by Lucy Gordon
‘You’re making that up.’
‘No, honestly. They want to have a commune.’
‘Now I know you’re making it up.’
‘It’s what Claudia said. She’s dead keen.’
‘Yes, Claudia, forming a commune with Bert! If you’ll believe that, you’ll believe anything. They can’t stand each other.’
‘I think that’s mostly for show. They’d miss their spats if they lost them. They’re all dead keen to buy you out.’
‘But darling that isn’t going to happen. Gino’s selling his share of the farm and coming back here.’
‘Does Poppa really want to do that?’
‘Poppa? Since when did you call him that?’
‘That’s what Italian children say. It’s what he called his father. He told me.’
Nikki skipped away, leaving Laura feeling disturbed. The decision was made, surely? Gino was turning his back on Italy and returning to spend the rest of his life in England. And yet from every side there was pressure for a different decision. Nikki was becoming determinedly Italian. And if she were right, the problem about the guest house seemed to have solved itself naturally. It was almost as if she were being guided somewhere, by Fate.
But then she remembered Alex and the fantasy fell apart. If there was one thing that Fate would not, could not, do to her, it was to send her to live close to Alex, Gino’s true love, and the woman for whom he pined in his heart.
Why, oh why, she wondered, had she insisted on him going back to Tuscany? She was deeply regretting it now.
But then she remembered that it would have made no difference what she said. Gino was going back because Alex had said so, not herself.
Everyone came out to see them off, standing on the pavement and waving madly until the taxi was out of sight. And they did look like a family, Laura had to admit.
The rain was teeming down, but no rain could quench Nikki. For the whole of the journey to the airport she bounced with excitement and bombarded ‘Poppa’ with questions, sometimes in reasonable, if basic, Italian. Young as she was, she was rapidly becoming bilingual.
The reason wasn’t far to seek, Laura thought. Nikki learned because her heart was in it.
She had flown before, but so young that she couldn’t remember. Now she enjoyed everything about the airport except for one moment when a couple of boys in their early teens glanced at her face and giggled.
Instantly Gino planted himself in front of them. ‘If you have some comment about my daughter, you can make it to me,’ he said with deadly quiet.
They paled, then took to their heels.
‘Come on,’ Gino said, his hand on her shoulder. ‘Let’s get out of here to a country where the sun shines.’
On the plane Nikki glued herself to the window, regarding the land below with fascination. It had turned into a beautiful day, with little cloud, and she could tell the exact moment when they passed over the coast of France.
‘Have we reached Italy yet?’ she demanded every five minutes.
‘No, that’s still France,’ Gino told her. ‘Then it’s Switzerland, and when you see mountains down there you’ll know it’s the Alps, and we’ve nearly reached Italy.’
‘And then we’re there?’
‘After a few more hundred miles, si,’ he said, grinning.
He ordered some champagne and clinked glasses with Laura. The atmosphere was cheerful, and their first trip abroad together might almost have been their honeymoon.
Briefly she regretted persuading Gino to marry her. She was in love with him, and every day it grew more important to know the truth about his feelings for her. Yet because of the way their marriage had come about, she might never know.
‘Daddy is that the Alps?’
‘Si, piccina. Sono le alpi!’
Soon after that they began to descend, swinging out over the sea before coming in to land at Pisa, near the coast.
From the moment they left the plane Gino felt as though he was watching a tape being replayed. It was harvest, the golden time of year, when the farmer could look at his crops and know how he would prosper in the year ahead.
Last year they had made a mistake, harvesting the grapes too soon because Rinaldo had wanted the money early to repay the mortgage that Alex held. That way he would be free to love her, without the shadow of commerce hanging over his motives. So he’d reckoned.
But he’d got it wrong, harvesting the grapes too early because his mind had been on Alex. At the harvest festival they’d found each other. In the same moment Gino had lost them both.
And now it was harvest again, and it was time for the circle to be completed.
‘Someone’s trying to get your attention,’ Laura said, pointing.
It was Toni, the foreman at Belluna, a huge, grinning man.
‘Don’t worry about Nikki,’ Gino said softly to Laura. ‘I told Rinaldo, and he’ll have warned everyone.’
Toni greeted Gino with a bellow, enfolding him in tree-trunk arms, greeting ‘Signora Farnese’ deferentially, and offering his hand to la piccina.
Soon their luggage had been piled into the car and they were turning out of the airport, heading north. Nikki, sitting in the back with her mother, gazed eagerly out of the window. Laura had expected the two men in the front to talk in Italian or Tuscan, but after a few early remarks nothing was said. Gino too was looking out of the window, and Laura could only guess his thoughts as familiar scenery came into view.
Once he glanced over his shoulder to say, ‘This is Belluna now, that you can see all around you.’
She saw rising terraces of vines, with men and women picking grapes vigorously. The sun was warm and brilliant on the vivid colours, reminding her how Gino hated the English rain. How could he have borne to leave this place? she wondered.
‘There’s the farmhouse,’ Gino said at last.
At first Laura couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The building was pink and almost palatial, with two shallow staircases curving up the front.
‘That’s a farmhouse?’ she asked, dazed.
‘It is now,’ he said. ‘It was a great house, many years ago. There is Teresa, in the upper window.’
An elderly woman was leaning out to wave, then disappearing. As the car drew up outside the house a man appeared at the top of one of the staircases, and stood watching them.
This had to be Gino’s brother, Laura thought, seeing the resemblance. Rinaldo was older, heavier, but they clearly came from the same family.
He came slowly down the steps and paused at the bottom, regarding the brother he hadn’t seen for a year. Gino gazed back, and Laura had the strangest sensation that neither of them knew what to do. Then Rinaldo opened his arms and Gino went into them. They held each other for a long time in an embrace that spoke of a closeness deeper than any estrangement.
Rinaldo held his brother at arm’s length, considering him.
‘You’re older,’ he said in English.
‘You’re not,’ Gino said.
Rinaldo nodded and a slow smile came over his face, as if he were saying that happiness was the reason for his improved looks. It seemed to Laura that he could imply his happiness, but not put it into words, even with his brother.
‘You have kept a secret from us,’ Rinaldo said, still in English, indicating Laura. ‘You should not have done so. Such happiness should be shared. Signora, I salute you. You are welcome to our family.’
He kissed her on both cheeks.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m really glad to meet Gino’s family.’
Gino had moved to stand behind Nikki. ‘And this is my new daughter,’ he said. ‘La mia figlia.’
Rinaldo and Nikki shook hands.
‘Buongiorno, signore,’ Nikki said.
‘She’s been practising her Italian,’ Gino said proudly.
‘So I see.’ Rinaldo thought for a moment before asking, ‘Come sta?’ How are you?
‘Molto bene, grazie,’ Nikki returned at once. Fine, thank y
ou.
Rinaldo grinned his approval. ‘Your daughter is a credit to you, signora,’ he said. ‘Come inside and meet my wife.’
Now that the moment was here Laura tried to stay calm, but she was filled with tension at the thought of the coming meeting between Gino and Alex.
Rinaldo led the way into the house, not back up the stairs but through a French window on ground-floor level. The room ran right through the house, and at the far end was another French window, through which a woman was walking.
At first Laura could see her only in silhouette. After the first glance she looked away, in Gino’s direction and saw him stop, a look of astonishment on his face as the woman came into clearer view.
‘Alex?’ he whispered.
‘You see, you’re not the only one who’s been keeping a secret,’ Rinaldo observed, smiling. ‘Congratulate us. Our baby is due next month.’
Seemingly in a daze, Gino approached the heavily pregnant woman, and took her hands.
‘Gino, dear, you’re going to be an uncle,’ she said, smiling into his face. ‘We’re both so glad you came home in time.’
‘Rinaldo was right,’ Gino said. ‘Secrets should be shared with families. Especially wonderful secrets. I’m very happy for both of you.’
He kissed her cheek and led her forward.
‘Alex, I want you to meet my wife, Laura.’
The two women shook hands, each regarding the other with deep interest, and each recognising the interest of the other.
‘Rinaldo and I were so glad when we heard that Gino was married,’ Alex said. ‘We know you’re going to make him very happy.’
Laura said something polite, but she was trying to equate this calm woman with her inner vision. Gino had said she was an accountant who had lived in London, and Laura had built up a picture of cool, precise elegance, ultra-professional, ultra-chic, composed. The person she’d seen in the picture had been chic even when enjoying herself at a street festival.
But this Alex was somebody else. Her fair hair, falling to her shoulders, looked as though she’d dragged a comb through it at the last moment. And her loose floaty garments weren’t just the result of her pregnancy. She somehow conveyed the impression that they represented the person she was.
She kissed Laura warmly. ‘Let me take you up to your room,’ she said. ‘I’ve put you in Gino’s old room, and Nikki is in the one next door.’
She took the child’s hand and indicated for Laura to come upstairs with her. The house was beautiful, old and homely and lived in. Nikki clearly thought so too, because she was looking around her, smiling and nodding her head.
Behind them came the men, carrying the heavier suitcases. Laura noticed how Rinaldo positioned himself just behind his wife on the stairs, and kept anxious eyes on her.
Gino’s old room was large, with a low ceiling, and heavy exposed beams. The furniture was deep, burnished walnut, polished until it gleamed.
‘Oh, look, Mummy,’ Nikki breathed at the window. ‘Look at the view!’
The house stood on a small incline, with a view right across a shallow valley. The valley was an almost enchanted place, with pine trees, grass and a stream wandering through it, shining in the sun.
‘What’s that over there?’ Nikki asked, pointing at a building standing on the far side, a little way up the facing incline.
‘It’s a house,’ Alex said.
‘Who lives there?’
‘Nobody. Rinaldo has offered it to people who work on the farm. It’s big enough to take two families. But it’s supposed to be haunted and nobody will touch it.’
‘Haunted? You mean a real ghost?’ Nikki demanded, wide-eyed.
‘That’s what they say,’ Alex said, amused. ‘But I don’t know if anyone’s actually seen it.’
‘Can I go and look some day? I’m sure I’d see it.’
Laura sighed. ‘I’m afraid Nikki’s a real little ghoul.’
In Nikki’s room they found a welcome gift, a huge jigsaw puzzle of the Ponte Vecchio bridge over the River Arno.
‘We’ll go there and see it soon,’ Alex promised her. ‘Come down as soon as you’ve finished unpacking, and we’ll have something to eat.’
Rinaldo was waiting for her in the doorway. Laura, returning to her own room, saw him draw Alex’s arm through his as they went down the stairs.
‘He really fusses over her,’ Laura said, going into her room.
When there was no answer she looked up and found Gino staring out of the window at the golden landscape. He seemed transfixed.
Quietly Laura came to stand beside him. He neither moved nor spoke, but she could sense feelings of satisfaction, almost of joy, coming from him as he looked out at his home once more.
‘It’s not raining here,’ she said softly.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It does rain sometimes, but not-it’s different.’ He seemed to come out of a dream. ‘I’m sorry, what were you saying?’
‘About Rinaldo and the way he fusses over Alex. You wouldn’t think it at first. He looks one of the strong, silent types.’
‘I suppose he is,’ Gino said. ‘But he lost his first wife when she gave birth. It always haunted him, and I suppose now more than ever.’
Downstairs they met the housekeeper Teresa, an elderly woman, and the two maids, powerfully built young females called Claudia and Franca, whom Gino told her were Teresa’s great-nieces.
The meal was a banquet. The table had been decorated with flowers and candles, and the fare was a celebration of Tuscan cooking. First there was finocchiona, salami flavoured with fennel seeds, then black cabbage soup, followed by stuffed pheasants with cream and truffles. To finish there were sorbets, or fruits in syrup, with ice cream.
Rinaldo sat at one end of the table with Laura on his right. Alex sat on her other side. Rinaldo sometimes engaged her in courteous conversation, but mostly he left the talking to his wife. If Laura happened to glance at him she always found his eyes on Alex, anxiously brooding.
To Laura’s relief, the three servants all spoke English, even if a fairly basic kind. Rinaldo explained how Alex had won Teresa’s heart by alerting him to the fact that she was getting old and needed help in the house.
‘For her sake Teresa started to learn English,’ he said fondly, ‘and she also made Claudia and Franca learn it, on pain of a terrible fate.’
Nikki had made instant friends with the maids, practising her Italian, which was getting better by the day, and teaching them new English words. When it was time for her to go to bed the three of them went upstairs in a companionable threesome.
The others went out onto the patio to drink coffee. It was dark now, and after a while they began to see moving lights between the trees.
‘Our friends are coming to welcome you,’ Rinaldo said.
‘You told everyone we were coming?’ Gino asked.
‘We told nobody, but you know this district.’
As he spoke he rose to his feet to greet their first guests. After that someone arrived every few minutes, until Laura reckoned there must be almost two hundred people.
They all greeted her with a kindness that didn’t disguise their curiosity. It was clear that the word had gone around the district that Gino had returned, bringing a wife with him, and nobody wanted to miss it.
But hand in hand with the curiosity was an unmistakable warmth. She was welcome. They knew nothing about her, but she was welcome.
And when Nikki, attracted by the noise, crept down the stairs and hovered in the doorway, there was a roar of greeting for her, and nobody was startled or disconcerted by her appearance. Like Gino, they seemed oblivious.
She began to understand her husband better that night. The warmth in his nature was his own, but it was also a reflection of the people from whom he came. He had said, ‘I’m an Italian, not a milky Englishman,’ and she’d thought she knew what he meant. Now she realised that it meant much more.
Smiling, she turned to look at him, wanting to tell him what she had di
scovered.
But he wasn’t there. After looking around for a while Laura saw him sitting in a corner with Alex, his head bent close to hear what she was saying. He looked completely absorbed, as though he’d forgotten everyone else in the world.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
N OBODY seemed to have any sense of urgency about arranging the sale. Rinaldo said that Gino must inspect the farm closely before they could make any decisions. For several days they went out together, driving across the land, coming back late.
This threw Alex and Laura together. The first time he saw them getting into the car Rinaldo detained them, anxiously enquiring of Laura whether she could drive.
‘Yes, I’ve been driving a car for years,’ she assured him.
‘Rinaldo, stop worrying Laura,’ Alex chided him. ‘I’m doing the driving.’
‘But if anything should happen-’
‘I’m not due for another three weeks.’
He scowled at his wife. It was clear to Laura that he demanded his own way, and disliked all opposition, even from the wife he was supposed to love so much.
‘You might get tired,’ he growled.
‘Then I can drive,’ Laura said.
He turned his glare on her. ‘But here we drive on the other side of the road. You’re not used to that-’
‘On the farm it doesn’t matter,’ Alex said. ‘There’s no right and left on our roads. Amor mio, please stop fretting. All is well.’
Rinaldo sighed and gave in with a poor grace. ‘You’ve got your mobile phone?’ he demanded.
‘Yes.’
‘And you know the number of mine if anything happens?’
‘I’ve known your number for a year,’ she reminded him with a touch of wifely exasperation.
‘But does Laura have my number?’
‘Give it to me,’ Laura said, whipping out a pencil and notebook, and writing it down as he recited it.
‘There now, I’ve got your number,’ she said. ‘And I’ve got Gino’s number, and he’s got my number.’
‘And I’ve got Alex’s number,’ Gino said. He’d wandered up to see what was keeping his brother. ‘And she’s got my number, and Nikki has everybody’s number.’
