‘I did,’ Kate said. ‘I had a few compliments today actually.’
‘I can see why,’ Lucetta said, eyeing it appreciatively. ‘If I could pay you I would ask you to make new dresses for me every day.’
‘You know I would make new dresses for you anyway – you only have to ask.’
‘Yes.’ She looked at Kate from beneath a frown. ‘You are too kind. You give to people all the time but they do not always give back.’
‘Yes, but you’re family. I mean . . .’ Kate continued, blushing, ‘practically. I always help family.’
‘You must value your skills more,’ Lucetta continued. ‘You could make lots of money from your dresses but instead you make them for free for everybody in Rome.’
‘They’re not free—’ Kate began, but Abelie joined in.
‘Your landlord pays you so little for them they are almost free.’
‘Salvatore wants dresses?’ Gian cut in.
‘His wife wants dresses,’ Kate corrected. ‘Only two.’
‘And before that,’ Abelie reminded her.
‘Yes. . .’ Kate said.
‘Yes!’ Abelie chastised. ‘Do not pretend you have forgotten!’
‘If you sold them for a good price you would make money and you would not have to work for Piccolo Castelli for free,’ Lucetta chimed in.
Kate was beginning to feel distinctly harried. ‘It’s hard to get it up and running,’ she said. ‘It’s not like I can open up and instantly have customers.’
‘Why not?’ Lucetta demanded. ‘Once people find you they will give you work. But they must find you first. Have you made your business known?’
‘Bruno made cards to give to people,’ Abelie put in, looking very pleased with her part in the venture.
‘He did,’ Kate replied carefully. ‘And it was very kind of him, but I have to meet people first in order to give them a business card, and even then I can’t just hand them one out of the blue. They have to go to the right people; there’s no point in giving them out willy nilly.’
Abelie frowned. ‘Willy nilly?’
‘I can’t give a card for dressmaking to a male construction worker or a priest,’ Kate clarified. ‘They have to go to people who are likely to buy my dresses and, as yet, I haven’t really met many of those.’
‘Perhaps you can give them to the ladies who come to see houses,’ Abelie mused.
‘I’m not sure Shauna would be happy about that. I’m supposed to sell them houses, not clothes.’
‘People need both,’ Lucetta said carelessly, licking some tomato sauce from her finger and almost sending Gian into raptures at the sight.
‘I still don’t think it would be appropriate,’ Kate replied. ‘Besides, the people who come to see these properties are mostly so rich they would be able to get handmade clothes from Stella McCartney herself so they wouldn’t want to bother with mine.’
‘They are exactly the people you need,’ Lucetta said.
‘No.’ Kate gave an emphatic shake of her head. ‘It’s just not going to happen.’
‘I think you are afraid,’ Lucetta said.
‘I’m afraid?’
‘Sì.’
‘I don’t know why you think that.’
‘You feel you will fail, so you do not try. That way, you do not fail. You can say I do not have time, or I do not have customers, but you do not have the courage – that is the truth.’
Kate stared at her. ‘You’re joking?’
Abelie nodded at her sister. ‘Lucetta is right. All this time you have only sewn for friends or favours. You are afraid that what you have is not valuable and so you do not ask for money. You must understand that it is valuable. You must tell everyone it is valuable and they will start to believe you. Then you can make money.’
‘How can you be so sure? It’s not that easy.’
‘It is not easy,’ Lucetta agreed. ‘That does not make it impossible. It is your dream, yes?’
‘Sort of,’ Kate said.
‘What is sort of? When I first met you it was so. Has your dream changed?’
Kate shook her head slowly. With all that was going on, she hadn’t really thought about that question for a long time. Life had been about getting immediate work, keeping a roof over her head and settling into a routine in Italy. There had been love rivals, and a disgruntled mother-in-law and leaky taps to worry about. Her hopes and ambitions for the business had gone into storage, and the less she’d taken them out to look at them, to love and cherish them, the duller they’d become. One day, perhaps, if the times they came out of the box became fewer and fewer, she might forget where the box was kept and never find them again. But she hadn’t really seen that clearly until now.
‘Nothing has changed,’ she said. ‘I’ve been busy, though. With everything else.’
‘You can do one thing only?’ Lucetta said, arching an eyebrow at her.
‘For now, yes. It’s difficult. . .’
‘Then you will never have your business.’
Kate took a gulp of water. ‘If this is some reverse psychology, meant to goad me into action, then it won’t work,’ she said slowly. ‘I appreciate that you’re saying all this out of kindness, but I have to walk before I can run – I mean I have to get the basics of life here sorted before I complicate things,’ she added in answer to Lucetta’s look of confusion. ‘I will carry on making bits and bobs for people for now, and that’s all I can do. I know you think it’s a cop-out and you don’t approve, but that’s what I’ve decided to do.’
Lucetta gave a short nod. Kate’s gaze went to Abelie, who shrugged.
Then Gian nudged Lucetta and smiled. ‘Mamma is sleeping,’ he whispered, nodding towards Signora Conti who was slumped in her chair, eyes closed and snoring softly.
Abelie stifled a laugh, while Lucetta broke into a broad grin.
Kate frowned. ‘She must have exhausted herself making dinner. I said she wasn’t up to it.’
‘I will take her to bed,’ Abelie said, getting up and making her way around the table to rouse her mother. Kate watched, giving silent thanks for the distraction and somehow feeling as if she’d just done a taxing stint on a psychiatrist’s couch.
Chapter Eleven
There were five team members in all, including Shauna, at Piccolo Castelli. Charles had arrived in Italy on a gap year in his law course in 2009 which had turned into two gap years and then three and then he had lost count. He cheerfully announced to Kate that he loved Italy so much he had yet to return home and his university tutor had given up asking about his plans to resume studying sometime around 2013. Kate would later learn that he’d trained with Shauna in very much the same way as she was doing before he’d got his work permits and been allowed to stay as a fully-fledged team member, a fact that buoyed Kate no end. His client base was mostly English and English-speaking customers, though he could manage Italian and a smattering of Polish when he needed to.
Then there was Giselle, who handled the French and German clients, being a Frenchwoman fluent in German too, though on chatting to her Kate was rather ashamed when she noted that, even as Giselle apologised for her English, it was pretty much perfect too.
Nonna Rossi worked on reception. She was a dough-faced lady, close to retirement, who smiled so much and so widely it looked like she was being tickled at all times. Her real name wasn’t Nonna, although everyone called her that on account of her matronly virtues and the sweets and candies she showered on her little flock of workers every day. Shauna said that while she owned the business, Nonna was the beating heart of the organisation and the one member of the team they couldn’t do without.
That left Elizabeth – half Chinese and half Scottish and uncommonly pretty for it. She took care of most of the Far Eastern clients. Any Italian clients that walked through the door went to whoever was free and could speak decent Italian, but their business had been built largely with rich foreign buyers or well-heeled Italian sellers as their customer base, dealing in properties that were beyond the me
ans of most ordinary Roman residents, which meant most of them actually spoke excellent English. A lot of their work was done online or over the telephone, but when it came to the actual nitty gritty, there was no substitute for face-to-face. It made sense to Kate – there weren’t many people, no matter how rich, who would want to buy a house they’d never seen in real life.
Her second morning was a world away from her first – far more relaxed with time to talk and get to know the people she hoped would be her new colleagues.
‘It’s always calmer on Tuesdays,’ Elizabeth said. ‘And you caught us on an especially bad Monday yesterday too.’
‘So . . .’ Charles called over from his desk, ‘you’ve just moved to Rome?’
‘Yes,’ Kate said. ‘A few months ago.’
‘And how’s that working out for you?’
‘Good,’ she said, trying to maintain a neutral tone but guessing that something of an inquisition was coming her way.
‘Come to live with a bloke?’ he asked. And there it was.
‘No, not exactly . . .’
Charles waggled his eyebrows suggestively. ‘Do you want a bloke?’
‘Oh shut up!’ Giselle shouted, throwing an eraser at him. He laughed loudly as it missed and skittered across his desk; then he scooped it up and tossed it back. ‘Don’t listen to him,’ she added, smoothing her frown into a smile for Kate. ‘He is an idiot – that is why no woman will have him.’
Nonna crossed the room and gave Kate a warm hug. ‘Welcome,’ she said, and Kate did feel very welcomed by the gesture. She could see why everyone called her Nonna, the Italian word for grandma. She was also relieved that Nonna knew exactly how to deflect the interrogation that was coming by taking her off to show her how the branch phone system worked.
‘Your dress is very beautiful,’ Nonna said, giving Kate an appreciative once-over.
‘Thank you,’ Kate said, brushing a self-conscious hand down the forest-green shift she was wearing.
‘Did you make it?’
‘Um, actually I did. How did you. . .?’
‘Shauna said the beautiful dress you wore yesterday was one you made. Everybody here admired it.’
‘Really?’ Kate glanced around the room. The women here looked far too sophisticated and stylish to be impressed by her little old home-mades.
‘Oh yes!’ Nonna nodded enthusiastically. ‘Now then,’ she continued, ‘would you like me to show you where we keep the office supplies?’
‘That would be lovely,’ Kate said and smiled, her confidence growing by the second. If the office of Piccolo Castelli was half as nice to work in as it seemed today, she was going to be very happy here indeed.
It was Sunday and Alessandro was sulking. Not sulking, exactly, but as close as Kate had ever seen. She might have found it annoying if it hadn’t been so funny.
‘I have to get these finished,’ she said, feeling like a mum chastising her impatient toddler. ‘We can go out later.’
‘Later will be cold and dark,’ he replied from the sofa, where he lay stretched out with his back to her as she sat at her sewing table. He put the book he was holding but clearly hadn’t been reading at all back to his face with a heavy sigh. ‘We will not be able to walk far.’
Kate snorted. ‘You’re being ridiculous. If you want to see what cold and dark really looks like, come and spend a winter in England.’
‘I have barely seen you all of the week,’ he said, lowering the book again. ‘And now when I am here you sew.’
‘That’s because we’ve both been working. If you had a job with normal hours it wouldn’t be a problem. And I have to sew, because Nunzia is expecting these and she needs to be able to try them on well in advance of her party in case they need to be altered.’ The sewing machine whirred as she raced a line of stitching along a hem. ‘I can’t very well sew them while I’m at work so I have to do them today and the more you complain and distract me the longer it will take. The longer it takes, the longer you’ll have to wait before we can go out. So why don’t you carry on reading quietly and I’ll tell you when I’m ready.’
He let out another sigh. ‘The job for no money. It makes me unhappy in every way.’
‘Please don’t let’s start that again. I’ve really enjoyed this week, and I told you that Charles started in the same way and he’s been working there – with pay – for years now. It’s going to be fine. You want me to be able to stay in Rome, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’
Alessandro added nothing more, and Kate resumed her task. There was silence, apart from the steady thrum of the machine as she pushed the fabric through, stopping every so often to check her work. Alessandro had the book to his face, but Kate hadn’t noticed him turn a page for at least ten minutes. She could be a slow reader, but nobody was that bad.
‘What’s really wrong?’ she asked, halting for a moment.
He put the book down again, but his gaze was still trained on the opposite wall. ‘Nothing is wrong.’
‘You’re making all this fuss about us going out. You don’t usually mind so much if we’re in and if we’re sometimes doing our own thing. Something else is bothering you.’
‘I have missed you,’ he said.
Kate snipped a line of thread and pulled the dress free from the machine to inspect it. She paused, lowered the dress and stared at the back of his head. ‘Is there something else going on? Something you need to tell me about?’
He swung his legs off the edge of the sofa and swivelled round to face her. ‘I do not know what you are talking about.’
Kate didn’t even know what it was herself, but something niggled. Things were looking up, going well for once, but that only made her suspicious that disaster was waiting around the corner. She almost sensed that Alessandro felt it too. ‘Never mind,’ she said, shaking herself.
‘Do you think we will marry?’ he asked suddenly.
‘I expect so,’ Kate replied, ruffled, forced into an automatic response that she wasn’t even certain of herself. ‘I mean, I suppose it depends on Matt but—’
‘He will help?’ Alessandro asked. And it felt to Kate that he seemed more desperate and hopeless of the prospect than he’d ever done before. This uncertainty just wasn’t like him.
‘If I catch him at the right moment and he’s in a good mood, I think he’ll agree. I’m sure we can work it out.’
Alessandro said nothing, but he seemed satisfied with her reply, relaxing back onto the sofa and putting the book back to his face. ‘Sew,’ he said. ‘Then we will go out.’
Sunday began a three-day stretch of Alessandro being off-shift. He’d come straight from work on Saturday night and stayed over, and after their heart-to-heart about the past and the future, both of them feeling sombre and introspective, they’d stayed home to eat instead of going out, Alessandro rustling up a meal with the few bits left in Kate’s fridge that she would never have imagined could be made from them. They had spent the rest of the night lying in each other’s arms on the sofa – listening to music, watching the news – but mostly talking. Kate had loved it – the closeness, the feeling of intimacy that, for once, didn’t come from sex. This was something much deeper, a new understanding of each other, a feeling of oneness that had somehow grown from laying bare their insecurities and sharing them. They discussed marriage again, as they often did, but whereas he usually talked about it in terms that made it seem like a distant prospect, this time he was talking about it as something that could be an imminent reality. The problem was in Kate’s divorce, and she understood that it was difficult for him to ask her the question with any real intent with that barrier in their way. If things had been different, if they were free to marry and he proposed, would she have said yes? Perhaps a month ago the answer to that would have been uncertain, but as she lay in his arms, she was beginning to think that it wouldn’t be such a difficult decision after all. This was what she had always wanted – the romance and the sex were amazing of course – but this quiet u
nderstanding, two souls in complete harmony – this was a feeling she could cherish forever.
On Monday morning he lay in bed watching her dress as the early sun washed the room in the colours of an old photo.
‘You’re putting me off,’ Kate smiled as she slipped into her skirt and zipped it up.
‘I like to watch you move around.’
‘I have no idea why.’
‘Because I find it beautiful.’
Kate blushed. Even now, as well as they were beginning to know each other, he still had the power to make her burn up with the slightest look, the most innocent sentence. She wondered if that would ever fade. She hoped not.
‘Come and kiss me,’ he said.
Kate shot him a sideways look. ‘Not likely. I’ll be late for work.’
His lip curled slightly, and then he straightened his face again, but not before Kate saw it. They had agreed now that she would do what she felt best in terms of building her new life and he wouldn’t interfere when it came to personal choices such as her career. She could tell he was dying to give an opinion and she had to admire his willpower for keeping it in.
‘I will drive you,’ he said.
She turned to him and planted her hands on her hips. ‘On your scooter? I might as well not bother brushing my hair then.’ Fastening her blouse she shook her head. ‘I’ll get the bus. You can stay in bed and get some rest – you need it after the week you had at work.’
He stretched and flipped himself onto his back, rubbing a hand through his thick hair. ‘I cannot stay in bed. I must see Mamma today.’
‘I wish I could come.’
He turned to her. ‘I will tell her she is in your thoughts.’
‘She’s in my thoughts a lot,’ Kate said. ‘I’m so glad she’s starting to get better. I was seriously worried about her for a while.’
‘She is strong.’
‘Like her children.’
‘Yes.’ He grinned. Then he was serious again. ‘I am going to talk to her about seeing the priest for your annulment.’
Kate stopped, hand mid-air as she gripped the hairbrush. ‘Do you think that’s wise? I mean, do we have to involve her at this stage?’
A Wedding in Italy: A feel good summer holiday romance (From Italy with Love Book 2) Page 17