Last of the Summer Vines

by Romy Sommer

  ‘Then let me wear my teal sun dress.’

  But that wouldn’t do either for Beatrice. ‘You’ve worn that dress before. It’s pretty, but you need something that will make you shine.’

  I laughed. ‘I don’t need to shine. You’re the birthday girl.’

  She ignored me. ‘How about this one? It brings out the colour of your eyes.’

  ‘It’s the colour of mud?’ I asked, turning to look.

  ‘Your eyes are not like mud! They have beautiful green sparks in them.’

  The dress Beatrice picked from the rail was a Fifties-style cocktail A-line dress with a full skirt and round neckline in a shade of hunter green that made me think of the castello garden at twilight. The cut was simple, but the bodice had an overlay of lace in the same colour of the dress that added subtle texture. I glanced at the label, and my heart stuttered. ‘This is a major fashion brand!’ I hadn’t earned commission in months, and even when I had, I couldn’t have afforded this brand. My eyes narrowed. ‘This isn’t a knock-off shop, is it?’

  Beatrice laughed. ‘It’s the real thing. But this is like a factory shop. It’s where we get last season’s prêt-à-porter clothing at really good prices.’

  A definite perk of living in Italy.

  I tried on the dress and twirled before the mirror, and had to admit it did make my eyes look greener and less like brackish water. ‘And what about you, birthday girl?’

  It took Beatrice three more shops and at least ten more dresses before she found the perfect one, a figure-hugging dress in rich claret red. I sighed when I saw her in it. ‘Perfect!’

  And now, at last, we could go for gelato.

  On the day of the party, Daniele fetched me early, so I could help with the party preparations. We hid the multi-tiered birthday cake in the trattoria’s larder, where Beatrice wouldn’t see it since Matteo had banned her from the kitchen for the entire day.

  We laid out long tables and benches on the grassy lawn between the trattoria and the farmhouse, and strung bright-coloured lanterns from tree to tree. The tables were decorated with green tablecloths, bowls of white roses from the garden, and scattered with white petals. Even in broad daylight, it looked magical.

  As the sun dropped, Beatrice, her sister-in-law Silvia, and I, hurried inside to get ready. It was like one of those prom night scenes from a Hollywood movie, with clothes strewn everywhere, and shoes and hair curlers and make-up, except that the protagonists were no longer starry-eyed teens, but starry-eyed women.

  I stood before Beatrice’s full-length mirror, and scarcely recognised myself. With all the unaccustomed exercise, I looked leaner and a little less soft around the edges than I used to. There was, naturally, more colour in my face than when I’d arrived in Tuscany. I still needed mascara for my barely-there lashes but I no longer needed make-up to cover my vampire pallor. I looked healthier, and I felt healthier.

  My hair had grown out too this summer, the straight chestnut length, streaked now by the sun, falling passed my shoulders. I brushed it into a sleek ponytail, then twisted it up into a classic chignon and secured it with bobby pins.

  Beatrice moved to stand beside me. ‘You look nothing like that serious, pale woman who arrived here a few months ago.’

  I laughed. ‘Must be all the exercise I’ve been getting. Fixing an old house is hard work!’ And the fact that I hadn’t eaten junk food in months, only preservative-free whole foods.

  By the time we returned to the terrace, the lanterns had been lit, and there was music, played by a live band. Guests mingled, sipping prosecco, talking and laughing.

  We hovered in the farmhouse door, taking in the sight, and Beatrice looped her arm through mine. Then Daniele brought us glasses of bubbly, and we began to weave through the crowd, exchanging greetings with the guests. All the Rossis’ family, friends and neighbours were present, dressed in their finest. Many I recognised, and those I didn’t Beatrice introduced me to. I was immensely relieved that the Rossis and Fioravantis were not good friends, so there was no risk of running into Luca here tonight, but no matter how much I craned to look for him through the big crowd, I didn’t see Tommaso either.

  ‘You don’t need to babysit me all night,’ I whispered to Beatrice. ‘This is your party.’

  ‘Everyone else will still be here for my next birthday, and the next, but you’ll be gone in a few weeks.’

  My throat felt clogged. I was going to miss her. I was going to miss them all. I smiled to cover the sudden emotion and let her lead me through the crowd.

  In the few months I’d been here, my Italian had vastly improved, and conversation had grown a great deal easier, and less like a bad mime show.

  When our glasses were empty, I volunteered to re-fill them, and headed across the lawn to the table Alberto had set up as a bar.

  Through the blue twilight, children in swimsuits ran between the trees, playing catch and hide-and-seek, or kicking a soccer ball, or shrieking with laughter as they catapulted into the swimming pool beside the farmhouse. Smiling, feeling more than a little wistful, I dodged them as I crossed the lawn.

  ‘Are you enjoying yourself?’ Alberto asked.

  ‘Immensely. It’s a wonderful party.’

  His gaze roved over the guests. ‘It is the people who make a party wonderful.’ He sighed happily.

  ‘There’s so much laughter! In England, people don’t seem to smile or laugh as much as you do here.’ At least, not in the circles I moved in, with the possible exception of Cleo.

  Alberto tapped the side of his nose, as if to say he knew a secret. ‘That is because here we work to live. We don’t live to work. How can anyone be happy when you are a slave to what you do? Would you like a re-fill of prosecco, or would you prefer wine?’

  I studied the labels carefully, then selected a Brunello I hadn’t yet tried, and turned the bottle to read the label on the back. Alberto laughed, a deep, vibrant sound. ‘That is exactly how your father would have chosen too.’

  He filled a glass with the rich, velvety-red Brunello, and handed it to me, waiting as I tasted it. ‘He was so proud of you, your father. Always talking about his daughter, the important banker in London, and about your achievements.’

  How could he, when he barely knew anything about me? My eyes glazed over again, and I blinked. I wasn’t twenty-one anymore and hoping my father would make the effort of a few hours’ travel to see me graduate.

  Alberto’s smile turned from regretful to a grin of welcome as his gaze slid over my shoulder. I turned to see who had occasioned such a warm welcome, and my breath stuck in my throat, making me momentarily light-headed.

  Tommaso, dressed in a tailored navy suit, with a crisp white shirt open at the neck, strolled towards us across the gently sloping grass.

  Sure, Luca was sexy in that boyish, photographic model way (the way that said ‘I’m sexy and I know it’) but he couldn’t hold a candle to Tommaso. Even clean-shaven and without the long hair, Tommaso exuded rugged masculinity. I swallowed an appreciative sigh.

  ‘I heard a rumour you’d shaved off the beard,’ Alberto boomed. ‘What, or rather who, inspired that, I wonder?’ Then he turned to me. ‘About time too, don’t you think?’

  I mumbled an indistinct response into my glass.

  Tommaso smiled. ‘I was tired of being mistaken for a thug and beaten over the head, so I thought I needed to look more respectable. Not that it helped much.’ His eyes twinkled as our gazes connected.

  ‘The pruning shears were an accident.’ I tried to keep a straight face, but my mouth quirked against my will. Tommaso really had a lovely smile when he wasn’t scowling, and it was hard not to smile back.

  Without offering Tommaso a choice, Alberto poured red wine (not the Brunello I was drinking) into a glass and held it out. ‘Tell me what you think.’

  Tommaso breathed in the wine. ‘A delicate floral bouquet.’ He took a sip, swirled it around his mouth. ‘Cherry fruit, with a subtle peppery after-taste. Barolo?’

 
; ‘Of course. But can you guess the year?’

  ‘Is this an Italian man thing?’ I interjected. ‘You know, like other men arm wrestle to prove who’s stronger?’

  Tommaso laughed. ‘It’s something your father started when he was teaching me about wine.’

  ‘It worked.’ Alberto clapped him on the back. ‘For someone who came to winemaking late in life, you’re one of the most knowledgeable winemakers I know. You’d hardly know you weren’t born to it.’

  ‘Oh, I was born to it, though it’s been a few generations since my forebears worked the fields.’ Tommaso dropped his voice and leaned towards me, as if sharing an intimate secret. ‘Though my ancestors were the ones working the Sant’Angelo land rather than owning it.’

  He’d certainly turned that around.

  A bell summoned our attention, and together with the other guests we moved towards the long tables to start the feast. And a feast it was. I’d never seen so much food. A full size wild boar presided over the lavish buffet. The tables groaned under the weight of antipasti, tube-shaped rigatoni pasta in a cheese and sausage sauce, vegetable side dishes, summer salads, fruits, cheeses, and a range of my own breads.

  I found myself seated next to Adriano, one of Beatrice’s cousins, who worked with the local police force. He was friendly and engaging, and spoke very good English, and it was no fault of his that my attention kept straying down the length of the table to where Tommaso seemed to be permanently mobbed by a group of young women. Clearly, the shorter hair and lack of beard had made him a whole lot more attractive to the opposite sex. I was probably the only one who missed his wilder look.

  As with any good Italian meal, time stood still. Around us, twilight faded into darkness and the moon rose, bathing the gardens in silvery light. There was no sense of hurry or of urgency. Only more laughter, more wine, more food, more friendship.

  Adriano invited me to dance, and I let him whirl me around among the dancers on the trattoria’s terrace, with the scent of dying honeysuckle wafting through the air. I laughed, feeling light as air. I wasn’t a particularly good dancer, but with a partner as confident as Adriano all I had to do was let him sweep me along.

  I glimpsed Tommaso at the edge of the dance floor, watching us, and then Adriano spun me away and I lost sight of him. When I’d finished, laughing, breathless and a little giddy, he was gone.

  Later, Alberto and Matteo wheeled out the birthday cake, and the ooohs and aaahs of appreciation bubbled inside me like prosecco bubbles. The cake consisted of three tiers of dense orange cake, covered in fondant icing, and decorated with delicate green vine leaves, yellow climbing roses and tiny oranges in royal icing. I’d spent the better part of the last week learning how to make them courtesy of YouTube.

  Beatrice blew out her candles and cut the cake, and soon slices were being handed out to the crowd. In England, I’d have looked at a cake like this and thought it too good to eat. But here in Italy, nothing was too good to eat. Here, life was for grabbing with both hands, not for admiring from a distance.

  I had no idea what time it was. Certainly past midnight. A few of the older partygoers had started to leave, but it looked as if the music and dancing would go on for hours yet.

  I glanced at the crowd clustered around the remains of the cake, at the dancefloor where young couples moved to the lively beat, and then towards the bar where Daniele was serving glasses of grappa. There was no sign of Tommaso.

  Since I wasn’t driving tonight, and since I didn’t feel in the least tipsy yet, unless being drunk on the atmosphere counted, I headed to the bar and let Daniele pour me a glass of grappa.

  With the amber, barrel-aged liqueur in hand, I wandered back towards the tables beneath the trees, where groups of people still lingered over plates of food and glasses of wine. And that was where, at last, I found Tommaso.

  For the first time all evening, he was alone. He sat with his chin propped on his steepled hands and watched my approach. As our gazes met, his mouth curved in a rakish grin. Then he nodded towards the dancefloor and arched an eyebrow in a silent question.

  I downed the contents of my glass, feeling the strong liquor burn courage into my veins, and crossed the remaining bit of lawn. I was ready to grab life with both hands.

  Without a word, he smiled and rose, waiting for me, and took my hand when I reached his side. Then he led me towards the dancefloor. But he didn’t simply start gyrating like the other couples. He pulled me into his arms, hard up against his body, my hips pressed against his. I forgot how to breathe.

  The party faded, moving out of focus and far away, as we danced together. The music changed, as if to fit our slower pace, and I was dimly aware of couples leaving the dance floor, and of others arriving.

  Tommaso’s arm cradled my waist, his fingers splayed against my back, just as they’d done dozens of times in my fantasies, pulsing heat and awareness through the thin silk and lace of my dress. My hand rested in his, pressed between our chests, and his cheek brushed against my hair.

  Breathe, Sarah. Damn it, breathe.

  But when I drew in air, his scent intoxicated me; subtle aftershave and the rich, earthy aromas of sun and soil and heat. I was lost. There was no going back. Or maybe I was back. Seventeen again, and falling in love for the first time.

  ‘Do you remember?’ he whispered against my hair.

  Of course I remembered. There’d been a wedding. I couldn’t remember whose it was; someone who worked on the farm at Castel Sant’Angelo. It was the first time I’d drunk grappa, and I’d felt brave then too, and wild and free and capable of anything.

  Tommaso and I had danced that night too, just as we did now, and I’d known then too that there would be no going back.

  He could no longer be Tommy, my friend, because I was utterly and hopelessly in love with him, as one could only be at seventeen.

  We’d walked home from the party through the vineyard. It was September, and the nights were growing cooler, but I’d been burning up from the inside out. Though the leaves hadn’t yet started to turn, there was change in the air.

  We’d walked hand in hand through the vines, with moonlight washing a silvery path before us, and we’d talked, and laughed, and touched. And we’d kissed.

  I looked up now into those same serious grey eyes, saw the same spark of desire I’d seen then.

  And he said the same thing now that he’d said all those years ago: ‘Ti voglio’. I want you.

  Chapter 26

  Amore e pianto, vivono accanto

  (Love and tears are intertwined)

  We drove home in silence, the kind of delicious, anticipatory silence that says more than words ever could. His hand rested on my thigh, and I placed mine over it, twining my fingers through his, and resenting every moment he had to remove his hand to shift gears. From the provincial road, Tommaso turned off onto a smaller side road. It wasn’t a road we took often; not the main route into town, but a rough dirt road that was a shortcut home.

  Other farm houses flashed by in the darkness as the classic Alfa churned up the miles, then there was nothing but vines, and even in the darkness I recognised the fold of the land. We were on our own property now, and soon we’d be home. My body tightened with desire.

  ‘What’s that?’ I pointed ahead to a band of grey cloud on the horizon, and Tommaso slowed the car. The cloud hung ominous, light against the dark sky, strangely illuminated a sickly shade of orange by the moonlight.

  Tommaso frowned, peering through the front windscreen, gearing down as he slowed further. The cloud grew, seeming to swallow the sky, and then we saw the tell-tale pulse of a red flame at its heart.

  ‘The vineyard is on fire.’ Tommaso’s voice was low and tense. He pressed his foot to the pedal, the car skidding a little on the loose stones as he swung onto an even rougher farm track between the vines. We jolted over the bumpy track, and I clung to my seat.

  Then we could see the flames themselves, a long line of fire ahead of us that grew bigger, clearer,
more frightening, as we approached. And now we could not only see the fire, but hear its crackle and roar, and smell the burning vegetation through the car’s open windows. Even as we approached, the fire seemed to flare up and grow. Smoke thickened on all sides of us, eerily reflecting the beams of the car’s headlights.

  Tommaso skidded the car to a halt, dug his mobile out of the cubbyhole, and thrust it at me. ‘Phone Alberto. He’ll know who to call.’ Then he was out of the car and running.

  I had to walk down the track a way, back towards the main road, to get signal. The smoke was thick enough around me that I coughed as it hit my throat.

  Surprisingly, Alberto answered on the third ring. ‘You left early,’ he said, sounding not just jovial but a tad slurry.

  ‘Our vineyard is on fire. Tommaso said you’d know who to call.’

  ‘I do. We’ll be there as soon as we can.’ In an instant, Alberto sounded stone cold sober.

  I stowed the mobile back in the car. With nothing better to do, and no sign of Tommaso, I ransacked the boot of the car and found an empty picnic basket containing a plaid blanket. I rolled the blanket under my arm and headed in the direction Tommaso had taken.

  I found him at the edge of a field of vines, beating at a line of low, licking flames with his jacket. As fast as he beat at the flames, others sprang up. The heat was intense, and though the warm summer breeze came from behind me, fanning the flames away from us, it whipped up tiny sparks that seared my skin. I moved to join him, a few feet away, where another lick of flame was snaking towards a vine trunk. Unfurling the blanket, I began to beat at the flames as Tommaso was doing, but it seemed so hopeless. Beyond this front line of fire, we could see the flames spreading away from us, the tinder-dry vines cracking as they ignited.

  A pick-up truck loaded with the castello’s workers was the first to reach us, its engine audible over the roar of the fire before it bumped into sight.

  ‘Daniele called us,’ Marco called, hopping down from the cab and reaching into the bed of the truck to haul out buckets of sand.