She looked up at him, her face inches from his.
He winked, the devil, and smirked. ‘I just need to get some clothes,’ he said, moving past her, his damp towel bumping into her hip.
‘Okay,’ she said, turning to focus on the food in front of her, pulling a knife from a squeaky drawer and carefully cutting into the pecorino cheese. Holy shit, was what she’d really wanted to say. The man was gorgeous and she’d turned to liquid in seconds.
She could hear Matteo pulling clothes from drawers but refused to turn and watch him, instead delicately placing olives and cubes of feta and pecorino slivers and…whatever else was in front of her. She could barely pay attention.
He whistled as he walked back to the bathroom and put his clothes on.
Lara’s hands trembled as she carried the tray back to the little table and resumed her position on the seat with the window at her back. She’d had wine on an empty stomach; she needed food. She began shovelling grissini and cheese into her mouth.
Matteo returned dressed in navy linen pants and yet another simple but beautiful linen shirt. He really did scrub up well.
‘All better?’ she asked.
‘Yes, much. Sometimes I forget that I’m not meant to smell like a goat.’
‘I can tell you’re a great goat handler,’ she said. ‘They all love you.’
‘Not as much as they love the male goats.’ He noted her empty glass and turned to pull another bottle from the cupboard.
‘Oh, no more for me,’ Lara said. ‘I still need to drive home.’
‘Plenty of time,’ Matteo said, popping the cork and setting it aside to breathe.
Lara reached for more cheese instead.
‘Have you tried the prosciutto?’ he asked, sitting opposite her once more and swirling his wine in the huge glass.
‘It’s fantastic,’ Lara said.
Matteo rolled up three pieces at once and popped them into his mouth, licking his fingers.
‘You were telling me about Samuel and why everyone thinks he killed his wife.’
‘It is very sad,’ Matteo began, reaching for more prosciutto and cheese. There were artichokes on the plate too, Lara noticed. She didn’t even remember putting them there during the out-of-body experience of seeing Matteo nearly naked.
‘Assunta was such a beautiful woman,’ he said. ‘She was my great-aunt, and our whole family was very close. Always together. Always feasting. Assunta was a wonderful cook. She loved to make pasta herself. She thought it was an awful thing to buy it. She would make it fresh several times a week and invite everyone over on Sunday evenings. My grandparents, parents, all the extended family. I grew up running around the grounds of the villa with my brothers and cousins, all of us playing football.’
Soccer, Lara reminded herself.
‘These feasts, you have no idea. The food, incredibile. It would go on for hours. Mostly, as bambini we would all fall asleep somewhere in the house while the adults kept talking and laughing and drinking wine and limoncello. Assunta was a great actress. She would recite monologues from plays. And Gilberta—you met her—she would join her and they’d be a two-woman show. Assunta played the piano too. If the weather was bad we would all be inside on the ground floor, the fire going, everyone gathered around the piano while she played. Gilberta’s husband, Mario, he would sing opera. Gilberta would dance. My mother recited poetry.’
Lara tried to picture the stern woman she’d met reciting poetry.
‘Incredibile,’ Matteo said again. ‘And Assunta would make it all happen. She was, what is the phrase…over the top, you know?’
‘I think so.’
Matteo reached for the new bottle of wine. It didn’t seem the moment for Lara to decline so she let him refill hers too.
‘Everyone loved her. She would hug and kiss and hold hands with everyone. Especially with Samuel. They were great together. He was a different person then. He would sing too.’ He chuckled at the memory. ‘Terrible singer.’
Lara smiled. ‘But he did it anyway.’
‘Yes, yes. Assunta made everyone bigger than they were.’
‘What a gift,’ she said, sad for the loss of such a light in the family.
‘But since her death, it has all stopped.’
Despite her best intentions, Lara took a sip of the wine in front of her. It seemed the thing to do, to toast Assunta’s memory. ‘What happened to her?’
‘The villa had a leak in the roof, above one of the bedrooms. It had been there for many months. Assunta kept asking Samuel to fix it. It had become a joke. She would tease him about it at the big dinners and everyone would laugh.’
Lara did some mental calculations. ‘How old was Samuel then?’
Matteo squinted and looked up at the ceiling, doing the same. ‘Must have been late sixties, I guess.’
‘Was he able to get up on the roof and fix the leak?’ she asked, feeling defensive on Samuel’s behalf.
‘Yes, yes. He was very fit. When he came to Italy he worked as a labourer for a long time. He had a lot of skills.’
‘But he wasn’t still working as a labourer then, surely?’
‘No, he taught English in private schools. He was still working at one when Assunta died.’
Lara took another sip. ‘So what happened?’
Matteo leaned back in his chair with his glass of wine and swallowed a large mouthful before he spoke. ‘There was a big storm. Lots and lots of rain. Samuel was late coming home from work. Assunta, sick of waiting for Samuel to fix the roof, decided she would do it herself. She was like that, you know. Fearless. So she went up there and slipped. She fell from the roof. Broke her neck. Samuel found her.’
Lara’s hand flew to her chest. ‘That’s so awful.’ She reached again for her glass. ‘Poor Samuel.’
Matteo nodded and also sipped more wine.
Lara frowned and tapped her glass with her finger. ‘So, why is the family ostracising Samuel exactly?’
‘They blame him,’ Matteo said. ‘Everyone knew Samuel should have fixed the roof. If he had, Assunta would never have gone up there. She’d still be with us, dancing, singing.’ He shrugged helplessly.
‘That seems a bit harsh. I mean, Assunta didn’t have to go up there. It was an accident. An awful, tragic accident, but I don’t see why an entire family would stop talking to him.’
‘You don’t understand Italians.’ Matteo laughed emptily. ‘Haven’t you seen The Godfather? Family is everything. And Samuel was an outsider who had captured the heart of the young Assunta and married into the family and inherited her family’s villa. To her sisters and nieces and nephews and all the rest, Samuel had stolen her from the family. She’d had to fight her own parents very hard to be with Samuel. They didn’t trust the Englishman. Anyone who was foreign wasn’t to be trusted. He was despised and then only accepted when it became obvious Assunta loved him and he wasn’t going anywhere. And then they had children, so he had to be part of the family—the christenings, the birthdays, the Holy Communions, Sunday masses, Sunday feasts. Christmas. Easter. Holy days. But once he’d broken their trust and allowed their precious Assunta to die, that was it. He was cut off. Blacklisted. Finito.’
‘Poor Samuel,’ Lara said again. ‘No wonder he is so…’ She was going to say ‘grumpy’, but changed her mind. She had much more sympathy for him now. ‘He’s so alone.’
Matteo’s glass was emptying quickly, she noticed. She glanced at her own, trying to estimate how many standard drinks she’d had. A couple of glasses? She wiggled her leg a bit and noted the heavy weight in it. She pushed the wine away.
‘What about his children and grandchildren? Were they still here in Italy at the time Assunta died?’
‘Antonio had already gone to America, but the rest, yes.’ Matteo continued. ‘Then Lily got the scholarship not long after and things were so difficult with the families, and maybe it was too painful to stay here without Assunta. I think they thought it was best to leave. They believed Samuel would follow.�
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‘But he didn’t.’
‘He is stubborn.’
‘But you come to see him,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
Matteo inhaled, his lovely chest expanding beneath the light linen of his shirt. ‘I didn’t think it was fair,’ he said. ‘And I guess I know a little bit what it is like to be an outcast, to have people snigger behind your back, to have them not hear what you say.’
His eyes met hers and she felt a wave of deep, long-held sadness come from him. Instinctively she took his hand in hers. It was warm and sturdy and she had to fight the urge to bring it to her cheek and rest it there.
He looked down at her hand, then wound his fingers through hers. He locked his eyes on hers and suddenly the cabin felt very small. She stood, releasing her hand. ‘Water,’ she squeaked, and cleared her throat. ‘Would you like some water?’
She moved towards the kitchen sink but he snatched back her hand, simultaneously standing and pulling her towards him so that they were standing face to face, her hand in his and her heart galloping within her breast. His free hand cupped the back of her head, his thumb rubbing gently behind her ear.
She looked down at the floor. ‘Matteo,’ she breathed, not daring to look at him; she’d be drawn into those eyes and lost for good. ‘I’ve had too much to drink and I don’t think I can drive home, not yet anyway.’
He leaned forward and rested his forehead on hers. She could smell the wine on his breath. ‘Stay here,’ he whispered.
Inside her, a triton wrestled wild horses. Here was a lovely, gentle man, who wanted her right now. And she was free here in Italy to do things she normally wouldn’t even consider. But she couldn’t lose her heart, or her mind.
‘I will sleep on the floor,’ Matteo said, and lifted his head.
She raised her eyes in surprise. ‘What?’
He grinned at her and stepped back, then brought her hand to his lips and pressed them gently to her knuckles. ‘Bella Lara. I will sleep on the floor and you can have the whole bed to yourself.’
‘No, you can’t. I just need to wait a few hours, I think, until I’m ready to drive. I can rest in the car. You can’t sleep on the floor, that’s crazy.’
To her great disappointment, he let go of her hand, and her skin cooled too quickly. He went to the bed and tossed off a pillow, tucking it into a slot beside the door. Then he got down on the ground and lay with his hands behind his head on the pillow, grinning at her. ‘I’m a goat herder, remember? During kidding season I sleep on the barn floor sometimes. Believe me, this is much more comfortable. The goats? They kick like mules.’
Lara burst out laughing with relief and joy.
‘Besides, I am an easy sleeper. No fuss.’
Gosh, how appealing.
‘Do you snore?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I will let you know,’ he said, folding his hands on his chest and closing his eyes.
After Lara accepted that this was the plan and it was going to happen—she was going to sleep next to Matteo, kind of—he got up off the floor and they talked and ate some more and washed the platter and glasses together and then, finally, they said goodnight and turned off the lights.
Lara lay awake in his bed, listening to him breathing, feeling happier than she had in a long, long time. But there was no way she’d be able to sleep. Every nerve in her body was awake. She waited a few hours, till she felt the effects of the alcohol subside, then tiptoed out of the cabin and drove home to the villa.
24
Lara and Dave
Lara lay in bed, the curtains drawn and her limbs heavy. Dave came to sit on the edge of the mattress, a mug of coffee in his hand.
It wasn’t for her.
Impatient to drink it, he blew on it three times, watching her. She hated the way he did this after an episode, studying her as if she was an insect. She sometimes feared he would pin her to a board, splaying her legs and arms wide, leaving her most vulnerable parts exposed. He was biding his time, that was all.
She should call someone. Sunny would come for her. Her sister would kick the door down if she had to. But then Lara would just be the hopeless little sister pulling Sunny away from her fabulously bohemian life.
Her mother, then? No. Then Eliza would know that all her worst fears had come true. Leonard had completely disappeared by now, at last an officially listed missing person, having melted into the underworld population of the homeless. Eliza had been warned he was unlikely to ever return, and so she was stuck, still married to a phantom. So no, the last thing Lara wanted was her mother to see her like this.
Eliza and Sunny thought Lara was safe in the care of her kindly psychologist boyfriend.
‘I’ve sorted out your pills,’ he said, sipping his beverage.
‘I don’t need them.’
‘Yes, you do. I’m the doctor here, remember.’
He wasn’t actually. Not yet.
He laid his hand on her face the way a mother might check a child’s temperature, except it wasn’t comforting. It felt heavy; he was slowly pushing down on her. He moved his hand to her neck. She tried to move her head, to get the weight off her, but the pillow held her on the other side. She had to escape. She flung her arm up to push him away but he caught her wrist in his hand, his fingernails sharp in her flesh.
‘Stop being so childish.’
She began to sob. Again. She’d gone through two sets of clothes today already, discarding them as they became wet with tears.
‘You don’t know what you’re doing. You need to trust me, Lara. I’m here to help. You’re not in your right mind.’
He released her wrist and she rolled away from him, burying her face in the pillow. She felt his weight leave the mattress.
‘I’ll get your pills.’
‘I don’t want them!’ she screamed. ‘Please,’ she begged, whimpering now. ‘They’re making me worse. I know they are.’
You’re making me worse.
‘Oh, honey,’ he said gently. ‘How much worse could you get?’
25
Lara
First thing the next morning, Lara sent Matteo a text message, knowing he’d be up at dawn too, to explain that she hadn’t been able to sleep and needed to be home for Samuel, thanking him for a wonderful evening and bravely saying she hoped she would see him in the near future.
His reply was instant—Please come back soon—and it was all she could do not to squeal and happy dance around her room.
To her surprise, when she went downstairs, Samuel was already up at the barn and feeding the goats. It was just six a.m., exactly when she needed to start work. He looked up at her as she made her way over. Meg was tugging at some hay in his hand and Willow was gobbling something out of a bucket, her tail wagging furiously.
‘Good morning,’ he said, his voice fatherly, his eyebrows high and questioning, as if he’d been up waiting for her to come home last night.
‘Guten morgen,’ she sang, waving at him. ‘Oh, sorry, wrong language.’ She dissolved into nervous giggling, her head still way up in the clouds, thinking of Matteo. Her skin flushed under Samuel’s twinkling gaze.
Lara went to the gate and scratched Meg behind the ears while the goat chewed at the hay, breathing in her beautiful smell. She was going to try to explain everything—she could only too clearly imagine what he was thinking—but decided to hum mysteriously for a moment.
‘Well,’ she said, feeling she’d stretched the silence as far as she could. ‘I better get the pails to start the milking.’ She smiled sweetly at Samuel. His lips twitched, and his hand gripped tightly on his walking stick on the uneven ground.
Lara turned to leave, then stopped. With determination, she covered the few strides between her and Samuel and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Thanks for my job,’ she said, her hand resting on his bony shoulder. ‘I love it here.’
Then she turned and left to get the pails, singing loudly in
to the cool, gentle dawn light.
If she was totally honest, not everything about type II bipolar disorder was awful. The upside? The absolute power that came with the mania swings. It was as though she was transformed into a sleek, strong superhero figure, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Wonder Woman—nothing could touch her. She could fly through the air and take down a monster with her fingernail alone. True, her medications usually kept the sharp highs and lows at bay, but they each still sneaked in from time to time.
Now, here in Tuscany, a bridled mania on her heels, she could smell the lavender that grew in the rockeries around the villa before she even got out of bed. The red geraniums that sprawled over terracotta pots were so bright they almost hurt her eyes. Food became six-dimensional in her mouth and blew her senses with its taste, smell and texture. She imagined these highs might be akin to taking some kind of illicit drug, though as she’d never experimented with those kinds of drugs she could only assume. She could work or study all day and all night. She composed poetry in her head. The world was full of love and joy. When in the company of others, she made them laugh with her witty banter and enthusiastic conversation.
There was also the liberating feeling of disinhibition, and with Matteo on her mind, she began to fantasise. What might it be like to be with him? It wasn’t just his physical attributes that commanded her attention, it was his soft manner with the goats and his gallant care for his great-uncle. She wanted to lose herself with him, lose her old self, shrug off the old dead skin. It was something she hadn’t even realised she wanted—needed—until now.
No one had touched her in that way since Dave. She didn’t want to go through life with those being the last physical memories she had.
So here she was, with her confidence soaring and Matteo so close, someone she intuitively trusted and who seemed to want her too.
She was still thinking of Matteo as she took Henrik a coffee. He was digging holes for fence posts so he could keep the chickens and the goats away from his newly terraced earth.
‘Here, look at your pants,’ she said, putting his coffee down on the soil a bit too hard, some sloshing over the side. She pointed to his falling-down trousers.
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