by Carmen Reid
'A torch? Where's the romance in that?' he laughed.
There was a fig tree just ahead of them with branches bent low, close to the ground, and thick green leaves almost still in the windless air.
'Doesn't it smell nice?' Ed asked, leaning up against one of the thick branches and pulling Annie in close beside him.
Annie breathed in the dark green, spicy-sweet smell of the leaves and the small unripe figs hanging between them.
'Mmmm . . .' she had to agree.
'I'm a bit worried about you,' Ed said, landing a kiss on her forehead.
'Why?'
'You sound like you have a big crush on this Mr B,' he told her. He didn't sound as if he was teasing, 'and we've been here before,' he added. 'Mr Flash in a big flash car, promising he'll keep you in handbags and posh knickers for ever more . . . and look how badly that ended.'
'Ed!' Annie exclaimed with as much horror and disbelief as she could muster, because way deep down where she could hardly admit it, she wondered if she did have the tiniest crush on Mr B. 'Are you jealous? Are you really jealous?'
'Of course I'm jealous,' he confessed. When he'd first fallen for Annie, she'd been dating and then had even moved in with a rich dentist, causing Ed the kind of jealous agonies which, at the time, he'd thought might be terminal.
Annie slid her hands into the back pockets of Ed's trousers and pulled him right up against her. 'Good,' she said, 'stay jealous, babes. It makes you much more interesting.'
Just as he moved in to kiss her, she pulled back her head and had to ask, 'What's this Owen was telling me about you hanging out with some incredibly attractive Italian woman all day?'
'Oh!' Ed spluttered, 'that's a total exaggeration. We ran into someone, literally, she said hello . . . she had her daughter with her . . .'
'Fabulously attractive though? Yes or no?'
'She wasn't bad . . . she was OK . . .' Ed answered in some confusion. 'I didn't really notice.'
'You didn't really notice?'
Their kissing was growing much more heated. Fingers were on buttons, fumbling to undo them and feeling urgently for skin.
'I'm going to see Mr B again tomorrow,' Annie confided, 'and you should be fine with that.'
'OK . . . OK,' Ed agreed, feeling Annie's cool hand slip into the open front of his trousers. 'How much did you spend?' he asked suddenly, feeling her tongue slide down to his nipple.
'I can't tell you,' was all the reply she gave.
'C'mon,' he murmured, feeling her lick down his chest and then against his stomach, knowing she was going to go lower. 'Two or three? Or more?'
She took him in her mouth, so when he repeated the question, it was in a very low voice, with his head pulled back, trying to find support against the branch of the tree.
'Just over three, but don't worry,' Annie broke off to tell him – but quickly carried on, deciding this was probably the best remedy.
'OK, OK,' Ed sounded a little surprised, but then murmured, 'I can live with that.' He ran his fingers through her hair. 'Another three hundred on your credit cards . . . we can sort it. We'll get there. We'll get there,' he repeated. 'Oh! I like that!'
Three hundred? Now it was Annie's turn to be surprised. Three hundred pounds? No, no, she had just spent over three thousand . . . using the money borrowed against the house.
She had wanted to tell him then, she had wanted to have the conversation and clear the air, really she had. But obviously this wasn't the moment.
'And jus' where have you two been?' Connor, on the terrace with another bottle of wine, called out when he spotted them walking in from the garden.
'Fruit picking,' Annie called out to him.
'Fruit picking? A likely story . . . Squeezing his plums and chewing his banana maybe.'
'Connor!' Annie had reached the terrace by now and seeing how pale and sweaty her friend looked, she reached over for the remains of the wine.
'You have to go to bed now,' she instructed him. 'Your liver can't take any more. You've been pure for four months, you'll have to break yourself in gently. I know, babes, because it's just like after childbirth when the first glass of champagne makes you high!'
Connor drained the glass he had in his hand and then tried to stand up. But he wobbled dangerously and had to sit down again.
'Oh babes,' Annie sympathized, 'you are going to feel so bad in the morning. I don't know if I can let you share a room with Owen tonight, he might get drunk just breathing in the fumes you're giving off.'
'Shud up,' Connor said, holding out a hand for Annie to pull him to his feet.
'C'mon,' Ed joined in and together, each with an arm of Connor's over their shoulders, they led him first to the bathroom, where he insisted he'd be fine and shut the door on them, and then helped him to his bed.
'Just take off my shoes,' he groaned, sinking down onto the mattress, 'I'll just sleep in these.'
'Can't I at least take off your trousers?' Annie had to ask. 'Make my day?'
'I thought Ed had already done that?' Connor wasn't too drunk to tease. 'OK, you can admire my trunks. I think you bought them for me anyway. In medium!'
'It goes by waist size, gorgeous,' Annie retorted, briskly hoicking down his cargoes, 'otherwise you'd obviously be extra, extra large.'
Connor was already curling up on his side, eyes shut, falling either asleep or into a coma. Annie was going to put a big plastic bowl at his bedside just in case. She was feeling deeply guilty about him now. She shouldn't have left him in the café with Lana for so long. Temptation must have come breezing by and although Connor was a big boy, he still hadn't learned to stop before he fell over. Maybe he was an alcoholic. Maybe he should abstain. Maybe she had not exactly been very supportive of his attempts to address the problem.
But he was so much fun just a little bit drunk. It was hard to give that side of Connor up. Even Hector had agreed with that.
'I only love him when he's at least one glass down,' Hector had told her. 'That's not a very healthy basis for a relationship, is it?'
'You know, I can think of worse,' Annie had replied.
Chapter Sixteen
Italian Annie:
Vibrant orange and pink chiffon dress (Boutique Nina)
Pale camel fake snake heels (Boutique Lorenzo)
Bouffant hair (by Patrizia)
Total est. cost: £110
'When in Rome . . .'
The next morning, straight after breakfast, Annie got into the people carrier and drove herself back to Mr Bellissimo's shop.
No one else had volunteered to come with her. Not that she'd minded: she was sure it was more professional to go and talk business with Mr B on her own. Besides, Ed and Dinah wanted a quiet day by the pool, maybe with a touch of exploring round the villa, even a little light food shopping in the afternoon, and Billie and Owen were happy to stay with them. Connor and Lana were still in bed, which wasn't so surprising, whereas Aunty Hilda, the creature of habit, had woken at 7 a.m. and wheeled herself into the kitchen for a cup of tea.
'Lipton's . . . it's just terrible stuff. You can't get it in Britain, but you can't get anything else abroad, of course. It's just one of those strange, strange things,' she kept telling everyone who hung around long enough to listen.
'Are you really going back to Mr B?' Dinah had wanted to know.
'Yes! He wants someone to sell his bags in London and I think I—'
'Are you sure?' Dinah had asked, 'You don't think he was just saying—'
'Shhh!' Annie had interrupted her because Ed was coming back out to the terrace.
'So you're off to speak to your new handbag guru,' Ed had smiled at Annie, 'and we're stuck here just sunbathing, swimming in the pool and all that terrible stuff.'
'If you're going to sunbathe, you've got to have my posh sun cream,' Annie had insisted and went off to rifle through her suitcase to find it.
'Sisley,' she'd showed Dinah proudly as she'd rubbed some lovingly over Ed's forehead, nose and cheekbones.
'Nice!' Dina
h had said. 'Am I worth it though? Isn't this stuff about eighty pounds a pot?'
Ed had spluttered with horror and moved Annie's fingers from his face. 'I'm definitely not worth it!'
'It's OK,' Annie had assured them, 'I got it online, fabulous deal. It's fantastic. For tanning without wrinkling.'
'Oh good, because I was so worried about that.' Ed snaked an arm around her waist. 'I think you should stay here,' he'd wheedled, 'I've still not seen you in your swimsuit and that's the only reason I agreed to come to Italy, to see you in your new swimsuit. How have you managed to come on holiday and fill up your time with appointments and meetings and things to do?'
She'd looked at him with some sympathy. 'Ed, I am in the shoe and handbag manufacturing capital of the world,' she explained.
'Annie, if I took you for a minibreak to Outer Mongolia, you'd spend the whole time negotiating the best price on saddle-bags because they are just so this season.'
Annie had to concede that maybe he had a point.
'I don't really like . . . well . . . lounging,' Annie had to confess. 'If I had to lie by the pool for more than an hour or so, I'd probably get a bit bored.'
'Aha!' was Ed's response. 'Now we're getting to the truth of it – we're not interesting enough for you. You're running away.'
'Just for a few hours,' Annie had promised them. 'And Ed, don't worry, I'm going to sell all this stuff, for so much money that you're not going to regret anything!'
'No, regrette rien!' he'd joked, 'that's my motto.'
'I don't think it's Connor's though,' Dinah had to add at the sound of loud retching coming from the direction of the open bathroom window situated just a little too close to the terrace for comfort.
Having parked on the edge of the town, Annie meandered in on foot through the quieter, dustier streets and drank in all the sights on the way.
A pair of heavy wooden doors was pulled open by a wiry man in a straw hat, who began to drag a wooden crate of lemons out onto the doorstep. The grocer was setting up shop. Annie looked at the doors with their ragged and flaking sun-bleached blue paint. If she'd seen them in London, she'd just be itching to pick up sandpaper and paintbrushes and re-do them. But here in the dazzling morning sun, it looked just right. Ancient, faded blue, set off perfectly by the acid lemon yellow heaped beneath it.
As she approached the town centre, Annie walked towards a café and spotted a supremely elegant woman seated at an outside table reading the paper. Her huge tortoiseshell sunglasses, already on against the glare of the sun, glinted darkly just like her chunky brown and black necklace.
There was a tiny white coffee cup in front of her and there she was, dressed to the nines, happy to be alive.
This was the essence of what Annie tried to inspire in her clients: dress to express yourself! Dress to make yourself feel good! Who cares what anyone else thinks? If you want to wear the green shoes with the yellow skirt, go for it!
Dressing well was the one genuinely creative and artistic thing most people were allowed to do all day. It wasn't about fashion and it wasn't about how much things cost . . . but then maybe she'd been in danger of forgetting that too.
To her surprise, the woman in the sunglasses looked up, seemed to study her briefly and then called out, 'Annie? Is it you? Buon giorno.'
Only when the glasses were removed did Annie recognize the woman behind them. It was Patrizia, from Mr B's glamorous factory shop. Annie had decided yesterday that Patrizia wasn't Mr B's wife, but looking at the glamorous lady now she still wasn't sure if there was anything between them or not. How could they resist one another?
'Allora,' Patrizia patted to the chair beside her, 'come, you sit and have a little coffee with me. Beautiful morning, no?'
Annie was delighted to be asked. She pulled up the spindly little metal chair and sat down, not opposite Patrizia but beside her, so they could both, from behind their glamorous shades, look out onto the street, watch the comings and goings and take little glances at each other now and then.
The coffee brought by the waiter was so strong, it was like drinking hot whisky. It tore down Annie's throat, burning a hole, shot through her blood and made straight for her heart, which began to pound. No wonder they only served it by the thimbleful. It should come with a health warning.
'So?' Patrizia leaned back in her seat, pushing her long, wavy hair away from the nape of her neck and releasing a lovely blast of the complicated citrus perfume everyone here seemed to wear their own version of. 'You came to town for the mercato?'
'Yes, maybe I'll have a look around.'
'Delicious, delicious things,' Patrizia enthused. 'Wonderful food from all around the region. The prosciuttio and olivas!'
'I was going to look for your necklace shop,' Annie confided, since she was trusting Ed to look after the food side of things during the trip, although, just to be nice to him, she might go to the market and buy him something special to cook with. 'Where did you buy this wonderful piece?' Annie asked, pointing at the fat beads Patrizia had wound several times around her neck. 'Is the shop in town?'
'Ah!' Patrizia looked genuinely pleased at the compliment, 'I take you! Yes!' she insisted when Annie raised her hands to protest. 'No! No problem. I show you some of my favourite boutiques on the way. Today, you shop like an Italian lady.'
Patrizia insisted on paying for the coffees, then they fell in step along the delicate stone pavements, complimenting each other on their shoes.
'It is very English to love shoes,' Patrizia said. 'Mr Berlusponti-Milliau say this because English women too fat to get excited about clothes, only shoes.'
'Oh no!' Annie reacted in outrage on behalf of every English woman, 'it's because English men love our shoes and . . . English women have beautiful feet,' Annie declared. No, it wasn't necessarily true but it was the best excuse for the shoe thing that she could come up with on the spot. How long have you worked for Mr Bellissimo?' she asked next.
'Mr Berlusponti-Milliau?'
'Yes, but I can't pronounce that.'
'So you flatter him and call him Mr Very Beautiful.'
'Well, I don't think he minds!'
'No, no, and I am sure he not mind. He has, how you say? Ego . . . gigantico!' She spread her arms wide to demonstrate, 'Oh,' she interrupted herself, 'but first you must come and see the shoes in here.'
Annie, who had a hundred pairs of Timi Woo shoe perfection neatly boxed up at home in London, was not exactly bowled over by the shoes on offer. They were quite elegant and very reasonably priced, but they bore no comparison to the genius shoes she had discovered. However, Patrizia was an insistent shopping companion. She wanted to know Annie's size, she instructed the sales assistant to bring out a selection of shoes to try and before Annie knew it, she was at the till paying for a pair of creamy fake snake-print slingbacks.
A quick jaunt along the cobbled pavement later and they were in a boutique which Patrizia insisted had the very best dresses at the very best price.
'I buy everything here,' Patrizia informed her and indeed, the woman in the shop greeted Patrizia like her very best customer.
'You like? You like this?' Patrizia kept asking, holding out dress after dress from the rack. Somehow it would have been almost insulting to both Patrizia and the owner to say no. Anyway, the dresses were beautiful and most of them were less than a hundred euros, which seemed astonishing for such intricately patterned silk.