by Liz Fielding
‘If my brother hadn’t been hotfoot in pursuit of a girl,’ he reminded her, ‘we would not have met.’
‘No.’ She hesitated for a moment, then touched her glass to his, sipped the water. ‘Salute. What’s his name? Your glad-foot brother.’
‘Stephano. He’s an art student. At least that’s the theory. I doubt he actually does much work,’ he said, demonstrating with his careless candour that all suspicions had been allayed.
There was a pause while Graziella brought antipasto for them to graze on and he opened a bottle of the golden sparkling wine that was the pride of the Serrone vineyard.
‘You must taste this,’ he said, pouring a little into a second glass before she could refuse. ‘The grape variety was bred by my grandfather. It was his life’s work.’ He swirled the wine around his own glass to release the aromas, encouraging her to do the same. ‘There is a scent of herbs—’ he took a mouthful, taking his time to allow the flavours to develop ‘—and a honeyed aftertaste, enriching the peach and melon flavours of the classic Frascati. It reflects everything that is Isola del Serrone.’
‘You are clearly passionate about it.’
‘A man must be passionate about something. My grandfather produced the flavour, my task is to improve yield and disease resistance for the next generation.’ If only on a part-time basis. ‘The Serrone vines have always been grown organically.’
She took a sip—how could she possibly refuse after that?—and her smile was unforced.
‘It’s delicious. Like drinking a summer’s day.’
She couldn’t have said anything more calculated to charm him. He would need to be very careful.
‘I’d have to pay an advertising agency a fortune to come up with something that good.’ He picked up the servers and piled cold meat, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes and olives onto her plate. ‘How much will it cost me to quote you?’
‘A piece of that bread?’ Then, as he cut into the freshly baked ciabatta, ‘I thought the vineyard was run by a co-operative. I looked up Isola del Serrone on the internet,’ she explained as she picked up a fork. ‘Maybe I misunderstood? I clicked on the translation device but the language was a bit mangled. Or perhaps there’s more than one vineyard?’
‘You didn’t misunderstand.’ He filled his own plate. ‘My great-grandfather set up the co-operative after the war. He wanted to rebuild the community. Give the villagers a share in what it produced after all they had suffered. Give the young men a reason to stay on the land rather than join the stampede to the factories in the north.’
‘Was he here? During the war,’ she asked.
Again, not the kind of question he’d expected, but it was no secret.
‘Francesco di Serrone was no friend of the Fascists. He was forced to flee to the mountains with the partisans when they came looking for him.’
‘And his family?’ she queried.
‘His wife was heavily pregnant. The villagers hid her until she could join him, but she died of fever a few days after giving birth.’
‘The world before penicillin. They were terrible times.’ Then, ‘Don’t look at me like that.’
‘How am I looking at you?’ he asked.
‘With that what would you know about it? look that men have when women talk about cars, or football, or war. I can change a spark plug, understand the offside rule and have a degree in Modern History.’
‘I congratulate you.’ He did not have to pretend to be amused. She was different enough to rouse his interest, hold his attention. Doubly dangerous … ‘Perhaps you can explain it to me. The offside rule.’
‘And do not patronise me.’
He made the slightest of bows. ‘Mi spiace, signora.’
His intention was to make her laugh, but she broke off a piece of bread, dipped it in the dish of oil.
‘What happened to the baby?’
He told himself that it was the obvious question for a woman to ask. Something about the way she was concentrating a little too intently on the bread, however, warned him that there was more to it than that.
Was she testing him? Asking him about his family to see if he trusted her enough to talk openly about them. Or was she softening him up with questions he would answer without caution until it became a habit.
Or was he being totally paranoid?
It was entirely possible that she was exactly who she said she was and, having found herself coerced into having lunch with someone she didn’t know—and he had not given her a choice in the matter—was simply grasping at conversational straws.
He would find out soon enough.
In the meantime, how his grandfather had survived his desperate start in life wasn’t a secret. Nor would it interest a gossip magazine digging for dirt on Bella.
‘He was cared for by a woman who worked for the family.’ He broke off a piece of bread and realised that he was copying her own thoughtful dunking. ‘She had a baby of her own, old enough to be weaned, so she fed him her milk, brought him up as her own to keep his identity a secret from the authorities until his father returned late in nineteen forty-four to reclaim him.’
‘She nursed him?’ It was clearly not the answer she’d been anticipating. Which begged the question—what had she expected him to say?
‘Did you think they’d wrap him up in a blanket and send him to his father in the mountains to be reared on goats’ milk?’ He laughed.
‘No, but you have to admit that it sounds like something out of a nineteenth-century novel.’ She twisted a thin slice of prosciutto around her fork. ‘Do you know who she was, the woman who nursed him? Her name?’
‘She is not forgotten, Sarah. My grandfather raised a memorial to Lucia in the village church.’
‘She’s dead?’
What was that expression? Shock? Grief for a woman she’d never heard of until today? The story was certainly tragic but it had all happened more than sixty years ago.
‘She was taken in a flu outbreak in the winter of nineteen forty-four,’ he said. ‘Along with her own little girl.’
‘How desperately sad.’
For a moment he could have sworn that tears misted her eyes. ‘A lot of people died, Sarah.’
‘But not the baby boy?’
‘No. Not the baby. Except, of course, he wasn’t a baby by then.’
‘No. No, of course not. Your grandfather owed her his life. Without her, neither of us would …’
She checked herself. And suddenly he was the one wanting answers.
‘Neither of us would what, Sarah?’
CHAPTER FOUR
ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS
The views are amazing. The mountains in the distance, which are covered with snow in the winter, are the Apennines, where there are still brown bears and wolves—il lupo, as we say in these parts—I’m working on my Italian.
The natives, however, are friendly. Despite the fact that I unwittingly trespassed on the local land owner’s estate, he invited me to join him for lunch beneath a vine-draped pergola.
MATTEO was aware of holding his breath as he waited for Sarah to answer, aware in some untapped area of consciousness that whatever she said, it would be important.
Sarah, too, was utterly still, as if she was weighing up what to tell him.
‘Neither of us would … what?’ he repeated.
She gave the tiniest shake of her head, as if coming back from somewhere distant.
‘Neither of us would be here. Having lunch together.’ She lifted her hand in an odd little gesture that somehow managed to encompass their surroundings. ‘The house would still be in ruins. Young men would have left the village. The vineyard would be owned by some soulless company producing wine to a formula.’
It was an answer. Deeper, truer than he’d anticipated. But she’d held something back and he felt oddly disappointed.
As if it mattered.
This wasn’t real, he reminded himself. She wasn’t real. Just some fantasy dreamed up by one or other of the many g
ossip magazines who had been making money out his family’s misfortunes since he was a child.
‘When you put it like that, a memorial plaque hardly seems enough,’ he said flippantly. ‘She deserves a statue in the square at the very least.’
Sarah frowned. ‘Why? Isola del Serrone is a living, breathing memorial to the power of one woman’s heart, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Would you?’ he asked. Then felt oddly boorish in the face of her apparent sincerity. If it was an act, it was a very good one.
‘On the other hand,’ she continued, ‘the fact that she doesn’t need one isn’t to say that she shouldn’t have one. There are far fewer monuments to love than war and it wouldn’t hurt to redress the balance a little.’
‘That is true.’
‘There’s also the fact that women are desperately under-represented when it comes to statuary,’ she teased.
‘Consider it done.’
She snapped her fingers. ‘Just like that?’ she said, her intensity evaporating in the heat of a smile that lit up her face.
‘Far from it.’ And now he was smiling, too, at the idea that anything involving the village could be simple. ‘The mayor will have to be consulted,’ he said, ‘and, if he is in favour, the deputy mayor will oppose it on principle.’
‘Politics.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘Worse. Family. They are distant cousins.’
‘Oh, dear.’
‘There will have to be a town meeting, of course. Everyone will have an opinion and will demand the right to express it at length.’
Sarah was sitting with her elbows propped on the table, her chin on her hands, her fork held loosely between her fingers. A languid bee circled her, but she ignored it, utterly relaxed.
‘Perhaps, if you came to the meeting and explained why you think it is so important, it would cut things down by an hour or two,’ he suggested.
Or possibly extend it by as much, he thought. Every man in the village would want to perform for her.
‘With my pathetically slim grasp of Italian?’ she objected. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘It would be in a good cause.’
‘True. And I suppose it would force me to make more of an effort. Allora …’ she prompted, with an irresistible how’s that? smile.
Dangerously charming …
‘A good start,’ he said. ‘So, we are agreed. You will come and wring heartstrings?’
‘How can I refuse?’
‘It was your idea,’ he reminded her. ‘Of course it won’t end there.’
‘Oh?’
‘The deputy mayor, having been voted down after endless debate, will ask the big question. How much will it all cost? And who is going to pay?’
‘That’s two questions. Maybe, if you invited your cousin to unveil the statue they wouldn’t care.’
‘Bella?’ He was laughing now. ‘Perfect. It will ensure photographs of them all in the classiest gossip magazines with the luscious Isabella di Serrone. With that as bait, they won’t care how much it costs.’
‘Well, there you are. All that’s left is for someone to suggest a glass of wine and there’ll be a stampede for the pub.’
‘I’m beginning to think you’ve done this before,’ he said, topping up her glass.
‘I’ve sat on school fundraising committees. The first order of business is getting a local celebrity involved,’ she explained.
‘You have experience of committees?’ He was beginning to enjoy himself. ‘There will be plenty to choose from. The one to decide which artist is to be commissioned. The committee to approve the design and the materials to be used. And then there’s the decision about the exact spot where the statue will stand.’
‘And one to arrange a party to celebrate the unveiling. Hours of entertainment,’ Sarah said.
He speared an artichoke heart. ‘Dozens of lives touching and changing simply because we had lunch today.’
‘Oh, I see. You’re laughing at me.’
No.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Truly.’
‘We take our existence so casually, Matteo, but it hangs on the tiniest thread of chance. Often the weakest thread holds no matter what stresses are brought to bear. Others, seemingly strong, snap without warning,’ she said.
‘I’m not laughing,’ he assured her. Well, maybe a little, which was rare enough. For a moment he’d completely forgotten why she was here.
Did he believe she was dangerously charming?
When she had him laughing at the idea of inviting the media to the village.
Just dangerous.
Concentrate …
‘You’re right, Sarah. It is extraordinary. How many things, for instance, had to happen for us to meet?’
More to the point, what thread had snapped, sent her flying into his path?
He’d been leaning forward, was much too close and now he sat back in his chair. ‘Why, for instance, did you come to Isola del Serrone today? Why were you walking through the village, up that particular path, at that precise moment?’
He couldn’t have put his doubts more clearly, if he’d said, Got you! But there was no sign of guilt. No blush. No awkwardness. Instead she thought about it.
‘It was the weekend,’ she began, taking him seriously as she tried to fit the pieces together. ‘I was all museumed out and I thought I’d visit the village.’
‘Because your friend had told you about it?’
‘Friend? Oh, Lex …’ And suddenly she wasn’t quite so relaxed. ‘Yes. What about you?’ she asked.
He allowed her to distract him. ‘I was delayed. I should have been here first thing and if I had been on my own I would have driven straight to the vineyard rather than coming up to the house.’
‘Because of the paparazzi?’
‘And I had Stephano with me. We were in my cousin’s limo.’
‘Oh, right.’ She looked suitably … confused. ‘Actually, I was late, too. A friend looked up the train times for me and I meant to catch an earlier one, but I overslept.’
Another friend? Or the same one?
‘And Stephano, who had no plans to be here today, slipped out the back way, opening the gate at the very moment you wanted to go through it,’ he said, pushing the chain of coincidence as far as it would go.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Why what?’
‘Why did he slip out the back way?’ she asked.
‘Oh, I see. I suggested that since he was here, he might spend some time with Nonna. She had gone into the village on some errand and it seems that he wasn’t in the mood to wait.’
‘Maybe he was afraid that his golden girl would have got tired of waiting for him. Gone off with someone else,’ she suggested.
‘She’ll be sorry if she did. He had a gift for her. A coat designed for Bella by Valentino.’
‘That was the bundle under his arm?’ She shook her head. ‘One moment of impatience, a lifetime of regret.’
‘You would have waited?’
She shrugged. ‘Who knows what we’ll do at any given moment? A step to the left instead of the right … One moment you’re going along smooth as you like, can see your destination ahead. Then a tiny bump in the road throws you off course—’ she looked across the table, smiled ‘—and, without warning, you’re planning to erect a statue in the square of a village, in the province of Lazio, with a total stranger.’
‘So not all bumps are bad,’ he suggested.
A woman with an ulterior motive would surely have grabbed at the opportunity to flatter him, but she shook her head.
‘Bumps are just bumps, Matteo. You wobble a bit, take the detour life throws at you and carry on.’
‘Is that why you’re in Italy?’ he asked. ‘Because you hit a bump in the road?’
‘Not me. And it was a little more than a bump. The man I was going to marry ran into a rather sizable boulder called Louise. Now she’s pregnant and I’m here.’
‘Dislodged by the aftershock.’
He regarded her for a moment. She had her emotions firmly in control. There was no danger of her falling apart and weeping into her wine. But the smile no longer reached her eyes. It was as if a light had gone out and the day dimmed a little.
‘She must have been a big woman,’ he said.
‘What?’ It took a moment for her to catch on. ‘No! I didn’t mean that she was …’
‘A “sizable boulder”?’ he finished, when she couldn’t bring herself to repeat the words.
‘I was speaking metaphorically.’
‘Of course you were.’ He chewed a mouthful of something, taking his time. ‘Interesting use of imagery, though.’ He thought he detected the slightest crack in the self-imposed emotional lockdown. That classic British reserve. ‘Round,’ he said. ‘Heavy.’
The corner of her mouth twitched, but only a glint in her eyes betrayed her desire to grin right back.
‘Sizable,’ he repeated, forking up some pickled vegetables. Not sure why it was so important to him to make her laugh. Only that it was. ‘Boulder.’
He was rewarded with a snort, quickly contained.
‘No, honestly. I only meant that Tom was—’ Tom? Not Lex? ‘—knocked sideways.’
‘Bouldered over.’
‘Stop it!’ she said, pulling her lips tight against her lips.
‘“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Abandon that English stiff upper lip, Sarah. She stole your man. You don’t have to be nice.’
‘Nice? Oh, that really is below the belt.’ She shook her head. ‘Your English is much too good.’
‘I once told an English girl that she looked nice. It was a painful lesson,’ he admitted.
‘Well-learned, obviously.’
‘I return the favour to you. You are in Italy. We let our passions show. Enough with the metaphorical. Give in to your inner tigress. You want to scratch this Louise’s eyes out. Admit it.’
She shook her head. ‘No. It wasn’t intentional. She didn’t set out to steal him away from me. All it took was one look and I knew …’