Christmas at Claridge's

by Karen Swan

  They fell quiet, Clem inhibited and withdrawn, Chad shifting uncomfortably as he took in the atmosphere.

  ‘OK, well, then that’s all . . . good,’ he said, rubbing his hands together uncertainly as he looked between the two of them. ‘Like I said, Raf’s going to start on the exterior. We’ve gone over the colour scheme you chose and where you want the fanlights to be reinstated above the windows. The scaffolding’s coming today, right?’

  Rafa nodded, but his eyes were trained on Clem.

  ‘Great. Super. Well then, we won’t hold you up. I’ll come and check on you in a bit, make sure you’re happy with everything.’

  Chad put a hand on Clem’s elbow, moving to steer her away, but the sound of glass shattering made them all start. They ran round to the side of the house, where a young boy was standing, pale and immobile, looking back at them all. He looked like Bambi, all chocolate-brown eyes and skinny legs, hazelnut-coloured hair flopping over his forehead like a forelock. A football, punctured now, was lying on a bed of glass just inside one of the French doors of Clem’s office.

  ‘Lo siento,’ he stammered as Rafa advanced towards him, his jaw thrust forward in fury as he admonished him in rapid Italian.

  ‘Don’t! It’s OK,’ Clem cried, arms outstretched as she rushed over beside them. ‘Really It’s fine.’

  Rafa took a reluctant step back. She was, after all, the boss.

  Clem looked down at the boy staring up at her, the boy she’d passed just days ago on the path. He looked like he might cry and she knew he was scared of her; knew he thought she was the rich lady going to demand the window be replaced. She crouched down to his level and saw he had the same eyes as his father. ‘You must be Luca.’

  He blinked at her uncomprehendingly. She looked up at Rafa, wanting him to translate for her. ‘He speaks English,’ he scowled. ‘He is just in panic.’

  Clem looked back at the child. ‘I’ve heard so much about you, Luca. I’m . . . I’m Clem.’

  Slowly, the boy put out his hand, on his best behaviour, trying to make amends for the broken window. She looked at it – such a grown-up gesture from such a small child – and took it in her own. ‘A pleasure to meet you.’

  ‘A pleasure to meet you,’ he echoed in a voice that was as wobbly as his legs.

  She stood up again and Rafa came to stand behind Luca, his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  ‘I will pay for the repairs,’ he said, his voice even surlier than before.

  ‘You don’t need to do that,’ she said. ‘Breakages are part and parcel of a job this size.’

  He blinked once, his eyes dark and hooded. ‘I insist.’ And then he turned and walked Luca away.

  Clem and Chad watched them go, waiting for them to disappear from sight.

  ‘Anything you want to tell me?’ Chad asked quietly, turning to face her.

  ‘Nope,’ Clem replied, trying to look surprised by his question.

  ‘You seemed a bit . . . tense with him.’

  ‘Yeah, ‘cause he’s a guy who’s really in touch with his feminine side.’ Clem forced a laugh, but she wasn’t fooling anyone.

  ‘You’d tell me if you had a problem working with him.’

  ‘Chad, you said he’s the only guy in the area who does what he does, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So then there’s no problem. It’s fine.’

  ‘Cle—’ he frowned.

  ‘Chad, we just need to get this job done and get it done right. Because the sooner it’s done, the sooner I can get back to my own life, all right?’ Her voice was all over the octave, skipping notes, flat and sharp all at once.

  He nodded, jamming his hands into his shorts pockets. ‘Sure.’

  ‘OK then. Now I’m going to find a dustpan and brush and clear this glass up before someone walks through it.’ And she walked back into the house, arms swinging, chin in the air. Her heart somewhere in her boots.

  Clem dropped her head in her hands, her fingers tonging her hair in tight twists. She had been staring at the plans for hours now, but the day had been a write-off. She’d achieved nothing. She couldn’t think straight. The thick plastic sheeting she’d secured at the broken window would keep the wind and rain out, but it rustled noisily in the breeze and she was distinctly aware of Rafa just the other side, his body darkly silhouetted as he moved back and forth and around it, working on the far wall.

  She could hear Luca was still with him, intermittently passing brushes or refreshing the water, but mainly kicking the ball whenever he could, the slow-puncture making it bounce lower and lower. They chattered non-stop together, Rafa’s voice low – not animated exactly, but certainly more tonal as the boy laughed and teased and told jokes in his high singsong voice, running around him all the while. They had a keepy-uppy competition at one point, not knowing she was sitting there just feet away, their bodies cast in dark relief against the white plastic as they kicked the ball with honed skill and a shared boyish delight.

  ‘Hey.’

  She looked up with surprise. Gabriel was leaning in the doorway, his briefcase by his feet, his tie hanging loose around his neck.

  ‘What are you doing here so early?’ she cried at the sight of him. He was never home before ten.

  ‘I cancelled the rest of my meetings. The only thing I can think about is you.’

  She jumped up and ran over to him, throwing her arms tightly around his neck, burrowing her face in the silky pima cotton of his shirt. She was safe again.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  She nodded, not lifting her head. ‘I am now.’

  He clasped her face with his hands and drew her back to look at her, his eyes scanning her like a computer, wanting to decode her. He bent his head and kissed her, his hands sliding down her back as she moulded herself into him.

  ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ he murmured.

  She nodded. It was the best remedy she knew for escaping herself.

  Outside the wind caused the sheeting to crackle again. Gabriel looked up and saw the makeshift window.

  ‘What happened?’ He frowned.

  ‘Oh, it was just an accident earlier. We were going to replace them anyway,’ she lied, her eyes and ears suddenly straining for a clue as to Rafa’s and Luca’s whereabouts as she remembered them again. Where were they? Everything was silent outside now, but they had been there just moments earlier. They would have heard every word.

  She didn’t have time to think about it, though. In the next instant, Gabriel lifted her suddenly, hoisting her over his shoulder, and she laughed out loud in surprise, smacking him on the back. ‘Put me down!’ she shrieked. ‘Stop it! You can’t do that!’

  ‘I think you’ll find I can,’ he demurred, even taking the time to slowly bend down and pick up his briefcase.

  Clem laughed and kicked her ankles, trying to get free. When she looked up she saw Rafa standing by the far set of windows, watching them. She went limp at his expression and felt a tremor of fear ripple through her as Gabriel ferried her away, seduction the only thing on his mind, survival the only thing on hers.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Summer took hold. Within a month the skies were tented blue every day, the sea soaking up the sun’s warmth for her, as she and Gabriel swam in the cove at night, revelling in the pleasure and pain they found there, the place where they had begun.

  The days finally had a rhythm to them, and a soundtrack, too, as an army of workmen banged, tapped, chipped and whistled around the house, Chad furiously debating thread counts with her, the drone of V8s in the bay every evening telling her that her man was back.

  She and Chiara had started running together, too. She had never let anyone keep up with her before – not even Stella – but Chiara had the answers to her questions. For Chiara, she was prepared to slow down.

  Today, though, she was alone. She ran down the paths she now knew so well. She was becoming recognizable to the locals, too, who enjoyed walking to the lighthouse and watching the sun set, nodding to her as
she jogged politely on the spot, allowing them to pass, all of them working up to a ‘buonasera’.

  She took the right turn down through the winding paths of the castle gardens, even though it was quicker and easier to go over the top – to do that was to miss the point. She ran on her toes, grabbing onto the handrails on the sharper turns, stretching between uneven steps and flying over broken slabs, and she felt her colour rise and the sweat begin to spread between her shoulder blades as the temperatures stayed above seventy, even at eight o’clock at night.

  She emerged from the gates of the overgrown park with an athletic leap, arms outstretched, hair flying as she landed lightly on the cobbles of the harbour, startling the fishermen winding in the nets. She smiled at them and ran past without stopping, not noticing how they paused to watch her go.

  The piazzetta was busy again after the afternoon lull, with visitors milling around the water – some eating gelatos, most admiring the yachts that sat on the privileged silken waters – and she dodged them gracefully, arms pumping lightly, her lean legs long and strong in her runners’ shorts. Her skin had begun to tan lightly in the sun, even though she spent no time lying in it, and her reflection in the mirror every morning (when she bothered to look) was glowing.

  She passed the cafés, their parasols down now; passed the restaurants with their evening specials marked up on the blackboards; passed the waiters standing hovering, smiles ready for the early birds who would make the first sittings of the night.

  She disappeared up the ramp in the furthest left corner and ran bouncily up the shallow steps between the tall, narrow houses with starfish-embossed railings and waxy-white potted gardenias. Ahead were the steep steps that would take her up off the road and onto the raised footpath – the home straight – and she geared herself to race up and down them three times, a last burst of anaerobic power before she eased down to the hotel.

  She turned the corner of the wall, taking the deep breath she would need to blast her up the steps, when everything suddenly flashed into fast forward and she found herself flying towards the stone steps, simultaneously aware, in her peripheral vision, of a man leaning against a girl leaning against the wall.

  She landed heavily on her front, her arms only just breaking her fall, and feeling the skin on her bare knees graze and bleed. She looked up angrily.

  The long strap of a red patent handbag was tangled around her feet, but the girl it belonged to seemed unconcerned, one foot propped against the wall, her skirt pushed up her thigh.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ Clem muttered furiously from the step, incensed further by the girl’s lack of apology, before noticing her companion staring down at her.

  Her stomach twisted. To her relief, he had avoided her for over three weeks now, seemingly only working outside her office walls when she was in Viareggio with Chad, and disappearing into the maze of scaffolding that clad the house like an exo-skeleton the rest of the time. Only the occasional sight of Luca, kicking his ball on the terraces, told her he was in there, somewhere.

  Rafa reached out a hand, the gesture gallant but reluctant as she saw the hostility in his eyes; she recoiled, balling herself away from him and scrambling up the steps, her hands like paws on the cold stone as she got herself out of there.

  She was at Chiara’s in a minute when it should have taken her two, her chest heaving so hard she started coughing, her hands pressing against the wall.

  Dammit. Dammit.

  She paced the footpath agitatedly, her hands on her hips, trying to calm down, shaking her head as if she had a wasp in her ear.

  ‘Ciao.’

  She looked up to find Luca peering through the back door, watching her.

  ‘. . . Ciao, Luca,’ she managed back, straightening up and finding a smile.

  He held the door open for her and she followed him in, noticing how upright he was when he walked. He seemed tall for his age and nowhere near as little as he’d seemed to her that first day when he’d smashed the window and shrunk into himself. Her kindness that day appeared to have won his trust, too, and they had begun to share shy smiles through the windows.

  ‘I saw your goal today,’ she said in rusty Italian as he automatically paused to let some guests pass on the stairs. ‘It was really good.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, replying in English. Chiara insisted upon it, she knew.

  She listened to the sound of his bare feet on the tiled floor. ‘Who’s your favourite player? Lionel Messi?’ she asked provocatively, a teasing tone in her voice. She didn’t know much about football but she did know Messi was Argentinian.

  ‘No!’ Luca shook his head sternly, a frown creasing the peached smoothness of his flawless skin. ‘Ronaldo!’

  ‘Ah! Of course!’ Clem chuckled.

  Chiara looked up at the sound of their laughter, just as the two of them walked in to the small family kitchen. She was sitting at the table, a small glass of Rioja in front of her, her ledgers spread out left, right and centre.

  ‘Oh, is it time?’ she said, looking up at the clock on the wall and starting to gather everything into piles. They had planned to go through the ideas for the dining room tonight. At the moment the hotel only offered half board, with a buffet breakfast and no room-service option. It suited Chiara that way as it meant she didn’t have to deal with the three-headed monster of daily changing menus, fresh food ordering or temperamental staff.

  But Clem was on her case about it. The fact that the hotel was languishing wasn’t just because the décor was outdated, it was because they weren’t offering the amenities discerning modern guests expected. They had the space, and Clem was adamant Chiara had to do it if she was going to get that coveted fourth star.

  ‘Relax,’ Clem said, waving her to sit down again, as she poured herself a glass of water from the tap and glugged it. ‘There’s no rush.’

  ‘But I have not even started dinner.’

  Clem wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, taking in how pale Chiara looked again. ‘I’ll do it. I’m sure I can manage. What were you planning to cook?’

  ‘Lasagne.’

  Clem’s face fell. Oh. She watched Luca take a yo-yo from his pocket and begin to expertly swirl it around his hands.

  ‘You have not made it before?’ Chiara asked, watching her.

  She hadn’t made anything before, unless boiled penne and a tipped-out jar of ragu counted? ‘No, but I’ll give it a go,’ she said brightly. ‘It’s actually on my “To Do” list for this year. That and learning to drive. I mean, how hard can it be, right?’

  Chiara frowned. ‘Do you know how to make a roux for the béchamel?’

  ‘You what?’

  Chiara laughed, getting up. ‘Is OK, Clem. I like the offer, but I will make it. Is quicker.’

  ‘Oh, Chiara,’ Clem moaned, dropping her head. ‘I feel so useless. And you’ve got so much to do.’

  ‘I will show you,’ the smallest, highest voice in the room piped up.

  Clem and Chiara looked over at Luca. He was spinning and threading the yo-yo between his two hands now. It looked impressive and exceptionally cool.

  ‘He can cook lasagne?’ Clem asked Chiara in disbelief. It was one thing him speaking English, out-playing Rafa at football and being an expert on a yo-yo, but he cooked too?

  Chiara nodded and laughed. ‘He is very good.’ She shrugged. ‘I taught him four years ago when he was six. Family recipe. We are famous for it in the port.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Clem looked at him in wonder, amazed that he had done in six years what she hadn’t managed in almost thirty.

  ‘Only if you want.’ He gave a lackadaisical shrug and went back to his yo-yo.

  ‘Well . . . I suppose we could give it a go,’ she said tentatively, a smile spreading across her face as her eyes met his and she saw devilment there.

  They made a great team, meeting somewhere in the middle with her Italian and his English as she chopped, he fried, she poured, he stirred, the two of them powdered white from the brief flo
ur fight that had ensued during the making of the roux (he’d started it!). Every second of it went into the memory bank. She would know how to make lasagne for ever now, she would never forget a moment of this lesson; another acquired skill to knock off her resolutions list.

  The timer beeped and they crouched down in front of the oven together, staring in through the glass at the golden bubbling cheese-topped dish.

  ‘Looks ready to me,’ Clem said, but deferring to the boss.

  Luca nodded. ‘Me, too.’

  They pulled it out and let it cool for a moment. Luca had set the table at the opposite end to Chiara’s paperwork, and Clem had made a salad; garlic bread lay warm, sliced and wrapped in a cloth. The perfect family supper was ready. They were good to go.

  ‘Bella,’ Chiara beamed, pushing her books away and smiling at them both as they brought over the dish and Clem started serving. She felt giddy with triumph as the rich sauce oozed and the smells of Parmigiana and nutmeg fragranced the steamy kitchen, the evening’s earlier upset completely forgotten, although her knees still stung.

  ‘Santé,’ Chiara smiled, raising her glass to the cooks.

  Clem and Luca, who had his own small glass of red wine, echoed. ‘Or, as we say in England, bottoms up,’ Clem smiled at Luca.

  Luca giggled at the mention of bottoms – his English was good enough to know that word. ‘Guests first, please,’ he said, motioning for Clem to begin.

  She smiled at his extraordinary manners and took a bite. Just wait till she told her father she could cook. He’d be delighted.

  There was silence as she chewed, her hosts waiting eagerly for her response. She began to chew more slowly, her eyes scanning the dish. What . . .?

  ‘Oh! I didn’t know lasagne was so . . . spicy, out here,’ Clem managed, waving her hand like a fan in front of her mouth and reaching for her wineglass. She downed it in one, but it was no good, her mouth was on fire. ‘Wow! I mean it’s really . . .’ She exhaled through her puffed-out cheeks. ‘Wow! Really hot. We have it, uh, much milder in England.’