Three Days in Florence

by Chrissie Manby

‘It’s not for sale,’ said Kathy.

  ‘They clearly can’t afford to keep the place together. It looks like it’s ready to fall down.’

  Kathy felt the sting of Neil’s words as though they were aimed at her personally. ‘They won’t sell,’ she insisted.

  ‘The son busks to make a living.’

  ‘He doesn’t busk. He’s a professional musician.’

  ‘Whatever you want to call it. And you saw the way the daughter leaped on that cash. They’re desperate. They’ll sell if MHG make an offer. If they do, you can thank me later.’ He kissed her on the forehead. Kathy recoiled.

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a softie. They’ll be much happier when they let go of their delusions of grandeur. They’ll get a decent price. They can send the kid to private school. Grandma can get a nice flat all on one level to save her knees. The lord of the manor can afford to get a proper haircut. And you, well, with the fee my firm could get from acting for Majestic this year, you might just get some nice earrings to match your …’

  Kathy followed Neil’s eyes down to her left hand. Her bare hand.

  ‘Your ring. Where’s your engagement ring?’

  Now at last it was all going to hit the fan.

  ‘Neil,’ Kathy began. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you.’

  ‘Where is your engagement ring?’

  ‘You know on Friday afternoon, when I was sitting in the café and you called and we talked on the phone and while we were talking—’

  ‘Where is the ring?’

  It was ‘the’ ring now. Not hers any more.

  ‘It was so loose. It kept slipping over my knuckle. I was afraid I was going to lose it while I was walking round the city.’

  ‘After I told you to stay in the airport …’

  ‘I was so afraid …’ Kathy shrank into herself as she watched Neil’s face harden ‘… I thought the best place for it was inside the zipped pocket in my handbag, which I had been wearing across my body for safety, until I sat down and I put it on the table and—’

  ‘You’re telling me the ring was in the bag that was stolen?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kathy. ‘It was. Neil, I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘Do you have any idea how much that ring cost me?’ Neil asked. ‘Do you have any clue? And you put it in the pocket of your tatty old handbag?’

  ‘I know it was a stupid thing to do. I should have put it on the chain around my neck or something.’

  ‘You put a five-thousand-pound engagement ring in your handbag, which you left on a table in full sight of everyone in a town with the highest number of pickpockets in the world.’

  Kathy decided not to dispute Neil on that statistic.

  Neil bashed his own knuckles against his forehead. ‘I am surrounded by idiots everywhere. Everywhere! Is there a single person in my life who isn’t an absolute moron?’

  ‘Neil.’

  She had expected him to be upset about the ring but not this upset.

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder why I asked you to marry me in the first place. Perhaps I should take it back.’

  Exhilaration flashed through Kathy’s mind so fast she almost didn’t notice it.

  ‘For crying out loud.’ Neil threw another wodge of cash on the table and stormed out of the restaurant. Kathy followed him, apologising as she went to the people he’d shoved out of the way.

  ‘Neil! Neil!’ She tried to keep up with him but he was striding ahead, not stopping for anything. He almost sent a moped rider flying as the young man had to brake hard to avoid knocking him over as he strode across a street without looking.

  ‘Neil!’

  He didn’t turn to look back at her once on the walk to the hotel.

  Kathy was scared and worried yet there it was again: that flash of exhilaration. Of clarification? Of relief? She had never seen Neil so angry. Surely they couldn’t survive this.

  Neil did not speak to her all afternoon. They certainly did not go out for dinner at a fancy restaurant that evening, as he had promised when he picked her up at the Casa Innocenti. Instead he ordered room service. Kathy said she didn’t feel hungry and it was true. Her stomach churned.

  Though they couldn’t move around the small hotel room without bumping into one another, Neil was doing a pretty good job of pretending that Kathy wasn’t there. He didn’t say a word to her. He turned on the television and flipped through the channels, jabbing at the buttons on the remote, which was sluggish. The batteries must have been running out. Deciding there was nothing to watch, he turned the television off and picked up his phone, scrolling through videos of goals from Fulham’s triumphs past, which Kathy had come to understand was his way of self-soothing. Ordinarily, knowing this, she would have snuggled into his side and asked him if he was OK. But since she was the reason he wasn’t OK, there was no point trying to help him unpack his unhappiness tonight.

  Eventually, at around ten o’clock, he got up and went to the bathroom. At home, Kathy always went through the bathroom first, since Neil’s bedtime routine was more extensive than hers, but he was continuing to act as though she wasn’t there so this time he got bathroom priority. Afterwards, he got into bed, climbing under the single sheet and turning away from her. While she was in the bathroom, he turned the air-conditioning down as low as it would go. As though the atmosphere needed any help to make it icy.

  Even wearing a T-shirt and socks, Kathy was too cold beneath that single sheet on the bed. She lay awake. She might have been anywhere on earth. She could hear none of the comforting sounds of the city she had come to love. It was too late for swallows but neither could she hear the bells, nor the chatter of happy people on their way home from restaurants, nor the odd snatch of opera as a chef grabbed a break from the kitchen. Just the air-conditioning, which for some reason right then made her think of being inside one of those big stainless-steel drawers in a morgue.

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ her father’s voice said.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  A good night’s sleep did not improve Neil’s mood. He got up without kissing her good morning. He showered and dressed before he even glanced in her direction, and when he did there was no trace of affection in his regard.

  ‘I’ve got my first meeting in an hour,’ he said eventually.

  Though she had nothing planned, Kathy got out of bed and began pulling on her clothes so that she might at least look as though she was ready to do something too.

  They went to breakfast together. It was served in a dining room on the top of the building, the eighth floor, a 1970s addition with floor-to-ceiling windows. At seven thirty, the room was already packed and there was a long queue for the self-service coffee machine. Kathy said she would stand in the queue for both of them, knowing Neil would not mellow with the wait.

  ‘What are you going to do today?’ Neil asked, as they ate.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Kathy. ‘I didn’t know how much time I’d have.’

  ‘We need to leave here at five this afternoon. I’ll have the hotel get us a car. If you could just manage to stay out of trouble until then. Try not to lose any more of the things I’ve bought you.’

  Neil looked Kathy over from head to toe so that she, too, glanced down at what she was wearing. Not one of the items she had on, from her shoes to her earrings, was something Neil had bought her. She’d bought everything for herself, with money she had earned before she’d lost her job. She didn’t argue, though. The absence of the ring meant everything right then.

  When Neil left for his meeting with the client from New York, Kathy lingered over another coffee, trying her hardest not to cry. Ahead of her, through the large windows of the restaurant, was the roof of the Duomo. She had come to Florence and she had seen it. That was worth being happy about. And Neil would get over the loss of the engagement ring. And if he didn’t?

  ‘Does it matter?’ she heard her father’s voice again.

  After breakfast, Kathy went back to their room. She turned off the air-conditioning an
d opened the window. Mosquitoes be damned. She needed real air. Then she flipped through the hotel’s service guide to find the page on using the phone and the code for dialling internationally. She had to make a call.

  Her mother picked up after two rings.

  ‘Hello?’ Clare sounded tentative.

  ‘Mum, it’s me.’

  ‘Oh, darling! I was wondering when I’d hear from you. You haven’t called or texted since Sunday! I was beginning to worry. Are you at home?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Kathy explained the situation. Neil’s unexpected business trip. ‘So he thought he’d come and fetch me.’

  ‘I’m so glad,’ said Clare. ‘I hate to think of you flying alone.’

  Which was ironic, thought Kathy, since the prospect of going to the airport with Neil was far from relaxing.

  ‘I found your father’s letter,’ Clare carried on. ‘Not that I’d ever have lost it. I always knew exactly where it was. I went up into the loft to get it out of the safe on Sunday. So now it’s ready for your wedding day. Have you had any more thoughts as to when that might be?’

  Kathy dodged the question. ‘Mum, I know the letter was meant for the wedding reception, but will you read it to me now?’

  ‘But why, dear? Are you worried what it might say? You know your father won’t have written anything embarrassing.’

  ‘Of course not. I just want to hear it. I want to hear something in Dad’s voice.’

  ‘I can’t do your dad’s voice!’ Clare said.

  ‘I know. That’s not what I meant. I meant I just want to hear what he wanted to say to me. I need … I need … Oh, I don’t know. I guess going through such a big thing as getting engaged without him has made me miss him more than usual.’

  ‘I know what you mean, love. There’s nothing I’d like more than for us to be sharing all this with him.’

  ‘Hearing the letter will be like having him there now reacting to the news about me and Neil.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure it won’t spoil the real big day, having already heard it …’

  ‘It won’t spoil the real big day, Mum. Please.’

  ‘OK,’ said Clare. ‘If that’s what you want. Just let me get my glasses.’

  The wait while Clare found her glasses seemed endless. Kathy spent the moment staring at Turner’s view of the Thames. Soon she would be swapping the Arno for that more familiar river.

  ‘Right,’ said Clare. ‘I’m back. Are you ready?’

  ‘Have you read this letter before, Mum?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. It was for you from your dad. I’d never have read it before you had a chance to see it. I hope it’s not going to make us both cry.’

  ‘You know it’s going to make us both cry, Mum.’

  Kathy heard her mother tearing open an envelope.

  ‘Oh,’ Clare exclaimed.

  ‘What is it, Mum?’

  ‘It’s just seeing his handwriting …’

  For a moment, Kathy felt bad, putting her mum through this when she was too far away to give her a hug, but she had a feeling that after she’d heard her father’s words everything would make sense.

  ‘Are you ready, sweetheart?’ Clare asked.

  ‘I think I am.’

  Clare began to read.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  ‘My darling girl,

  So here it is at last. Your big day! How I wish I could be there with you in person. You’ll have to settle for having me there in spirit. Or at least in print.

  ‘I’m writing this letter on a Sunday afternoon in May. You’re away at university, studying hard for your degree. You always were a clever clogs. Did I tell you how proud your mum and I are that you’re at university, Kathy? We’re so proud. I tell everybody I meet. People at the bus stop, people in the supermarket, people in the hospital. I’ve told the doctors they’d better keep me going until you graduate. I’m not going to miss that too.’

  He had missed that too.

  ‘But, without a miracle, I know I’m going to miss your wedding, and unless you marry that nice boy who does the MOTs at the garage on the Chelmsford Road, like I’d strongly advise you to, then today you’re going to be marrying a stranger – at least a stranger to me. So I have this to say to him and to you.

  ‘Kathy, you are my only child. That alone makes me certain that you’re the best woman in the world. But even people who don’t have my bias can see that you’re a one-off. You’re clever, you’re funny, and you’re kind. You can light a room with your smile. You can also block out the sun with your moods but I’m sure your future husband already knows that.

  ‘There’s not a single day goes by when I’m not chuffed to be your father. If I listed all the ways you’ve made me proud over the years, there wouldn’t be enough paper in the world to get them all down. But here are a few of my favourites. Your first word. “Dada”, of course. Your first steps. Your first day at school. Your first nativity play. You were the best second sheep that school ever saw. You getting your grade-one musical-theory exam when you were only eight. The day you had your eye fixed and showed us how you could be “Kathy Brave”. You singing a solo in the school choir when I know how hard it was for you to get up in front of such a big audience. All those exams you aced. Your university place. First one in our family to go!

  ‘So many proud-dad moments you gave me, but my very best memories of you are of the times you and I spent together at the piano, side by side, playing our favourite duets. I can still see the concentration on your face as you tried your hardest to keep up with me until one day it was me struggling to keep up with you. Whenever you asked me to join you at the keys after that, I felt like the luckiest man alive to have a daughter so talented and so patient, who still had time to play the odd tune with her old man. Such a gift you gave me.

  ‘To the future Mr Courage – I’m sure that men will be taking women’s surnames soon – I say this: Look after my daughter as I know she will look after you. Help her to be her best self. Support her, listen to her, always try to understand her point of view. My girl knows what she is doing. Help her to achieve her dreams and I know she will help you achieve yours. Treat her kindly at all times, or I promise I will haunt you from the grave. Make your life together a real duet.

  ‘That’s all from me for now. Have a wonderful day, future son-in-law and my beautiful Kathy Brave. I love you, sweetheart.

  ‘With big hairy kisses,

  ‘Your Dad.’

  ‘Oh, Kathy!’ When she’d finished reading the letter, Clare burst into noisy tears. Alone in the hotel room in Italy, Kathy did the same. They cried down the line for what felt like ages, until Clare laughed. ‘Of course he had to mention that you said “Dada” first.’

  ‘Typical Dad,’ Kathy agreed.

  ‘Oh, he loved you. And I love you too,’ said Clare. ‘Everything he wanted for you, I want as well. Everything.’

  Especially a duet partner for life.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  With her head aching from having cried so hard, Kathy knew she needed to get outside. She had at least four hours to kill before Neil came back from his day of meetings. In that time there was only one thing she really wanted to see and that was the Uffizi.

  There was a long wait to get into the galleries, of course, but Kathy was prepared. As the queue shuffled forward inch by inch, she thought about her father’s letter and she thought about Neil.

  For the first four years they were together, Neil hadn’t talked much about the future and Kathy hadn’t known how to broach it. The dozens of books she had read on the subject of dating a divorcee had warned against pushing for too much too soon. She had to let Neil come to the conclusion that it might be good to formalise their relationship. At the same time, Kathy was acutely aware that they didn’t have all the time in the world. Not if they were going to have a baby together. She’d said in her dating profile that she wanted children. She was thirty-five when they met. Now she was thirty-nine.

  As t
hey came up to the fifth anniversary of their first date, she decided to broach the subject in a very roundabout way. By mentioning that she was thinking of coming off the pill. ‘I’ve been on it for quite a while. It’s probably not doing me much good.’ Neil had nodded vaguely. She put that down to the fact he wasn’t keen on talking about anything to do with menstrual cycles. They were a feminine mystery he preferred to stay that way.

  ‘The only thing is, what do we do for contraception if I’m not going to be on the pill any more?’

  Kathy’s musing was supposed to open a conversation as to whether they really needed to be using contraception at all. They were both grown-ups. They had money. They had space. Why shouldn’t they just try for a baby?

  ‘That’s a tough one,’ said Neil. ‘Condoms, I suppose.’

  Then he went back to watching the news.

  The conversation didn’t come up again, but Kathy was beginning to understand that that didn’t mean Neil wasn’t thinking about it. Sometimes it would take him weeks to come back to her on something she’d suggested.

  ‘I’ve got you a very special present,’ Neil told her a month later. It was the week before Dave and Shelley’s wedding.

  Kathy felt her heart make a bid for escape via her mouth as she wondered what that present might be. It had to be a ring. It could only be a ring.

  ‘I had a vasectomy,’ Neil said.

  ‘You what?’ Kathy snorted. It was a terrible joke.

  ‘I said I had a vasectomy.’

  The smile melted from Kathy’s lips. If it was a joke … ‘Stop mucking about,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not mucking about. I thought you’d be pleased, Chicken. It means you can come off the pill, like you said you wanted to.’

  ‘Tell me you’ve just made an appointment but it hasn’t actually happened yet.’

  ‘No. I had it done while you were at your mum’s three weeks ago. Still a bit sore, to be honest. And it takes a couple of weeks for the last of the sperm to get flushed through the system. I’ve got to go back for a test tomorrow to make sure my semen is free of the little wrigglers but after that …’ Neil grinned and moved his pelvis in a fashion that made Kathy turn her head away.