by Jo Thomas
We unload the big steel drums full of oil from the back of the tractor and lug them into the barn. Then Luigi starts off down the lane. As soon as he is out of sight, we turn and practically run inside. Daphne looks positively affronted as we shut the door in her face.
Inside, our lips fall on each other’s and stay there, like they’ve found home and can never be separated. We pull at each other’s clothes, hungry to touch skin, our hands exploring. We move upstairs like playful pups, and I hardly notice my aches and pains as layers of clothing are stripped from me, leaving a trail all the way to my bedroom.
‘Wait!’ I say as we land on the bed and the bedclothes bounce up to wrap around us. I pull away and run to the little bathroom, panting with excitement and anticipation. I clean my teeth and quickly shower. The water is hot and the flames in the grate are burning as furiously as the fire in my groin. I go back to the bedroom, where Marco has his shirt off. His chest is broad and muscular and his skin dark and soft. He kisses me and excuses himself to the bathroom. I lie down on the bed, a towel wrapped around me. I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, and I decide to rest for a minute or two, just until Marco comes back.
When I open my eyes again, I’m not sure what time it is. I reach for my phone. It’s five o’clock, just before dawn. It’s still dark, but the birds are beginning to sing. There are voices outside the window. I catch my breath and go to sit up, but I can’t. Marco is lying beside me, on top of the covers, his arm wrapped across me. Oh God! I’m mortified. I’m in my pyjamas, the fleecy ones with the bunny on the front; the ones no one is supposed to see. Marco must have put me to bed and then lain down on top of the covers and pulled my dressing gown and coat over himself.
He begins to stir. His hands start to move across my body, and I catch my breath. His face is next to mine and he begins to kiss me, and his body moves closer. I can feel him wanting me. Explosions are crashing about in the pit of my stomach; like New Year’s Eve celebrations, Christmas, birthdays and the excitement of my first olive pressing all at once. He moves on top of me and slides his hand under my pyjamas, running the back of his fingers down the inside of my arm and my side, just beside my breast. I shiver and nearly explode there and then.
‘Hey, ciao, buongiorno,’ I hear from below the window, and it’s like someone’s chucked a bucket of cold water over us. Our neighbours are back. We look at each other. Is there a chance we could carry on? Then we both laugh. We can’t. They have turned out on Marco’s request, and there’s no way I can let them pick the rest of the olives while I stay in bed. With any luck we should get the final ones to the press today.
Marco rolls off me, rubs his face with his hands and gives a low laugh. ‘Don’t worry.’ He turns on his side to look at me, tucking his arm under his head. ‘Like I told you, here we believe the best dishes take time to cook. We will enjoy ourselves even more when we finish the harvest tonight.’ He kisses me again and stands up, fastening the top button on his jeans and doing up his belt. Shy but happy, I slide out from under the covers and pull on my dressing gown from the pile that was covering Marco. Then we try and relocate all our clothes from last night, giggling like teenagers as we do.
Once dressed, Marco goes out to greet everyone while I put the kettle on for coffee. A happy little part of me keeps whispering, ‘Tonight, tonight.’ I put more wood on the fire in the woodburner and it blazes up, flames flickering and dancing.
With the exception of Anna-Maria, everybody is here again. In fact, there seem to be more people who have come to help, and I feel tears of gratitude welling up in my eyes. The ironmonger, teachers from the school, and even Luigi’s friends who I saw on that first day. I brush the tears away, pretending it’s the early-morning mist, then stamp my feet and bang my hands together and say good morning to everyone, shaking hands and kissing those I know better, like Lou and Antonio, on both cheeks.
‘Make sure you take it easy today,’ I tell Lou.
‘No worries, I’ve brought my own chair,’ and she pulls out her folding chair and sets it down in the middle of the grove. Antonio insists she puts a blanket over her knees. Giac climbs on to her lap and hugs her.
I smile and go to make the coffee and lay out bottles of water and little biscuits from Sophia’s forno, whilst the pickers get their ladders sorted and nets laid ready to begin just before the sun starts to rise in the fiery red and purple sky.
With the olives picked, we load up the tractor and trailer and the Ape and Sophia’s Fiat. Just like yesterday, we start moving with lots of shouting. Marco opens the gates at the end of the drive and after a great deal of manoeuvring we’re ready to go.
Marco pulls me up on to the tractor trailer again and we stand side by side, proudly taking the last of the olives to harvest. After this it will just be the sweepings. Then I need to get the oil bottled, ready to go to my customers in the UK. I’ll label them with the labels I’ve had made: a miniature of the painting I did for Nonna. I still haven’t found a courier to take them yet, and that’s my job first thing tomorrow.
‘Hey, stop!’ Marco calls to Luigi. The tractor stops with a judder, nearly sending me head first into the olives again. Marco jumps down and runs back to the barn, and comes striding back out with one of the bottles I bought from the ironmonger’s.
‘For the first bottle of Bellanuovo oil,’ he says, waving it at me.
I can’t help smiling and thinking I couldn’t get any happier if I tried.
The tractor starts up again and the convoy is off, just like yesterday. Only it’s colder, a lot colder. I pull my hat down and my scarf tighter around my neck. Marco draws me closer to him and I put my head against his chest, breathing in his smell. We turn off the main road and are met by the same herd of sheep taking their lunchtime stroll across the lane. Once again Luigi and Young Luigi get out and shoo them into the field. Off we go again, and blow me, minutes later Luigi is slamming on the brakes as the same little British car from yesterday comes hurtling towards us. This time I do end up head first in the olives, and there’s the sound of breaking glass as the bottle smashes on the road. As Marco helps me out of the trailer, I hear shouting. The little car has actually hit the front of Luigi’s tractor.
I get back on the crossbar. I can hear Marco speaking in English.
‘You need to back up. That’s it. Left hand down and then straight back.’
I brush myself down – no harm done – and smile as Marco and Luigi deal patiently with the driver, who is blatantly like a fish out of water.
‘This is ridiculous! There’s no way I can reverse all the way back there!’ I hear him say in a clear London accent. My blood turns to ice and I feel like someone’s popped all my birthday balloons at once.
‘Ed?’ I say, turning slowly.
‘Ruthie? Thank God!’ He marches up to the trailer. ‘This idiot hit me, did you see? These roads are lethal. I’ve been driving round and round for two days!’
‘Ed?’ I say again, cutting him off. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ I look down at his familiar face.
‘More to the point, Ruthie, what are you doing up there? That’s highly dangerous. Health and safety would have had a field day if this accident had been any worse.’
‘Ed!’ I stop him again. ‘What are you doing here?’ I repeat.
At first he says nothing, and then, more calmly, ‘Looking for you, of course.’
‘Who is this, Ruthie?’ Marco faces Ed, scowling. Young Luigi is behind him, arms folded and frowning too. My mouth is dry. The convoy are all out of their cars, craning their necks to see what’s going on.
‘This is Ed, my ex—’ I begin, and Ed finishes quickly:
‘Partner.’
I never did like that word. It sounds so . . . businesslike.
Marco’s frown turns to a full-blown thunder cloud, but Franco is calling that we need to get a move on or we�
�ll miss the slot, and she won’t hold it twice.
Having swept away the broken glass from my Bellanuovo bottle, I reverse Ed’s car back, disentangling it from the front of Luigi’s tractor. Marco gets on to the back of the tractor and it moves off. He gives a single arm wave telling me to follow on, but it feels like he’s gesturing to a stranger.
I put the car in first and follow at the back of the convoy.
‘These roads are madness, I tell you. Bit like the rest of this place, by the looks of it,’ says Ed as he watches the convoy pass: Filippo driving Marco’s car and revving the engine and waving, Franco in his Rolls Royce, Young Luigi in the Ape and Nonna on the back of the Vespa also scowling at Ed. My stomach is in knots as I think about Marco’s face. I have to get to him and explain that I don’t know why Ed’s here and that it changes nothing. Does it? I snatch a sideways glance at Ed’s familiar profile. Suddenly my old life is here with me. The old life I wanted back so badly.
‘Why are you here, Ed?’ I say, following Nonna, who is holding on to Lou’s dad on the Vespa with one hand.
‘I told you, Ruthie. I came to find you. Annabel lent me her car. To give you this.’ He turns to the back seat and points to a box of records. My records. And there next to them is the record player. It seems smaller than I remember.
‘You were right. It was childish of me to take them. I didn’t need them or want them. We both collected them. I want you to have them, and the record player.’
I glance at the box as we pull up at the press. Marco is already off the trailer and loading up grey crates with the olives. My heart lurches looking at him.
‘You came all the way to southern Italy to give me a box of vintage records and a record player?’ I ask incredulously. The sight of the records brings it all back: our home, our life together. The places we hunted for them, on eBay and at car boot sales. They were good times, I remember, happy times. When we split, the records were the only thing we argued over. In the end, I gave in. Now here he is giving them to me and I really don’t want them.
‘Yes, like I say. I’ve been driving round for two days trying to find you, and not a moment too soon by the looks of it!’
To say that this pressing is a much more sober affair compared to yesterday’s is an understatement. In fact it has the mood of a wake as Marco stands back, scowling intermittently at Ed. Ed scowls at my neighbours. The neighbours whisper and stare at the newcomer.
The oil is finally extracted, but there’s no Bellanuovo bottle to put it in and so we make do with more metal urns. There’s a murmur of congratulations and general goodwill when the oil comes out, but it’s a far cry from the hubbub of yesterday. There’s no bacio. I’m not sure there ever will be again, looking at Marco’s face.
On the journey home, I travel next to Marco on the tractor crossbar, but he doesn’t have his arm around me. He is holding on to the trailer and his knuckles are white. Luigi picks up speed and my now much longer hair whips around my face. I want to tell Marco how Ed’s just come to give me the records and the player. But it may have to wait until we get back and everyone has gone. That’s it. Don’t rush it. Good things take time here in Puglia, I tell myself. I can explain about Ed as soon as he goes back to his hotel and the pickers take their ladders and nets and leave.
Marco couldn’t believe it. But he should do, he told himself. He had tried so hard not to fall for this woman. She had arrived in his world unannounced and he had been determined she wouldn’t stay there. But little by little he had grown to admire her: her determination, her attitude and the way she had grown more beautiful with every day. He had believed her when she said it was over with her ex. But he had been lied to before, by the man he thought was his hero, his own father. He couldn’t take being let down again, giving his heart and having it shattered. What he had hoped was going to be was clearly never destined to happen. Why else would a man come all this way to find his ex if he wasn’t still in love with her? This Ed had everything Ruthie wanted: her life back home. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? She wanted to go home. Marco had been a fool to think he could compete.
When we pull into the masseria drive, Ed is still following the convoy. I jump down from the tractor, but not quickly enough judging by the cold shoulder I’m getting from Marco. I can see through to the courtyard. Checked tablecloths have been laid over the old stone press in the barn, with plates piled high and buckets of knives and forks. There are baskets of bread and bowls of shiny black and green olives, little aperitivo biscuits and gherkins. There are short stubby glasses, and terracotta jugs that I presume contain red wine. Under the biggest, oldest tree in the middle of the courtyard is a long table, maybe two joined together. It too is covered in a red and white tablecloth. In the olive grove, just beyond the veranda, the fire pit that Marco built after I’d scorched the area with my bonfire has been lit and is sending up little ribbons of smoke. I catch my breath. Just like my painting, I think.
Who did all this? Is this something to do with Ed turning up here?
Suddenly I spot Anna-Maria coming down the drive carrying a large terracotta dish with big oven gloves. It’s steaming hot.
‘Marco,’ she calls. ‘Go and get the other dishes and bring them to the barn. You too, Filippo.’ Their sister is following behind with bowls of green veg.
I’m too stunned to speak. Anna-Maria finally reaches me, and the smell from her dish makes my stomach roar.
‘Pickers need feeding,’ she says, this time in Italian. ‘Caccatoria.’ She lifts the dish a little closer to my face.
‘Hunter’s stew.’ I smile in reply. ‘Thank you, Anna-Maria, for all of this.’
Suddenly it’s like her mask has been snatched off. Her face is softer. She puts the hot dish down on the cloth-covered stone and instructs everyone to come and help themselves.
‘I have seen how my son looks at you. He looks like a man in love.’
I blush but say nothing.
‘Someone recently said something that made me think. They said that you reminded them of me when I first came here. I was new, young and an outsider. But I remember I wasn’t going to let them drive me away.’ She stops, and there is a tear in her eye. ‘I see that in you.’
I feel a little choked too and look at my feet and then back at her, for once lost for words.
‘You’ve worked really hard. You deserve to be here. And you have brought my family back together. It may not be in this house, but you have restored the good name of Bellanuovo oil. My son is coming home thanks to you.’
And this time I let out a little hiccup. Maybe it’s exhaustion. But I have to find Marco and explain about Ed. I have to tell him that I love him and I love being here. I don’t want to leave.
‘Er, could someone give me a hand here, please, per favore?’ The English tones cut through the Italian chatter as our neighbours pour drinks and hand round bowls and plates of antipasti. They all stop and stare.
‘Who is that?’ Anna-Maria scowls as we look at Ed being pinned against the wall by Daphne, who is stamping her foot, snorting and demanding an ID check. There is a ripple of laughter round the courtyard.
‘That’s Ed. My ex. From England,’ I say briefly, and Anna-Maria’s face turns as thunderous as her son’s.
After dinner, during which Marco sits as far away from me as possible, his face set and staring into space, with occasional murderous looks towards Ed, some of the group move towards the fire pit, while I go inside to make coffee. I stop and put another log on the roaring fire in the stove.
‘Wow! That was some meal!’ Ed follows me, rubbing his stomach, which is bulging from his thin frame.
‘You made me jump,’ I say crossly. I wish he’d just go away. I have no idea what he’s doing here. He’s turned up out of the blue, expecting me to welcome him in, and actually he’s just in the way. I really need to talk to Marco. Why won’t he just
go? He’s delivered the record player, which I’m supposed to be grateful for, and now he looks like he’s settling in for the night.
I look around the kitchen. There are neat piles of plates and glasses waiting to be washed up everywhere, and I fill the sink with hot water and noisily dump in some of the plates. I may be cross at Ed turning up like this, but having him here reminds me of how far I’ve come, how grateful I am to have hot water, good neighbours and really good food on the table. Back in the flat we had on-demand hot water and heating, Sky TV and microwave suppers whenever our busy lives meant we didn’t have time to cook. Out here, there is always time. There has to be. Everything good comes with time. Marco’s words come back to me and a knife twists in my stomach. The butterflies have closed up their wings and gone to sleep. And it’s all Ed’s fault!
‘Everything all right, Ruthie? You look different. Tired.’ Ed puts a hand on my shoulder and I freeze, furious. ‘And your hair is longer. Don’t expect they have a decent hairdresser for miles,’ he says with a laugh. That’s it! I turn to him.
‘Why have you come, Ed? Really?’ I say through gritted teeth. I look at his familiar face. The face I wanted to see when I thought I couldn’t do this. The face of the person I have hidden behind for so many years. Familiar but strange at the same time. Like he’s from another lifetime.
‘I told you, I came to give you the record collection.’
‘You’re a dreadful liar, always were.’ I shake my head.
That’s one thing about Ed. He couldn’t cheat. When he and Annabel started getting close, I could tell straight away. I don’t think Ed knew what had hit him. But she scooped him up, moved him in with her, took care of him and finally declared her love.
‘I . . . er . . .’ He takes a moment to find the right words. ‘I . . . well . . . this place. Once I’d liked your page on Facebook and all my friends started ordering oil, I saw the pictures you’d posted of you and your . . . boyfriend. He looks . . . nice. He not here tonight?’ He makes a half-hearted attempt to look towards where voices are still chattering away on the chilly night breeze.
