences. Rosina tut-tutted about them needing to keep their energy levels up and went back to the kitchen to return the steaks to the fridge.

  The meal ended with bowls of Rosina’s home-made crème caramel and scalding cups of espresso coffee. Both girls were full to bursting by the end and decided that an evening stroll might be a good idea.

  Outside, the sun was just reaching the horizon, spreading a red glow across the land. As they stood on the terrace, admiring the view and savouring the relative cool of the evening, the dog appeared as if by magic. They set off down the steps and along the gravel drive through the trees, the temperature now more bearable. The big dog accompanied them all the way, apparently pleased to have company.

  ‘I see we’ve got a guard dog.’ Katie could feel him rubbing against her legs from time to time. She wasn’t used to dogs, but it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. They came out of the trees and followed the drive up to the right, in the opposite direction from the way they had come. It curved upwards until it reached what had obviously been designed as an observation platform. A pair of umbrella pines spread their shady branches over a stone bench, facing east. They stood beside it and savoured the view. The ground fell away in front of them as far as a distant field of vines. Beyond them was more hillside and beyond that in the lengthening shadows, was Florence. The setting sun picked out the roofs of the city, turning them blood red.

  ‘That is truly spectacular.’ Katie had never seen the great city from this angle, at this time of day. It really was breathtaking.

  ‘This deserves a photo.’ Victoria had her phone in her hand. After she had taken a couple of shots, Katie offered a suggestion.

  ‘This deserves a very special selfie.’

  ‘Selfie?’ Victoria looked back towards her.

  Katie pulled her down onto the bench and showed her how to take a self-portrait. They turned, so the city was behind them, and Victoria extended her arm and took a couple more photos. ‘I’ll email these to you. You can send them to your friends.’

  Katie couldn’t help hearing the note of sadness in her voice. After her long years of segregation from the rest of society, the fact was that Victoria just didn’t have many friends.

  They stared out over the Tuscan hillside. The roofs of Florence had all but disappeared as the sun sank below the horizon behind their backs. Only the Duomo, Giotto’s Campanile and the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio were still discernible in the last rays. In a very few minutes, darkness would have fallen completely. From the shadows at their feet there was a movement and Katie felt something against her leg. She jumped, but then remembered the dog. She reached down and scratched his ears. He grunted with contentment. She stroked him for a few moments and then looked across at Victoria.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, Victoria, you know, about you and being shut up in the house for all these years.’ She saw that she had Victoria’s full attention now. ‘You realise that you’ve got what nobody else ever has, don’t you? You’ve got the chance to make a fresh start. You mention my friends and, yes, I’ve got a number of friends, specially Jenny, who you’ve met. Some of them are great, but there are an awful lot of people from my past who are anything but friends. People like the headmistress of the school where I worked, miserable old cow, not to mention some of the parents of the girls I was teaching and, of course, my ex, Dean.’

  Victoria heard her tone. ‘Don’t talk about it if it upsets you, Katie.’

  ‘No, sometimes it’s good to talk.’ Slowly and hesitantly, she told Victoria pretty much the whole story, from the first time she had met Dean, just after leaving university, to their acrimonious split. She told her about the way things had just got worse and worse until the stripper episode which hardly mattered. Things had been going sour for so long, the end had been inevitable. She realised this now, but it had taken her months, maybe years for it to sink in fully. By the time she had finished, she really did feel better. It really was good to talk. She ended with a few words for Victoria. ‘So you see, Victoria, your period of seclusion and your relative lack of friends isn’t necessarily such a bad thing. At least you’ve avoided all that sort of heartache.’

  There was a long silence before Victoria answered. ‘I tell you this, Katie, there were times when I would have given my right arm for some of that heartache. And just because I didn’t have those sorts of problems doesn’t mean I didn’t have problems. When you’re on your own like I was, it isn’t easy.’ There was a pause while she did her best to collect herself. ‘You know, I really envy you your experiences, your relationships, even your failed relationships. We need the highs and the lows in our lives. Without the misery, you don’t know what true happiness is. Without loss, how can you know what love is?’ There was a pause while she caught her breath. ‘I really do, Katie, I envy you so, so much.’

  Katie couldn’t see her face, but she could tell she was crying. She reached out her hand and caught Victoria’s, determined to comfort her. ‘And you will have them, Vicky, you will. You’ve come to it all a bit later than the rest of us, but you’ve got here now. You’re beautiful, you’re clever, you’ve got enough money to do whatever you want. And, above all, you’re in the amazing position of being able to pick your friends. You don’t have the heaps of unwanted memories the rest of us have to cart around. You just wait and see what the next twelve months bring you. You won’t recognise your life by this time next year. Honest.’ As she spoke, she felt the dog move across to Victoria’s side. Sensing her grief, he laid his big head in her lap. Victoria ruffled his ears with one hand and rubbed her eyes with the other.

  ‘We never had a dog at home. I always wanted one, but my father was against the
idea. Maybe he thought it might harm me. I really don’t know.’ She addressed herself to the dog. ‘So do you feel sorry for me, too? Poor little rich girl, who’s had such a hard time in the lap of luxury?’ She turned her face towards Katie, her voice strengthening. ‘From now on I no longer want, or deserve, sympathy. Like you said, I’ve got here now and, by Jove, I’m going to make up for lost time. And if…when I find myself with these sorts of problems, I want you to remind me of this moment here tonight. I want you to remind me that I am looking forward to heartache, looking forward to problems, looking forward, sooner or later, to love and loss.’ She pulled out a tissue and blew her nose. Katie decided to lighten the mood. She released her grip on Victoria’s hand and gave her a word of advice.

  ‘Just one thing: “by Jove”; not really used these days. I think the last person to use that expression was Mr Darcy himself. Try using something a bit more modern. Try, “by God” instead of good old Jove or, if you really want to get colloquial, something like “I’m bloody well going to make up for lost time”. Got it?’

  ‘Got it. In fact, I’ve bloody well got it. How does that sound.’

  ‘Excellent. Just don’t tell the queen next time she invites you for dinner that you’re bloody well looking forward to it. Capito?’

  ‘Capito.’ There was a happier note in her voice. ‘And another thing; back there you just called me Vicky. I really like that. Would you mind calling me Vicky from now on?’

  ‘With the greatest of pleasure, Vicky.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Victoria, Katie, how great to see you.’ Tom came running out of the house at the sound of their car coming up the drive.

  It was another cloudless day, already stiflingly hot although it wasn’t yet noon. Katie slid the car in alongside a red Fiat and switched off the engine. A cloud of dust from the rough track up which they had driven wafted over them and began to settle on the leather upholstery. They climbed out of the car and shook his hand. He looked and sounded extremely pleased to see them.