Dreaming of Tuscany

by T A Williams

  Welcome home, Bee.

  Thanks again for what you’ve done for me. I owe you. Hope to see you some time. Good luck with your life.

  With love

  Jamie

  PS I found I still had a spare key. Here it is back again.

  PPS There’s bread and milk in the fridge.

  Bee went through to the little kitchen, made herself a cup of tea, and settled down to phone round and let people know she was back. She started with her mum and moved on to friends she hadn’t spoken to for months. The result of her phone calls was an invitation to come along and meet up with a bunch of people from the university who wanted to wish her well in her new job. Although she was feeling weary, she agreed to see them at their local pub near the university at eight that evening.

  Finally, she phoned Jamie. He sounded genuinely pleased to hear from her.

  ‘Hey, Bee. Glad to hear you’re home safe. How was Tuscany?’

  ‘Tuscany was great. Just great. I already wish I was back there. Thanks for the flowers and the milk and stuff.’

  ‘You’re very welcome. Tell me about your new job.’

  So she told him. He sounded very impressed, in particular that she would be staying with Mimi for a month. ‘That all sounds amazing, Bee. Maybe we’ll meet up in Hollywood some time.’

  ‘You’re moving over there?’

  ‘If Dolores manages to sell my screenplay, you bet.’

  ‘Dolores?’

  ‘My new agent. That’s right, I’ve finally got one after all this time. And she’s based in Hollywood herself.’ He sounded ecstatic. ‘She was put onto me by Mimi Robertson’s agent. She says she loves my work.’ Bee heard him hesitate. ‘To be quite honest, I met her for the first time when she was in London a week ago and I think there’s a real spark there.’

  ‘Spark?’

  ‘You know, a romantic spark. I liked her a lot and I think she feels the same way about me.’

  Somehow, Bee wasn’t surprised. The combination of his finding somebody who lived in Hollywood, ‘loved’ his work, and might be able to turn his dreams into reality, had been pretty well guaranteed to result in infatuation on his part. Whether it was reciprocated or not was another matter altogether. The good news was that, in spite of the evidence to the contrary provided by his screenplay, it appeared he had got over any disappointment he might have felt at her refusal to take him back.

  ‘Well, good for you, Jamie. I wish you all the best for the future.’

  And she meant it.

  A couple of hours later she travelled into Waterloo on the train. As usual it was crowded, stuffy and dirty. If she had needed any confirmation that her decision to leave her old job was the right one, this certainly helped. As she watched the anonymous buildings flash by on either side of the train, she found herself comparing them to the scenery at Montegrifone. No cypress trees, no rows of vines, no yellow butterflies, no medieval or Renaissance architecture. The difference was staggering and she was feeling terribly nostalgic by the time she got out at the other end.

  It was about twenty degrees colder here in London than it had been in Tuscany, and she rather wished she had brought a thicker jumper as she walked along to the pub. Once she got inside, however, it was almost as stiflingly hot as it had been in the train. She immediately had to face a barrage of questions about the accident, her health and her new job. As she told them all about it, she could see envy on a number of the faces. In return, they passed on the latest news from the university, including the bombshell that the gropey professor was being pursued through the courts by no fewer than three other women for sexual harassment. Bee was delighted to hear it.

  As she sat there, however, listening to all the gossip and sipping a pint of lager, she suddenly realised she felt out of place, even though she and her friends had been coming here for years now. The funny thing was that, whereas she had always felt comfortable in such surroundings before, she now felt like a fish out of water. Clearly, she had been away too long or maybe her months in Tuscany had somehow changed her.

  As the evening progressed, she was unable to shake this sense of discomfort. She only drank half of her pint of beer and refused any more as all it did was to make her feel even more tired. She was pleased and relieved that her appearance didn’t seem to be putting anybody off too much and, in fact, she had a lot of very positive comments about how she looked. She was even approached by an unknown man with the offer of a drink, dinner or more, and presumably if she had looked too frightening, that wouldn’t have happened. She gave him a smile and thanked him, but said no. There was only one man in her head for now and she knew it was going to take months, maybe years, to get over what might have been.

  In consequence, when she finally made her excuses and left the pub early, it was with mixed feelings. On the one hand, she was pleased and relieved that she appeared to have been accepted back as her old self, not some kind of freak. On the other hand, there was the realisation that, as far as she was concerned, it was now London that felt alien to her. Had she got so used to lizards, goats and Labradors that pints of lager, university gossip and being chatted-up by random men were now every bit as strange to her as the Tuscan countryside had once been?

  Back at the flat she felt a definite sense of relief to be in her own space once again. Maybe that was all it was. She had got used to being away from the crowds and it would take her a while to get accustomed to being among people again. Yes, she told herself, maybe that was it.

  Her resolve lasted for all of five minutes while she made herself a mug of camomile tea before sitting down and opening her laptop to check her emails. When her eyes alighted on one from luca@montegrifone.com, her heart gave a distinct flutter and she knew it wasn’t just the solitude of Tuscany she was missing. She clicked on the message and read it eagerly.

  Ciao Bee. I thought you might like to have this as a souvenir of your time here at Montegrifone. Very best wishes. Luke.

  Along with the email was a photo, taken in the garden behind the villa, of Luke, Umberto and Ines, with a comatose Labrador lying stretched out at their feet. As Bee stared down at the photograph, she felt her eyes well up and tears begin to run down her cheeks.

  Chapter 22

  Although the photo from Montegrifone had reduced her to tears, the fact that Luke had omitted to add even one little x before his signature reinforced her conviction that she had been right in ensuring that no relationship could spring up between the two of them, enticing as it would have been. This thought helped to calm her still raw emotions as she took the train to Newbury to see her parents the following day. The last thing she wanted was to have a full-on emotional breakdown in the presence of her mum as she knew she would never hear the last of it.

  Her mother and father were both waiting for her at the station and she hugged them warmly, really pleased to see them again. As they drove home, she began to give them a detailed description of Montegrifone and most of its inhabitants, and this continued over lunch. She deliberately downplayed the part Luke had occupied in her life and concentrated mainly on Umberto and Ines and, of course, Romeo the dog. Her mother apologised profusely for revealing the address to Jamie, and Bee was able to reassure her that no harm had been done and, in fact, that she and Jamie were back on speaking terms again. However, something in her mother’s eye made her add a hasty qualification.

  ‘Before you say anything, mum, I’m not about to get back together with him. That’s all over.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, dear.’

  ‘There’s no need to be. Both he and I are fine as we are.’

  She went on to tell them all about the new job and she was delighted to see her father’s eyebrows shoot up when she told him how much they were going to be paying her. Predictably, her mother was more concerned by the possibility of her only daughter ending up on the other side of the world. Bee did her best to reassure her.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll be based in California. I’m only going there for a month to learn the
ropes. They’re planning to open a branch somewhere in Europe and they’re still trying to decide what’s best. They told me they might even set up offices here in London.’

  ‘I do hope it’ll be London, dear.’

  Bee, on the other hand, was ever more convinced that she wanted to get away from London and make a complete break, but for now she didn’t mention that to her mum. There would be time for that as and when the decision was made.

  As they tucked into the summer pudding with ice cream, her mother turned the conversation to more personal matters and Bee groaned inwardly.

  ‘When you spoke to me about the people where you were staying in Tuscany, you mentioned the estate manager. Did you like him?’

  ‘Yes, mum, I liked him. I liked all the people there.’

  ‘But you liked him most of all…?’

  Her mother’s radar was uncanny. Ever since her schooldays, Bee had been unable to work out how on earth her mother managed to home in on the boys she really liked, rather than the regular procession of hopefuls who appeared at their door from time to time. She took a mouthful of Tesco Valpolicella and sat back, recognising that she had been rumbled.

  ‘Yes, mum, if you really want to know, I liked… like him a lot.’

  ‘But nothing happened?’

  ‘Nothing could happen, mum. It wouldn’t have been fair on him.’ Now that she had started, she found herself giving them a brief summary of Luke’s often tragic background, ending with the words that had been going round and round in her head for so long. ‘He lost his mother, his grandfather and then his fiancée. I couldn’t be responsible for breaking his heart one more time.’

  ‘That’s a very grown-up attitude.’

  Bee managed to grin at this. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, mum, I am grown-up. I’m a woman of thirty-one, soon to be thirty-two.’

  ‘I know you are, dear. I just meant that not many girls would have behaved the same way, I’m sure. And what about him? Do you think he felt the same way about you?’

  ‘Yes… maybe. I don’t know, mum. Anyway, it was good to meet him and I know I’ll never forget him.’ She caught her mother’s eye. ‘He said the same thing to me.’

  * * *

  Over the next few days, Bee threw herself into making all the practical arrangements before commencing her new job. There was still no word as to where the European headquarters might be and she wondered if she should hang onto the flat for another month, just in case she ended up back here in London again. However, with the huge amount they would be paying her, she knew she would easily be able to afford somewhere better and she might even be able to start thinking about putting down a deposit and buying her first place. Also, a change of apartment would definitely underline the fresh start she was making in her life. In consequence, she gave notice to her landlord and set about packing up her things.

  She managed to speak to almost all her friends and met up with a number of them before setting off to LA. Among these was Annabelle. She was an art historian and she had helped Bee a lot with her doctoral thesis. They spent a pleasant afternoon together in a café near Victoria station and it was while they were talking shop that Bee had a moment of enlightenment. Annabelle, as always, was talking about medieval art and she suddenly said something that set bells ringing in Bee’s head.

  ‘Of course, back then nobody painted on canvas. Most of the paintings were either frescoes, painted direct onto walls, or panel painting.’ In case Bee might be unsure what she meant, she elaborated. ‘I’m sure you know that artists painted on wooden panels throughout the whole of the medieval period, and it wasn’t until the Renaissance that canvas appeared.’

  ‘Wooden panels… of course.’ Bee’s mind was racing. Of course she had known this already, but had forgotten. Suddenly things began to fall into place.

  Unaware of the turmoil going on inside Bee’s head, Annabelle carried on.

  ‘Poplar or plane were the favourite materials and they didn’t cut the tree lengthways, but obliquely, so as to end up with pieces that were as large as possible. Then they used animal glues to stick on a sheet of linen, and built up the surface with layer upon layer of gesso. The results—’

  Bee cut her off before she could go on. ‘Sorry, Annabelle, but these panels, what sort of size were they?’

  ‘It all depended on the size of the tree. The bigger the tree, the bigger the panel. I’ve seen some as big as a tea tray.’

  ‘You know Martini’s Annunciation?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘He painted that on wood, right?’

  ‘Absolutely. All his religious works of the time were either painted straight onto the walls of churches or on wooden panels. The Annunciation’s a big painting, so it’s made up of a series of bits of wood fixed together. Smaller paintings might just occupy a single panel. Why do you ask?’

  Bee stared wild-eyed across the table at her, barely able to contain her excitement.

  ‘I may just have discovered a painting by Simone Martini, that’s why.’

  ‘You’ve what?’ Now it was Annabelle’s turn to look astounded. ‘You mean, an unknown painting?’

  ‘One that’s been lost for the last seventy or eighty years. At least, I think I might know where it is.’

  Bee hugged her flabbergasted friend and wasted no time in racing back to her flat. She had no contact details for Riccardo, but she did have Luke’s mobile number. She took a deep breath and called him. He answered almost immediately and she felt a thrill at the sound of his voice.

  ‘Pronto.’

  ‘Hi, Luke, it’s me, Bee. Listen, something’s just occurred to me.’

  ‘Bee, hi. Are you all right?’ He sounded surprised and concerned.

  ‘I’m fine. Look, don’t get your hopes up too much, but I’ve got a feeling I might have found your Simone Martini painting.’

  ‘You’ve what?’ His reaction was the same as Annabelle’s had been. ‘Where…?’

  ‘I think I know. In your dad’s house, your old house, there’s a cupboard in the corner of the kitchen. You know the one I mean?’

  ‘Where he used to keep the wine bottles.’

  ‘Right, and he still does. The thing is, a week or two ago, I was helping him bottling up a damigiana of wine. As he filled the bottles, I stacked them on the shelves in that cupboard and, Luke, I noticed that the bottom shelf is made out of a single piece of very old timber.’

  ‘And you think…?’ He sounded bemused.

  ‘Martini painted on wooden boards, and his smaller stuff could have been on just a single plank. The painting you’ve been looking for wasn’t painted on canvas, but wood. I should have remembered that, but I wasn’t thinking.’ She took another deep breath. ‘I have a feeling that if you take that shelf out and turn it over, you’ll find it’s what you’ve been looking for: the answer to all your problems.’

  ‘You think my grandfather hid the painting in the kitchen?’ Luke sounded breathless. ‘In such an obvious place, for all to see?’

  ‘Hiding in plain sight, Luke. It really could be.’ As she spoke, she remembered Mimi using those same words to describe their visits to Tuscany’s historic places over the past few weeks. Then something else occurred to her. ‘Somehow, I think this might be the moment you and your father start talking again.’

  ‘If the Martini’s really there, he’s going to have to talk to me. Listen, Bee, I don’t know how to thank you…’

  ‘Like I say, don’t get your hopes up yet. I may be quite wrong. I’m just so sorry I didn’t think of it at the time. I’m supposed to be an expert on the Middle Ages, after all.’ She slumped down on the sofa, suddenly feeling weary. ‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you both. And, Luke, it’s been good talking to you.’

  ‘It’s always good to talk to you, Bee.’ His voice suddenly became huskier. ‘I’ve been thinking of you a lot.’

  ‘And I’ve been thinking of you, Luke. You want to know something? I’ve been dreaming of Tuscany every night since I got back here.’

&
nbsp; She had in fact been dreaming not only of Tuscany with its hilltop villages and outstanding architecture, but of a certain farmer in his swimming trunks. She decided it was best not to tell him this.

  * * *

  Bee’s phone rang at eight thirty the next morning, just as the kettle boiled. She saw that it was Luke and sat down at the kitchen table to answer, holding her breath in anticipation.

  ‘Bee, you were right!’ He sounded excited and her heart leapt.

  ‘It’s the Martini?’

  ‘It has to be. I went round to my father’s house first thing this morning and, together, we cleared the bottles and prised the shelf away. It was only tacked into the timber supports with short nails and it came out quite easily. And yes, turning it over, we’ve found the painting.’

  Bee’s heart sang. ‘That’s fantastic news, Luke, really fantastic. Please, will you do me a favour? Take a photo and send it over to me, would you? One of my close friends is a world authority on medieval art. She’ll probably be able to tell straightaway if it’s by Martini.’

  ‘That’s terrific. I’ll do that now.’

  ‘And you and your father? You’re speaking?’

  ‘I’m up at the villa with the painting now. I had to show it to Umberto. But yes, my father and I did talk this morning. Not a lot, as you can imagine, but we’re talking. It’s all been such a shock.’

  ‘Then, will you do me another favour, please, Luke? If Annabelle agrees about the painting, will you go back and see him again? And when you do, will you take a bottle of champagne with you and promise me you’ll drink it together? All of it. And while you’re drinking, please start talking.’