In contrast to the relative quiet of Brunate, Como is bustling with life. Large white gulls sit wing-to-wing along the low wall by the water, their smooth heads twitching to one side as we pass, while pigeons stumble around in circles by our feet, searching for morsels of food. The hum of traffic is interrupted by strains of music filtering out from each of the cafés and restaurants we’re passing, and a group of young waiters shout cheerily to each other as they set up tables beneath heat lamps.
‘Have we got time to go and pick up one of those giant pretzels for the journey?’ Pete asks, and I have to laugh.
‘Where do you put it all?’ I exclaim.
‘My legs are hollow, remember,’ he replies, deadpan but grinning.
‘Why don’t you go and get one while I buy our boat tickets?’ I suggest. There’s still half an hour to go until anchor-up, but I want to make sure we don’t miss this one. If we do, we’ll have to put off Bellagio for another day, and I’m positively itching to get up there. That area, perhaps even more so than Como, means a lot to me, and I want to take Pete to the hidden beach I loved so much as a child.
‘Right you are,’ he says happily, kissing me briefly on the cheek before bounding off across the painted lines of the crossing and disappearing amongst the rows of small wooden huts that make up the Christmas Market. I miss him already, it’s pathetic.
I pay the solemn chap in the glass-fronted booth the rather extortionate twenty-seven euros for two return tickets to Bellagio, before turning and almost walking straight into a blonde girl, who is busy pinning a leaflet to the harbour noticeboard.
‘Sorry,’ I gasp, leaping backwards out of the way.
The girl shakes her head briskly.
‘No need to apologise, honestly. I shouldn’t lurk right behind people.’
She’s smiling at me with open warmth, and I clock the two blonde plaits sneaking out from under her pink bobble hat.
‘Are you here on holiday?’ she asks.
I nod. ‘Yes, with my boyfriend. He’s just gone to get some food for the boat.’
‘Ah, you’re going up to Bellagio?’ the girl guesses, looking over my shoulder to where a short queue has started to assemble beside the water.
‘My friend is up there today, leading a tour group around, the poor thing.’ She puts her head on one side and considers me for a second. I’m not sure what to say, so I just make what I hope is a sympathetic murmuring sound. I usually find it so easy to talk to people I don’t know, but for some reason this girl is making me feel awkward.
‘Can I give you one of these?’ she asks, holding up her sheaf of posters. I take one and run my eyes over the words.
‘I don’t know if you and your boyfriend have plans for New Year’s Eve already?’ she continues. ‘But as you can see, we’re doing a big event up at the hotel where I work – the Casa Alta. It can be a nightmare booking anywhere for dinner here in town, and we’re putting on a really good party. My friend is organising the whole thing, and she really knows her stuff, believe me. After the food, there will be dancing, and you’ll be able to watch the fireworks from the grounds, too.’
‘It sounds fun,’ I enthuse, matching her smile of delight with a polite one of my own. I don’t want to admit that I actually have a different restaurant in mind for New Year, and that I was planning to surprise Pete by booking it in secret.
‘Let me put my phone number on the back,’ she’s saying now, taking the leaflet back off me and scribbling on it in biro.
‘You’re Shelley?’ I enquire, peering down at the untidy scrawl. Being a nurse means that I’m accustomed to making sense of illegible scribbles – it’s no myth that doctors have some of the worst handwriting in the entire world. Honestly, half the time I feel like ‘deciphering hieroglyphics’ should have been included in my job description.
‘That’s me.’ The girl beams at me and offers a hand.
‘Lucy,’ I reply, shaking it.
I can see Pete approaching us now, a brown paper bag in one of his gloved hands and two small cups of what I suspect is vin brulé balanced rather precariously in the other, and I hurriedly thank Shelley and start to move away towards him.
‘Is this fella your boyfriend?’ she guesses, following me, and I’m reluctantly forced to introduce them. Shelley then repeats her spiel about the New Year’s Eve party all over again, but with even more gusto than before. I’m more than a little irked when she puts her hand on Pete’s arm and squeezes it encouragingly as he takes in the poster, only to glance over wide-eyed and mouth the word ‘muscles’ to me. I know she’s only messing around, but it does grind my gears when women cross the line between friendly and flirty when they know full well that the man in question is most definitely off the market. Not much irritates me, but I’m irritated now.
‘She seems fun,’ is Pete’s predictable comment when Shelley finally bids us farewell, and I take a large gulp of the hot wine to stop myself saying something bitchy. ‘Jealousy is a waste of energy,’ Julia often lectures. ‘Nobody gets hurt by it except you.’
‘Shall we get on the boat?’ I say sweetly, but Pete’s still got his nose in the poster.
‘This looks perfect,’ he says, all pink-cheeked and excitable. ‘I was just thinking about what we should do for New Year, and then this lands in our laps. It feels like fate or something, don’t you think?’
In truth, I think absolutely nothing of the sort. I’d much rather go to the fancy restaurant I had picked out, and have Pete all to myself for the evening.
‘Maybe,’ I reply, looping my arm through his and walking firmly towards where a fair number of people are now boarding the small ferry.
‘Don’t you fancy it?’ he asks, and I can tell he’s disappointed. Two lines have appeared in the fleshy part between his eyes and the corners of his mouth are turned down.
‘Of course I do,’ I tell him, injecting as much enthusiasm as I can into my words. ‘If that’s what you want to do?’
‘I say, bring it on!’ he declares, following me along the wooden gangway. ‘The Casa Alta Hotel had better be ready for us.’
My boyfriend, I realise wryly, is a total goof sometimes – but I love making him happy more than anything. And, as we take our seats at the front of the boat and he breaks off a piece of his pretzel to share with me, I decide that this New Year’s Eve simply has to be the best one he’s ever had, even if it’s not exactly what I had in mind.
17
Taggie
Of course bloody Marco is here on this boat. Of course he is. On the first day in months that I haven’t bothered to wear make-up; a day when, thanks to my flat boots and weary, sleep-deprived skin, I could probably change my name from Taggie Torres to Crumplestiltskin and nobody would even notice. Thanks a lot, sod’s law, No, really.
‘Ciao,’ is all he says when he realises that it’s me, fixing me with those eyes of his.
I lift my coat and bag off the seat.
‘Ciao.’
Marco unzips his battered leather jacket before folding himself into the seat beside me, and I’m instantly assaulted by the dark, earthy scent of his aftershave. Perfume was the one thing I did bother with this morning, but I doubt he’ll be able to pick up the subtle fragrance of violets beneath his own, far muskier tang.
‘How are you, Taggie?’ he asks, meaning that I have no choice but to turn from the window. Being this close to him has put me immediately on edge yet again, and I glance down to where his large, denim-clad thigh is pressed up against my own.
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ I say, crossing my leg away from him, and we pass the next few minutes exchanging pleasantries. I tell him about the artist group I’m in charge of, and he reveals that he’s heading to Bellagio for a business meeting.
‘Long way to go for a meeting,’ I remark, even though it’s not strictly true. I go up to Bellagio all the time to see Elsie, after all. It’s not as if it’s the other side of Italy.
Marco takes my comment in good humour, though, dropping his
voice an octave before admitting, ‘This man I am meeting, he has something that I want.’
‘Oh?’ I enquire, and he grins at me mischievously.
‘But I cannot tell you what it is, I’m afraid.’
‘Why not?’
That smile again.
‘Because I don’t want you to steal my business idea.’
‘I very much doubt I would,’ I say, hating how prim I sound. What is it about this man that makes me feel so defensive? Perhaps it’s just all men at the moment.
‘I cannot risk it,’ he says, mock-serious. ‘I would never forgive myself if I did not get exactly what I want. I’m very good at it most of the time.’
‘Good at what?’ I reply, biting down on the metaphorical carrot that he’s dangled before my brain catches up.
Marco waits until he’s sure that he has my full attention.
‘At getting exactly what I want.’
‘Oh,’ I say again, feeling the blood rush into my cheeks. I’m not sure if it’s the absence of my trusty high heels or the fact that I’m sitting right next to a man who is easily six foot tall, but I feel very small indeed. Marco is just so confident, relaxed and unashamedly masculine. Being around him stirs something up inside my stomach, but whatever it is, I’d liken it more to a whirring cement mixer than a flock of romance-novel butterflies. I’m not so much turned on as turned up to full alert, and I’m acutely aware of every single part of my body that is currently touching his. And, thanks to his blatant man-spreading, that is quite a high percentage.
‘Well, er, good luck, then,’ I say at last, refusing to rise to any more of his flirtatious bait. He’s only trying to get my attention because he can tell I don’t fancy him in the slightest. It’s textbook lothario behaviour.
Unprompted, a memory of the first time I met my ex swims into my mind. I was out with the girls from the PR firm where I was working at the time, and he was in the corner of the pub with his mates. They were all shouting loudly and gesticulating at the television screen mounted on the wall, and I looked over to see what all the fuss was about. The England rugby team had missed an important try, apparently, but he hadn’t missed the sight of my bemused expression. As soon as our eyes met and he smiled at me, I knew a story had just begun, and that he would be in my life for a long time. I don’t know what it was that made me so sure, but I knew at the time that I had never experienced such a strong feeling of pure attraction before.
‘I love boats,’ Marco says now, calling me back to the present moment. It’s quite a change of conversational direction, and it’s all I can do not to laugh in surprise.
‘Okaaay,’ I offer, waiting for him to elaborate.
‘Ever since I was a boy, I have wanted to be around boats, to work with them, to be out on the water,’ he pauses. ‘I feel at home with them.’
‘You’re lucky to have that,’ I reply, the pattern of my thoughts surprising me. ‘To know what it is that makes you happiest. I’m thirty-two now and I still don’t know.’
Marco opens his mouth a fraction and shuts it again, and I turn away before my eyes can dwell too long on his lips. We’ve left Como behind now and are chugging up the lake past Cernobbio. I can see the reflections of the houses and villas in the water, each one streaked and dappled as if painted by hand on to a wet canvas, and the blue sky above us is muddied with a blur of birds in flight.
‘It is not about age,’ he says after a minute. ‘It is simply about following what is in your heart.’
My heart is broken, I think, but don’t say.
‘What did you want to be when you were a little girl?’ he asks now.
I smile with easy affection when I picture myself as I was growing up: stubborn, bossy and fuelled by determination.
‘Most of the time, I just wanted to be right about everything,’ I admit, and I’m gratified to receive a wry grin in reply.
‘I can believe that,’ he says, chuckling when I glare at him. ‘Taggie, come on, I am not being rude. I am simply saying that you are a strong woman. I can sense that in you.’
If only he knew just how wrong he is. I used to be strong, it’s true. But that was before.
‘I’m not strong,’ I mutter, looking at the view so I don’t have to make eye contact.
‘You are, believe me,’ Marco argues, and I flinch as he shifts slightly, his thigh pressing once more against my own.
‘I make you uncomfortable,’ he states, making to stand up. ‘Sorry. I will leave you alone.’
‘No!’ I practically yelp, grabbing his leg and pushing it back down towards the seat. ‘You don’t. I’m in a weird mood today, that’s all. Just ignore me.’
For a second I think he’s going to get up again and walk away regardless, but then I see him reconsider. While I’m occupied with doing my best not to think about how firm and warm his thigh muscle felt, and how long it’s been since I last even touched a man, let alone found myself enjoying it, Marco is removing his jacket and – oh God – stretching his arm around the back of my seat. He’s now taking up so much space that I feel even bloody smaller than I usually do. He’ll be able to put me in his jeans pocket soon and carry me around like one of those Guatemalan worry dolls. When I said he should stay sitting beside me, I didn’t mean it as a green light to him doing the old slide-around.
‘What made you move here to Como?’ he asks, and I concentrate on the shiny black bob of the Japanese woman sitting in front of me.
‘I’ve been coming here since I was young, and I thought it might be nice to work here,’ I tell him.
‘That is not the full story,’ he says, in that infuriatingly blunt way that I’m learning to associate with him. He doesn’t ask questions to get the answers; he merely uses them as tools to express his own opinions.
‘Why do you say that?’ I retort. I can feel the vibrations from the boat’s engine making my plastic chair shake, and I uncross my legs so I can press my feet against the floor.
‘In my experience, people do not leave their home and move to another country unless there is a very important reason for doing so.’
He’s right, of course, but that doesn’t encourage me to come clean.
‘Perhaps I’m not like most people,’ I say evasively.
‘That,’ Marco says, lowering his lashes, ‘is almost certainly the truth.’
‘What about you?’ I counter, keen to talk about anything other than myself.
He shrugs and lifts the sleeve of his jacket. The leather is cracked around the fabric of the cuff, and he picks at it absent-mindedly before replying.
‘The lake is my home.’
‘But you haven’t always lived here,’ I point out, remembering what he told Shelley and me about his summer in Naples.
‘I have lived in many places.’ Again, that casual shrug.
‘Have you ever lived in England?’ I want to know, even though I have already decided that he must have. His command of English is far too good for him not to have at least spent a few months there.
‘Of course,’ he exclaims, as if I’ve just asked him something entirely obvious. ‘I was in Leeds, for a time.’
‘I love Leeds!’ I enthuse. ‘One of my best friends lives there. When were you there?’
He drops his eyes. ‘It was a while ago.’
‘Did you like it?’
He gives me the benefit of a lazy smile. ‘Not as much as I like it here.’
‘I like it here, too,’ I tell him. ‘Como to me is like boats to you. I feel at home here.’
‘Ah,’ he says, looking at me properly and appraising me with his green eyes. His lashes are long, too, I notice, but not the thick black colour that I would expect. They look almost chestnut. ‘Then you are already halfway there.’
‘Halfway to Bellagio?’ I say stupidly, looking out through the front window of the boat to see how far up the lake we’ve come.
‘No, Taggie,’ he murmurs, placing his hand briefly on top of mine. ‘Halfway towards finding happiness.’
/> I stifle a laugh. Bloody Italians, romanticising everything.
It takes the boat another twenty minutes to reach its destination, during which time I deftly manage to lasso the conversation and drag it back into more comfortable territory – namely, the subject of Elsie, which I could happily talk about for hours. Plus, the lady herself has promised to greet the boat in Bellagio, and if I know Elsie as well as I think I do, then I’m certain that she won’t be able to resist saying something to Marco when she clocks him disembarking right next to me. A remark that will, in all likelihood, make me want to throw myself off the jetty and into the freezing water below.
‘Taggie, darling – please tell me this young man is the extra Christmas present you told me was still in the post.’
Sometimes I hate being right.
Elsie is literally clapping her hands together with glee at the sight of Marco – and she’s not the only one. Gladys, who clocked my Italian companion as soon as we came back into view from the front of the boat, is in serious danger of tripping over the stalks that are attaching her eyeballs to her face, while poor old bespectacled Will-yum is looking most put out behind her, his moley features all curled up in dismay at finding this handsome new addition to the group.
‘Elsie, this is Marco,’ I say quickly, deciding that it’s best to pretend she didn’t say anything about him being her Christmas present. ‘He works at a restaurant down in Como – he’s Shelley’s friend,’ I add.
The Place We Met Page 11