by T A Williams
Sarah shook her head decisively. ‘Don’t even think it. Your place is here. Hall’s Tours is part of who you are.’
Paul dropped his head. ‘I’m not sure Miles sees it that way.’
‘Listen, Paul, I’ve been watching you this last week, helping people, encouraging people, always smiling, always joking. There’s a really happy vibe here and a lot of it’s down to you. Do something for me, will you? Sit down with your big brother and just talk. You’re both great guys and you’ll work it out. Please, will you do that for me?’
There was another pause before a smile split his face and he winked at her. ‘When a half-naked girl asks me to do something for her, how can I refuse? And when that girl’s you, Sarah, there’s no question. I promise, Scouts’ honour, that I’ll talk to him.’ His grin broadened. ‘There’s something about a red-faced girl in a towel that’s just a bit too small…’
‘I think this is the moment you disappear, Paul.’ Sarah could feel herself blushing. ‘Leave Thursday night’s arrangements with me. It’ll need to be done in Italian, but it’s late now. I’ll get started on it in the morning and I’ll let you know how I get on.’
‘Can I help? Just tell me what to do. Anything at all.’
‘Like I say, leave it with me. I’ll let you know if I need help.’ She was quite sure she didn’t need any more “help” from Paul.
‘Erm, Sarah, are you going to tell Miles?’
She looked at him. His expression was now one of grave concern. At least, she told herself, he had had the gumption to admit his mistake as soon as he had discovered it, rather than try to muddle through with some kind of half-assed solution. She shook her head. ‘I won’t say a word to Miles, Paul, but just promise me you and your brother will sit down and have a good, long talk. You’ve got to sort things out between the two of you, for all our sakes. If the company goes down, then I lose my job, just like everybody else.’ She stopped for a breath. ‘And Paul, I love my job. As for this dinner dance problem, it’s no big deal. We all make mistakes and this won’t be the only one you, or I, ever make.’ She nodded wearily. ‘I’ll sort it, don’t worry. Now, goodnight.’
Paul beamed at her, his relief clear to see. ‘I owe you, Sarah. Big time.’ He opened the door and, after a quick glance outside to see if Miles was anywhere to be seen, slipped out into the corridor. Sarah closed the door behind her and returned to her position on the end of the bed. What was going through her head, however, wasn’t the problem of finding another venue for Thursday night’s meal, but what possible reason Miles might have had for making his brother promise he wouldn’t lay a finger on her.
Chapter 12
By the time Sarah and the others got underway next morning, she had already been able to contact the restaurant and cancel Friday night’s dinner. She had also collected the contact details of three other restaurants in the neighbourhood of the hotel where they would be staying the following night, whose websites indicated they would be open on Thursday evening. She tried ringing, but there was no response from them so early in the morning, so she resolved to try them again when the group stopped mid morning. She had also managed to get hold of the very sleepy-sounding manager of the dance band and had persuaded him to change the booking from Friday to Thursday. She promised to text him the new venue as soon as she had managed to fix it up. Paul came up to her as she was just getting on her bike and she gave him her progress report without his brother hearing. He gave her a broad grin of relief and repeated his words of the previous night. ‘I owe you, Sarah. If you can sort this out, I’ll love you for ever.’
‘Don’t love me, Paul. Love the company… and your brother. He loves you.’
Sarah was impressed to see that everybody was ready to start at nine o’clock. There were a good few tired legs and thick heads, however, and Sarah warned Gianluca to moderate the pace. She caught sight of Miles, but didn’t have a chance to talk to him as he appeared to be deep in conversation with Jo, or at least, Jo was doing a lot of talking and he was listening attentively. Sarah wondered if they were exchanging skinny-dipping memories from last night, but did her best to banish the thought. She was already far more worried that she had sort of lied to him, albeit more by omission than commission, and she was concerned that he might have known all along that Paul had been in her room and so been aware of her deceit.
As they set off, slowly at first, through the pine forest, Sarah was wondering just what had happened last night. There was so much she didn’t know. Who had gone swimming? Had anybody really stripped off completely? Had Miles swum, stripped or done anything else? And if so, with whom? She took comfort from the fact that he had appeared at her door less than half an hour after heading for the beach, still wearing the same clothes and perfectly dry, even his hair. She resolved to ask Polly, who would, she knew, give her an honest answer, although her inner voice was telling her this was no longer any of her business.
The first stop was the Archaeological Park at Vulci, only about fifteen kilometres up the road and without any significant climbs to get there. It was just as well the first few kilometres were easy going as a number of people were still looking hungover. She spotted Dan, looking exhausted, but reflected that this probably wasn’t just the fault of the wine. She spared a thought for Polly in the van, trusting she would be able to keep her eyes open and drive safely. She rode up alongside a few of the others, to check on how they were feeling, and noticed Jo was very quiet. Whether this was to do with excess sexual activity, too much wine, or, more probably, frustration at losing Miles to a transatlantic phone call was hard to judge, although Sarah had to admit she was fervently hoping it wasn’t the first option.
When they got to the Archaeological Park and stopped to view the Etruscan tombs, Sarah gave the group an abbreviated version of what Signor Rossi had told her the previous night about these ancient people, before they wandered off to look around. She spotted Polly in the van and went across the dusty car park to get a debrief on the previous night’s events. Suspiciously, just like Dan, Polly was looking tired. In fact, she appeared not to have the energy to get out of the driving seat and was slumped back, listening to the radio. Sarah walked across and looked in the window.
‘Hi, Pol. How’re you feeling?’
Polly looked up wearily and turned down the volume of the music. ‘Hi, Sarah, I’m fine, thanks. What about you?’
Sarah decided there was little to be gained from pressing her as to how she had spent the night and asked about the midnight swim. ‘So, did you all go skinny-dipping?’
Polly roused herself and grinned. ‘Nobody. Not a soul. A few people went paddling and I think a few of them would have been drunk enough to strip off and dive in if the others had been keen, but Gianluca was great. He stood there like a policeman and told them to be very, very careful. After a bit of fooling about, it all just sort of fizzled out. In the end I went for a long walk along the beach with Dan and I was in bed before one.’ Sarah did her best to hide her pleasure at this news. She glanced at the time on her phone. She had given the cyclists half an hour to look at the sights so she had ample time to make her phone calls about the gala dinner; but first, she told Polly about her call from James. She watched Polly’s eyes widen as she recounted what he had said.
‘So he wants you to take him back?’
Sarah nodded. ‘That’s what he said.’
‘So, are you?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘No, I told him I’d think about it, but it isn’t going to happen.’ With all the extra work occasioned by Paul’s mistake with the dinner booking, she hadn’t had much time to really think through just what words to use in her reply to him, but she was in no doubt. ‘It’s over. Period.’
‘Is this just because you no longer want him or because you want somebody else?’ Polly met Sarah’s eye and winked. ‘I’ve seen the way you look at Miles and the way he looks at you. Are we talking, James out, Miles in, here?’
Although Sarah was quick to reply, assuring Polly no
thing was going to happen between Miles and her, she was rather interested to hear more about the way Miles was allegedly looking at her. ‘Miles isn’t interested in me, Pol.’
‘Like hell he isn’t.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Ask Jo if you don’t believe me. I have no doubt at all that she would have been only too happy to jump out of her clothes and into the sea, if not a bed, with Miles last night if he’d asked, but he didn’t. Poor girl looked quite forlorn when he disappeared off to his room.’
This was music to Sarah’s ears, but she did her best to conceal any satisfaction. ‘The fact that he wasn’t interested in her doesn’t mean he’s interested in me.’ She hesitated, glanced round and then lowered her voice. ‘I’m afraid he just isn’t interested in anybody at the moment. He’s been going through a tough time.’
‘And you haven’t? And yet you’ve managed to fall in love with him all the same.’
‘Of course I haven’t.’ Have I, Sarah found herself wondering. Have I really?
‘From where I’m sitting I’d say the answer’s yes, but you’re a big girl, you decide. Talk of the devil…’
Sarah heard footsteps behind her and looked round to see Miles approaching. She felt her heart leap. Maybe, she admitted grudgingly to herself, Polly might have a point, after all. ‘Hi, Miles. Did you find your brother last night?’
Miles nodded. ‘Yes, thanks. He told me he’d been for a long walk on the beach.’ His tone was reserved and his expression didn’t reveal whether he believed what his brother had said. Transferring his attention away from Sarah, he glanced into the driver’s seat of the van. ‘Morning, Polly, you look a bit weary. What time did you get to bed last night?’
‘Not too late, thanks, Miles. I’m just a bit tired, that’s all. I expect it’s the heat or something.’
Or something, Sarah thought to herself ruefully, her eyes alighting on Miles’s strong thigh muscles. Or something, indeed. She listened as Polly went on.
‘And I went for a long walk on the beach before going to bed. It was amazing, with fireflies in the trees and the moon shining down. It was really very romantic.’ There was an expression of bliss on Polly’s face that had both Miles and Sarah grinning. Then they glanced at each other and Sarah read that same look of regret on his face. As ever, Sarah’s heart went out to him. Whether anything would ever happen between them at some distant time in the future was anybody’s guess, but she just knew there was a different kind of love from the love she had once had with James. Whether she would ever achieve it was uncertain, but that wasn’t a reason for not trying. As Miles nodded and then walked off, she pulled out her phone, conscious she had a gala dinner to rearrange.
They got to Viterbo after a very hilly day in the blazing sun. When she got up to her room, Sarah was pleased and relieved to find an email waiting for her from a lakeside restaurant at Bracciano confirming the conversation she had had with them earlier in the day. Yes, they would provide a special meal for thirty people tomorrow, and yes, they had a suitable area for the band and dancing. She picked up her phone and texted the address to the band manager and then sent a one-word message to Paul: Sorted.
She dumped her sweat-soaked helmet on the window ledge and peeled off her equally wet cycling clothes and threw them in the basin with the last of the soap powder she had brought from home. Feeling the sense of satisfaction she always felt after a long, hard ride, together with the relief at having solved the gala dinner problem, she decided to reward herself with a bath, rather than a shower. This rather nice modern hotel provided an array of toiletries in the bathroom and she emptied two bottles of bubble bath into the water as she ran the taps. By the time the bath had filled, the bubbles were overflowing onto the floor. She gave her cycling clothes another squeeze in the basin and then left them to soak while she did the same.
As she lay there, her nose barely sticking up out of a cloud of bubbles, she finally had time to consider her response to James. She rehearsed a number of explanations in her mind, none of which, needless to say, mentioned Polly’s contention that she had fallen in love with somebody else. After a number of tries in her head, she realised she was dreading making the call and decided to take a leaf out of James’s own book. Once she had finished her bath and dried herself off, she picked up her phone. There was a text from Paul containing the words Thank you half a dozen times, followed by I owe you. Returning her attention to James, she composed a short text.
Have thought it over and the answer is a definite no. After what has happened, it can never be the same again. It’s over. We both need to move on. I’ll contact you when I’m back to sort out the flat etc. Sarah
After rereading it a few times, she pressed Send, feeling a sense of relief. She lay down on the bed, feeling weary after the long day, and had a little snooze, finally rousing herself well after five, determined to go for a walk around the town. The old part of Viterbo was made up of narrow roads and it was fairly easy to stay in the shade but, even so, it was still boiling hot. After wandering round the remarkably well-preserved medieval quarter, she ended up on the terrace of the spectacular Palazzo dei Papi, built in the thirteenth century for popes trying to escape from the feuding and chaos of Rome in those days. The view was out over a deep valley to houses and hills beyond, the roofs made up of rosy tiles, many of the trees the iconic cypresses. She couldn’t have been anywhere but Italy and felt a stab of regret that this lovely interlude was almost over. Tomorrow would see them climb up into the hills for one last time before heading down to their final night’s stay by the lake at Bracciano. She had enjoyed all of the trip, even the terror of the cable car in Gubbio, and it would feel strange next week to wake up in England again. She knew she didn’t want to go back to the flat, other than to collect her stuff, so she resolved to ask Polly if she could take her up on the offer she had made of a room at her place, at least for the time being.
She felt her tummy rumble and checked the time on her phone, surprised to see it was already half past seven, although the air temperature was still high. She hadn’t made any arrangements to meet up with Polly as she was pretty sure she and Dan would be otherwise engaged, so she set off to look for a suitable place to eat on her own. As for Miles, she had barely seen him since their arrival, so she decided to eat by herself. As it turned out, however, she didn’t end up eating on her own, after all.
As she was walking slowly back up the hill in the direction of the hotel, she heard somebody calling her name. She turned round to find it was Paul.
‘Excellent! I’ve been looking all over for you, Sarah. Please can I buy you dinner to say thank you for what you’ve done?’
Sarah stopped and thought about it for a moment. Having only had a sandwich for lunch, she was hungry, and dinner was an attractive proposition, regardless of with whom. ‘No need for you to pay for dinner, Paul – I didn’t do very much – but I’d be happy to join you. Have you got anywhere in mind?’
He nodded. ‘The best restaurant in town’s just along from here and I’m paying. No arguments. It’s got a Michelin star and all kinds of good reviews on the internet. Sound good?’
It sounded very good and, when they got there, it looked and smelt even better. The restaurant had been created in the blissfully cool cellars of a medieval townhouse and was made up of a labyrinth of little side rooms and alcoves. The tablecloths were crisp and white, the napkins a rich purple, the glasses tall and elegant and the aroma in the air a mixture of herbs and meat grilling on an open fire. As a waiter accompanied them to their table, they came across a couple of familiar faces. Or at least, they saw two people they knew well and recognised, although their faces were hidden, by virtue of the fact that they were entwined in a passionate embrace. Paul caught Sarah’s eye and tilted his head in their direction and whispered in her ear as they walked past, unobserved.
‘Our French friends. You see, I’d have won my bet.’
Sarah smiled. So it looked as though Véronique’s dreams
had come true and she was delighted for her, for them both.
The waiter led them to a table in another romantic little alcove and Sarah had a momentary feeling of regret that she wasn’t here with the other brother. Still, it looked like they were going to have a fine meal all the same.
Once they were seated, Paul looked across the table at her. ‘I promise I won’t go on about this all night, but thank you, Sarah, for saving my bacon. I made a real mess of things and I owe you big time for sorting out the mess I created. And thanks for not telling Miles.’
‘You’re very welcome, Paul. Like I said last night, we all make mistakes and I’ve certainly made bigger ones, and probably will do so again.’
He gave her an oblique look. ‘Somehow I doubt that.’ He was prevented from dwelling on the subject by the return of the waiter with two glasses of what looked like Prosecco. The man laid a hefty, leather-bound menu on the table in front of each of them and set the wine list by Paul’s left hand. As he retired, Paul raised his glass towards Sarah. ‘Here’s to you and, for the last time tonight, thank you.’
She clinked her glass against his and smiled at him before drinking. ‘And for the last time tonight, you’re welcome.’ The wine was very good indeed, more like a real champagne, crisp, dry and fruity. Sarah took a second mouthful, savoured the cold feel as it slid down her throat and gave an appreciative murmur.
Sarah translated the dishes on the menu that Paul didn’t recognise and they opted for the set menu, which consisted of a mouth-watering selection of starters, varying from sushi to fried courgette flowers. These were followed by the best rigatoni alla carbonara Sarah had ever tasted and then Saltimbocca alla Romana, succulent slices of meat, cooked with ham and salvia. On the wine list, Paul spotted a local white wine from a place they had ridden through earlier that day and ordered a bottle. The wine was excellent, the food was delightful, Paul was on his very best behaviour, the surroundings were charming, the service was unobtrusive. In fact, it would have been a perfect evening, but for one thing. Towards the end of the meal, just as Sarah was trying to find the words, and the resolve, to refuse a dessert, her phone started ringing. Stupidly, she answered it without checking who was calling.