Christmas at Claridge's

by Karen Swan

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Clem hovered nervously at her desk, pushing paper around like it was a deck of tarot cards. From beyond the closed door in the library, she could hear Tom’s calm voice issuing precise instructions to the team. He and Chad had taken to each other immediately – no surprise there as they shared a mutual appreciation of rugby, firm handshakes and cold beers – and Clem had slunk away on the pretext of selecting bedcovers for the boat’s bedrooms.

  She got up and walked the length of the end room, once, twice, three times, wringing her hands and squeezing her eyes shut in long, slow blinks. It was bad enough her being back here, hiding in plain sight. But Tom’s presence was the final clue – should anyone be looking – that could unravel her secret.

  There was only one thing she could think of to do.

  She opened the doors behind the desk and stepped out onto the terrace, looking up into the scaffolding. It wasn’t Tuesday, so Rafa wasn’t in Florence. She knew he was in there somewhere.

  She walked around the building, ducking low as she passed the library windows, so that Tom wouldn’t see her. She stepped down into the gardens to look up at the higher levels. There were more carpenters and plasterers than she could shake a stick at, but no sign of Rafa anywhere.

  ‘Claudio,’ she called up to the nearest workman, waving her arms to get his attention. She dropped her voice to a stage whisper. ‘Have you seen Rafa?’

  The old man, as dusty as if he’d walked through a flour cloud, grinned and pointed up to the corner bedroom. The garden suite? Today? He must be worried about deadlines.

  She nodded her thanks and ran through to the front hall, jogging up the stairs as soundlessly and quickly as she could.

  She stopped at the bedroom door. Rafa was painting on the far wall, his back to her, headphones on. He was barefoot, wearing just his jeans, his khaki T-shirt lightly stuffed into his back pocket and hanging out like a magician’s scarf. He was holding a long-stemmed brush in his right hand, dabbing at something with tiny, precise brushstrokes, the small muscles in his back tightening with the movements. He looked as though he’d been cold cast in bronze. She watched as he took a step back to assess the work, his face coming slightly into profile as he angled his head, and her breath caught at the sight of him – immersed, passionate, lost.

  She tossed her head, immediately throwing the thoughts out, and walked over to him. She tapped his shoulder lightly, but the touch startled him – the combination of music and painting clearly took him somewhere beyond this room – and he turned with agile ferocity, grabbing her by the arm before she could say a word.

  His grip was tight, his fingers pressing hard into her skin and pulling her up onto her toes, but not a sound escaped her. His face was inches from hers, and in the shock of her silent approach, he hadn’t yet composed his features into the customary snarl that he reserved for her. What she saw . . .

  She felt her heart hammering beneath her ribs, like a dove beating against a cage. Seconds passed as neither one stirred, the moment tight, frictional and airless.

  It was Clem who pulled away first, falling back into space and safety. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ she said in a quiet voice.

  He took a step back, too, widening the breach between them further, hostility restored. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You have to go.’

  ‘What?’ The crack in his voice betrayed an emotion that surprised them both, and within a second, the scowl was back.

  ‘You can’t stay here today.’

  ‘Why?’

  She inhaled deeply. ‘Tom’s here. He arrived half an hour ago.’

  Rafa paled. ‘He—?’

  ‘Is in the house, yes. He’s in the library.’

  Rafa looked at the ground, then back up at her.

  She shrugged. ‘I’m as surprised as you. I had no idea he was coming. He’s overseeing the work in the library.’

  Without a word, Rafa turned his back to her, reaching for the paints sitting on the table beside him. She watched as he screwed the lids on the squeezed, crumpled tubes, pulling his T-shirt out of his pocket and throwing it on, not caring that it was inside out.

  ‘Ah, Clem, there you are!’ Tom’s voice made them both jump. ‘Chad needs—’

  Rafa turned with the same surprise as he had at her interruption.

  ‘Rafa?’ Tom laughed delightedly, standing stock still in disbelief before crossing the room in three strides and throwing out a beefy hand – the only part of him that hadn’t lost weight – slapping the Italian heartily on the other shoulder. ‘I don’t believe it! We were only just talking about you! Weren’t we, Clem?’

  He looked back at his sister, who nodded mutely.

  ‘Tom, it’s good to see you,’ Rafa said, breaking into a devastating smile he’d kept well hidden from her. Clem looked away, tortured by the sight of it.

  ‘What brings you here?’ Tom asked, jamming his hands into his jeans pockets.

  Rafa opened his arms and gestured to the mural on the walls.

  ‘No shit!’ Tom beamed, impressed. He couldn’t fail to be. It was already stunning and it wasn’t even half finished. ‘I remember you were thinking about going to art college. Clem, did you know Rafa was doing this?’

  ‘Uh, no I . . . well, Chad does all the uh . . . liaising. I’m mainly stuck in the office looking at books.’

  Tom turned back to Rafa. ‘God, I can’t believe this. I’m here half an hour and I run into an old friend from what, ten years—?’

  ‘Eleven,’ Rafa corrected him.

  ‘Eleven years ago! Amazing.’ Tom shook his head, his famous smile back on his face for the time being at least. ‘Are you still living in the area?’

  Rafa shrugged a ‘yes’.

  ‘Me, too. I’ve not moved from our neck of the woods either, I’m still just down the road from my parents’ place, where you stayed with us. We’ve both got it too good, haven’t we?’

  Rafa nodded, his eyes firmly off Clem.

  ‘Well, this certainly calls for a celebration! Dinner, tonight, all of us – I insist,’ Tom declared, reaching an arm out and hooking Clem. ‘We must catch up properly.’

  Clem felt her lungs begin to pinch. ‘Uh, well . . .’ Her mind raced. ‘Gabriel and I already had dinner plans.’

  She saw Rafa’s expression at the sound of Gabriel’s name, and remembered the look on his face at the window as he’d seen them together that day. She’d been careful not to be caught twice, but it made no difference. He had only needed to see once to know that they were lovers.

  Tom narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. ‘Actually, that might be ideal. It’s going to be a bit awkward meeting him again as your fella and not just as the client.’ Tom rolled his eyes at Rafa as he mussed her hair, just like their father always did. ‘A group dinner’s probably the best way to go about it. I’ll see if Chad’s free; he seems a gregarious bloke and it’ll be good to get a full debrief on the job. How many’s that?’ He counted the names on his fingers. ‘Five, hmm . . . Oh, let’s get your friend Chiara along, too.’

  Clem flashed a look at Rafa at the mention of Chiara’s name, while Tom held out his hands. ‘It’s perfect!’ her brother cheered.

  Clem tried but failed to smile. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t anything approaching perfect. It was about as far from perfect as it was possible to get.

  Clem tossed her hair nervously over her shoulder as she walked up the approach to the Splendido, her stomach in knots at the prospect of the evening ahead. She wished Gabriel could have come home earlier and walked over with her, his hand clasped reassuringly around hers, his adoration the bullet-proof armour she needed against Rafa’s glare, but with such short notice and several hundred miles to commute, he would have to meet her there.

  She knew she was lucky he was even doing that. The surprise in his voice when she’d mentioned the arrangement told her he was less than thrilled at the prospect of dinner with his interior designer, one of his tradesmen and the local
girl who ran a three-star hotel. Only the presence of Tom, she knew, had caused him to agree to come. Both men had to renegotiate their brief relationship to each other, but Gabriel, in particular, had rather more groundwork to put in after his targeted pursuit of Clem.

  She walked through the doors and into the mahogany lobby, the air-conditioning a welcome relief from the simmering evening temperatures. She felt a light mist of perspiration all over her body and regretted her choice of outfit.

  Chiara and Rafa were already there, standing in silence and looking awkward amidst the giant urns of flowers that were taller than they were. Chiara looked beautiful in a sea-green silk dress that glossed her curves, her dark caramel-coloured skin so shiny it could have been buffed, her long, almost-black hair gleaming beneath the light. Her enormous brown eyes flitted over the tablecloths, the light fittings and the colour of the menus – she looked as nervous as Clem, but for very different reasons: this wasn’t the Portofino she called home.

  Rafa, beside her, was wearing a white shirt and black trousers. He should have looked like a waiter, but there was nothing in his demeanour that suggested an eagerness to either serve or please. His body was stiff, his muscles hulked, as though he was ready to fight, and restlessness radiated from him like sound waves as he rhythmically clenched and unclenched his fists. They made a stunning couple.

  ‘Hi,’ Clem smiled at them and they turned, just as Chad walked in behind her.

  ‘Evening all,’ he said, kissing Clem lightly on both cheeks, and then Chiara. ‘You ladies look especially beautiful tonight.’

  Rafa glowered, staying defiantly silent. Chivalry wasn’t his thing.

  Clem fidgeted awkwardly, the rose suede jumpsuit seeming too edgy suddenly, too urban, next to Chiara’s simple riviera glamour. She fiddled with the press stud on her cuff, her eyes meeting Rafa’s as she looked back up. He looked away.

  ‘So, who are we waiting for?’ Chad asked. He was looking as striking as ever, in a raspberry pink linen suit with grey shirt. ‘Hey, we’re co-ordinating.’

  ‘Just waiting on Tom and Gabriel,’ Clem said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘Tom’s staying in Santa Margherita, so he’s probably just a few minutes behind us. And Gabriel said he’d be here as soon as he can be. He was in Turin today.’

  ‘Well then, let’s wait for them in the piano bar.’ Chad smiled, gesturing for the ladies to lead and clearly most at ease in the super-deluxe hotel. They walked through into a room decorated with hand-painted murals, and Clem saw Rafa squinting as he studied the workmanship with a professional eye. Chad ordered a bottle of champagne, the rest of the small group’s conversation muted by the grand surroundings and the new social roles they were occupying tonight, where everyone was equal.

  ‘So, who’s got Luca tonight?’ Clem asked Chiara after a heavy pause.

  ‘My friend Maria Cantara; she owns the alimentaria. She always takes him for me.’

  ‘Except on Tuesdays,’ Clem joked.

  Chiara hesitated. ‘Yes. Except then.’

  They fell silent again.

  ‘Have you been here before?’ Clem asked, watching as a jeroboam of Krug was carried past them on a silver tray to the terrace outside.

  ‘The rooms here start from seven hundred and fifty euros a night,’ Rafa said with enough snap to make her blush. ‘So, no.’

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ Tom panted, jogging over to them and looking rangy in a pair of red chinos and a linen shirt. ‘A van carrying chickens had overturned on the road. There were chickens everywhere, all jumping for their lives over the wall into the sea.’ He pulled an ‘oh dear’ face, holding court already.

  Everyone laughed and he kissed Clem and shook hands warmly with the two men.

  Clem slipped her arm around Chiara’s. ‘Tom, after a ten-year delay, I’d like you finally to meet Chiara, my pen pal.’

  ‘A pleasure,’ Tom said, shaking her hand lightly as though she might break. She did look tiny beside him.

  Chiara smiled and Clem thought she couldn’t possibly know how beautiful she looked as her eyes sparkled under his gaze. Clem looked discreetly at Rafa, who was watching them both with an inscrutable expression. She felt the knots in her stomach tighten further as she realized he couldn’t even pretend to be civil to her, not even to appear polite.

  ‘Well, this is quite something, isn’t it?’ Tom said, stepping back and gesturing to the four of them. ‘All four pen pals reunited after almost a decade.’

  ‘You guys were pen pals, too?’ Chad asked the two men in disbelief. ‘My God, is this some kind of club?’

  Tom laughed and shrugged. ‘It’s not actually that unlikely. Our schools were twinned and ran an exchange programme. D’you do that in Oz?’

  Chad shook his head. ‘Everywhere’s too far away from us.’

  ‘Well, in the sixth form we all got to stay with each other for a week. We came out here at Easter time, then these guys came back to us early summer.’

  Clem and Chiara nodded.

  ‘Of course, we got lucky with these chaps, but some people had absolute shockers. You know, living with a goat and eating curds for a week.’ Chad roared with laughter. ‘Don’t get me wrong, it cut both ways. There was one Italian guy who came over – I think his parents owned one of the houses up there by the castle: big place, sea views – and he ended up staying in a council flat overlooking the bins and eating nothing but KFC.’

  ‘I did not know that you and Rafa were pen pals,’ Chiara said, smiling at Tom.

  ‘Well, we weren’t really – not for very long,’ Tom replied. ‘We stopped writing pretty much as soon as we’d done the trips. Typical blokes, just doing the bare minimum.’ He chuckled.

  Clem looked down at the lie. She knew Tom was being gallant. She remembered how disappointed he’d been when Rafa had suddenly broken off communication between them. They’d actually kept writing for over a year after the exchange trips.

  ‘You never mentioned it,’ Chiara said questioningly to Clem.

  ‘No?’ Clem tried not to chew her lip. ‘I guess it just never really . . . crossed my mind. I mean, you and Rafa weren’t together back then and you hadn’t met Tom.’

  ‘But when Rafa and I got together . . . it was a big connection, no?’

  Clem swallowed. She still remembered the day she’d received Chiara’s letter telling her she’d met and fallen in love with Rafa, an ‘older’ boy with a ladykiller reputation in the next town. ‘Um . . .’ She shrugged.

  ‘So you two are . . . you’re married, are you?’ Tom enquired, looking at Rafa.

  ‘No, no,’ Chiara said quickly, blushing. ‘We never . . . I mean, we are not together any more.’

  ‘Oh, sorry to hear that,’ Tom nodded, taking a sip of his drink and leaning back against the bar, his eyes moving slowly between the former lovers.

  Rafa looked around the room in defiant silence. He was the only one of the group not making an effort, or if he was, the only effort he was making was stopping himself from marching out of there.

  A waiter came over to them. ‘Your table is ready now.’

  Chad and Tom looked at each other. ‘Shall we sit? The view’s great and we can wait for Gabriel out there,’ Chad said.

  ‘Sure,’ Tom agreed, and the small party wandered across the lobby, through the dining room and out onto the terrace.

  The lights from the port below twinkled like fairy lights, the slow swell of the sea visible only in the blade of moonlight that fell across the inky water like a sabre. They sat down in a boy-girl-boy arrangement around the blush linen-covered circular table, Chad and Tom each holding out chairs for Chiara and Clem. Clem closed her eyes as the night breeze blew softly on her face like a lover’s breath. Where was Gabriel?

  Chad sat on her right, the chair on her other side left empty for Gabriel. Chiara sat to the right of Chad, Rafa to the right of her and Tom to the right of him. They settled into small talk, Tom and Chad leading the conversation and flitting around everything from the supercars i
n the car park, to the area’s draconian building restrictions, to the deep-draught boats currently moored in the port.

  As the champagne began to flow, the mood settled, with everyone laughing more easily. Tom started regaling them with anecdotes about working on the cattle ranch in his gap year and how it had led to him setting up Alderton Hide on his return.

  ‘You were lucky to find out your passion so young,’ Chiara said.

  ‘Didn’t you? Clem told me your family has owned the hotel for decades.’

  Chiara shrugged. ‘Five generations. I always knew as a child it was what I would do, but that is not the same as what I wanted to do.’

  ‘And what do you want to do?’

  She gave a nervous smile. ‘Accountant . . . Don’t laugh!’ she admonished as she saw the laughter sprint through Tom’s eyes. ‘I am good at maths. I do freelance work on the side.’

  ‘On the side? Wow! Do you ever sleep?’

  Chiara laughed, a low throaty sound that made Rafa look across at her sharply. But she didn’t notice. ‘Not really, no. But I am used to it. I have done it for a long time now.’ She shrugged, and Clem tried to imagine her friend, surrounded by towers of dusty books, working through the night, while she’d partied the decade away, her only self-improvement being when she remembered to exfoliate in the shower.

  ‘If you want to be an accountant, shouldn’t you be in a city like Genoa or Florence? Surely there’s only a limited supply of work here?’

  ‘I cannot leave.’ She said it simply a plain, unemotional fact.

  ‘Because of the hotel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The table fell silent.

  ‘That’s . . . that’s a real shame that you can’t live your life the way you want to,’ Tom said, his voice low, the look in his eyes . . . what? Sad? Concerned?

  Chiara shrugged and reached for her glass, aware suddenly of the group’s collective scrutiny and pity. ‘It is how it is. I am quite happy.’

  ‘If a little tired.’ Tom raised a grin.

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded gratefully as the tone lightened again.

  ‘Well, it beats me how you managed to squeeze in the time to teach Clem to cook as well.’ Tom looked across at her and winked. ‘Stella kept me up to date.’ He looked back at Chiara. ‘It must have taken days surely? Teams of chefs drafted in, all doped up on tranquillizers.’