by Maeve Haran
‘I just don’t believe this stuff about Luca,’ Claire protested angrily. She was helping Monica pick a bunch of crimson glory roses from the bed at the side of the house to put on the dinner table.
They were gorgeous roses, bright red and velvety, with a heady scent Monica found irresistible. She had been given a special dispensation by Luigi to pick them.
‘Why don’t you ask Beatrice? She’s his aunt and obviously she’s going to protect him, but you might find something out at least.’
Claire nodded thoughtfully, picking a rose and managing to prick herself on a particularly vicious thorn at the same time. Blood poured from her thumb, staining her jeans and top.
‘Go and ask her now. All that blood will distract her and you might get more out of her.’
Claire found Beatrice in the kitchen getting plates out of the dresser. ‘Signora Chiara!’ Beatrice reacted as if Claire had been seriously wounded. ‘Your finger! What has happened to it?’
‘I pricked it on a rose,’ confessed Claire feeling rather silly, given that she’d produced enough blood for three nosebleeds.
‘Come with me and we will bandage it up. Che brutte, those roses! Why do you English love them so much? They are dangerous!’
‘But beautiful.’
This deadly combination seemed to strike Beatrice, who stood nodding her head, ignoring the blood dripping on the floor.
‘Do you have a clean cloth?’
Beatrice produced a sparkling square of muslin usually kept for polishing.
Fortunately, after five minutes under the cold tap, Claire’s life-or-death injury seemed to clear up.
‘I just wanted to ask you, Beatrice,’ Claire was careful to use the exact words of Hugo’s accusation, ‘why did Luca give up being a lawyer so suddenly?’
It was as if a small explosion took place in the kitchen next to her. Beatrice, white-haired and smiling, the epitome of a cartoon granny, became a wildcat of uncontainable fury.
‘Merda!’ she almost spat. It didn’t take a UN translator to work that one out. ‘Who is it that has been telling you these lies, Signora Chiara? What a world is it, I ask you, when an act of goodness cannot be taken for what it is? Just because Luca give up the rich life, the fast car . . .’
The expensive wife, Claire stopped herself from adding.
‘. . . the big house. Everyone, they ask why this is? They cannot believe he do it because his father ask him to. That if he do not help the family business, it is over for them.’
Suddenly she grabbed the crucifix off the wall and dropped down to her knees. ‘On the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, I swear this is the truth!’
Claire pulled her hastily to her feet. ‘Don’t worry, Beatrice. I promise I believe you!’
‘Why don’t we have our brainstorming session to think up a name for this new drink tonight?’ suggested Sylvie. ‘It might take our minds off all the emotion swirling about. We could do it over dinner. Make it into a game and see how many drinks we can remember. On second thoughts, maybe I’ll bring my iPad. I’ve got such a crap memory. I expect it’s all that champagne.’
The others agreed but by the time they sat down there was still no sign of Angela.
‘Sulking upstairs, I expect.’ Sylvie flipped open her tablet just as Beatrice arrived with a mouth-watering starter of spaghetti with clams.
‘I’ll just read some out, shall I?’ She began to spool down a list of drink names on her screen. ‘Aperol – an aperitif with rhubarb, chinchona, genziana, whatever on earth that is, and a secret ingredient. Campari – a bitter aperitif made from a secret recipe of aromatic herbs and spirit. Cinzano – vermouth made from a secret blend of ingredients. Martini – hey, have you noticed anything they all have in common?’
‘They all have secret ingredients,’ Claire suggested.
‘And they’re all Italian!’ pointed out Monica.
‘Do you remember those funny ads for Cinzano with Leonard Rossiter as the awful fake smoothie who always threw his drink over Joan Collins?’ Sylvie giggled.
‘I loved those,’ agreed Claire. ‘You see,’ she beamed, ‘Italians really love their aperitifs!’ She produced a bright orange bottle from her bag. ‘OK, who’s tried an Aperol?’
‘We’re too old!’ Sylvie lamented. ‘It’s after our time.’
‘I have,’ Monica announced, impressing Sylvie and Claire. ‘Twice. Once with Constantine and again in the piazza when I was waiting for the bus. I even asked the barman how you make them. Fifty millilitres of Aperol, a hundred millilitres of Prosecco, and top it up with soda water.’
Claire produced the other ingredients and sploshed the liquid into their glasses.
They all sipped the barley-sugar-coloured potion.
‘It tastes like Tango,’ pronounced Sylvie.
‘No, no,’ insisted Monica. ‘It looks like Tango. It tastes like Tizer! With added alcohol, of course.’
‘Monica’s right!’ insisted Sylvie. ‘Come on, Claire, I’m sure Luca’s new drink could be just as popular as this!’
‘It will.’ Claire nodded, with touching certainty. ‘But what are we going to call it?’
‘How about Lemon Heaven?’ suggested Sylvie.
Sylvie shook her head. ‘Too like a cocktail.’
‘I know,’ Monica said excitedly, ‘what’s most famous round here?’
‘Apart from lemons?’ supplied Claire. ‘Old churches?’
‘That’s not very useful,’ Sylvie replied.
‘Hmmm . . . the sea? Blue something?’ Claire persisted.
‘Makes me think of curaçao . . .’ Monica mused.
‘Sunshine?’ Claire offered.
‘Coastline? How about Costara?’ threw in Monica.
‘Not bad,’ Sylvie approved, ‘but it doesn’t have much of a zing.’
‘Cellono!’ announced a voice from above them. ‘It picks up the “cello” of limoncello without making it too obvious.’
They stared up to find Angela leaning down from her terrace.
‘Actually, that’s not bad. Cellono,’ Sylvie repeated slowly. Then, in a dreadful cod Italian accent, she said, ‘Cellono, per favore! That actually sounds quite convincing. Cellono it is. Thank you, Angela.’
Sylvie squinted upwards so that she could see Angela’s face and was relieved that she was smiling.
‘It struck me that men come and go but friendship lasts forever,’ said upside-down Angela.
Monica and Claire looked at each other. ‘Did she just say friendship?’ Monica whispered.
Claire nodded.
‘Right, Claire,’ Sylvie grinned, ‘now all you have to do is get Luca to lower the proof in his limoncello and find those mystery ingredients!’
Claire couldn’t wait till the next morning to meet Luca and see what he thought of the name they’d thought of for the drink that hadn’t even been invented yet.
The good news, Luca told her excitedly, was that they had produced a version of the liqueur with only half the alcohol. And they had collected a range of herbs and spices to try out with the drink to provide the all-important mystery ingredient.
Luca, his niece Fabiella and daughter Bianca were seated round the terrace table with small piles of herbs and spices, while his father rampaged up and down muttering that this would be a travesty of his limoncello and, as if things weren’t bad enough, this would make them all into a laughing stock.
Rows of small glasses containing the new liqueur stood ready to be mixed with the various ingredients for tasting, including cardamom, juniper, thyme, coriander and lemongrass and a mystery ingredient whose identity Luca insisted on keeping from them.
Some were too overpowering, others disgusting and some plain weird, but after an hour they were agreed on a couple of flavours that had potential.
‘Now we add some Prosecco and a dash of soda – and this!’ Luca swirled the tiniest amount of a ground powder into the glass and handed it round.
‘God, Luca, that’s absolutely delicious!’ Cla
ire was genuinely amazed. The others tried and nodded enthusiastically. ‘What is that you’ve added?’
‘Our secret ingredient, handed down through my family for generations!’ He winked at his father who crossed himself and picked up the glass.
They all waited for him to throw it to the ground in disgust.
He sipped suspiciously, then, to their delight, knocked back the rest in one gulp.
‘Cellono,’ the old man repeated suspiciously, savouring the word almost as much as he had savoured the spicy yellow drink. ‘Cellono. Not for me but maybe some fools would pay good money for it.’
‘You wait,’ whispered Luca to Claire. ‘In a month, he’ll be claiming his grandmother put it in his baby bottle to make him sleep!’
‘What is it,’ she whispered back. ‘The mystery ingredient?’
He drew her away from the rest of the group. ‘You will love this, Chiara mia. But it must be a true secret between you and I. It is called grains of paradise.’
‘It’s not a drug, is it?’ It sounded so like something from Claire’s student days.
He shook his head, laughing. ‘A species of ginger from Africa. It tastes a little of pepper and you will laugh now, Chiara. It was used in cordials in your country for hundreds of years until it was banned by your King George!’
‘Luca, that’s wonderful.’ Claire found she was glowing with happiness that she had been a part of his adventure. At home, in the day-to-dayness of marriage and work, she rarely felt she was being useful. But here things were somehow different.
He looked serious for a moment, his warm brown eyes holding hers. ‘Thank you, Chiara, for caring about our little lemon gardens, for wanting to help us. For bringing us Cellono!’
She thought for a moment he might kiss her again, but his daughter Bianca, suspecting an imminent display of affection, rushed in. ‘Papà, andiamo! You said you would give me a ride back to school!’
Luca smiled at her. ‘Goodbye, Chiara. Mille grazie, though a thousand thanks is not enough.’
Claire smiled, fizzing up with joy, without the slightest premonition of the fact that this might be their last carefree meeting.
Monica realized with a little thrill of belonging that she actually knew the bus timetable from Lanzarella to Lerini off by heart. She enjoyed knowing, as all the locals did, that you had to buy your tickets not from the machine that never worked but from the tabacchi on the corner of the street.
As usual, the bus was full to bursting with giggly schoolchildren, surly teenagers, disapproving old ladies and the regulation pair of young lovers who looked as if they would devour each other like amorous boa constrictors.
Monica looked out of the window, thinking that Lanzarella was beginning to seem more real to her than Great Missenden. To think, without Gwen she would have been looking after her parents’ revolting boxers. She smiled a small smile of satisfaction. But had she really changed in ways that would survive when she had to leave the magic of this place?
They arrived at the bus stop near the quay. It was market day again and Monica spent a happy half-hour looking through the stalls. A black dress with gold buttons and a slightly military air caught her eye. It was sexy and chic, the kind of dress she would never in a million years have considered before. Monica smiled to herself as she bought it.
The bell on the duomo clanged as she left the market and Monica decided to slip inside. Her parents had had a very English attitude to worship, viewing it as a civic duty, but they’d been embarrassed by any real manifestations of belief. When Monica, as a teenager, had gone through a brief period of devotion to God rather than going out with boys, her mother had pronounced it was because she was fat and unattractive and preferred the safer embraces of the Almighty.
The interior of the church was dark and quiet, the few sounds of people moving around, kneeling at the various small altars, were muffled, with only the faint murmur of the confessional in the background.
Monica was moved by the sudden urge to light a candle. She didn’t quite know what for, maybe that this lovely unexpected interlude would continue. To her irritation she discovered that the candles in Italy were electric. It might be better for health and safety, but what about the soul?
She paused at the statue of the next saint, a friar in a brown robe with an immensely sad and kind face. Someone had placed a bunch of real forget-me-nots into his hand and it made him seem almost a living man. She realized it was St Anthony, patron saint of lost things.
As she knelt down, not even sure what she would pray for, her eye caught the glint of something shiny a few feet away. Monica leaned over and picked it up. It was a small silver heart. Was it a locket? And yet the metal seemed too light and thin for a necklace.
She glanced to her left. On the wall, masked by a praying figure, was a large black board covered in tiny silver symbols: hands, feet, legs, faces, and several hearts just like the one in her hand. As soon as the old man who was praying moved off, Monica hung the heart onto the board.
It suddenly struck her as significant. She would pray for Sylvie and Tony’s reconciliation.
She waited a moment then made her way out of the cathedral and towards the sun-filled piazza. This was where she had seen him before, feeding the birds. It was a remote chance, but still.
She ordered a coffee and cornetto. The local name for a croissant always made her smile.
‘Excuse me,’ a voice asked her from the next table. It was indeed Tony. ‘Monica, isn’t it? Aren’t you staying up at the villa with my wife Sylvie?’
Monica agreed that she was indeed Monica.
‘I’m Tony.’ Monica noticed that he was looking even more crumpled, and it was not just his clothes. There was something deflated and sad about him, like a balloon left over from a party. The carefree charm had dissipated into thin air.
‘Is Sylvie still furious with me?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think she still thinks I’m the biggest shit on earth.’
‘Asking her assistant if you could get back to the office didn’t help.’
‘Sylvie won’t speak to me, what am I supposed to do? It’s my home too. I’m a partner and half my stuff is there.’
‘I thought for what it’s worth, that it would have been better not to criticize her the other day, just to tell her you missed her.’
‘Why should she believe me?’
‘She knows the gym bunny’s off the scene.’
Tony smiled and ran his hand through his hair. It was the kind of bouncy, unruly hair she liked in men. The kind of hair that couldn’t do what it was told. For a second he looked like the attractive man she’d glimpsed before. ‘Is that really what you call Kimberley? It suits her, I suppose. Oh shit, Monica, I’ve screwed this up. I haven’t behaved well to Kim and I’ve betrayed Sylvie. I don’t really know why I did it. I was flattered, I suppose.’
Monica thought for a moment. ‘Let’s have a drink,’ she suggested.
Tony looked at her in surprise.
‘And don’t say, “What, at this time?” or “I had you down for the librarian type”, or I might have to pour the water in that vase over you.’
Tony laughed and called over the waiter.
‘Un bicchiere di Franciacorta, per favore,’ Monica requested.
‘No idea what that it is, but make it due, please.’
‘You’ll like it.’
‘You speak very good Italian.’ The charming smile was beginning to peep over the black horizon again.
‘Yes. Anyway, enough about me.’
Their drinks arrived. Monica raised her glass. ‘To mending broken hearts!’
‘I don’t think Sylvie thinks I’ve even got one.’
‘Now, now, cut the self-pity. You’ll have to persuade her. Sending flowers is too clichéd. She’d just chuck them in the bin. I want you to really think about your relationship. Something that made you both happy, it doesn’t matter if it’s small.’
To her surprise, Tony blush
ed.
‘Hang on,’ Monica assured him, ‘look, if it’s kinky, maybe keep it between yourselves.’
‘It’s not kinky – well, not very.’
The people at the next table, two elderly Germans, were suddenly leaning forward.
Monica turned towards them and raised her glass. ‘We charge for the fruity bits,’ she informed them.
They quickly buried themselves in their beers.
‘She liked me to put nail varnish on her toes. She was the countess and I was the obliging butler.’ He smiled nostalgically. ‘And afterwards—’
‘Yes, fine, I can well imagine afterwards. So that’s what you should do.’
‘Dress up as a butler?’
‘No, send her nail varnish. What colour?’
‘Purple, as a matter of fact.’
‘Yes, it would be purple.’ She knocked back her drink. ‘Come on, drink up! ‘We’ve got to find the pharmacy before they close for the afternoon.’
Tony got up obediently.
‘Are you feeling ill?’
Monica shook her head at the obtuseness of the male gender. ‘No. We need the pharmacy because you’re going to find some purple nail varnish.’
The pharmacy was just next to the bus stop and, frankly, was uninspiring; its shelves were rather dusty and the assistant looked almost surly at the sight of two more tourists who were probably going to request ridiculously high-factor sun cream, diarrhoea treatment or hangover cures.
But when Monica explained that they were looking for expensive nail varnish that they wanted gift wrapped, she perked up quite amazingly. She was a dab hand at bows and furbelows, and rarely got a chance to exercise her skills.
Tony chose the nail varnish and the assistant wrapped it with infinite patience, ignoring the growing queue of old ladies who swore under their breath at the extravagance of this foreign invasion.
Monica turned and announced in flawless Italian that it was a gift to the woman he had betrayed by having an affair with someone many years younger and she was sure they could appreciate the care that must be taken in this delicate attempt at an apology.
A black-clothed widow, leaning on her stick, demanded if he was genuinely repentant and when Monica answered in the affirmative, nodded her head and announced that men were all the same and she hoped the woman would forgive him rather than face a lonely old age as she herself had suffered.
