by Carmen Reid
After the apologies, Annie and her new business partner tried to keep on walking with some dignity, Annie wondering how long she could tiptoe on her heelless right foot before terminal cramp set in.
'Forty per cent is fair,' she began again, once a reasonable distance had been set between them and the drain cover, the invisible waiter and the somersaulting coffees.
Sandro stopped walking. He turned to Annie and she was delighted to see he had a broad smile on his face and was spreading his arms wide as if he expected a hug.
Oh God. Maybe forty per cent was too low? Maybe she'd caved in? Maybe she should have stuck with fifty no matter what?
'Annnnie!' he gushed. 'You win! Minimum purchase fifty bags,' he added quickly.
'Deal.'
Annie could see that any moment now, the arms were going to close in on her . . . and thought that would probably be quite nice. She wouldn't mind an affectionate little seal-the-deal hug with Sandro.
She let him and his cloud of citrus cologne move in.
'Isn't that Annie over there?' Aunty Hilda asked, her head moving sharply to the side. Ed behind her, pushing her wheelchair along the pavement, looked up.
'Where?' he asked.
'Down there at the bottom of the street, on the other side of the road,' Aunty Hilda insisted. 'I can only see her back, but isn't that the dress she was wearing when she left this morning?'
Ed followed Hilda's blatantly pointing finger.
It was Annie! He could see that immediately. That was her dress. That was her loose 'Italian' hair, rather than her usual ponytail, but most of all, he recognized her by her unmistakably luscious behind.
Ed began to push the wheelchair again to bring them closer to her.
'Just look at that!' Hilda exclaimed as Annie's waist was encircled by Mr B's arms and his head bent towards hers for what was obviously a kiss.
Sandro was kissing her full on the mouth! This was surprising . . . this wasn't just beeeziness. Well, maybe it was in Italy. Maybe this was how you sealed a beeeziness deal in Italy.
But now that Annie could feel just a hint of Sandro's tongue brushing against her lip, she had to take action.
She jerked her head back.
'Is something wrong?' he asked.
She moved her hand quickly up to her eye. She wasn't desperate to hurt Mr forty per cent discount's feelings just yet. Not at this fragile stage in negotiations.
'There's something in my eye,' she said, leaning back and away from his face, although he was still holding her tightly around the waist. In fact his hands were definitely sliding down to the top of her bum.
She smudged at the corner of her eye with her fingertip.
'Oh, I look,' Sandro said, bending closely down over her face, scanning her eye with careful attention.
He was looking right at her, very, very intently, and Annie found herself staring at the sculpted furrow above his top lip. Another kiss wouldn't be so bad. Just one more, proper kiss. After all the rowing she'd been through, another little fragrant, coffee-flavoured kiss would be really very nice.
No.
No.
She shouldn't. No matter how soft and responsive his lips looked.
She pulled her face a little further back, but his hand was on the back of her head now, holding her in place.
'Tranquillo,' he murmured and looked in her eye with concern. His lips were only a centimetre or two from hers and Patrizia's words of warning were ringing in Annie's ears: 'He big lady man . . . he lean over and say, "something on your face, Patrizia, let me move it away".'
'Just look at that!' Aunty Hilda repeated loudly. 'Absolutely shameless!'
Ed was standing transfixed. He could see the back of Annie's head and he could see Annie's arse. Mr B had a hand on each.
He was holding Annie far too tightly for this to be anything businesslike. They were clearly having a very long snog.
Ed couldn't think of anything to say or anything to do. For several long moments, he couldn't think of anything at all. Then a memory sprang into his mind, of Owen playing a mournful melody on the violin. Suddenly with a snap, the D-string had broken, curling into a spiral and flopping over the edge of the violin, where it had dangled uselessly. They had burst into laughter.
But now . . . now he could feel strings of his own snap, snap, snapping inside him, curling up and dangling and there wasn't the slightest thing funny about it.
Briskly, he wheeled the chair around and began to head very quickly in the opposite direction.
'I want to go home today,' Aunty Hilda announced, 'and I need somebody to help me.'
She sounded smug and almost quite cheerful about this horrible turn of events. Without turning to look at him, she announced, 'I think you, Ed, should be that person.'
Chapter Twenty
Greta's bad outfit:
Pale green cord A-line skirt (Boden)
Red and green V-neck top (Miss Selfridge)
Red pumps (Dolcis)
Total est. cost: £105
'Does this make my bum look big?'
Annie felt considerably happier as she pulled up at the villa later that day. She'd let Sandro down gently, telling him that he was wonderful, charming, very tempting and so forth, and that if it didn't work out with her ragazzo he would be the first to know.
Then they'd gone to his shop where she'd picked out the fifty bags from his catalogue for her first delivery, to be sent to her just as soon as her cheque had cleared.
Now, with Sandro's bags and Timi Woo's shoes, she was ready! This was the start, this was the launch pad, this was the beginning of Annie Valentine, sales-woman, career woman, businesswoman, entrepreneur and fashion retailer!
All the way home, she'd planned how to make it up to Ed, how to win him over to her side. She could understand his concerns, she really could. But she was going to reassure him, make sure he didn't worry so much. He had to give her this chance to prove herself. He just had to. Then, when she and Ed had made up, she thought they could all celebrate (well . . . just as soon as she and Dinah, then Dinah and Ed were all friends again, obviously). She would take everyone back to the Taverna and buy them all a wonderful evening meal.
And tomorrow was going to be a proper holiday without one single mention of bags or shoes or shops. They would do whatever Ed wanted to do. Go to the coast . . . or even spend hours admiring the stained-glass windows in some dusty old cathedral, if necessary.
By the evening they would all be refreshed and ready to fly back to London, where she would make a start on her Timi Woo sales campaign.
'What do you mean they've gone?'
What on earth was Lana, in the kitchen drinking coffee while her thumb darted over the keys of her mobile phone, telling her? Ed and Aunty Hilda had gone? They had left? They had packed their bags and headed for the airport in a taxi?
'They've gone to the airport?' Annie didn't believe she could have heard this right. 'That's a two-hour drive.'
'I know . . . Hilda said she was paying. Said she couldn't stand it any longer.' Lana gave a shrug.
'What?! I thought she was having quite a nice time. Has something happened?'
'Mum!' Lana folded up her phone and turned her full attention to the slightly crazed bouffant-haired woman in the, quite frankly, tarty dress, 'I think you know what's happened. You've fallen out with Ed and Dinah. Maybe Hilda couldn't take the aggro.'
'The aggro?' Annie was astonished. 'But I was going to make it up with everyone. I was coming back here to celebrate.'
Lana looked at her in some disbelief. 'Ed and Hilda went to town to have a cup of coffee and get some newspapers and when they came back, he was really, really angry. Furious. I don't think he's quite in the mood for celebrating just yet.'
'I have to speak to him.'
Unbuckling the disastrous fake snakes with one hand, Annie rummaged in her handbag with her other.
She called Ed's mobile number, but infuriatingly, her call went straight through to voicemail.
'Don't leave Italy!' her message began. 'This is crazy. Come back, Ed, please. We need to talk this through.'
'What did Ed say?' Annie asked her daughter, slowing down, deciding it was only sensible to ask one question at a time.
'I don't know . . . that Hilda was desperate to get home today and that he was going to go with her. Then they packed their bags and left. I thought he'd have spoken to you about this. I thought you'd know about it. I didn't know you were so busy with Mr Perfume Pants to even speak to Ed.'
'Ed hasn't phoned me!' Annie insisted. 'He hasn't told me!' and then she snapped, 'Perfume Pants? What's that all about?'
'That Italian guy stinks! He must put on his aftershave with a ladle.'
'Oh right, how very observant and kind of you! Do I make cruel, personal remarks about your friends?'
'Yes!' Lana didn't hesitate to tell her. 'All the time. You even make them to my friends.'
'I do not!' Annie retorted, checking her mobile's list of calls received.
'You told Greta her green skirt made her arse look big!'
There was no sign that Ed had made any attempt to contact her. Nothing at all.
'I just answered her question truthfully and then I advised on camouflaging . . . and darker colours,' Annie said in her defence. Why hadn't Ed phoned her? She couldn't really believe this was happening. He had left the villa, and he was about to leave the country without her. Without even telling her.
Out on the terrace, Dinah and Connor were sitting on the sunloungers while Billie and Owen splashed in the pool.
'Well, that was obviously quite a row,' were Connor's words of greeting. 'He's stormed off back to London. Look on the bright side, though, the old battleaxe is out of the picture. At least he's done us that favour, your man.'
Connor had a big padded plaster over his skinned nose, cobbled together out of Elastoplast and cotton wool.
Dinah looked equally unusual, in a long-sleeved white T-shirt and jogging bottoms, her red face hidden behind dark glasses and a baseball cap. Her only visible bits of skin looked as if they had been coated in Billie's sticky white suncream.
'Did he say much about it?' Annie wanted to know.
'Erm . . . no,' Connor told her, 'he looked so angry that no one really wanted to quiz him. He even chewed Owen up about something and you've got to admit, that's not usually his style.'
'Oh great.' Annie sat down heavily on the deckchair beside them.
'Hi, Mum!' Owen shouted over, obviously not too upset.
'Annie?' Dinah ventured, 'I shouldn't have . . . I mean . . . it wasn't really . . .'
'Any of your business?' Annie snapped. 'No, it bloody wasn't. You're lucky we're very closely related or I would never, ever speak to you again.'
'Sorry,' Dinah offered.
'Well . . . you were freaked out,' Annie managed, 'it was Ed's fault and let's face it, it was Ed's fault. And then he finds out about everything I've been doing without telling him . . . and well . . .' she shrugged her shoulders, 'here we are. It'll blow over,' she said, trying to convince herself as much as the others.
'Why's he so uptight about you running your own business?' Connor had to ask. 'Anyone can see you're going to be fantastic! I couldn't believe it when you went back to The Store, I thought you were going great guns on your own last year. This is what you should be doing,' he assured her.
Despite her deep disappointment that Ed was not here and just didn't see it that way, Annie mustered up her warmest smile for Connor. 'Thanks,' she told him, 'you're my best friend and I love you, even when you're sober.'
'Oh God! Don't talk about sober, in fact' – he flicked a look at his watch – 'It's nearly lunchtime, not too early to open a cold white, I don't think.'
'I will if you will,' Annie answered.
'Leave me out of it,' Dinah told him, 'I'm staying off the booze till we get home.'
'Too right,' Annie agreed, 'there's no knowing what you'll come out with next . . . and bring Lana out, will you?' Annie shouted after Connor, 'she needs to put her phone down. I'm starting to panic about the bill.'
'Have you tried to phone Ed?' Dinah asked. 'Would it help if I phoned him?'
'Yes and I don't think so, but nice of you to offer.'
'Is it you he's really angry with . . . or is it me?' Dinah asked next.
'Oh don't worry, I'm sure it's me . . . but . . . I can't give this all up for him.'
'Could you delay it?' Dinah wondered.
Annie thought of the one hundred boxed pairs of shoes waiting for her in London and the four-figure cheque she'd just written out for Mr B. 'No,' she said, 'not really. He's got to trust me. He's got to let me go ahead and cock it all up really badly if I have to.'
'He doesn't want to lose the house,' Dinah reminded her gently. 'That's his family home.'
'Yeah!' Annie broke in, 'which he wouldn't have been able to keep anyway if it wasn't for me. He and his sister would have sold it last year. I'm the one who owns one third of that house, if I want to borrow against my share, that's up to me!'
'Maybe that's not how he sees it.'
'No,' Annie had to admit, 'but I don't want to lose the house either! He can't really think I would, can he? I'm only borrowing a bit and I know this will work.'
Annie sat back with a sigh and stared out across the fields. 'The problem is, babes,' she said, in a lower voice, 'I don't remember having a situation like this with Roddy.'
'Of course you did!' Dinah insisted, determined that Annie shouldn't bathe her husband in a saintly glow. 'You used to have the most monumental rows.'
'Rows, yes. Any number of rows, terrible rows,' Annie agreed, 'but I don't remember him ever saying I couldn't do something I really wanted to do. He believed everyone should do the things they wanted to do. He always used to say, "compromise and die! " He did!'
'Well . . .' Dinah looked at her sister dubiously, 'that's easy to say. Not exactly so easy to do. What if Bryan wanted to live in the countryside and I wanted to stay in London?'
'It is easy,' Annie insisted. 'You have to let the other person have a go. You can't just clip their wings. You'd have to move to the country with him for a few years on the promise that then, if you still couldn't stand it, you'd both move back. The compromise would be to move to the suburbs and then you'd both be miserable. See? Compromise and die!
'If Ed keeps saying no,' Annie added, 'I'm just going to resent him, and then I'd have to leave him.'
'Annie!' Dinah sounded shocked now. 'You are not going to leave Ed over this. Ed is a great guy and he's the right person for you.'
'How can you say that when he doesn't want me to do the one thing I want to do most?' Annie asked her with exasperation.
Dinah just gave her a raised eyebrow look, which Annie took to mean: Ed knows better than you.
'Oh shut up!' Annie said and stormed back into the villa.