by Romy Sommer
‘Don’t you ever eat in the dining room?’ he asked.
‘It feels too formal. Anyway, as long as the weather is so lovely, it’s a pleasure to eat outdoors. I won’t be able to enjoy all of this when I’m back in London.’ I waved my arm to take in the view, the sky, the garden.
‘Pity. That big dining table is just begging to be used. It was made to host a big family, and dinner parties, not to stand around as decoration.’
I thought of Sunday lunch at the Rossis’ trattoria. How long had it been since the castello had hosted a party? And how long since anyone but my father had dined at that table?
Tommaso poured a small sample of the first wine into a glass and held it out to me.
‘You’re not having any?’ I asked, eyeing his empty glass.
He shook his head, and after a moment’s hesitation I took the glass and sipped. Now that I’d grown used to the denser, richer Brunello, this red wine tasted inferior – though it probably wasn’t much different from the box wines Cleo and I used to share.
‘It’s a very young wine,’ I ventured. ‘The tannins are still high. It’s a little too bold.’ And because of the acidity of the tannins, it ended on a tart, astringent note. The wine made me think of a woman in a too-tight, too-short red dress, all bust and curves but not much class. ‘What is this?’
‘A Rosso.’ He pulled a face. ‘From our neighbours at the Fioravanti vineyard.’
I took another sip, really hoping a second taste would be better than the first. There was nothing wrong with it, exactly, but now I’d learned a little about wines, and tasted some of the best Italy had to offer, I’d grown spoiled. ‘I can see now why you’re not a fan of the Rosso.’
‘Not all Rossos.’ Tommaso sprawled back in his seat. ‘Some are very high standard. But the Fioravantis don’t care about making quality wine. They only care about quantity and making easy money.’
They certainly knew how to do that. I thought of Luca’s flashy car, of his tailored clothes, how little work he seemed to do, and of his father’s generous agreement to finance our debt. But I kept the observation to myself. Drawing attention to their success was not going to endear them any more to Tommaso, I suspected.
‘It tastes a little like box wine,’ I suggested after another sip.
‘It is box wine. That’s where the Fioravantis’ money comes from. Cheap mass market wines sold to the international market.’
When I’d finished sampling the Rosso, Tommaso filled both our glasses from the second bottle.
‘What do you think this one is?’ He leaned back and watched me as I sampled it. A small smile played around his mouth.
I let the wine sit on my tongue before swallowing, then waited a moment for the aftertaste to settle. ‘A blackberry and black plum taste. Predominantly Sangiovese?’
‘Correct!’ He sounded like a teacher pleased with the progress of his pupil. ‘And?’
There was an ‘and’? I took another taste. ‘It has a slight chocolatey finish, and the tannins are more mellowed.’ This wine made me think of an elegant, long-legged woman in a classic Chanel LBD, with a string of pearls around her throat.
He nodded. ‘Want to venture a guess where this wine is made?’
‘Here.’ Without a doubt. His smug little smile gave him away.
‘This is the 2012 Angelica. It was the first blend your father let me make on my own.’ He leaned forward, dropping his voice to a furtive whisper. ‘The secret to the Angelica’s success is the Malvasia Nera. The grapes aren’t as popular as they were a few decades ago, and most vintners now blend their Sangiovese with Cabernet Sauvignon instead, but it’s what adds the chocolate notes.’
‘Mmm. You had me at chocolate.’ After the Fioravanti wine, the Angelica was smooth and satisfying on the palate, not so cloying. I was never going to be able to go back to drinking cheap wines now, was I?
‘How is the house decorating coming along?’ Tommaso asked.
‘Would you like to take a look?’
He smiled again. ‘I’d like that.’
I led him through the kitchen, so I could give the stew another stir, then gave him the same grand tour I’d given Beatrice. Now that the house had been cleaned, top to bottom, it looked more cheerful. With the heavy wisteria gone, the south-facing rooms caught the evening sunlight, making the cracked and peeling paint appear rustic rather than depressing.
‘Wow! I’d say there’s been a lot of improvement!’ he said.
I tried to see the rooms as he did. Not as a project with a hundred things still undone, and not as a To Do list, but as rooms that could be lived in. And I had to agree, there had been a vast improvement.
In the living rooms, I’d chosen to keep only the bare minimum of the existing furniture, buying instead a couple of modern, and far more comfortable, sofas to replace the antiques. The new sofas had cost a fifth of what I’d made on the high-backed Baroque couches – and they didn’t require polishing.
I’d replaced the moth-eaten drapes with lightweight white cotton curtains which stirred in an unseen breeze, and the fussy, fringed and faded lampshades had been replaced with simple ones in matching ivory shades. The result was rooms that were lighter, brighter, and more modern. Even the library looked – and smelled – less unpleasant with the rotting books removed. Though now the shelves looked very bare, as if waiting for a new family to stamp the space with their mark.
‘You’ve done an amazing job,’ Tommaso said, admiring the guest bedrooms upstairs. ‘A lick of paint to match and you’ll be ready to start advertising the place.’
I shook my head. The house wasn’t yet ready. And not just because there were still so many items to tick off on the realtor’s list, but because I wasn’t yet ready. For someone who’d been in such a hurry to leave two months earlier, my determination to get the house not just to saleable condition, but to its full potential, seemed to grow with each passing day.
I left my own room and my father’s off the guided tour. John’s room was the only one I hadn’t had the heart yet to clear out.
Back in the kitchen, I ladled stew into two large bowls, which we carried out to the terrace. Shadows had gathered in the valley below, and the sky was no longer pink but a soft violet.
After dinner, I dug my precious tub of chocolate chip gelato (reserved for special occasions) out of the freezer, and we headed to Tommaso’s cottage.
Champagne, gelato, and Buffy. I’d died and gone to heaven.
‘The only thing missing from this scene is a dog.’
‘A golden Labrador?’ Tommaso asked, with one of his half-smiles.
‘Of course.’ As a child, I’d desperately wanted a golden Labrador, but it had never been possible. We’d moved too many times, often living in flats that didn’t allow pets. And then after uni, I’d been too busy to look after a pet.
‘Why don’t you have a dog?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘I did. She died of old age about a year ago and I haven’t replaced her yet.’ He stretched, and his shirt lifted, revealing taut stomach. I swallowed and focused intently on the television screen where Buffy and Angel were now meeting for the first time. Oh, be still, my beating heart!
‘Still Team Angel, I’m guessing?’ Tommaso smirked.
‘Of course. Spike was never good enough for the Sunnydale Slayer.’
Tommaso covered us with Nonna’s old patchwork quilt, a glorious handmade work of art, and I cuddled down beneath it. It was a pity that removing shutters had worn me out. With each successive episode I slunk further down the sofa, and deeper under the quilt. It was so warm and cosy, and I was so tired…
I woke with a start. In my dream, someone was hammering and shouting, setting me into a panic. I opened my eyes to a darkened room lit only by the flicker of the DVD’s home screen, and the muted tones of the Buffy theme tune playing on an endless loop.
The noise wasn’t only in my dream. Someone was banging on the door, shouting for Tommaso. Only when he stirred, did I realise that t
he warm, comfortable cushion beneath my cheek was his chest.
I shot to the other end of the sofa, scrambling to fix my hair which had come loose from the chignon I’d had it tied up in. I prayed I hadn’t drooled on his chest.
‘Tommaso! Sbrigare! Be quick!’ A man’s deep voice called.
Tommaso was on his feet, hurrying to open the cottage door.
I heard excited voices in rapid Italian and moved to join them. It was black as pitch outside, and cool. The night air, hitting my face, brought me fully awake. ‘What’s wrong? What time is it?’
Behind the two men, who both stood in shadow, the winery’s pick-up truck was parked at an awkward angle on the drive, as if it had pulled to a stop in mid-flight. Tommaso’s face was pale in the dim light, tense with anxiety, as he turned to me. ‘Vandals!’
We piled into the truck, Tommaso driving, and me squashed between the two men. As we bumped along the road to the winery, travelling way too fast considering nothing was visible beyond the headlights, Tommaso filled me in. ‘Marco was on night duty tonight. He heard a noise, went to investigate, and found taps open on two of the botti.’
My stomach clenched in the same panic I’d felt in the dream, and not just from Tommaso’s hair-raising driving. One tap open might be an accident, but two was definitely deliberate.
‘You didn’t see anyone?’ I asked Marco.
He shook his head. ‘I did my rounds at eleven o’clock, and everything was fine. Then I heard the sound of a voice, and went to look, but they must have heard me coming. All I saw was two people running away. I didn’t go after them, because I had to turn off the taps.’
Tommaso nodded approvingly, though his eyes never wavered from the road.
‘Does this sort of thing happen often?’ I asked, clinging to the seat, and thinking of how often I left the kitchen door unlocked at night.
‘I’ve heard of an incident or two, but no, not often.’ Then, his thoughts no doubt matching mine, he added: ‘We’ll need to review our security.’
The truck skidded into the gravel forecourt in front of the cellar, and Tommaso slammed on brakes. He barely paused to turn off the engine before hurrying inside, Marco and I close on his heels.
The cellar where the wine had spilled was deep inside the hill. When we reached the arched entrance to the chamber all three of us stood, speechless and hearts thumping. It was the chamber with the biggest botti, and the wine was nearly ankle deep. It had spilled like a pool of blood into every corner. And it was blood: blood, sweat and tears.
I blinked against the tears prickling my eyes. How much wine had we lost? This had to be at least several thousand litres.
Marco fetched mops and buckets, and in sombre silence we set about cleaning up. Only once the worst of the spill had been cleared, did Tommaso turn on the hose to wash out the rest.
‘Which wine is this?’ I asked, squeezing scarlet water out of my mop and into a bucket.
‘The Angelico.’ Tommaso’s voice was terse, his face strained.
‘This is the wine that was due to be bottled after the harvest,’ Marco added in a hushed voice.
The next bottling. The one Tommaso had such high hopes for. The one that was supposed to pay off the winery’s debts. No wonder he looked so grim.
By the time we were done, and the cellar looked just as it had before the drama, though with the pungent smell of wine thick in the air, pink streaks were already lighting the horizon.
Tommaso and I drove home in silence. He parked beside the cottage. The dawn light had turned the yard grey and ghostly. For a moment we sat inside the stationary truck. Tommaso looked so devastated, I wanted to offer some comfort, to reach out and touch him, but I didn’t know what to say.
I cleared my throat. ‘What happens now?’
He rubbed his dirt-streaked face tiredly. ‘I’ll need to calculate how much wine spilled before Marco managed to get the taps closed. And I guess we’ll need to get the police in, so we can process an insurance claim.’
Then he smiled. His face no longer looked bleak, though the smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Thank heavens you re-negotiated our interest payments. If it weren’t for that, I’d be really worried about how this would affect our cash flow. As it is, the next year is going to be really tight for us now, but at least we shouldn’t have to default on the loan.’
With a nod of farewell, he climbed out of the truck and headed into the cottage. I needed a shower too, and to get started on the day’s baking, but I couldn’t move. I sat in the truck’s cab, alone with my thoughts.
Giovanni Fioravanti was just a bad gambler, right? He couldn’t have deliberately vandalised our barrels to force us to default on our loan repayments. I shook my head. It was just lack of sleep and heightened emotions making me imagine such intrigue. There was no way Luca would be involved in anything so devious and underhanded. But one thing was certain: I wasn’t going to be able to mention the Fioravantis’ involvement in the loan to Tommaso now, because I doubted he’d agree.
Chapter 18
Non si serra mai una porta che non se n’apra un’altra
(A door doesn’t close without another opening)
Later that morning, Tommaso was back at the castello. This time when he pulled into the back yard, a small white Vespa followed him in. I’d just seen off the Rossi farm van, so I headed outdoors to greet them.
‘I found a handyman for you,’ Tommaso said. He looked tired, and his eyes and mouth showed strain.
I glanced at the scooter, where a mountain of a man was dismounting. My chest tightened, and I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. The handyman wasn’t just intimidatingly large. He had a shaved head, and tattoos spiralling his bare arms, heavy ink drawings of swords and scorpions and barbed roses. I was no expert in prison tats, but if I’d ever imagined what they looked like, it would be like this.
He strode towards us, with that rolling gait of someone so musclebound he could barely straighten his arms.
As grateful as I was that Tommaso had remembered his offer in the middle of his own crisis, did he really have to invite someone quite so terrifying into my home? I hoped the man was a fast worker, so he could be gone as soon as possible. I hoped I was still alive when he left.
Tommaso waved towards the mountain. ‘This is Carlotta’s cousin, Ettore. Ettore, this is Sarah Wells.’
Screwing up my courage, I held my hand out to Ettore. His grip was strong, his hand big, rough and calloused, making me feel weak and vulnerable.
‘Piacere di conoscerti,’ he said. Nice to meet you.
‘Ettore doesn’t speak much English,’ Tommaso explained.
Well, this just got better and better.
‘But he’s worked on old houses before, and he knows the renovation restrictions.’
Once Tommaso left us alone, Ettore untied a toolbox from the back of the Vespa and dropped it beside the back door, then I walked him through the house, pointing out tasks that needed to be done. I was forced to exercise my rusty Italian, and thankfully, with quite a bit of miming, we were able to communicate.
I suggested that the first job, the most important one – and coincidentally the one I’d dreaded most – was to finish removing the shutters from the front façade of the house, and re-stucco the exterior, covering over the gaps where the trellis had been.
He nodded but said nothing.
Back in the kitchen, I made tea, and we sat awkwardly across the table from one other. His arms crossed in front of him on the table, and heavens, but they were enormous! I tried not to look, but it was impossible to resist. The scorpion’s tail seemed to ripple with movement as he lifted the fragile porcelain teacup. I bet he could wrestle an ox with arms like those. Or kill someone with a single blow. I swallowed, and offered him a plate of sfogliatelle, seashell-shaped flaky pastries stuffed with sweetened mascarpone.
He grinned, delighted, and took three.
‘So tell me about yourself,’ I invited, more to fill the silence than from a desire to get to
know him.
Through a mouthful of sfogliatelle, Ettore launched into a voluble answer, from which I was only able to get a gist. I caught the words prigione and primo giorno di lavoro, and my breath caught. I’d been half-joking when I thought they might be prison tattoos, but it seemed that not only was he an ex-con, but this was his first job since getting out. I swallowed anxiously. Should I hide the silver?
As soon as he’d emptied his cup, and the entire plate of sfogliatelle, Ettore rose to loom over me. ‘First I fix the front door,’ he said, as if he hadn’t heard a word I’d said.
So I showed him the garden shed where I’d stashed all the assorted tools I’d found about the house, as well as the new bags of stucco mix, and left him to it. Then, not wanting to seem as if I was keeping an eye on him, I fetched the gardening tools from that same shed, and began weeding and pruning the little patch of garden within the circle of the driveway, close enough that I could keep an eye on him without being too obvious.
Ettore removed the front door, set it up on trestles he’d magicked from heaven only knew where, and not only sanded the door down to size but had even given it a fresh coat of paint by the time I felt the sting of sunburn on my neck and realised the sun was already well past its zenith. I hurried to make ciabatta sandwiches of salami and tomato, and brought a plate out to Ettore, with a tall glass of homemade lemonade.
‘Grazie.’ He downed the entire glass in one long, thirsty gulp, then sat in the shade to eat. He didn’t try to make conversation, which was a relief, but I had the uncomfortable feeling he was watching me as much as I was watching him.
When he got stuck into removing the remaining shutters – finally – I returned to the kitchen to bottle the cherries I’d collected a couple of days earlier, following a recipe for Amarena I’d found on the internet to preserve them in alcohol for winter use. When Ettore popped his head in, ostensibly to fill a bucket of water – which he could just as easily have done at the garden tap – I was sure he was watching me too.
