One Night in Italy

by Lucy Diamond

  ‘Really? Great,’ he said. He grinned at her and her tummy did a strange kind of flip that left her breathless. ‘You’re on.’

  Driving home later, she felt elated by this new development. Who would have thought it? Her and George, going out for a drink together. She’d half-expected him to elbow her and tell her he was only joking, he hadn’t meant it like that, but the last thing he’d said as she’d kicked the mud off her wellies that afternoon was that he’d see her at eight o’clock in the Walkley Arms, a pub near the allotment. So it was game on. An actual date. Oh-Em-Gee, as her daughter would say.

  Would he try and kiss her, she wondered, feeling hysteria bubble up inside her as she turned off the main road into the village. Would this be the start of an actual relationship? Would he want to go to bed with her? Were they going to fall in love?

  Oh gosh. It was terrifying, frankly. She needed some advice from Penny or – no, not Penny. She’d only advise Catherine to pounce on him in the pub and stick her tongue in his mouth. The Italian class girls, then, Sophie and Anna. What would they say if they were here now?

  She could almost hear their voices ringing through her head. Yay! Go for it, Catherine!

  She indicated left to turn into her road and then almost stalled the engine as she saw the forlorn figure sitting on her front doorstep. After the most atrocious, hurried bit of parking ever, she scrambled from the car. ‘Emily!’ she cried, rushing over. ‘I thought you were back in Liverpool! Are you okay?’

  Emily burst into tears as Catherine wrapped her arms around her. ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart.’ She held her close, Emily’s face cold against hers. ‘Come inside, let me make you a cup of tea. How long have you been sitting there?’

  ‘About an hour. I forgot my key and Penny was out.’ She wiped her eyes on her sleeve as Catherine let them in. ‘Macca dumped me.’

  ‘What an idiot,’ Catherine said staunchly, her heart breaking at the sight of that tear-stained face and puffy cheeks.

  ‘I know you didn’t like him, Mum, but I really d-d-did. I loved him.’

  ‘Oh, darling, come here.’ Emily had always been one to wear her heart on her sleeve and now her face was twisted with raw pain and misery. Catherine just wanted to wrap her up in her own fierce love and never let anyone hurt her again. She could kill Macca, the bloody great oaf. She would kill him if she ever saw him again.

  ‘He said … He said I was too ordinary.’ She choked on the word, fresh tears spilling down onto Catherine’s jumper.

  ‘Ordinary? Rubbish! You’re the most lovely, special, beautiful girl on this planet,’ she said. ‘And don’t you dare let anyone tell you otherwise.’ She gave another fierce hug. ‘Ordinary indeed. As if! Now come inside this minute and let me sort you out.’

  Emily blew her nose and trudged into the house, letting Catherine fuss over her with some hot chocolate and a packet of Jaffa Cakes. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said with a feeble, pink-eyed smile. A last shuddery sob shook her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry I just ran off like that yesterday. He was so angry I didn’t know what else to do. He said if I didn’t go with him he’d leave me there and then.’

  Catherine sat down next to her at the table and stroked her cheek. ‘I’m sorry I put you in that position,’ she said. ‘I probably shouldn’t have bawled him out like that. It just got to me, seeing the way he was treating you. I didn’t like it.’

  Emily blew on her hot chocolate. ‘He was really nice to me sometimes,’ she said defensively, eyes lowered.

  ‘Sometimes isn’t enough,’ Catherine said. ‘People who switch their niceness on and off are not to be trusted. Take it from me.’

  There was a small silence as she thought of Mike. They hadn’t spoken since that showdown in the pub and she wondered uneasily if he’d kept his word about the money, or if he’d already changed his mind.

  ‘We didn’t have that much in common, I suppose,’ Emily admitted after a moment. ‘I mean, he’s really fit, but, you know … We never really talked, not properly. And he was always getting jealous of other men looking at me.’

  ‘Sounds like he was insecure. One of those people who put you down to make themselves feel better. Like …’ she said, then stopped.

  ‘Like Dad did to you?’ Emily prompted.

  Catherine folded her hands in her lap. She didn’t want to slag off Mike to Emily; he was her dad, her hero. ‘Sometimes,’ she said quietly.

  Emily leaned her head against Catherine’s shoulder. ‘I actually kind of loved it when you shouted at Macca, you know, Mum.’

  There was a lump in Catherine’s throat. ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yeah. I was like, Go Mum! for sticking up for me.’ She nibbled another Jaffa Cake. ‘I’m glad you were on my side, not his.’

  ‘I’m always on your side, Em. Always. Don’t ever forget that.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’ They sat there in companionable silence for a few minutes and Catherine felt lightheaded with relief that they were together again. Allies.

  ‘I’m sorry it wasn’t a very good weekend,’ Emily said after a while, ‘but I don’t have any lectures until tomorrow afternoon, so I can stay tonight if that’s okay. Maybe we could go out somewhere together and have tea.’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ Catherine agreed, but then George’s smiling face appeared in her mind and she remembered that she already had plans. Her date. ‘Ahh,’ she said. ‘Um … I kind of said to someone I’d go out this evening. I’m sure I can rearrange it, though.’

  Emily moved away from her – just a fraction but Catherine felt it. ‘Who?’ she asked. ‘Penny?’

  ‘No, not Penny. Just someone I met from the allotment. That’s where I was today.’

  ‘Oh.’ A new chill entered Emily’s voice. ‘Is it a man?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Does Dad know?’

  ‘It’s not like that, Em.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  Wasn’t it? Catherine hated the coolness that had appeared between them all of a sudden. ‘It doesn’t matter. I can put him off,’ she said quickly.

  ‘I feel a bit weird, you going out with another man.’

  ‘I’m not going out with him.’

  Emily studied her, a small frown appearing. ‘Isn’t it kind of soon? I mean, Dad was only here at Christmas. I don’t think you should rush into anything, Mum.’

  Said the girl who had just thrown her heart at a moron like Macca. ‘I’m not rushing, Em. Anyway, me and your dad had already split up by Christmas, remember. He walked out the day you and Matthew left home.’

  But Emily didn’t seem to be listening. ‘Have you kissed him? Have you slept with him?’

  ‘Emily! What sort of question is that?’

  ‘Does Matthew know? Has he met him?’

  ‘No! There’s nothing to know!’ Her tiny fledgling relationship, fragile as a dandelion clock, had been blown up into something ugly and sinister within seconds. ‘Look, it’s not a big deal. I’ll see him another time, okay? I’d rather go out with you anyway.’

  ‘Would you?’

  Would she? Catherine tried to block out that fluttery, excited feeling that had whipped up inside her as she came home earlier. Emily … George … Oh, it was unfair that she had to choose between them. Of course her daughter would win every time – especially when she was vulnerable and clingy like now.

  ‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Of course I would. Let me change out of these muddy jeans and we’ll have a lovely girly time together.’

  Emily smiled – finally – and it all felt worth it. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said.

  Text to: George

  From: Catherine

  Hi George, v v sorry but can we rearrange drink? Emily (daughter) has turned up, dumped by crap boyf, needs me here. Really sorry. Do you mind? C

  Text to: Catherine

  From: George

  No worries. Hope she is OK. G

  Text to: George

  From:
Catherine

  Maybe we can do it some other time instead?

  ‘Mum? I said, are you going to have a pudding?’

  ‘Oh. Er … No. I’m full, thanks.’ Catherine checked her phone again as Emily deliberated over the menu. Still no reply.

  ‘Mmm, melting chocolate fondant, that sounds amazing. Sure you’re not tempted?’

  ‘No. But you have one. It sounds lovely.’

  There was still no reply from George by the time they got home later. Had he gone off the idea already?

  Text to: George

  From: Catherine

  Sorry again re tonight. And thanks 4 the chat earlier anyway. Really helped. See you at Italian 2moro x

  Catherine and Emily sat down to watch a rom-com together with a bottle of wine, but Catherine couldn’t concentrate. Maybe his phone was out of battery. Maybe he was out of range. But maybe the silence was because he was cross with her for cancelling the date. She had explained though, hadn’t she? It wasn’t anything personal!

  Her phone buzzed with another text and she almost spilled her wine in her haste to read it. But it was from Anna.

  Text to: Catherine

  From: Anna

  Just heard on local news there’s been a massive donation to the Children’s Hospital fund – like, really massive. Mysterious donor, they said. Don’t suppose this has got anything to do with you, has it?! A xx

  Catherine gave a small smile. So Mike had actually done it – given away the money, wiped the slate clean. This was really good news. Mind you, it also meant that her phone was still working perfectly well. Come on, George, talk to me.

  She tried to get into the film but her mind kept drifting elsewhere, wondering what might have happened in a parallel universe where she had put on some perfume and a nice dress and then, knees knocking with nerves, gone to meet him. Now she might never know.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Il spettacolo – The performance

  ‘Well, I’ll be buggered.’

  ‘Jim! Language!’ Trish tutted as she stacked dirty coffee mugs into the dishwasher.

  ‘I can’t buggering well believe it.’

  ‘JIM!’

  ‘It’s not April Fool’s yet, is it? What the devil … ?’

  Sophie looked up from her breakfast to see him staring down at a bank statement, his blue eyes boggling in their sockets. ‘What is it, Dad?’

  Jim passed a hand over his brow and shook his head. ‘It must be a mistake,’ he said hoarsely, shaking his head. ‘Must be. Because how else has ten thousand flipping quid ended up in our bank account?’

  ‘What? Let me see.’ Sophie had never seen her mum move so quickly. ‘Oh my God, Jim. Look at that. Ten thousand pounds!’ Trish sank into a chair as if the shock was too much for her. ‘How on earth did that get in there?’

  ‘No idea,’ Jim said. ‘Funds transfer – that’s all it says. The bank will have cocked up, you wait. Someone with fat fingers pressed a wrong number is my guess. I suppose I’d better give them a ring and fess up.’ He held the statement up in the air. ‘Take a good look at it, girls. Chances are that ten grand will be whisked away again quicker than you can say “spending spree”.’

  During a lull that morning at the café, Sophie nipped out to the back yard on the pretext of putting the bins out, and phoned Catherine. ‘It’s gone in,’ she said. ‘The money. Thank you.’

  ‘Oh good. I’m really glad. Thanks for getting me the account details. I wasn’t sure if Mike would actually go through with it. His conscience must have been giving him hell, though.’

  ‘Ten thousand pounds he paid,’ Sophie said, with a flicker of glee as she remembered the shocked delight of her parents. ‘It was so hard to keep a straight face this morning. My mum and dad think it’s some kind of a mistake; they haven’t realized that it’s actually theirs yet.’

  ‘Well, I hope they enjoy spending it. And I’m sorry to put you in the position of having to keep a secret from them, but …’

  ‘It’s fine. I understand.’ Sophie knew that was the condition Mike had imposed on Catherine, scared that if his cover was blown, it would be the end of his career.

  ‘Thanks. Well, I’m glad it all worked out in the end anyway. Hey, any word from Dan yet?’

  ‘Not a sausage. I’d better go. Thanks again, Cath. See you soon.’

  Any word from Dan yet? If only. Sophie had almost given up hope of hearing from him now. There were only so many times you could hit refresh on Facebook and email before you felt like hitting yourself. After her carefully worded reply to him, which had taken the best part of an hour to construct, she had received precisely nothing in return. Why did men do that – make you think there was a chance, a future, only to completely ignore you when you responded to them? Hell, it wasn’t as if she was asking him to send her ten thousand pounds. Ten lines of text would do. Even ‘Hi’ would be a start.

  Had she put him off somehow? She had read and reread her message, trying to decipher it forensically, looking in vain for what she had said that could have frightened him off.

  Don’t worry about it, she had written, I’m fine. Good to hear from you. (Obviously she’d omitted all the bits about stalking him hopelessly around the world, the broken heart that lasted months (years), the fact that she’d never fallen in love again.)

  Give me a shout if you’re ever over this way, she’d finished breezily. Love Sophie. She hadn’t said Ring me or Let’s meet up! or Let’s get back together!!!, even though she was convinced those thoughts must have been practically audible, humming across the Peak District to him in the form of rippling soundwaves.

  Maybe it was the ‘Love Sophie’ that had scared him. But then, he’d written ‘Love Dan’, hadn’t he? He’d said he hoped she wasn’t seeing anyone, that he missed her, that he had been miserable without her!

  Still. Whatever. She’d been over him for three years, so a brief Facebook exchange was not going to change anything. Besides, she was far too busy to think about him now anyway, what with working all hours in the café, planning her next half-term of Italian classes, and the play to worry about this week as well. She certainly didn’t have time to agonize about lines of text on a computer screen. So there.

  She would be sorry when the play was over. She’d only been rehearsing with the group for a couple of weeks, but felt as if she’d bonded with them all already. She loved enigmatic, sexy Max whose passion for theatre rubbed off on everybody. She adored Ruby and Gareth, who played the two main characters. They were twenty-somethings like her and great fun. There were a couple of teenagers, Beth and Alys, both shy emo types who hid behind their fringes and too much make-up, but who were awesome in character and really came alive when speaking their lines. The pair of them were hopelessly in love with Jonty, who was twenty, dark and dimpled, with the dirtiest laugh Sophie had ever heard. And the oldies were fab too: Valerie, who made all the costumes on her Singer sewing machine; Patrick, dapper and twinkly with his Brylcreem and shiny suit; Meredith with the elegant silver bun, who did everyone’s make-up; and Dickie, who’d once been an extra in Emmerdale and name-dropped like there was no tomorrow. As for Brenda Dodds, she was a total pussycat who always brought home-made brownies along to rehearsals. It was a mystery why Geraldine had taken against her.

  The play was on for two nights – Thursday and Friday – and according to Max, both were pretty much sold out. The company didn’t have their own theatre but had links with a nearby secondary school who were letting them use their stage and facilities for a small fee. It wasn’t exactly The Crucible, but hey, you had to start somewhere. And now the costumes and props were all ready, and everyone was pretty much word-perfect. Show-time.

  Sophie hadn’t really made a big deal of her part in the production, but when she peered out from behind the curtains before the opening performance, her knees buckled in surprise to see her parents sitting expectantly in the second row, and Anna, Catherine, Phoebe, Nita and Roy further back in the audience. Her eyes felt swimmy with
emotion suddenly, and she had to take three deep breaths. They’d all come. They’d all bothered to get tickets and sit here in the chalk-smelling hall on a plastic chair, for her sake. When Sophie checked her phone she saw that Geraldine had remembered too, and sent a text. Knock ’em dead, kid, it said.

  ‘Two minutes,’ Max said just then and a twitter went around everyone backstage. Beth started having palpitations about her hair, Ruby had a wardrobe malfunction that required three of Valerie’s safety pins, and Jonty locked himself in the toilet to do some unusual voice exercises that sounded as if he was gargling and being strangled at the same time. Sophie felt dizzy with fright, her throat horribly dry. Oh God. She was actually going to have to walk out onto that stage in front of all those people and speak. And act! Why had she ever thought this was a good idea? Why had she let Geraldine talk her into it?

  Max came up behind her then and squeezed her shoulder. ‘You’ll be great, doll,’ he told her. ‘As soon as you get out there, the adrenalin will take over and you’ll fly through it. No probs.’

  ‘No probs,’ she echoed jerkily, her breath feeling tight in her lungs. And then the lights went down through the hall, a hush descended and the curtains opened to reveal Ruby and Gareth on the stage.

  ‘Let’s do this,’ said Max under his breath.

  It was over before she knew it – her feet carrying her to her spot on stage, her lines spoken without pause or error, a hand on the hip, an exasperated face at the audience (that got a chuckle) and then clip-clop, clip-clop, back off stage. It was more than that though: it was the roaring sensation that buzzed through her, almost uncontainably; the surge of pride at the end when the audience clapped them through two curtain calls, and the joy of seeing her parents’ beaming faces, Phoebe giving her the thumbs up and her friends all applauding. It was like the rush of a drug, a pure high of happiness and relief and I-did-it!

  And then she happened to glance back through the audience and saw another familiar face right at the back, his hands high as he clapped, his mouth stretched wide in a smile. It was Dan. As their eyes met and shock ricocheted through her, he put his forefingers between his lips and gave a wolfwhistle.