by Jo Thomas
I gather the covers even tighter over my head and find that big fat tears are rolling down my cheeks, making wet puddles on the pillows. I pull the duvet to my nose, breathing it in, trying to find any remaining smell from home. I inhale deeply, sucking it up. I want to be at home, back in the flat Ed and I shared. I want to hear the buses rumbling down the street, the metal shutters of the shops opening, and car alarms and sirens bursting into life. I want to go home! I ache in my joints but I ache inside too, in my stomach, in my chest, a physical pain that won’t go away.
I should’ve just stayed on Mum’s couch and got myself a flatshare like other people did. What made me think I could do things so differently? I’m not different. People split with their partners all the time and just get on with it. Why couldn’t I just accept it and carry on with life in London? Or go to Cornwall?
My thoughts turn to Beth and Theo and the weekends I used to spend with them: on the beach, walking the dog, wind blowing in our hair, trouser legs rolled up, scarves and coats keeping out the cold. I hear a wail of despair and realise it’s coming from me. If only I could press a bloody button that would take me home again.
Just then I hear a knock at my front door and I catch my breath and hold it. It can’t be the electrician; he works at the ironmonger’s at the weekend. The knock comes again and still I hold my breath, hoping that whoever it is will go away. Usually I’d be up by now, but I just can’t do it. I want the world to go away. I turn my face into the pillow and pull it around my ears.
When I eventually release the pillow, the knocking has stopped and I start to breathe again. They’ve gone. Thank God. And hopefully Marco will see I’m not working today. It’s the weekend, I remind myself. Take the day off! I intend to, I reply. I can’t bear to get up. If I get up, I’ll have to do more strimming, and then there’s the veg patch to work on, and I can’t even have a warm shower without trying to light that fire! I definitely can’t attempt to go into battle with that this morning.
My stomach rumbles but I ignore it. I was so shattered last night, I just fell into bed. I couldn’t even wait to boil the water for my slut’s pasta, which has become a regular supper, when I’m not too tired to cook. Pasta with chillies from the veg patch, anchovies, garlic and olive oil. It’s cheap and gorgeous. Or if I am too tired, it’s Sophia’s focaccia or whatever leftover bread I have, with cheese and piccalilli. Even the thought of that doesn’t stir me from my bed, nor does a trip into town to buy one of Sophia’s pastries, a cornetto, hot off the wooden paddles from the oven. The only thing I want is a bacon sandwich, on white bread, with butter and ketchup. Or maybe a fried egg on toast, its yellow yolk running into the bread, white again, mingling with the ketchup on the side of my plate. I want strong builder’s tea with sugar in it, and then shepherd’s pie for lunch, one of my mum’s microwaveable ones. I want my mum, I realise. I miss her. And Ed. Good old dependable, stuck-in-his-ways Ed. I was so sure when we split up that it was the right thing to do, that we’d come to the end of the road. But what if it wasn’t the end of the road? What if it was just a pothole, a sodding great crater that knocked us off course for a while? Maybe we could have found our way back if I’d just stuck at it. A part of me would like everything just to go back to how it was.
Suddenly there’s a shout under my window.
‘Ruthie!’
Oh good God, it’s Marco. It must have been him knocking. Does that man never give up? Doesn’t he ever have a day off?
‘Ruthie!’ he calls again. A little smattering of stones hits my shutters, and some land on the wooden floor just inside the window, making me jump.
‘Go away!’ I mouth, turning into my pillow.
‘Ruthie!’ Another shower of stones comes in through the window.
‘I’m in bed,’ I shout back with all the strength I can muster, but it comes out as a rasping whisper. ‘I can’t work today.’
I don’t know if he heard me or not, but he doesn’t call again. I pull the duvet up around my shoulders and try and find the patch that still smells of home, then let myself drift back into sleep. I have vivid dreams, about Ed up a ladder fixing the trullo roof, Lucia the dog turning over the veg patch and my mother cooking shepherd pies, loads of them. Then I dream I’m trying to catch a plane but it’s left without me. I’m chasing it down the runway, but I can’t keep up. The black tarmac keeps disappearing from under my feet as I run. Then the familiar image of the painting I have in my head takes over. The characters coming to life, telling me why I should paint them. I push them away, telling them to leave me alone.
Throughout my dreams I can hear this buzzing noise, like a giant mosquito, and in my waking moments I realise it’s the sound of a strimmer. No matter how guilty I feel, I can’t get out of bed to tell him to stop. I just can’t.
The next morning, I still feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. I don’t have an ounce of energy. My shutters stay shut. There’s a knock at the door and this time I just ignore it and roll over and close my eyes on my soggy pillows.
I’m not sure if I’m dreaming or not when a bright light suddenly fills my world and Marco is standing in front of me with a tray. I hold my hand over my eyes against the light and pull myself up on to my elbow. I must be dreaming. He wouldn’t really have the cheek to come into my house, into my bedroom! Would he?
‘I brought you something to eat. You need to help the body refuel,’ he says, as if talking to one of his students about the science of food. ‘Only a fool would work in this way and not feed the body in the right way.’
I’m wrong. He really is in my house and in my bedroom. I can’t believe it, but I just don’t have the energy to tell him. Instead I whisper hoarsely, ‘I, um, how did you get in?’ My mouth is as dry as the desert.
‘Spare key,’ he says flatly. ‘My grandfather kept it under the big stone by the front door.’
I’m too stunned even to be outraged that Marco knew all along where there was a spare key and has let himself into my house. The food on the tray smells amazing: hot rolls and coffee. My mouth starts to water but I can’t eat; I just want to go back to sleep. The most random fact ever occurs to me. I realise I must look a right mess! Once again I retreat under my covers.
‘I’m sorry, I just need to sleep.’
‘Eat something,’ he instructs and puts the tray down next to the bed. ‘Oh, and by the way, Luigi has sent you two chickens.’
Definitely a dream!
‘Chickens? What for?’
‘To thank you for the piccalilli. He loves it and so does his wife. He’d like some more. Get some rest and eat!’
The coffee goes cold and the rolls stay untouched. I just want to go home. He can have the masseria. I’ve had enough. As the sun goes down on another day and the whirring strimmer stops, I slip back into sleep. I know I’ve lost. I can’t do it. I’ve no more fight left in me. They were right all along, those who said I couldn’t do it. I can’t.
The next morning there isn’t even a knock at the door, or if there was I was too deeply asleep to hear it. I’m woken by the shutters flying back, letting in the bright light. I try to sit upright, my arm protecting my eyes. It’s that dream again. Marco’s standing in my bedroom in front of the window. Only this time there’s no tray.
‘It’s time to get up, Ruthie,’ he says.
‘I can’t. Have it, have it all. I don’t care.’ I attempt to collapse on to my pillows, but before I can, he’s pulled back the covers and is handing me my dressing gown from the back of the door.
‘Really, Marco, it’s over. I can’t do this. There’s too much to do! I can’t.’
‘The olives won’t wait for you. They need your attention now. You have to do it.’ He thrusts the dressing gown at me again. ‘Get dressed. Coffee’s downstairs. I’ve put the chickens in the old henhouse. This is the life you wanted. You can’t just lie down and hope it will all disappea
r. Life isn’t like that, Ruthie. We can’t run away and hide from our problems. Problems have a habit of popping up wherever we go.’
‘Why do you care? It doesn’t matter if I don’t make it. You’ll get your house and you and Rosa can have your happy family.’ I feel drunk with exhaustion.
‘Just get up. Meet me downstairs.’
Oh God! This man is so infuriating! I sigh deeply. I don’t have the energy to argue. And I didn’t even know I had a henhouse.
Marco marches out of the room and downstairs. I sit upright on the edge of the bed.
He’s right, of course. What exactly am I hoping to go home to? Nothing’s changed. Ed is still living in Canary Wharf with Annabel. Colin is still with my mum and I’d still be on the lumpy sofa. The only thing that’s different is that I don’t even have a job with Brandon any more. I don’t have anything to go back to. I contemplate just falling into bed again, but I can hear Marco down in the kitchen. I know that if I do that, he’ll be up here again, telling me to get up. I have to go downstairs to get him out of my house! I stand up, kicking yesterday’s tray, and cold coffee splashes over my foot.
Downstairs, the fire is lit.
‘There’s hot water if you want a shower,’ he says, putting a cafetière on the table. I’m gobsmacked, but I’m too done in to ask how he did it. I sit down and accept the coffee he hands me.
‘We should finish the strimming today. Then we’ll make small bonfires . . . controlled ones! They’ll keep the insects away too.’
‘Really, Marco, you don’t have to help me. I’m fine. I can do it,’ I say, sipping weakly at the coffee. I feel it travelling through my body, lifting my energy.
‘I have some walls to repair and logs to cut, but I’ll be here. I must take the strimmer back to Rosa today.’
‘Rosa?’
‘Yes, I borrowed it.’
He puts rolls and jam in front of me, and ham and olives.
‘You need to eat. You have an olive grove to look after as well as yourself,’ he says.
‘And two chickens,’ I add, surreally.
‘Today we must start sweeping.’
‘Sweeping?’
‘Yes, sweeping and weeding. I’ll show you how to sweep and then I’ll start on the brambles along the wall.’ He drains his coffee and takes the mug to the kitchen.
‘Are you ready, Ruthie? Your olives won’t wait.’
I sigh deeply, and although my body is still protesting and wishing it was back under my duvet, I pick up a roll, fill it with ham and follow him out. It’s cooler, a nip in the air. There’s a smell of autumn. Whilst I’ve been asleep, summer has gone.
‘We must get done before the colder weather comes. You need to be prepared.’
I nod, taking in the seriousness in his voice.
‘Okay, so when you have finished strimming, you must sweep. You use this,’ he holds up a rake, ‘and you sweep under the trees so it’s clean. You must keep it like this. You don’t want your nets to get caught and rip when you lay them under the trees at harvest.’
I think about telling him that I won’t need nets, as Ryan’s going to be organising it all. But he seems to be ignoring that fact and I don’t want to fan any flames of fury there.
‘So we clear up all the fallen twigs and make little piles around the olive grove.’ He stops and looks at me, then repeats, ‘Little piles.’
‘Yes,’ I say, shaking my head like a teenager being told off by a parent.
‘And then we will light the little fires. The smoke will seep up through the trees and keep the olive flies at bay. The vermi. It’s said that the olive fly thinks the tree is on fire and so evacuates.’ He smiles, and I feel a smile tug at the corner of my mouth too, but even those muscles are exhausted.
‘Is that true?’
‘Maybe.’ He smiles again. ‘Most of us run when we lose our home.’ He looks at me and I feel slightly uncomfortable for a moment.
‘So, to work.’ He breaks into my thoughts, and I stand stiffly from the tree stump I’m sitting on. Work is exactly what I intend to do. Although I do feel an awful lot weaker than before and maybe I won’t push myself quite as hard as I have been.
‘Oh, and another thing.’ He stops me in my tracks. ‘When the sweeping is done, you must keep doing it, every day if you need to. When the first few olives start to fall, we will take them to the press.’
‘Really?’ I’m surprised that they’re worth pressing.
‘The press owner will pay you for them. They’ll use them for low-grade oil. It will bring you in a little money. Not much, but a little.’
By press owner, he means Rosa.
‘Oh really, it’s fine, I don’t want any special favours.’ I put up a pathetic hand to argue. I don’t want to feel like a charity case.
‘It’s how we do things here. The press owner will pay for the sweepings,’ he repeats.
Slightly embarrassed but grateful, I drop my head. I know that I couldn’t do this without him right now.
‘Grazie.’
‘Prego,’ he replies, and smiles like a tutor praising an attentive student. I pull my fleece round me and begin to sweep.
‘No, no, like this.’ Once again he puts his arms around me and shows me how to make big sweeps under the tree, and I find my stomach fizzing up like cola bubbling up and frothing over the top of the glass. He lets me go but still there is a fizzing in my stomach, and I wonder if it’s just a result of days without food.
The sun starts to come up and the heat is much more pleasant, warm but not punishing.
At lunchtime, Marco produces soup, onion, tomato and pancetta, with crusty bread, and we sit on the terrace at the back of the house with a bottle of sparkling water. Afterwards he picks prickly pears and figs from the trees for us to share.
That evening, when the heat has gone from the day, he lights the little fires. I go to find us a cold beer each, and when I return, he has filled the barrel bath for me.
‘Prego,’ he says, and points to it. ‘It will be good for your bones.’ And my bones very much agree, only this time I put my swimming costume on and he turns his back as I sink into the deliciously warm water. When I get out, he hands me a towel and averts his eyes.
When I go back into the house the fire is lit again and I wonder how the hell he does that so easily. I clearly need to practise.
‘Ruthie, you must eat with us tonight.’
‘Oh no, really I couldn’t.’
‘I insist. You must keep the body fuelled,’ he tells me again. ‘Or you will not be able to manage your work.’
Slightly embarrassed at my recent slump, I agree and thank him.
‘This way I can keep an eye on you.’
And I blush all the way upstairs to get changed.
I’m not looking forward to another evening with the Bellanuovo family at all. I could just have said no, but to be honest, if it hadn’t been for Marco these last few days, well, who knows how much lower I could have got. It would be rude to turn him down, no matter how difficult I’m going to find this. And actually, I surprise myself by thinking, I’m quite looking forward to spending time with him again.
I think back to that first supper when the family were all there. All of them telling me it was a mistake, a mistake that I thought I’d bought it and definitely a mistake that a single woman from England could even think about living here on her own. I look out of the window at the rows of olive trees and the henna-red ground beneath them. There are tufts of grass with flowers in patches, unlike the field beyond, which Ryan looks after, where there isn’t a weed or a tuft of grass to be seen. That’s how my land would look if I let him use the weedkiller on it. Thank goodness he won’t have to now. I think about Marco’s face when I told him Ryan was going to be looking after my trees. He knew what Ryan intended
to do. The olive grove looks fabulous now. The veg patch is orderly and thriving. I look in the mirror again. Tanned and freckled. Some might say I am thriving too, despite my recent blip. I’m certainly beginning to feel it this evening.
I dress simply, in a plain mustard-yellow maxi dress that Lou made me buy in the market, with grey leggings, a long necklace, again from the market, and a few more strings of beads for good measure. I put on my leather boots and stick my sunglasses on my head, then pull on my leather flying jacket. Not bad if I say so myself.
‘Buonasera,’ I say to the mirror beside the open window in the bathroom, and smile.
‘Buonasera!’ Young Luigi is passing through the olive grove and he calls back. I laugh.
‘Buonasera, Luigi.’ I lean out of the window and wave.
‘Hey, Signorina Piccalilli.’ Old Luigi waves back.
With a final look in the mirror, I take a deep breath, scoop up a jar of piccalilli and leave the house. I pat Daphne on the way out, lock up the chickens and put down some more food for mamma cat and her playful kittens. Then I make my way down the drive towards Anna-Maria’s front door.
‘Buonasera, Anna-Maria,’ I say as she opens the door and I hand her the jar. She nods and puts out her free hand for me to shake, then offers each cheek for me to kiss, formally and tightly. I greet Nonna in the same way; she smiles and nods. Filippo is there, trying to send a text by waving his phone around in the air.
‘Buonasera.’ He greets me more warmly. ‘So how are things at the masseria? I hear Marco has been working you hard. Too hard.’
