by Prosecco
Prosecco and Promises
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Cocktail Recipe: What happened in Naples
Acknowledgements
The Martini Club
Copyright
Chapter One
‘Babe, I love that we’ve become friends since Savvy jetted off into the sunshine, but I do actually need to work.’ Jacques wiped the bar down, moving my elbow.
My arm thunked down on the table, and I let my head rest. There had been four rum and cokes, maybe five. In very short succession.
‘Yeah, sure,’ I garbled. ‘You work. Aren’t bartenders meant to be here to listen to people’s problems?’
‘Nope, they’re meant to make people drinks.’
‘You did that part!’
Jacques raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. ‘Yes, and you’ve repaid me by being an incredibly irritating drunk.’
I pouted, fluttering my eyelashes. ‘Come on, my best friend abandoned me. You’re my only friend in the world.’
‘My sympathies,’ he replied with a snort. ‘Give me half an hour and I’ll play agony aunt. But I’ll warn you, darling, it’s bad drag.’
The time passed slowly. I pushed my curls over my shoulder and stared down the bar. It was a quiet Tuesday. I’d ended up spending more time at the Martini Club after my best friend Savvy had left to go to cookery school in Barcelona. She’d used to work at the club, and I hung out there partly because I missed her, and partly because I liked having somewhere secret and beautiful to go. A retreat in the centre of the city, where there was no light, you had no concept of time, and everyone was vibrant and alive.
Alive. Right.
A shape shifted to my right and a man slipped onto the bar stool next to me. I could have guessed what he’d look like before I even turned my head.
Carefully coiffed, suit and a smirk to match.
‘Can I buy you a drink?’ Smirky Face smirked, so sure of himself.
I blinked to focus on him. ‘Mate, I’m resting my head on the bar. Do I look like I need another drink?’
‘Well, uh—’
‘Well, uh, unless you’re a prowler pervert who wants to get done for trying to coerce a drunk lady, I suggest you slither back in the hole you came from.’
He blinked, then scowled. ‘Bitch.’
‘Darn tootin’.’ I wiggled my fingers at him. ‘Buh-bye.’
Jacques came over not long after.
‘Is that coffee? God bless you!’
‘You’ve got twenty minutes. Hit me with your problems.’
‘Tomorrow I am being put on a plane to an Italian island against my will.’
‘Oh.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Poor you.’
‘Ugh, I wish Savvy was here, she’d understand.’
My best friend was the only person who was there when my dad got sick the first time. She was the one who held my hand when I cried over chemo treatments, and sat drinking with me when I didn’t want to sleep in case there was bad news. She was the only one who didn’t lose touch with me when I stopped going out, stopped answering texts; when it seemed too hard to be anything but the daughter of a man who was dying.
But my dad got better. He married Marjorie, his girlfriend who was a mere seven years older than me, which drove me crazy, but he was alive and he was allowed to do anything he wanted as long as he stayed alive. And now…
‘Okay, glibness aside.’ Jacques sat down next to me and placed a hand on mine, his kohl-rimmed eyes soft and serious. ‘Why are you being sent to Italy against your will?’
I took a breath. ‘My father’s dying wish.’
Jacques looked astounded. In the few months I’d known him, I’d never seen him speechless. He squeezed my hand. ‘When… did your dad pass away?’
‘He hasn’t…’ I pressed my lips together to try and ignore the irritation that crept up every time I thought about it, the desire not to say the word ‘yet’. ‘He doesn’t want me to be here at the end, whilst he declines. We went through it before, and this time… he says it’s a gift. His wish for me. And I need to do what he says, but I am so mad that I could explode.’
‘Do you have to do what he says? Couldn’t you stay anyway?’
‘Ignore the dying man? So that I for ever live to regret for ever denying him the final thing he wanted?’ I snorted. ‘Sure, a life of regret, along with being an orphan. Awesome.’
I knew this wasn’t fair on Jacques. We weren’t that kind of friends yet. I had hoped we might be. His sassiness complemented mine well, and I’d enjoyed bitching with him about my work at the make-up counter. He was also a keen historian, outside the bar, away from the eyeliner and stage presence. He was secretly a cardigan-wearing dork, and we’d wandered around a few museums whilst I joyfully geeked out, using the long-dusty knowledge from my barely used archaeology degree.
That was another point Dad had made. I had come back home in the middle of my first dig after graduating, when he got sick, and I’d never tried again. I worked at the make-up counter in the local department store, staying nearby, moving home so I could be there if anything happened.
And now, it was happening, and I wasn’t going to be there.
‘I guess you’re faced with an impossible choice – do what he says, and be mad at him, or ignore his wishes and let him be mad at you.’
‘You think I could let my dad die mad at me? What do you think I am?’ I suddenly realized that of course, Jacques didn’t really know what type of person I was, what family meant. That my dad had been the only person I’d ever had, the only person who’d been there no matter what, and yet, I didn’t really even know him. I knew he liked two sugars in his coffee, and he watched TED talks religiously. I knew he pretended to hate how everyone talked about his much younger wife, but in secret preened and swanned about, joyous at the incredulity of his good fortune. His friends would ask him how the hell he got a girl like Marjorie, and he’d say, ‘Get cancer, does wonders for your love life.’
And before that, before the sickness, he was the kind of dad who would encourage me to climb trees and make mess. One day, not long after Mum died, he presented me with the empty, white wall of our living room and told me we were going to put the colour back in the world. We painted that entire wall with leafy-green handprints, a jungle of fingertips and lined palms. It’s still there, that wall, our fortunes told a hundred times in repeat.
Who was going to help me put the colour back when he was gone?
‘Mia, I think you’re the kind of person I’ve known for months, who never once mentioned her dad was sick. You’ve got a control I didn’t think you were capable of.’
I snorted again at that. ‘That’s my charm. I seem impulsive and fun, but in fact it’s very tightly reined in and controlled chaos.’
‘So what are you going to do?’ He left his hand over mine, and I started to feel sweaty and irritable.
‘I’m going to drink my coffee, buy a kebab on the way home, and finish packing my case. And then tomorrow, with the world’s worst hangover, I’m going to
kiss my father goodbye, and get on that plane.’
No matter how hard it was.
Chapter Two
I could be proud, at least, that I didn’t cry in front of him. I was shocked at myself. I don’t think Dad was. It was exactly what he expected, but I could feel Marjorie’s gaze on me as I left the house to get in the taxi to the airport. She thought I was a cold hard bitch, and I couldn’t help but agree.
He’d looked frail, and even though I had seen him every day for the last few years, even though I’d seen him go through the chemo last time and come out the other side, this time, I could understand why he was sending me away. As it was, he barely looked like my chubby-cheeked, tanned Papa, the man who had always looked like a huge, fuzzy bear with a bald head and a wide smile. Now, he looked small, sitting up in his bed, his eyes suddenly huge, his cheeks almost concave.
‘Mia, sweetheart, I know you’re angry at me.’ He’d smiled gummily, patting the space next to him on the bed. It freaked me out to be in his room, the room he shared with Marjorie. I’d made a point not to go in there if I could avoid it, the space where the fact that they were husband and wife was even more obvious. As well, I didn’t like to think about just how different that room had looked when my mother lived with us. It had been a pale blue, with white furniture and sea shells sitting on the vanity on the side. Now, it was purple, with a swirling feature wall and glass furniture. It was modern, and the youth of the room, with its fluffy cushions and artful throws, served as a reminder of just how young Marjorie was.
‘You’re damn right I’m angry at you. It’s a shitty thing to do, Dad.’
‘But you’re going to do it because you love me,’ he said, safe in having the upper hand.
‘Well, and you’re dying, so you’ve put me in a bit of a position, haven’t you?’ I tried to be smart and sarcastic, the way he had always insisted we interact when he first got sick. Cancer’s got no sense of humour, Mia. I’m damned if it’s gonna take mine along with my health. He’d kept his word so far, but I knew he was struggling to stay upbeat, struggling to stay smiling.
‘Sorry, darling, the thought of it is killing me.’ He wiggled his non-existent eyebrows.
‘Funny,’ I said back, the same old routine, ‘I could die laughing.’
He laughed, rough and rasping, and patted my hand. ‘You’re doing the right thing.’
‘I don’t know if that’s true, Dad. I don’t know if I’m gonna look back in ten years’ time and think I should have fought back, I should have been here at the end.’ I stared resolutely at the duvet cover beneath his hands, picking at stray threads as I listened to his breathing.
‘Mia, look at me.’
It took me a moment, a few breaths to meet his glassy eyes, and I tensed my stomach to stop my head filling with all the moments he would never be there for: the promotions and celebrations, the weddings and christenings and birthdays. And then I wondered who would be there, if he wasn’t, because I would be completely alone now.
‘Sweetheart.’ His eyes were red rimmed already, and I promised myself that no matter what he said, I would be strong for him. He loved that, he loved when I was a strong warrior princess. He called me his Amazon. No matter what knocked me, I’d come back swinging. In the same way he wanted to control my last memory of him, I wanted to control his last memory of me. I would not be snotty-nosed and blotchy, giving in to the one thing I couldn’t punch back at. I would be the daughter he was proud of.
‘Sweetheart, you’re doing the right thing. You’re doing what I’ve asked. I know how hard it is to lose someone. I’ve spent over a decade mourning your mother, and even though I found a piece of happiness, that grief never loosened, never relaxed its hold. I don’t want that for you. I want you to go to Ischia, see your family, remember that summer we had together, that beautiful place and those memories.’
He stroked my dark curly hair, the curve of my cheek. ‘You look so much like her, they won’t believe it when they see you. They’ll tell you stories about her, all the things I should have told you, but was too sad to tell.’ He gripped my hand in his, still strong, shaking slightly as he smiled through his tears. ‘I’m not scared of the end, sweetheart. I hate to leave you, but I am so excited to see your mother again. I feel like I’ve been half a person for twenty-one years. I’m going to be whole again.’
It almost broke me, the thought of my mother waiting there for him. In my mind, she was just a pair of tanned knees that I grasped, and when I looked up into the sun, her face was shielded by a wide-brimmed black sunhat. In the pictures we had hidden in boxes under the stairs, she looked unbelievably young, not much older than I am now.
They would be together again, my parents. I supposed the idea should bring me some peace, the same peace it brought him, but instead I just felt the intense unfairness of it all. They would be together, but would leave me here, alone and orphaned. My one real friend had left, I had lost all the others whilst choosing to stay at home to care for my dad, and now he was leaving, too. But Amazonian warrior princesses don’t get sad – they get angry. Or they stay stoic, even if it takes every fibre of their being to hold their shit together.
‘I love you, Dad,’ I said, kissing his cheek, inhaling the smell that wasn’t really him any more, but was disinfectant and sickness. When I was a kid he’d smelled like cigars and soap, and after Mum, he smelled like chewing gum and cheap cologne.
‘I love you, Mia. Time to go.’
He let me go, pushing me away gently to wipe his eyes, and I looked away out of respect for his feelings. He looked back up and smiled, defiant. ‘You sit at that little bar on the harbour – you remember the one? And you sit and order a cold Peroni for me, and you have an Aperol spritz, and look at the sunset, okay? You promise?’
I hated Aperol spritzes, but I smiled and nodded anyway. ‘I will, Dad.’
‘Good, now go.’
I moved slowly, turning around at the door to take him in, try to memorize every line and edge and movement. He could tell what I was doing because he closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘Time to go, Mia. Everything will be fine.’
I wrenched my eyes away, nodded, and walked through the door, trying not to focus on the fact that the last words my father ever said to me were destined to be a lie.
I walked past Marjorie, tapping her nails on the kitchen table, her blonde hair plaited neatly and falling down her back. She was dressed in her usual yoga attire, and when she looked at me, I could sense the disappointment. She had wanted me a crying mess, she had wanted to pull me into her arms and comfort me in that way she had been trying to do for the last six years. She wanted that big dramatic moment, and whilst I didn’t hate her any more, I wasn’t giving her that. The drama wasn’t about her. Though as I looked at her glazed blue eyes, red-rimmed and squinty, I remembered my father’s words about being reunited with my mother; how he had never stopped loving her or missing her. Poor Marjorie, the young girl with the old-fashioned name and the dying husband. I had often joked with Savvy when Marjorie first came on the scene that she must have had severe daddy issues to take up with an older widower. I almost felt bad about that now. She opened her mouth to say something, but the cab beeped outside, and I shook my head at her, before tilting my head towards the door. I had to leave before she could say anything about auras or herbal teas, or positive energy. She knew, I could tell, she knew that there was nothing positive thinking could do any more.
‘Take care of yourself, Mia,’ she said, channelling the young, brave wife for everything she was worth. No wonder he loved her. ‘I’ll deal with things here.’
‘You’ll call me when…’ I couldn’t say it, and she looked partially appeased to see some emotion.
‘I will.’ She nodded.
I picked up my handbag, pulled my wheelie case from the hallway, and walked out to the taxi. I waited until the engine chugged along and the house was out of sight, and I turned to the cabbie.
‘Mate, I’m gonna do something embarrassi
ng, and I’m gonna need you not to talk to me or ask me if I’m okay, all right? There’s an extra fiver in it for you.’
The driver assented, shrugging to himself and turning up his music as he kept his eyes on the road.
And then I cried all the way to the airport.
Chapter Three
My father had booked the flight, and had sprung for business class. I knew he’d probably have tried for first class, but Marjorie would have reined him in, talking about how pointless physical objects wouldn’t make up for my emotional loss. For once, she was right. Plus, it was amazing how I managed to feel guilty about absolutely everything. I felt guilty when I enjoyed the taste of the coffee in the terminal before my flight, the smooth, rich espresso going cold as I hovered around drinking it. Dad loved espresso. Loved.
I felt guilty about my comfortable seat on the plane whilst my father lay in his bed in pain. I felt guilty about the glass of prosecco and the movie I laughed at multiple times before remembering why I was travelling in the first place. I felt guilty at the sheer joy of knowing I had handed in my notice at the make-up counter, because I hadn’t known how long I’d be away for, and they couldn’t wait around – saying goodbye to that place had been a relief.
In the end, all that guilt and remembering to be unhappy was exhausting, and I fell into a dark, dreamless, uneasy sleep, waking up to that jolting feeling as my stomach stuck in my throat and the wheels of the plane extended.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, signore e signori, welcome to Naples.’
As I stepped off the plane into the warm sunshine, I took a deep breath. Not just to rid me of the chemical, ‘fake’ air circulating on that plane for hours, but to see if any memories lingered on the Italian breeze.
‘Every country smells different when you step off a plane, Mia,’ my father had said, a lifetime ago, ‘and soon, when you’ve been on enough journeys, you’ll get off a plane and you’ll smell home.’
Home smelled like wet summer grass and cool air. This smelled like dry air, like sand kicked up by salty seas, sucked into the atmosphere and whipped up in the wind. It smelled like the promise of juicy oranges and crystal waters. It smelled like coconut suntan cream and ice cubes on sticky fingers. But it didn’t smell like any memories at all. Just the warmth before summer began.