Chapter 19
What a change a week could make.
Toni lazed on Gabri’s sunlounger, occasionally reading a chapter of her book, then staring out at the gently rolling sea, the blue-green horizon with the shadow of distant mountains – the island of Corsica, Gabri had explained, the view which had taunted Napoleon all the more with the proximity of his homeland to the place of his exile.
There wasn’t another soul within earshot. When she’d pictured Italian beaches, she’d thought of rows of umbrellas and fashionable bars, delicately fried seafood and Aperol Spritz in a glass that glinted in the sunshine, bare feet and elegant, strappy sandals.
But this little cove, the spiaggia delle Buche, on the western side of the island, was accessible only on foot and required sturdy walking shoes.
It wasn’t a long, sandy beach, but dark, smooth rock disappearing into impossibly clear water, where she’d spent the morning snorkelling among darting fish glinting silver and gold, urchins and sea-grass.
With her legs stretched out before her, the last remnants of a scab on her left one were a startling reminder of her first full day on the island, when relaxation had felt a chore she was supposed to complete, rather than a state of mind she couldn’t force.
It wasn’t precisely relaxation she’d attained now. It was a fresh perspective on her life – time and space to let things unfold inside her. She even begrudgingly admitted to herself that her mother had been right. She’d needed this.
Not the steamy affair part. That had been entirely unexpected. The sting of desire she felt when she looked at Gabri still scared her, but she wouldn’t regret opening herself up to this.
He was casting a fishing line into the water from the rocky point to her left, feet and chest bare.
He was tanned and rugged all over, so much a part of this island.
She still found it difficult to picture him working on algorithms in an office in Milan, even though he’d finally shaved properly and trimmed the moustache in preparation for wedding week.
Today felt a little like her last night before a new, stressful job – the calm before the storm. Tomorrow, she had to pull out her presentable clothes and greet Alison Falkirk and Nathaniel Mason and promise that all their dreams would come true.
At least in this little paradise, there would be no storms or avalanches or other disasters that seemed to regularly befall her colleagues.
Maybe even she would be able to believe in their happily ever after if they got married in such a beautiful place, where the forest and the sea and the sunshine provided everything people needed.
She must have dozed off for a moment, because when she opened her eyes again, Gabri was wading through the shallows, regarding her with his head tilted, a smile on his lips, the sun making a golden shadow out of him.
The familiar shape of his face – his body – gave her another shot of endorphins.
That she’d had the courage to push the attraction in its natural direction, despite the guardedness in him she could still feel in every touch, gave her a particular satisfaction.
She was a thirty-nine-year-old widow, well past her own expectations of happily ever after.
But she’d certainly enjoyed him for now – and he’d enjoyed her.
She wasn’t sure what their friendship would be like during this week to come and after she went home.
Chatting freely the way they’d used to seemed unlikely, a thought she didn’t dwell on because it did sadden her.
But tomorrow’s problem belonged to tomorrow and today, she had the glow of the setting sun on her skin, memories of salt water and good food – and that smile Gabri was giving her.
‘You caught something,’ she guessed.
‘è già,’ he confirmed, dropping his bucket beside her with a flourish. She gave him an indulgent smile as she glanced in to see two silver bream. ‘Not the most popular fish, but tasty enough. I’ll have to put them on ice until tomorrow, though, since we will eat dinner here tonight.’
Just the mention of food made Toni’s stomach rumble and she sat up to snag another square of schiacciata from the bag.
‘I should learn how to bake this at home.’
‘It always tastes better by the Mediterranean. The salt and rosemary is all around you.’
‘That doesn’t help me,’ she reminded him drily. ‘Not all of us can escape to Elba and live off peaches and flatbread and leaves from the forest.’
‘What time do you have to go in the morning?’ he asked after a pause.
‘Early. I have to collect the hire car from Portoferraio and then I have a meeting with the hotel manager in Capoliveri just before midday. Then it’s back to Portoferraio to collect Mum and Cilli at three, before the arrival dinner at seven back at the hotel.’
‘Busy day.’
‘No busier than normal life. I don’t have to pack a lunchbox, supervise basic hygiene or check that Cilli’s done his homework and his reading, so it’s still a bit of a holiday.’
He didn’t respond for a moment.
‘I don’t mean to complain,’ she added.
‘You’re obviously looking forward to seeing him,’ Gabri replied carefully.
‘I’m so glad he’s coming. When Mum suggested she could bring him, I wasn’t sure it was a good idea while I’m working, but I can’t imagine not showing him this, the island.
He’s going to love it. It’s worth the extra running around and this way, we still get to spend the first week of the school holidays together – some of the time anyway. ’
He gave her leg a quick squeeze, a gesture that felt artificially casual, although she couldn’t make out the real feelings behind it.
She’d told him a lot about her own life, perhaps more than he’d wanted to hear.
But he hadn’t reciprocated. He’d only reluctantly mentioned his ex-wife’s miscarriages, his job that he’d explained in vague terms. He’d held himself back and she had to accept that.
‘It was a good week,’ he said finally.
‘Thank you,’ she responded earnestly, leaning her elbows on her knees so she was closer to him, ‘for everything this week. So much good food, rest, exercise… I mean the walking and windsurfing,’ she explained as other forms of rest and exercise occurred to her at the twinkle in his eye.
‘It’s all been so suggestive,’ she added, giving him a nudge.
He traced her jaw with a finger and brushed his thumb over her chin – another casual touch that nonetheless felt weighted with meaning he hadn’t expressed in any other way. ‘And some sunshine. I hope not too many more freckles, although I like these ones.’
‘I’m not resistant to the sun like you.’ She’d never once seen him put on sunscreen, but she’d also rarely seen anyone as deeply tanned as he was – as tanned as the local children who played in the rocks at Sant’Andrea, near his workshop. ‘Thanks for sharing your island.’
For several moments, he said nothing as the words gathered on his lips. She watched patiently, enjoying the glances from his bright eyes and the play of emotion over his features. ‘Thanks for bringing fresh air to my house – laughter, beauty. I—’
He didn’t seem able to continue, so Toni put him out of his misery with an impulsive kiss, memorising the feel of his hair under her fingertips, warmed by the evening sun.
His palm on the back of her neck, slipping up into her hair, left an impression she would wear on her soul like a tattoo after she was gone.
She had to wonder whether he’d have a similar mark and whether it would haunt him like the shadow of his failed marriage. Surely not. He was light and free and she’d never try to keep him away from his island.
That thought brought its own sadness that she wasn’t supposed to feel.
As they ate their picnic dinner on the stones, the wind picked up, sending waves crashing into their secluded cove, and she nestled close to him.
The sun cast its last burnt-orange rays over the water, the disc melting into the horizon, and under the grey-blue dusk sky, they picked their way back to the car.
Arriving back at Gabri’s little house in the cover of dark, he kissed her with all the doubtful passion of the first time, clinging tight enough that she could imagine he didn’t want her to go, even as he said nothing in words.
He came alive under her hands and lips, every touch proof of the existence of the soul.
Tucked up next to him under the fan as they drifted reluctantly to sleep, Toni’s thoughts slipped. Her heart might be permanently damaged, a piece missing and another donated to a little life that was just beginning, but her soul was apparently alive and well.
‘Ready to go?’
Toni glanced up from the mantlepiece in the main room of the house, where she’d been stroking the shiny, irregular object that had never looked at home amongst the driftwood and trinkets of nature.
‘Yes,’ she insisted, although the answer was the opposite.
‘It’s called an oloid,’ he said, picking up the object she’d been admiring. ‘It was a gift from my old company. Look.’
Placing it on the table, he set it rolling. It didn’t move like a sphere or a cylinder, but in a complex cyclical motion – forward, right, forward, left, over and over again.
‘It was invented by an artist and mathematician for its kinetic properties.’
Occasionally, she caught these glimpses of another Gabri, in his impeccable English and effortless explanations of complex topics.
‘Your old company must miss you a lot.’
The glance he flashed her was another that held too much significance. ‘They do all right without me.’
Somehow, she suspected that wasn’t true.
‘You look nice.’ There was something gruff in his tone, as though he didn’t really mean the words, but he wouldn’t be insulting her outfit, so she tried not to dwell on his strange inflection.
‘Thanks,’ she replied half-heartedly, smoothing the grey linen-blend dress that hadn’t quite survived the trip in her suitcase, even though she’d put it on a hanger when she’d arrived.
Sophie had suggested a couple of clothing chains where she could buy some warm-weather business-casual attire, and she didn’t quite feel herself in the dress with its chunky matching belt.
But she did feel more like a wedding planner.
Last week, she’d worn sturdy shoes and beach dresses, dirt under her fingernails and sand and salt in her hair, but this week was the end of all that, for now.
‘It will be sad if I never see this house again,’ she blurted out.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he reminded her, but even those words landed differently from how he must have intended them. Gabri needed his island; Toni was a stranger here. They would only intersect for this one impossible week.
‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘I’m still a little sad to say goodbye.
’ To the house. She would keep in touch with Gabri, as she always had, with little notes about her day.
She just didn’t know how she’d feel when she received his, knowing who was on the other end of her messages, knowing how far away he was.
‘It’s not goodbye, especially not since we’ll see each other for the wedding preparations,’ he pointed out – much too easily, as though the week hadn’t touched him as deeply as it had touched her.
That was fair enough. They’d never promised each other anything.
‘It’s arrivederci – until we see each other again. ’
Toni was in such a strange mood that even that Italian greeting, uttered meaninglessly millions of times a day, struck her in the chest. There had been times when she’d sent up those sentiments to wherever Miro’s soul had disappeared to.
But Gabri was very much alive, a body and soul right before her.
‘Let’s go,’ she said, suddenly in a hurry to escape her own wild thoughts.
When they stood awkwardly in front of the hire-car office half an hour later, regarding each other, a string of unspoken sentences hanging between them, Toni was horrified by her threatening tears. She couldn’t afford to feel any of this right now. She had a job to do.
Somehow, she had to convince Cilli and her mum that she was still the same Toni who’d left England a week ago, tired and guarded and perennially bitter – that all she’d gained was a tan and a few freckles. And never mention the man who had pressed soft kisses to those freckles.
He was the first to find his tongue. ‘I’ll see you at the hotel – maybe tomorrow.’ She barely recognised his voice as he rasped out the words. ‘If you need anything—’
‘I know where to find you,’ she finished for him.
‘Anything,’ he repeated, finally lifting his gaze to hers.
‘Thank you,’ she mumbled in reply.
‘Ehm—’
‘Shall we—?’
After a fitful start, his mouth found hers for a lingering kiss that began as deferential, polite, but quickly transformed into an inarticulate expression of the strange goodbye as his fingers tightened in her hair.
But he broke the kiss with a categorical retreat, grasping her shoulders as though she might throw herself at him again. The suspicion wasn’t too far-fetched.
With a wave that was part-salute, he set off for the little powder-blue Fiat that reminded her of the contradictions of the man himself.
‘Arrivederci,’ she whispered after him.