Chapter 2
‘Are you sure this trip is a good idea?’
‘Oh, psh,’ was the only reply from Toni’s mother. It was probably what the question deserved. Her flight was the following morning and travel insurance didn’t cover her changing her mind about leaving the country without her son.
‘It will be nice when you come and join me,’ she continued, rummaging for a pair of thick socks to add to her suitcase, which her mum Daphne eyed critically.
‘It will be nice to have a week at the beach to yourself,’ Daphne corrected.
‘Mum, Grandpa says we’ll eat at the pub one day!’
Toni glanced up to find her nine-year-old son Cillian bouncing in the doorway, her father grinning sheepishly at her over his head.
The small house she’d managed to buy five years ago felt cramped when her parents were over – which was often – but it was a small price to pay for the support with childcare, now they’d retired to Weymouth.
‘My only worry is that you’ll spend the whole week thinking about work!’ Daphne said emphatically, folding a floral kaftan and adding it to Toni’s already bulging suitcase. ‘You’ll need a proper break after all this stress.’
Toni snatched it back. ‘Life is busy, but it’s life. A week away wouldn’t make much difference, even if I were as stressed as you think I am. And what is this?’
‘Don’t worry, love,’ her mother said, clucking her tongue in a way that pounded in Toni’s head, with all the spinning thoughts. ‘I bought you a few beach things.’
Inspecting it critically, Toni had to admit the kaftan was pretty and not too young – or too old.
At thirty-nine, she was no longer certain what kind of clothes she was supposed to wear so she didn’t look out of place.
The fog was beginning to lift now Cillian was nine and she had help, but she still couldn’t see the new picture of her life that was slowly coming into focus.
In the years since Miro’s death, she’d managed little more than surviving: financially, with her low-paying receptionist job at Great Heart, and emotionally, under the weight of grief and responsibility.
‘Work is the reason I’m able to go at all,’ Toni reminded Daphne.
In the year since her employer had merged with I Do Destinations, her work had expanded and transformed.
Not only was she booking huts and camping grounds for adventure tours; now she also organised fancy hotel rooms for weddings – and elaborate floral arrangements, like the ones Gabri created.
Daphne continued sternly, ‘If you don’t enjoy yourself, I’ll start to think I should have been the one to spend a week on an island in the Mediterranean with a girlfriend.’
She sent Toni’s dad Art a cheeky smile. It had taken most of the nine years since her husband’s death for Toni to stop feeling a twinge every time her parents reminded her of how much in love they still were. But right then, it socked her in the gut.
One of the reasons she hadn’t taken a holiday in so long was that she had no one to go with except Cilli, and he chose Center Parcs and Legoland over the Tuscan Archipelago.
She’d spent years booking travel for others, watching them gain confidence on the climbing wall at the gym and gushing about their adventures afterwards.
Her friends were all climbers and mountain guides and travel junkies, but she had been precisely nowhere since Miro died.
Then Gabri had invited her to stay for a week, to see her sun-soaked island off the coast of Italy, and Toni had dared to picture something just for herself.
Checking her phone, she saw she had another message:
Oh, and don’t forget sturdy shoes. Trainers won’t do if you want to go foraging and explore some of the remote beaches.
She was well aware of the seriousness of footwear choices for outdoor activities. She’d been married to a mountaineer – for all of eighteen months before he’d lost his life in the death zone in the Himalayas.
But she’d never told Gabri any of that and now she was glad of it. Her friend probably thought she was only planning to bring heels and flip-flops. Toni had probably given the impression that she was a little more carefree than she actually was.
‘Right, we’ll be here first thing in the morning so Dad can take you to the airport and I’ll make pancakes for the little prince before school,’ Daphne said when she couldn’t find anything further to help with.
She ruffled Cillian’s hair, but he wriggled out from under her hand.
‘And in just over a week, when term is over, we’ll join you in Italy! ’
‘His passport and a letter from me with permission to take him out of the country are in an envelope on the sideboard downstairs,’ Toni reminded her. ‘He has his swimming lesson on Thursday – and don’t forget his inhaler.’
‘I can remember my inhaler, Mum,’ Cillian pointed out, sounding much too old for nine. She’d had to teach him to be independent. During those pressurised early years, every task he completed on his own had been a relief, but now he wouldn’t need her for a whole week, she wanted to hold on.
That was life: wants and needs rarely aligned at the right time and change was never easy.
She noticed belatedly that Daphne was sending Art an odd wink and then her portly father shepherded Cillian out of the room with zero subtlety. Toni braced herself for whatever her mum was about to say.
But she didn’t even open her mouth. With one final, furtive glance at the doorway, she just thrust a pouch into Toni’s hands, blushing furiously.
‘What’s—?’
‘Open it when you’re away,’ Daphne said firmly. ‘We don’t need to talk about it.’
With a sliver of misgiving, Toni guessed what might be inside the pouch. The telltale crinkle when she pressed her fingers around it seemed to confirm the embarrassing suspicion.
‘Mum! What do you think I need these—?’
‘You never know,’ Daphne defended herself, looking away. ‘I’m just certain in your situation, you won’t have been thinking about protecting yourself.’
‘I’m not thinking I’ll need protecting,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘My friend isn’t going to take me out on the town and you know how awful I found it when I went on those blind dates you encouraged me to go on.’
Daphne sighed, which was worse than her blushing hints about sex.
She snatched the pouch out of Toni’s hands and tucked it firmly into a side pocket of the suitcase.
‘I do know,’ she said with a note of finality.
‘I know it feels too complicated for you to build something permanent with someone, so you’ll forgive a mother for wanting some small thing that might make you feel a little less alone, even if it’s just for a night. ’
‘I’m okay alone,’ she insisted. ‘I have to be. I have Cilli to think about and I’m not going to jump into a relationship that might blow up on both of us.’
‘Which is why I gave you the condoms,’ Daphne whispered. ‘While you’re away, nobody would know. You can… step out of normal life.’
Toni shook her head, ignoring the prickle at her hairline. Even if she were prepared to have a fling, she wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to make one happen. She didn’t imagine attractive men walked up to off-duty mums and struck up conversations in real life.
‘I am stepping out of normal life,’ she insisted, ‘with a girlfriend, for a week of sunbathing and relaxing.’
Daphne reached a hand up; she seemed to be getting even smaller as she aged and Toni had towered over her mum since she was twelve years old anyway.
Smoothing her daughter’s hair with so much care that Toni could never resent her for anything, she gave a sad smile and said, ‘Just remember that life’s still out there, sweetheart. ’
Toni waved off her father at Southampton airport the following morning and breathed for the first time in hours, allowing her smile to slip.
She had no little hand to hold, no cuddles to steal from the gangly boy her son had grown into.
Without him, she was a square with a corner chopped off – a shape no one could name.
The tingle of anticipation was there too. She had a cardigan over her new summer dress for the early-morning English chill, looking forward to the Tuscan sun on her skin in a few hours. But she couldn’t enjoy the anticipation if she didn’t also allow herself to feel bereft first.
What a mess of a life. The good always came with the bad and she had to accept both.
Taking herself through security with lots of time to spare – it was quick when there was no child paraphernalia to chug through on the conveyor belt – she grabbed a sugary coffee with cream on top and claimed a table at a chain café, glad she’d decided to arrive early.
Pulling out the slim tablet Sophie had issued her with, she scrolled down the enormous list of preparations, from fabric to fondant – or from aisle to zero waste, since Sophie would never not alphabetise a list.
An email dropped in while she was perusing the list, as though Sophie were telepathic as well as supremely organised.
Hi Toni
If you’re seeing this, get off your emails and open a book!
You’ve got this! We went over the checklist, the hotel manager knows what she’s doing and we’ve anticipated everything it’s possible to anticipate.
I’m so glad you’ve taken this week to yourself beforehand.
The island is one of my favourite places in the world and I’m instructing you as your supervisor on this occasion to enjoy yourself!
Lots of love
Sophie
Why did everyone think she wasn’t capable of enjoying herself? She shot off a quick reply:
You’re right. It’ll be fine and I’ll be a bit more tanned – and hopefully a lot more chilled out – after a week on the beach.
She was intending to explore the island and its flora with Gabri, rather than spending all her time on the beach, but since everyone seemed to think she needed rest, she’d let them think it.
Her phone buzzed with a message from Gabri:
I’ve got all your details and I’ll meet your ferry at Portoferraio this afternoon. I have a blue Fiat 500 and a cream linen shirt. See you then xx
With a zing of excitement that this was actually happening, Toni allowed herself to really wonder what Gabri might look like. She imagined wavy, dark hair, practical clothes for the outdoors, but with Italian flair – a scarf, perhaps, not that Toni knew anything about style.
No matter what she looked like, Toni was ready to like her immensely.