Chapter 21
21
‘Where exactly are we going?’
Following a stone path through twisted, silver olive trees, Sophie followed Andreas up the steep slope. Marniga was only a cluster of clay roofs below them, the belltower of the church of San Giovanni Battista a bright white in the sunlight. Heat shimmered over the lake, the mountains appearing to snooze in a delicate haze.
Nothing moved except a bird of prey – a falcon or a kite, she wasn’t certain – soaring and swooping in the updraft. The hillside glistened with the freshness of spring before the sweltering summer.
‘A ghost village,’ he replied with a grin. ‘Have you ever organised a wedding for supernatural enthusiasts?’
‘No, but Reshma has. Sometimes, I think she’s seen it all, when it comes to weddings – except her own, of course.’
‘She’s not married?’
Sophie shook her head. ‘None of us are, except Tita. But luckily, places like this do our advertising for us.’ She paused to take a breath of the grassy freshness of the air, with a hint of pine.
‘What was your wedding like?’
Her gaze whipped back to him, but he wasn’t looking at her. His tone was neutral – carefully neutral.
‘I’m not judging you,’ he continued mildly, taking his cap off and settling it on his head again after rubbing at his hair. ‘I’m trying to… You’re obviously good at what you do and it’s important – very important to your clients. I’m sorry I was dismissive. You and weddings hit a nerve and my reaction reflected more on me than on you.’
She was speechless for several seconds and had to scramble to catch up with him when he continued ambling uphill, his boots scuffing on the white stones.
‘Thank you,’ she responded. ‘I didn’t mean to touch that nerve.’
He glanced at her ruefully and she had the reckless thought that she did want to touch that nerve. She wanted to get into his system and ruffle them all up, make him feel something he wasn’t ready for. But he wouldn’t let her and she was worried about untangling it all when he put distance between them again.
‘So, what was it? A grand affair with two hundred guests in a quaint farmhouse in Somerset? Or a chic hotel in Bath? Or did you have a commitment ceremony too?’
Sophie grimaced. ‘Well, it was in the Guildhall in Bath, but we just sat in the registry office with our parents and my sister and went to the pub afterwards.’ The familiar stab of grief accompanied the explanation.
‘You didn’t want a big wedding?’
‘Of course I did,’ she admitted. There was only one way to explain herself and perhaps it was better to mention it and move on, so she rushed into it before she could get stuck in her tangle of feelings. ‘We didn’t have much time to plan it. I got pregnant while we were engaged and… But we… And then… I miscarried, but we had the date booked and thought it was best…’
With a snort that was still preferable to a sob, she swiped at her eyes and stomped ahead before he fully comprehended that she’d had the most miserable wedding in history – before she did something stupid like fall apart in his arms.
‘Sophie.’ The shock in his voice stopped her. Several tears fell and she couldn’t stop them. Then he enveloped her in his arms, his arms that seemed perfect for hugging, even though she knew they existed to drag him safely up mountains. ‘I’m sorry.’
She gave half a shrug and forced herself to let go of him. It wasn’t his grief. ‘We always said we’d celebrate the wedding properly one day – I’d plan it to be perfect. And then we’d start a family – on purpose this time. But I got so busy at work. Probably, I was trying to deal with the… loss the only way I knew how. We never did either of those things. We just got Betsy – our dog. It’s kind of strange how easily the marriage was erased at the end, without even any photos of me in a white dress. But I still… Maybe I hung onto the marriage for too long because it was all I had to remember the… Oh, shit .’
Now she was bawling in earnest, batting away Andreas’s hands as he tried to comfort her.
‘It’s fine,’ she said, her voice as wobbly as her steps. ‘I mean, it’s fine that it’s not fine. You didn’t know I’d lost… someone and I didn’t—’ She cut herself off. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to express that part.
‘You didn’t what?’
His voice was so gentle, so unlike the defensiveness that had been the hallmark of their reunion, that she allowed the words to tumble out. ‘I didn’t realise how much pain you were in after Miro died.’
He froze, a flicker of surprise in his eyes – and uncertainty. ‘I didn’t think you?—’
‘Your mum mentioned something, but don’t blame her. Maybe I should have—’ The end of every sentence felt like a trap.
‘You thought we’d broken up. I get it now.’ He seemed to understand more than she did. ‘I wish I’d— I don’t know. Been there for you?’
She blinked, his words prickling over her. ‘It wasn’t your baby, Andreas,’ she blurted out, grimacing when the sentence felt bald and hurtful. She hadn’t intended that.
‘I know, but… Ach, forget it. I’m just sorry. If you want a family so much, I wish it had worked out.’
‘It’s not that I’m desperate for a baby,’ she said bluntly. ‘At least, not just any baby. But that baby will always feel absent. I couldn’t just go out and replace him or her and maybe that was part of the problem. I don’t think you could understand.’
‘Maybe not,’ he said grimly.
Before the thread between them pulled too tight, Sophie hastened her steps. They’d only slept together again – after agreeing that they weren’t rekindling their relationship in any other way. Neither of them should imply that they’d had any responsibility to each other during the past eight years.
He caught up to her quickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing and his expression harsh, but he snatched her hand and held on, looking ahead, rather than at her. The path curved up the hill, a steep drop-off on one side, and when they turned a corner, Sophie saw it – the ghost village.
Nestled amongst the foliage – olive and oak trees, a single, spindly cypress and lush growth of ivy – was a cluster of crumbling stone and dappled clay roofs. An electricity cable strung across the shallow gully was the only sign she hadn’t gone back in time in this secret hollow over the lake.
‘This is the village of Campo – population around five,’ Andreas said as he squeezed her hand to urge her on.
The impression of entering a secret, forgotten place grew stronger as she took the uneven path after Andreas. Dilapidated walls with vacant windows loomed on both sides, shutters hanging by a single hinge. Many roofs were missing. The mismatched houses were built onto each other or separated only by narrow streets that pre-dated the invention of the automobile.
Archways, hidden steps and short tunnels led them through the tiny town, with constant glimpses of the hillside and the lake. A pot plant or two suggested the presence of the few residents, but the place was eerily quiet.
A carriage wheel was propped under an old stone balcony. An archway led from nowhere to nowhere, but framed a stunning view of olive groves and still, turquoise water. The roots of old trees tangled in the bricks of ancient walls.
Everywhere Sophie looked, she could picture unforgettable wedding photos.
‘Look,’ Andreas said, gesturing through the arch. As Sophie stepped closer, she saw that someone had mounted a red sign at the edge of a little clearing that read simply:
LOVE
Her chest hurt. The sign was trite at best and at worst tasteless, but to stumble upon love in this secluded ghost town struck the sentimental part of her she refused to give up, even after everything she’d been through. But that sentimental part had no business imagining she was here with Andreas for a reason.
It didn’t change anything that he now knew about the lowest time in her life. Today had to be a part of her own story, not their doomed romance.
Perhaps she had to admit that their relationship had meant a lot to her – everything, at one point. She hadn’t been only young and stupid; she’d been genuinely in love and she shouldn’t throw away the memories, the experience, as much as she might want to when it hurt.
‘Not “ amore ”?’ she asked with a chuckle that probably didn’t quite disguise her emotional state.
‘Take some pictures – for your clients,’ he suggested, possibly as a coded instruction for her to calm the heck down. She was on a business trip. ‘Then we can see if the lady is around to open the café, such as it is.’
She gave him a tight smile, pulling her phone from her rucksack. He drifted through the arch towards the sign and paused, his hands in his pockets and his foot propped up on a log, gazing out at the view over the water.
Sophie suspected she’d regret this – all of it – but she lifted her phone and opened the camera app. With a tap of her finger, she framed and saved forever the image of Andreas, straight-backed, tranquil and probably dreaming of mountains, with the word ‘LOVE’ in huge letters next to him.
* * *
‘Is this enough of a view for you?’ Sophie teased.
She stood resting her arms in the straps of her rucksack, feet wide on the loose rock debris, and gazed at the 360-degree vista. The entire lake was visible, from a hazy Sirmione in the south all the way to Riva in the northern corner. But even in its entirety, Italy’s largest lake looked small from over 2,000 metres up, high enough that the Alps ranged into the distance, a few peaks still snow-covered, even at the beginning of June.
But Andreas struggled to tear his eyes from another view – one he’d missed for eight long years. A view he would miss again for he didn’t know how long – because she was going home tomorrow and so was he. He was trying not to resent her smile, when he couldn’t muster his own.
‘What will Lily and Roman think of it?’
Sometime over the past week, he’d developed a little grace for the wedding Sophie was planning. The bride and groom had become people, as Sophie spoke of them. Lily had been gravely ill and they wanted to celebrate her return to health as well as the strength of their commitment. After the gnawing ache he’d felt when he’d heard about Sophie losing a baby… He was more prone to sympathy than usual right now. He was more prone to everything emotional.
‘To be honest, I don’t know if it’s what they were hoping for,’ she said, the wind whipping her hair in her face as she picked her way back over the rocks to him. She was beautifully sure-footed, his Sophie.
‘Why not? Like you said, the view is almost unbeatable, as this is the second-highest point around the lake. There’s a croce di vetta.’ He gestured to the rounded metal cross marking the summit the way a used-car salesman presented his wares.
‘It’s a bit of a moon landscape,’ Sophie said, gazing around her again in wonder at the sweeps of rubble from previous rockfalls, the looming stone with slanted strata where only the hardiest bushes clung to life. ‘I think a little wedding would be overwhelmed up here, where geology and geography are the main show.’
He approached her slowly, waiting until she prompted him with a look. ‘Are you suggesting that there might actually be bigger things in life than a wedding?’
‘I walked into that one, didn’t I?’
Nodding, he pressed a quick kiss to her lips. ‘We’ve both come a little closer to understanding each other’s point of view.’
‘Close enough that you’re guaranteed to cry on their wedding day,’ she quipped.
His stomach flipped. They’d both mentioned the bet in passing over the past week, in banter. But every time, it made him wary of the consequence of losing the bet. He’d happily give her the stone, but how would he explain why he had it?
The point was moot because there was no way he’d ever cry. He hadn’t cried at Miro’s wedding – he hadn’t even cried at Miro’s funeral.
‘We should head down before the wind gets worse,’ he mumbled.