by Jo Thomas
As I resurface, I hear barking and shouting. What on earth’s going on? I sit up as far as I can and turn towards the vegetable plot. Marco’s dog is tearing around in it, barking. It seems to be chasing something. Suddenly the dog turns in my direction, barking for all it’s worth. There is more shouting, and I see Luigi and Marco running after the dog, who’s chasing what looks like a wild boar. It runs right in front of the barrel, spraying water and squealing. The dog is seeing it off with all its might.
‘Scusi. Buonanotte,’ calls Luigi as he passes. Marco is behind him, calling the dog and whistling. He stops and turns to me.
I can’t speak or move.
‘Scusi,’ he says, slightly out of breath. ‘You seem to have wild boar in your veg patch.’
I sink under the water again, hoping that by the time I reappear he’ll be gone.
The next morning I wake to the sound of banging. I jump up and look out of the window. Luigi and Marco are hammering in stakes around the vegetable plot and attaching green gauze between them. I pull on my clothes, zipping up my hoodie. It’s starting to feel cold.
‘Marco?’ I call, and he stops work for a moment, letting the sledgehammer fall to his side. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Helping to fix the mess my dog made,’ he says, and lifts the sledgehammer again.
Luigi nods, smiles and wishes me good morning, his big round face gleaming like a conker, then goes back to banging in another stake.
‘You don’t have to do this!’ I look at the broken bamboo canes and the trampled vegetables, feeling like a deflating balloon. I planned to get to work straight away this morning, but Marco has beaten me to it.
‘It was my dog that made this mess,’ he argues.
‘But only because she was chasing off the boar,’ I reply.
‘I should put it right,’ he says, and returns to work.
I gather up trampled chilli and pepper branches, cauliflowers and courgettes. I put them all into a bucket and then tread down the mounds of earth like I’m at a polo match treading in divots. Only I’m not. I’m wearing old clothes and a pair of size 9 wellies that could well have belonged to Marco’s grandfather.
When Marco and Luigi have finished, I go into the house with the bucket of vegetables and return with coffee, water and jars of piccalilli for them both. It’s the least I can do. Luigi is intrigued and studies the jar with his big, dirty hands.
‘Where is the goat?’ Marco asks.
‘In the barn. I’ve just let her out of her pen and fed her,’ I say, sipping my thick black coffee.
‘She must stay out at night. That’s why she’s here. She’ll see off the boar.’ Marco finishes his coffee in one mouthful and starts tidying his tools. ‘It’s her job. She’s . . . how do you say . . . a guard goat!’ and he gives a little smile, as if he’s made a great joke. I smile too.
‘Look, perhaps I can stay and help a bit more,’ he says as Luigi heads off for his lunch. ‘There’s a lot to do, and if you don’t know what you’re doing . . .’
‘I’m fine really,’ I insist quickly. He’s already done too much, and I feel I have to find a way to repay him.
Marco returned to the trullo feeling like a boiling kettle about to blow its lid. He was frustrated. He wanted to do more. He’d loved being out there and there was so much more that needed doing. He set down his tools by the door, where Lucia sat lifting her chin to the sun. He patted her and bent to go into the house. He had plenty to be doing here, but right now, despite himself, he wished he could be next door helping Ruthie. She was a worker, no doubt about it, and he’d enjoyed toiling side by side with her. It had been a good couple of hours building the fence and repairing the vegetable garden.
He looked at the jar in his hand, unscrewed the lid and sniffed the contents. Then he put his little finger in and tasted it.
Hmmm. He nodded in approval. It was strange but quite tasty. He put the jar in his kitchen. Maybe he’d do some work on the book. It had been ages since he’d actually opened the document and written anything. He sat down at his little table and looked out over the olive trees; Ruthie Collins’ olive trees. He hadn’t doubted she would throw herself into the bet. She seemed the sort of woman who did everything wholeheartedly. He liked that . . . he liked that very much.
He slid his glasses on and opened his computer, but he wasn’t really concentrating; he was gazing out of the window and wondering what it would be like to go back to work at the college after spending so much time back here on the land. He’d liked that too, very much, and wished he hadn’t. He wished he could help Ruthie more, show her what she needed to do, but he knew she wouldn’t take his interference. He could only wait until she needed him. And who knew how long that would take. Maybe never . . .
He slid his glasses further up his nose and tried to put Ruthie Collins and the land to the back of his mind.
I head to the back door, slip off my muddy boots and go into the kitchen to start making another big batch of piccalilli. Whilst it’s bubbling away, I decide I might as well get rid of the big pile of weeds. I’ll burn them like I’ve seen so many of the farmers doing around the area. I have no idea how else to get rid of them. And it would be great to take some more pictures of the olive grove as we get closer to the harvest. I’ll put them on the website to let people know how their trees are coming on. That way they’ll really feel a part of the process. The more pictures I take of life at the masseria, the more real it will be for them.
I grab my camera and put it on charge. Then I go out to the weed pile and stuff scrunched-up paper underneath it. I hope I’m better at lighting this bonfire than I am at getting the wood-burning stove to work. Perhaps a small garden fire will make the photos look even better. There’s a real sense of autumn in the olive grove, with a gentle, soft breeze in the air, like a blanket wrapping itself around me.
I strike a match and put it to the paper. The wind suddenly picks up and a big orange flame shoots up the side of the bonfire, making me jump back, nearly falling over Daphne.
Jeez! I wasn’t expecting that. I’m better at this firelighting thing than I thought. Or maybe the rubbish is drier than I realised. Either way, the fire’s taken much more quickly than I was expecting. In fact, this isn’t what I was expecting at all. Shit! Another flame shoots skywards, sending my heart racing in panic. But I’m rooted to the spot, mesmerised by the fire taking hold so quickly in front of me.
Suddenly I’m knocked sideways. There’s a shout and then an arc of water falling on to the flames, hissing and fizzing. But as fast as the flames are dampened, they flare up somewhere else on the pile. On command, I run and get the washing-up bowl full of water, and keep running back and forth to the barrel of water where I had my bath. The fire hisses, fizzes and spits, and at last the flames start to die.
The hosepipe is still pouring out water. The bonfire is still hissing and smoking. Slowly I turn round. Marco’s chest is rising and falling and he takes deep breaths. Exhausted and sweating, he rests a hand on my shoulder and bends over to catch his breath.
‘Marco, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise. Ryan said I didn’t need to worry about anything.’
Marco says nothing.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I repeat. ‘I thought I could just burn the garden rubbish. I had no idea.’
‘You could’ve caused a huge fire!’ He suddenly erupts as he stands up. ‘Uncut grass is the biggest threat to olive trees. You could’ve killed off hundreds of years of history . . . if not yourself,’ he roars, pointing at the line of scorched grass making its way towards the big tree.
‘You haven’t been near these trees in years. You’ve been working away. Why do you care all of a sudden? And you certainly wouldn’t care about me!’ I blurt out.
We both stand furious, breathing heavily, our faces cross and hot, up close to each other. It must be the panic and the fea
r. For a moment neither of us says anything, the air heavy with unspoken words. Does he have feelings? Could he care? I find myself thinking. But why would he? I’m the one who’s standing in the way of his family getting their house back.
I can feel his hot breath on my face. See the sweat forming beads on his brow and the dark streaks of dirt on his cheeks. For a split second it feels like we’re both moving closer, as if drawn magnetically. Briefly I wonder if his lips are going to meet mine. His angry blue eyes are flashing and darting from my eyes to my lips and back again, and I know mine are doing the same. Both of us are still breathing heavily, nostrils flaring with each deep inhalation. His chest is rising and lowering. Now my eyes aren’t darting around his face; they’re just looking at his lips, and I’m wondering, just a little bit closer . . .
Suddenly there’s a shout and we catapult apart like we’ve actually been burnt. It’s Anna-Maria, waving a tea towel and asking if everything’s okay. Nonna is with her.
‘Va bene,’ Marco shouts back. ‘It’s fine.’
Anna-Maria and Nonna return to the house with shaking heads and waving tea towels. Neither of us knows quite what to say as we turn back to each other. He looks at the ground and I inspect my wellies.
‘Look, Marco,’ I say at the same time as he says, ‘Ruthie, I . . .’
We both stop. He gestures to me to speak. His breathing is slower now, as is mine, but my heart is still beating at double speed. Daphne is nudging at my hand, looking for reassurance.
‘Marco, I’m sorry. Please, will you tell me what I need to do,’ I say, feeling like I’ve just eaten a huge slice of humble pie. I’m not used to asking for help.
‘No,’ replies Marco, and our moment of truce is gone. The barriers drop like the iron gates on a castle and I shut myself in again, furious that I’ve let down my guard even a little bit.
‘Fine!’ I say, taking a couple of steps backwards and turning to go. He catches my elbow and I spin round, furious at his touch.
‘I won’t tell you what to do . . . I’ll show you!’ he says, and marches off towards my big shed.
I watch him go. Anna-Maria is calling to him again but gives up and goes back inside with a flick of her tea towel. I could tell Marco I don’t need his help after all. I’ll find Ryan, ask him what I should be doing. Or I could just follow Marco.
Despite the fire dying down and the danger and the argument abating, my heart is still racing in my chest, thundering like a horse on the gallops. Taking a deep breath, I follow Marco to the shed.
‘You need to cut the grass. It has grown too tall. It is a fire hazard,’ he says, repeating what I now already know.
‘It’s fine. I can do it,’ I say. ‘Really, if I need your help, I’ll let you know.’
He shakes his head. ‘You will,’ he says. ‘I have to get something from Rosa at the press. I’ll be back.’ He lets go of the old strimmer he’s holding, letting it fall against the old stone press, and stalks away from the shed.
As soon as he’s disappeared down the road in a cloud of beige dust, I go up on to the trullo roof via its tiny stone steps to ring Lou. My phone toots into life, showing me I have messages. They’re from Ed, of course, one asking if I can remember the name of a particular restaurant in Fowey. Presumably he wants to take Annabel there. The other wanting to know if I took an electricity reading on the day I left the flat. I ignore both messages. I have Marco to contend with right now. I’ll show him I can do this, but I’ll do it my way.
‘Lou, can I ask a favour? Do you have a lawnmower you could lend me?’
I drive to Lou’s apartment in town. Antonio gets the lawnmower from the shed at the back of the bar, once used to cut the little grass verge out the front. Giac immediately wants to show me his new paintings. It makes me smile. Antonio can’t help but smile either as he helps me load the lawnmower into the back of my Ford Ka. He’s talking to me constantly and I pick up the occasional word.
‘Si, olivio,’ I reply, assuming he’s asking if I’m cutting the olive grove. Again he smiles, with a look on his face that asks if I’m joking. Eventually we have to resort to leaving the boot open and the lawnmower sticking out the back. He assures me it’ll be fine.
‘You haven’t got far to go,’ Lou points out. ‘Oh,’ she adds quickly. ‘The mural. Okay to start a week Monday?’
I nod, smile and kiss them both and hurry back to the masseria. I want to get stuck into this before Marco gets back.
Stones fly out like missiles from the blade and I can barely get the lawnmower to move in the thick soil. I even try rocking it from side to side. It whines and wails and then judders to a stop. I stop too, totally exhausted, wipe my brow and look back at my progress. I’ve managed to cut a rectangle the size of a yoga mat.
Suddenly I see Marco’s car arriving back in much the same cloud of dust that he left in and I turn back to the lawnmower and pull at the handle. The wire stretches out, and then whips back but it doesn’t start. There’s a smell of petrol.
‘Come on . . .’ I grit my teeth. I can hear Marco getting out of his car. I pull again with much more force and this time it starts, groaning into life like a marathon runner after they’ve hit the wall.
I swing it round and start on a new patch of long grass, hoping to make better inroads. I know he’s watching me, but I’m not going to turn around. My arms ache, and my back, but I won’t look at him, and I definitely won’t look at how much I’ve still got to do. I push harder into the thick clumps, feeling my eyes prickle with salty sweat. I’m getting nowhere. The lawnmower starts its high-pitched whining again and then cuts out. I stand stock still, my body vibrating from holding the juddering handle. I bend to try and start it again, but this time nothing happens. Then I hear a high-pitched buzzing: crack, crack, whizz, crunch. I turn. Marco isn’t standing at the wall laughing at me as I thought. He’s wearing goggles and leather gloves and is strimming round the base of the trees. He’s done more in that short space of time than I have with my lawnmower, which now looks as if it’s found its final resting place, abandoned at an angle in the middle of a large clump of long grass.
Marco stops strimming and lifts his goggles.
‘There are goggles for you in the shed. And new gloves. It’s hard on the hands. This should have been done weeks ago. Your olive man should’ve told you.’
Without a word I walk towards the shed, my hands throbbing, to where the old strimmer is waiting for me, charged with petrol and with goggles hanging from the handle. I put on the soft leather gloves and carry the strimmer to the olive grove. It starts much more easily than the lawnmower. It spits and fires out grass in all directions, pieces ricocheting off my goggles, making me flinch. It feels like I’m in a snowstorm of grass.
Suddenly there are two arms around me. I jump and tense. Marco is standing right behind me, his arms all the way around either side of me. The strimmer chokes and cuts out.
‘No, like this,’ he says, and slowly swings the strimmer back and forth, like a metronome. I’m tense and trying not to touch him; I can’t do it.
‘Relax. Stop fighting me.’ He tightens his arms around me. I am very aware that I must be hot, sweaty and frankly stinky.
‘Go with the flow,’ he says close to my ear, and just for a moment I shut my eyes and relax. I find myself swinging from side to side with him, my shoulders dropping back and resting on his chest.
‘You have it.’ He suddenly releases me and I take a step or two back before righting myself.
‘Yes, right, I have it.’ I adjust my goggles.
‘We will leave some flowers around the edges for the bees,’ he tells me.
I fire up the strimmer again quickly and begin to sway from side to side. I turn to look at him. He smiles and gives me the thumbs-up, and I find myself smiling and giving him the thumbs-up back.
We work all day in the olive gr
ove, and the next, breaking only for lunch and some time in the shade.
‘You see, these olives are coratina olives. They ripen later than other varieties,’ he says as we sit in the shade of my bamboo awning eating bread, cheese, olives, tomatoes and piccalilli. ‘They deal well with different conditions and environments. They are very popular here in Puglia. The oil is very fruity and pungent,’ he tells me.
Each day I find out a little more about the olives on my land. Marco tells me about the olive oil process, the acidity levels that make an oil, and extra-virgin oil. But he never talks about himself, or his life here with his family in the masseria.
After lunch we go back to work, and in the evenings he returns to his trullo and I bottle up a new batch of piccalilli, even though I already have tons of the stuff. I’m going to have to find a way to get rid of some of it. Then I make more sketches for the mural.
I think I’ll go for something simple and bold. A big olive tree filling the wall. I get out the pile of black and white photographs that Lou copied for me. Photographs of the masseria, the estate and the family. But instead of sketching an olive tree, I find myself pencilling out the picture that has been forming in my head every night as I go to sleep, making little sketches on the back of the electrician’s bill. I know I’d never be able to do it. It would be too big a project for me. I haven’t done proper painting in years and I’d never be able to get the faces right. Painting faces was always hard for me. Besides, I’m not sure it’s what the town would want.
I put away the photographs and go back to sketching out the olive tree before hauling myself into bed.
But by day three I can’t go on.
The sun comes up, creeping in through my shutters, but instead of throwing back the covers and going to the window to watch the mist rise off the olive trees, I don’t move. Every bone in my body aches. I can’t move. I can’t do this any more. I pull the covers over my head and ignore Luigi’s cockerel doing its best to wake me, and the dogs next door barking for their breakfast, and the little birds being cheerful and chirpy. Don’t they ever get fed up of the daily grind? I wonder, getting up, singing songs, finding worms, watching out for cats. It must be exhausting.