The Olive Branch

by Jo Thomas

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t always mean you fully own it yet.’

  Marco is talking quietly and intently to the lawyer. One arm is across his body and the other hand is teasing at his bottom lip. Anna-Maria says something quickly, waving her hands at the two men, and Filippo translates.

  ‘My mamma says we must get this sorted. You must stay until it is cleared up. You must eat with us, she says.’

  I look at Anna-Maria, who is staring back at me, nostrils flaring. I get the impression she doesn’t want to let me out of her sight. I sit back down reluctantly. I feel like the mouse having tea with the Gruffalo, neither of us sure who is going to swallow the other one up. Rosa is still glaring at me. Nonna keeps handing me more bowls of food, which I eat, politely, until I’m so full I can’t bear the thought of another mouthful. Food is passed up and down the table, wine is poured. Arms are waved and the conversation keeps going in fast and furious Italian, but I still don’t understand a word of it.

  ‘They want to know if you will put a pool in. Will you rent it out this summer? Wouldn’t you be better where there are more ex-pats living? Ostuni is nice. Or more tourists? Alberobello.’ Filippo is passing on the questions from various family members. All the time I can tell they are hoping the paperwork hasn’t been completed. And frankly, I’m beginning to feel the same way. Maybe I would be better off in Alberobello or Ostuni; maybe there I could understand what people are saying. I’m never going to fit in here, obviously.

  I’m exhausted, and so full of food I fear I may have to be rolled home. This is turning out to be one of the longest days of my life.

  ‘My grandmother thinks it isn’t a very good house for holiday rentals. There’s nothing around but olives,’ says Filippo, who is also flagging a bit now.

  ‘Oh, I’m not going to rent it out,’ I say, slowly and clearly. ‘I’m going to live in it.’

  There is a communal blowing-out of cheeks.

  ‘It’s far too big for one person to live in!’

  I think Nonna may be saying something along the lines of how a woman my age should have a husband and a family, but I’m not sure. The lawyer’s phone suddenly trills into life and he speaks quickly and quietly to the person on the other end. Finishing his call, he puts his hand on Marco’s shoulder and gives it a sympathetic squeeze. Marco’s face darkens. He’s hardly touched his food.

  ‘The contracts were completed straight away. Just before he died.’ Filippo drops his head.

  So that’s it. The house is mine for definite, but instead of being elated, I realise that I feel strangely disappointed.

  It’s eleven o’clock when I finally get to leave, after the pasta course, the meat, the panna cotta and the coffee. Outside, I feel like a fly that’s escaped from a spider’s web, and take great gulps of air. Marco drives me back to the masseria in silence and at speed, although I insist there really is no need. When we pull up outside the house, the goat is lying by the front door.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ is all I can think of saying to Marco. But I get the feeling he blames me for his loss right now. Although the sale has gone through, this is far from over.

  I get out of the car. He doesn’t move. I’m going to have to be bold with the goat. I don’t want to look totally foolish. I point my phone torch ahead of me and march towards the door, unlocking it quickly as the goat scrabbles to its feet. I push the door open and step inside, shutting it firmly behind me and reaching for the light switch. Nothing.

  ‘Marco!’ I shout, yanking the door open just as his tail lights disappear down the drive. I can’t go after him. That really would make me look like the daft Englishwoman he thinks I am. I’m very much on my own now. I’ve made my bed and I’m going to have to lie in it.

  Lying on my blow-up bed, I pull my duvet up around me. I’m cold despite it being August. I certainly wasn’t expecting weather like this. I wasn’t really expecting any of this. I’m exhausted and I’m feeling, well, like I’m looking down at myself from the corner of the room. A woman the wrong side of twenty-nine, single and having blown her entire nest egg on a run-down house that she can’t even afford to furnish. And then of course there was that meal. The whole family arguing and shouting, but cooking and eating and gathering together. Not like my family. When I split up with Ed, they were nowhere to be seen, apart from my mum, who told me grudgingly that I could stay with her just until I sorted myself out. Meaning until I went back to Ed or found a flatshare. I think about the family that must have once filled this house; now, it’s just me.

  I feel I’ve had a moment like Gwyneth Paltrow in that film Sliding Doors that shows her parallel lives: one when she manages to make it through a set of Tube doors before they shut, and the other when she doesn’t. I saw it with Morag and Elinor from my Italian class one evening in February. My Sliding Doors moment happened back home in Tooting. If I hadn’t hit the ‘buy’ button that fateful night, I’d be on my mum’s lumpy sofa right now looking at flatshares on SpareRoom.com and worrying about dodgy flatmates. The Ruthie who did hit the button is lying on a lumpy blow-up bed wondering about dodgy neighbours. So not much in it then. Only here I have my own front door, if not my own kettle yet.

  I mean, it’s not like I haven’t had to start over before. Back when my dad left, I was just beginning secondary school. Everyone else was busy making friends and going out; I was having to dash home, coax my mum out of bed, cook tea for my brother and then pack up the house ready for moving. I didn’t think about it, just got on with it. We moved into the flat and did our best to make it homely. It was just the three of us then: me, my mum and my brother.

  This time, I am thinking outside the box, being my own woman. I’m not mad; I’m being brave, I tell myself. But that little doubting voice somewhere within me says, ‘Really?’ And it sounds a lot like Marco Bellonuovo’s.

  Having spent the night tossing and turning on a sagging blow-up bed, in a strange country, in a strange house, with no electricity and hearing every creak and groan, I’m up with the lark, literally. The birdsong is so loud it’s like one of those free CDs you get in the Sunday newspaper. I stand up, keeping my duvet wrapped around me – more for its comforting smell of home than for warmth – and pull open the window.

  I left my shutters open all night, and despite it being pitch black, far blacker than back home, the moon shone like a silver disco ball, brightly and straight into my room.

  There’s a low mist creeping through the olive trees now. But the sun is coming up slowly but surely. The rain has passed. There’s nothing but the sound of birds, singing like they’re opera singers, but then we are in Italy. Back home I’d be waking to the sound of buses, car alarms and the rumble of commuters. This is why people do this, right? This is what it’s supposed to be about. They come for a better life, or in my case because it couldn’t get any worse. I look around at the cracked plaster walls and the bare boards. So why do I still feel so . . . homesick? There’s nothing back there for me. Briefly I wonder what Ed’s doing. Getting up in his smart flat and probably cycling to work. Maybe he and Annabel have matching bikes. If they knew what I was doing, I’d be the talk of the breakfast table. Granola for two and a side order of jokes about Ruthie’s moment of madness. I cringe and push the image aside by focusing on the mist, like cigarette smoke twisting through the trees.

  Of course Morag and Elinor would love this place. I miss them, actually. They’ll be so envious when I Facebook them. I first met them on my women’s tiling course. Morag is from the Highlands, with thick red hair and an accent to match that gets more impenetrable the more she drinks. Elinor is fairly recently widowed and signed up for every evening class she could. It was her suggestion that we try Italian. I smile fondly and imagine them sitting round a table in a Tooting pub wishing they could do it too, live out their dreams. If only they knew how far I am from living the dream right now.

  My fresh starts alw
ays seem to be a slide back down the snake in a game of snakes and ladders. I wanted this one to be different. I wanted to leave behind the feeling of being adrift that I felt when the flat was sold. I wanted this to feel like home, but it doesn’t. My mind starts turning over again. But it’s not Tooting that’s playing there now; it’s the Bellanuovos.

  I spent the night going over my dinner with them. I still can’t help but wonder why Giovanni Bellanuovo would sell this house without telling his family. I also worked out that I’m surrounded by the Bellanuovo family here – there’s no escape. Marco’s mother Anna-Maria, is next door in her mini-Southfork; his sister and her husband live on the other side of her in a plain, simple villa; his brother and grandmother live with Anna-Maria. I actually have no idea where Marco lives, but from what I could gather last night, it’s Bellanuovo land all around. I’m completely surrounded by a family who now think I’ve stolen their inheritance.

  I sigh. I can’t let that stop me being here. After all, I have no choice. I’ve bought it and it’s not like I’ve got anything to go back to.

  I feel a lump in my throat and a mixture of self-pity and tiredness swirls around my thumping head and stings my eyes. I give them a quick brush with the back of my hands and then slap my palms on to the peeling paint of the wooden window frame.

  ‘Right, that’s enough of that, Ruthie Collins,’ I say out loud with a sniff, pushing back my shoulders. It’s this or my mother’s lumpy settee. I take another look at the view. No contest! ‘Now . . .’ I turn from the window and look at my makeshift bedroom. I need to get busy. And busy is something this place is going to give me in bucketloads. I grab my list from the floor beside my bed, next to the clothes I dumped there by torchlight last night. Busy is just what I need right now.

  First things first: I have to bring in the rest of my belongings from the car, and find the electricity box. I make my bed so you can’t see the saggy mattress, and find a clean T-shirt and some cut-off shorts to put on. For breakfast I grab the last of my Diet Cokes and a handful of Jaffa Cakes from the journey, then bring in the remainder of the boxes and black bags from the car and dump them in the dining room. After that, I explore the house from the cellar up to the flat roof that I didn’t get to see yesterday and that will make a great terrace. The mist is clearing and in the field next to mine I spot a trullo with three cones, surrounded by olive trees. It looks like it’s been allowed to go to rack and ruin. With the sun pushing through the clouds, everything looks different. Today is a whole new day, I tell myself.

  Pushing open the stiff doors off the living room that are kept shut by the brambles growing on the other side, I find myself in the overgrown courtyard. In the far corner, even more overgrown, is the orangery. Obviously this is a bit of a suntrap and vegetation has thrived here. I fight my way to the barn, stuffed with rubbish. There, surrounded by boxes, bags and metal drums, is a large stone circle like an old press, with a corkscrew in the middle. It’ll be some job to move that and it certainly isn’t high up on my list of things to do now, but who knows, one day.

  I find an old pair of rusting secateurs and with a bit of elbow grease get them opening and closing. Armed, I fight my way through the brambles to the archway leading out to the olive trees. As I try and release myself from the clutches of a particularly vicious bramble trying to wrap itself around me, I wonder where on earth you hide an electricity box. Throwing my hands up I turn and look back at the house. Where could it be? I can’t do anything until I’ve got electricity.

  The only people I can think who might help are my solicitors. It’s not like I bought the place through an estate agent that I could ask, as sensible people would! I give myself a metaphorical kick. I don’t know anyone else apart from Marco and his family. So the solicitors it is, and I pull out my phone, covering my eyes against the bright warm sunshine that feels like it’s massaging my neck. As I squint at the screen, it flashes up a message telling me to connect to charger, and promptly dies.

  My heart sinks. So now there really is only one person I can ask, and I can’t do anything else until I’ve done it.

  Round the front of the house, the goat appears from nowhere with a rustle and a snort and trots up to me, nudging me, nearly knocking me off my feet. I stumble back, hemmed in by the wall behind me and with no Kit Kat! Then I remember the rubbing between the horns. As I reach out my hand, the goat looks up and sniffs for snacks, and for a moment I draw back but then try again, this time going straight for between the ears. It seems to like it. I wonder who feeds it. Maybe it’s hungry. I’ll talk to Marco about it. I don’t want to be accused of killing their grandfather’s goat on top of everything else.

  I turn and march purposefully down the long drive, taking in the mix of olive and what I think are almond trees; one with dark green leaves, the other light. The sun is really quite warm now, even though it’s only . . . I look down at my watch . . . ten o’clock. I twist the button to move it on an hour. The smell is fantastic as the soil warms up, earthy and even a hint of pine in the air too. This is when you know you’re somewhere different, not just Clapham Common on a hot day. In London, the smell would be hot tar and petrol fumes. Here it’s pines, the flowers that are everywhere and the deep terracotta-coloured soil.

  I dodge clumps of grass and watery craters up the long drive. It’s shady under the huge trees with their big twisted trunks. Some of the roots reach up from the ground, making little archways at the foot of the trees. The ground is rocky in parts, despite the rich soil around it, and it’s a wonder anything grows there at all. But these trees do. Now that’s resilience. They don’t seem deterred by their hostile surroundings and neither should I!

  Lifting my head a little higher, I reach the red-painted gates, drag open the sagging left-hand one and pull it back. As I do, I see Marco standing at the bottom of his mother’s drive. Her gates are black and have gold eagles on the top. My spirits lift. He’s on his own. I might be able to do this without the entire family watching my every move. I must grab the moment while I can.

  ‘Marco! Scusi!’ I say loudly and wave. I don’t want him to disappear inside before I reach the gates. When he doesn’t respond, I call more loudly, determined not to let him ignore me. I’m not going to feel on the back foot just because he doesn’t want me here.

  ‘Could you tell me where the electricity box is? I’ve no electricity,’ I say in my best Italian. ‘And about the goat . . .’

  But he’s blanking me! I can’t believe it. That is so petty. I reach out and tap him on the shoulder. ‘Scusi, Marco,’ I say firmly.

  He turns slowly to look at me over the shoulder I’ve just tapped. His face is stony and I take a step back. He’s not pleased to see me, that’s for sure. But I won’t be put off.

  ‘I bought the house, just the house, not a house with a goat! Look, I’m sorry it was your grandfather’s and he sold it without telling you, but that really isn’t my fault . . .’

  He’s wearing a very smart black suit, a crisp white shirt and dark tie, and I shock myself by thinking how attractive he looks. Clean-cut. I can smell his citrus aftershave from here. He steps away from the gates and turns to face me. As he does, I see the cars that have gathered on the drive, engines running . . . the funeral cars! Oh God! My toes curl upwards, blood rushes into my cheeks and makes them burn and I feel frankly quite sick, not helped by the taste of stale Jaffa Cakes in my mouth.

  ‘Oh God, I’m so—’ But before I’ve even attempted a respectful apology, he turns and marches past me.

  ‘Follow me,’ he instructs, and I don’t argue. He strides towards my gates and I have to run to keep up, whilst trying to say that it really doesn’t matter, perhaps later. He stops abruptly and I brake suddenly so as not to go crashing into him and his very smart suit. Without saying a word, he opens a small metal box in the stone gatepost to reveal an electricity meter and a large switch, which he flicks down with a thunk. Still sayin
g nothing, he shuts the box, turns and walks back to the gates where the large black cars are beginning to make their way out on to the road.

  ‘Grazie,’ I say through my burning embarrassment, and then ‘Scusi,’ and give a dry cough. I want to run back to the house and hide, but don’t want to look disrespectful or, worse still, like I’m gloating, I definitely don’t want to look like I’m gloating. I have to live here. I need to make friends with my neighbours. And after all, I may not know the man who’s died or why he sold the house to me rather than leaving it to his family, but I do owe him my respect at least. I decide the best thing to do is to stand still, hands folded, and wait for the cortège to pass.

  A big silver Mercedes hearse heads the procession. Inside, a bunch of olive branches and red roses, tied beautifully with raffia ribbon, sits on top of a shiny deep brown wooden coffin with large gold handles. Then the first of the cars with passengers in it pulls out in front of me. Anna-Maria and Marco’s Nonna turn to look at me through an open window. Anna-Maria is in large black sunglasses with bling trim to match her black outfit and gold jewellery. Nonna is wiping her eyes under her glasses with a large white hankie. I can feel the burn of their stares and wince at their thunderous faces. The window goes up with a disparaging whirr.

  I wonder for a moment what they would think of a funeral back in London. They look so different from the mourners at my grandad’s funeral. His mates from the pub were in mismatched and ill-fitting suits; my brother’s girlfriend wobbled down the crematorium path trying to keep control of her stilettos after too many pre-funeral Bacardi Breezers; and my mum’s M&S funeral skirt was actually her work uniform skirt too. I miss my grandad. We were close after my nan died. I would buy food at the market in Tooting and then go round and cook for him. He seemed to like it. Thought I should enter MasterChef. I enjoyed cooking for him. My mum and my brother didn’t let me try out stuff on them. They preferred food that came out of a box, ready meals, not the ‘muck’ I’d make. But I kept cooking round at grandad’s until he died.