‘If you like, you can stay in bed and wait for me.’
‘If I stay in bed I’ll be snoring again. I’m going to get up and call my sisters, see how things are there.’
‘That is a shame,’ he said.
‘But we could have dinner? I mean, if you’re planning on coming back tonight. . .’
‘Va bene. I will go now and be back at seven.’
Filled with a new sense of urgency, Kate dressed quickly and logged onto a laptop borrowed from Abelie’s on-off boyfriend, Bruno. At the wedding, someone had given her a name, and she had scribbled it down on a napkin, which now lay crumpled at the bottom of her bag. She had no idea who had imparted the information, or how it had come about, but recalling that she had a name, at least, she had decided to search for it. It was a long shot, and one she had dismissed at the time, but now, in light of her new resolution to get Alessandro’s mother on board once and for all with their relationship, she was willing to try pretty much anything.
The napkin sat beside her on the table now, with Shauna Davies, Piccolo Castelli written on it in spidery, drunken script.
Google found her the website for Piccolo Castelli easily enough, and scrolling through the pages of their site, in amongst all the reams of text that she didn’t understand, she managed to work out that they had a contact page, with email addresses for their staff. There was a photo of Shauna with her details beneath. She had almost white hair, curled under her face in a chin-length bob, and was perhaps in her late fifties, but the Italian weather obviously suited her because she had the most glorious tan and she looked incredibly slim and glamorous. Kate supposed that she had to keep up a certain appearance for some of her wealthier clients, but this assumption only served to fuel Kate’s doubt that she would even get looked at twice for the trainee estate agent job she’d been told might be going. And it was only might, because the person, whoever they were, was not even sure at all. They simply had a name and a hunch, given to them by a friend of a friend who had once had very satisfactory dealings with Shauna and had since remained good friends with her.
She drafted and redrafted the email. Every time she was about ready to send, she felt compelled to go back over it and change something else – a word that wasn’t quite right, a comma in the wrong place, something minute and insignificant that seemed to glare at her from the page. Perhaps it was a subconscious stalling; once it had gone there was no taking it back, and she was afraid that the person at the other end would laugh and question why on earth someone like Kate would even be putting herself forward in this way. But then she remembered Alessandro’s faith, and how he had told her he believed in her bravery even when she didn’t herself, and she took a deep breath. This was silly. She could walk around an apartment as well as anyone else, and she could read from a crib sheet and explain to clients what was on there. She assumed they would be English clients too – expats after a bit of la dolce vita, and who would be more perfect to show them around than someone who’d already taken the leap?
After one last read through, where she refused to let herself change another thing unless it was a genuine mistake, she clicked send.
There, it was gone. Now she just had to wait. At least she had plenty to keep her busy, starting tomorrow with a call to Nunzia, her landlord’s wife, to see about those cut-price party dresses. It wasn’t exactly going to make her rich, but at least it was a start.
Alessandro had called to say he was still worried about his mother and was going to stay with her that night. He’d assured her that there was no need to come dashing over, and that he and Abelie had the situation under control. Though Kate had missed him, it was somewhat of a relief, and it meant that she could get a much-needed early night. She’d slept in until the afternoon, but it had hardly been restful, and as they hadn’t returned to her flat until the early hours after the wedding anyway, it hadn’t taken long for Kate to start yawning again come the evening.
Salvatore, Kate’s landlord, only pretended that his English was bad, or so Alessandro said, but his wife’s really was. It was hard work making conversation with Nunzia, and not something she always looked forward to, but she did like Nunzia and she couldn’t very well back out of her agreement with Salvatore now. So after a quick and overcomplicated phone call the following morning, Nunzia was waiting in her tiny yellow Fiat 500 as Kate hurried down the steps of the apartment building to her.
‘Buongiorno!’ Nunzia said, kissing Kate on the cheek as she climbed into the passenger seat. As odd as Salvatore looked with his funny moustache and borrowed war medals, Nunzia looked sweet and homely and absolutely, straight-down-the-line normal. At some point in her younger days, she might even have been quite pretty, her soft brown eyes decorated with wrinkles these days but full of laughter and fun, and thick hair with barely a grey showing. She was curvy, but she had a good shape and a distinct waist that suited tailored dresses perfectly. Kate often wondered how she and Salvatore had got together, and she could imagine Nunzia picking him out at something like an animal shelter for rejected men, feeling sorry for him and deciding to devote her life to making him a functioning member of society.
First stop was coffee at a sweet little backstreet café, nestled between a quaint gift shop and fragrant bakery, tables and chairs set outside on gleaming cobbles and herbs growing in window boxes on the floors above. Kate pored over some dress patterns and magazines that Nunzia had brought along to show what she wanted, and it was a pleasant hour – despite the language difficulties, nothing pleased Kate more than talking about dressmaking. She was good at it, and other people thought she was good at it, and she loved to see the looks of admiration for her finished pieces. Nunzia’s face was alight with expectation as they turned the pages for ideas, and once they had settled on a couple of styles, it was time to visit the haberdashery.
It was Kate’s turn to get excited as they got back into Nunzia’s car. She had heard of Bassetti Tessuti before – it was the largest and most famous haberdashery in Rome, and possibly one of the biggest in the world – but despite wanting to visit, she hadn’t yet managed to find the time. Partly because she knew that an hour of browsing would be nowhere near long enough to appreciate it, and she hadn’t had many full days spare between getting her flat habitable and searching for work. At least this time they knew what they needed and so aimless browsing would be narrowed down to constructive browsing, which would hopefully take a lot less than a day.
A frontage of cream stone greeted them, and the glass doors set in a metal frame bearing a plaque with the shop name in a sensible font were unassuming enough that most people would pass without realising what treasure lay within. But as they opened the doors, Kate’s stomach flipped in a way that was usually reserved for anticipation of date nights with Alessandro, because here the other love of her life was about to be indulged.
Oh, how she wished she had an inexhaustible credit card as they wandered room after room, craning their necks to look up to the tops of rack upon rack of cloth bolts lining the walls and reaching up to the ceilings. There was so much of this she longed to buy for herself, but she had to keep remembering that they were here for Nunzia’s fabric and, besides, she could hardly afford what was in here anyway. These were the finest fabrics in Rome, with a price tag to match. She’d never paid this much at the market in Manchester, not even in Laura Ashley, where she used to go when she was treating herself to something a bit special. More than once, Kate recalled Lucetta’s incensed comments about Salvatore’s stinginess in his payment for Nunzia’s dresses, but she tried to push her doubts to the back of her mind.
‘You like?’ Nunzia asked Kate, as an assistant held two bolts he’d just been sent up a dizzying ladder to fetch down for them.
Kate examined each fabric in turn. ‘I think this one would sew better – a bit stiffer for the style you want too, so it would hold the structure. But this one. . .’ She stroked the other. ‘This has a lovely texture. You’d be better with a softer style for this.’ Nunzia looked blankly at her.
Kate smiled patiently and went over it again. ‘This. . .’ she pointed to the first one, ‘this strong. Good for this style. . .’ And Kate mimed a huge billowing skirt around her legs. ‘And this one,’ she added slowly, ‘this one good for soft shape. . .’ And she ran her hands down her legs with a sultry face that had Nunzia giggling. ‘Sexy,’ Kate continued. ‘Sì?’
Nunzia sent the assistant up the ladder again for three more swathes from the top that she wanted to look at more closely. If she hadn’t known better, Kate would have sworn she was doing it on purpose, just for the hell of it, as there were hundreds lower down that looked just as nice. But then, after another half hour or so, she settled on two that she liked and that got Kate’s approval as something she could work with.
‘We look little more,’ Nunzia said, shooing away the assistant to go and work out the cost and wrap the goods.
‘But I thought we had everything.’
‘Not see everything,’ Nunzia said.
Kate smiled. She was stalling, so that Kate could have a good snoop around the place. But what was the point in looking when you couldn’t have anything? Nunzia looked so pleased with herself for the kind gesture to Kate, however, that she didn’t have the heart to say no. ‘OK.’
The shop was a maze of rooms which they explored for a second time to see what they might have missed the first, each one jam-packed with fabrics, from shirt cottons, to wool for suits, to silk, to designer fabrics by the likes of Versace and Valentino. Some rooms they wandered into, saw that it didn’t have the sort of fabric they needed, and headed straight back out, but other rooms found them lingering as Kate admired bolt after bolt of beauty.
‘Oh!’ she said, pulling a modern black and grey floral from the shelf. ‘That’s gorgeous!’
‘You like?’ Nunzia asked.
‘Oh, I do!’ Kate said.
‘Quanto?’ Nunzia called to the assistant, who was now hovering nearby again.
‘Cento,’ he replied.
‘One hundred euros,’ Nunzia translated for Kate, though her rudimentary Italian had already told her as much.
‘We have what we need, eh?’ she replied and made a show of looking at her watch. Really, this was all getting a bit torturous, and she’d had just about enough of looking at stuff she couldn’t afford.
‘Go to car,’ Nunzia said. ‘I pay.’
‘Oh,’ Kate said, getting the distinct feeling she was being dismissed and not liking it much. Had she said something wrong? Was Nunzia annoyed because she had suggested they finish shopping? Clueless, she simply nodded and made her way from the shop to the pavement outside while Nunzia went to settle up at a very odd counter that looked like a bank window from a black-and-white movie.
Kate waited patiently on the pavement by the locked car. One or two people gave her suspicious looks as they passed by, and she agreed that she did look suspicious hanging around a locked car, but where else was she supposed to go? Nunzia emerged half an hour later, just as Kate was thinking she’d fallen into a rack of woollens and had been lost forever, struggling under the weight of a huge parcel.
‘Let me help!’ Kate said, rushing to take the weight.
‘Grazie,’ Nunzia said. She let the whole lot fall into Kate’s arms, and Kate stumbled backwards.
‘It is heavy,’ she said, slightly taken aback that it was, in actual fact, just as cumbersome as it had looked. For a moment she’d wondered if Nunzia was being feeble or just feigning helplessness.
‘Sì,’ Nunzia agreed, fishing in her bag for her car keys. With a pop, the locks opened and Kate deposited the fabric in the tiny boot before joining Nunzia in the car.
As they drove home, Kate was almost glad their little trip out was over. While she had loved seeing the store, and had enjoyed talking about all things sewing, chatting to Nunzia had been hard work and the more time she spent out daydreaming, the more other concerns pressed in on her thoughts. There was so much to do, and she was pratting around in what amounted to a sweet shop for her. She had a job to find, and a family to win over, and she hadn’t spoken to Lily for days. Nunzia liked her well enough now, but would she be quite so keen when Kate couldn’t make her husband’s rent?
Nunzia pulled the handbrake on outside the apartment building. There was one last job to do before Kate could let her go back to the home she shared with Salvatore, half a mile down the road from the block he owned, and that was to take her measurements. She’d already made her one dress, of course, but it was best to be safe and re-measure every time if you could – you never knew what slight variations could arise from a week of indulgence or a week of abstinence, and every pattern was a little different anyway. Kate carried the fabric, Nunzia following, and once they were inside, she dropped it onto the table while she went to fix drinks for them.
‘Very nice.’ Nunzia nodded, gesturing at the room as Kate handed her a lemonade.
Kate smiled. On her limited budget she had done her best to make her flat feel like home, but as her grandmother used to say, you couldn’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. She would hardly feature in next month’s Homes & Gardens magazine, but Kate kept it clean and tidy, and it was bright and homely enough, and she knew she was a lot better off than some, so she took the praise with good grace and went to fetch her tape measure.
When she returned, Nunzia had unwrapped her parcel, and as well as the two swathes of fabric she had chosen for herself, the black and grey floral that had caught Kate’s eye at the store sat on the table. Kate stared at the cotton, and then at Nunzia.
‘I don’t understand. . .’
Nunzia grinned. ‘You like?’
Kate’s eyes widened. ‘It’s for me?’
‘Sì! For you!’
‘But why?’
Nunzia shrugged. ‘You are good.’
‘But I can’t take this—’
‘Sì, you take!’
She stared at the fabric again. It was such a lovely gesture, and an even lovelier fabric, and she didn’t really know that she’d done anything to deserve it. But Nunzia didn’t seem like she’d take no for an answer, and besides, the shop was hardly likely to take it back now when they’d cut it from the roll. Though looking at it, there was an awful lot of material – probably a lot more than Kate needed to make herself a dress, and it had probably cost a small fortune. ‘Grazie mille!’ she cried, hugging her. ‘It’s gorgeous and I love it!’
‘Prego,’ Nunzia said. As she pulled away, she gave a cheeky smile. ‘No say to Salvatore. . . secret. . .’
‘Yes, our secret,’ Kate said, nodding. Ordinarily, she found that secrets led to trouble, but this was one she didn’t mind keeping.
Chapter Five
Alessandro’s night shifts had started again, so for the next five nights Kate wouldn’t see him at all. They were long shifts, and though sometimes they would grab some time together during the few hours between him sleeping and starting work again that evening, it was always rather more tense, both watching the clock and knowing they couldn’t wander too far because he’d have to leave soon. But it did give Kate time to get stuck into some well overdue tasks, as well as catch up with her family and friends. After phoning both Lily and Anna, who mostly talked about things that had happened at work, the weather, what their respective other halves were up to, whether Kate had found a job yet and whether her landlord was still quite mad, she took the opportunity to make herself a coffee before calling her mum. But in the gap in her schedule, the phone sitting on the kitchen counter next to her lit up, and Jamie’s face appeared.
Kate swiped to take the FaceTime.
‘Hey!’ He grinned. ‘How’s it going?’
Kate broke into a broad, delighted smile of her own. Whenever she saw Jamie, she instantly felt happy. It was a strange effect he had on people, and it wasn’t just to do with his handsome features. There was something unnameable but truly wonderful that shone from him, and she’d seen it the first time they’d ever met at a taxi rank at Fiumicino Airport. Everyone he met w
as enchanted by his wit, his charm, his good nature – everyone wanted to be a satellite in his orbit – and Kate, despite the odd drama during the early days of their acquaintance, was no different. She’d even fancied him a bit at first – looking as Adonis-like as he did, it was difficult to imagine who wouldn’t – but once he’d put her in the picture that he was gay and engaged to be married to a great guy back home in New York, she quickly decided she liked him a lot better as a friend anyway.
‘It’s great!’ she said. ‘Well, not great actually,’ she added, ‘but not terrible.’
‘That’s good!’ He laughed. ‘Not terrible is better than terrible. Is that mean cat of a sister still giving you trouble?’
‘Maria? I haven’t made my way onto her list for Christmas drinks and nibbles yet, but I’m still working on it.’
‘Leave her to me. . .’ He winked, reaching out of shot and then putting a glass of red wine to his lips.
Kate’s smile grew. ‘Leave her to you? Does that mean you’re coming to Rome?’
‘In a week.’
‘YAY!’ Kate squealed and clapped her hands together. ‘That’s fantastic! You could stay with me if you like.’
‘What, and miss out on the opportunity of making my boss cough up some dollar for a hotel? Honey, it’s a lovely sentiment but please join me in the real world!’
Kate giggled. ‘Aww, and you’ve even camped up for me.’
‘Only for you.’ He smiled. ‘So, what has naughty Maria been doing?’
‘Oh, nothing really. Just sending bad vibes and evil wishes in my direction. I can’t really say she’s done anything wrong as such, but she doesn’t make a secret of the fact she doesn’t like me.’
‘What about Mamma Conti? Have you worked your magic on her yet?’
‘Well, she’s not won over yet, but I think we can get there. In fact, I was thinking I might pop to see her tomorrow.’
‘Give her my love. And check that the invite for dinner still stands.’
A Wedding in Italy: A feel good summer holiday romance (From Italy with Love Book 2) Page 8