Chapter 21 – Luca
I decided running was a good idea, then changed my mind four minutes later when I reached the noticeboard.
MERRY CHRISTMAS,
LOMBARD!
The only reason I run at all is because doing it with Simo makes it less painful. Without him, I don’t see the point, especially in December, when the roads are slippery and the wind is evil.
I almost turn back, but then I spot something that doesn’t fit the picture.
Like every year, Mayor Pickering has decorated a Christmas tree in the middle of the square.
This year, he’s gone for a white and green theme, so the single red bauble among the stars and Grinch-coloured sugar canes sticks out like a drag queen at an IT conference.
I know before I even reach the tree that I’m meant to see this bauble.
It’s red hot, the size of a small pumpkin and someone’s glued rhinestones in the shape of an S and an L on the surface.
If it wasn’t so creepy, it could be cute.
After months of gossip and messages like this one, the only reason I no longer react with panic is that the game has become tired.
I pluck the bauble from the tree and consider dropping it in a bin, but I can’t stomach the idea of our initials being buried beneath used tissues and cigarette butts.
I’m also not going to leave it out in the open.
I’ve become used to the discomfort of being talked about, but that doesn’t mean that I like it.
And I don’t want this to get back to Simo and ruin his time in Granada.
Back home, I hide the bauble at the back of my sock drawer.
Then I spend a good half-hour in the shower, not because I broke a sweat, but to drive out the cold.
It’s Christmas Eve, but I’ve never felt less festive.
Simo is away, which is weird enough, but on top of that, Dad’s unusually irritable.
That might have less to do with me than with his parents, who have flown off to spend the winter break in their villa in Mauritius.
Yeah, that’s a thing. When Dad found Simo and me on the beach and told us we were leaving, there was a look in his eyes that I’d never seen before.
Like an animal cornered. He barely let us say goodbye to Anna and Graham.
I can’t find the energy to be mad at him for being mad about the trust fund.
It doesn’t feel real, which might have something to do with the fact that I won’t be able to access it till I’m twenty-five.
It’s enough to buy the house we live in twice over.
Dad has been working hard for years to pay off that mortgage, and for his parents to hand his son such a ridiculous sum must be a slap in the face.
Lately, I’ve been scared that Dad is lonely. He speaks to Mum on the phone, but with the time difference, her busy schedule and Dad’s aversion to texting, I worry that he doesn’t have anyone to vent to.
I need our routine back: the film nights, and debating the acting skills to hotness ratio of the shirtless male lead on the TV screen.
All of it would lead us to the conversations that mattered.
I’d check in on him, he’d check in on me.
And I really need him to check in on me, because I’m so confused that I can’t focus on anything. Hence the attempt to take up running.
Once I’m dressed, I make my way downstairs, determined to drown my thoughts in chatter and a chai latte. I’m barely through the door when a soft black nose pokes my ankles.
‘Olive!’ I exclaim, and she turns into a furry whirlwind, tail and ears wagging.
I quickly pick her up, because I’ve learned from experience that her bladder is sensitive to excitement.
I see it as a showing of love and appreciation, but Dad might ban all dogs from the premises if she pees everywhere again.
He’s by the coffee machine, eyeing us suspiciously.
‘What? I’ve just come to help out,’ I say.
Dad grunts. ‘Wash your hands first.’
‘I gave her a bath last night, you know,’ Daniel says. He leans on the coffee bar, an espresso in front of him.
‘It’s true, she smells good,’ I confirm with my nose buried in her soft fur.
‘I don’t care what you say. With those short legs, she’s so close to the ground, might as well be a hoover.’
‘I’m gonna stop buying your coffee if you keep insulting my dog,’ Daniel says. I set Olive back on the floor and obediently wash my hands.
‘You’ve not paid for a single coffee since you started coming here,’ Dad retorts.
‘Because you refuse to let me. Or even to repay you with pizza.’
I perk up. Dad takes the drinks he was making to a couple by the window.
‘He always walks away when he’s losing an argument,’ I tell Daniel, who hides a smirk behind a sip of espresso.
The afternoon passes in a blur, as the town celebrates Christmas Eve and the beginning of the holidays with mince pies and other sweet treats.
When the last customers trickle out at around five, we decide to close early.
I blast the Sugababes album that I know Dad likes, and the place is tidy and sparkling in less than an hour.
Still, wiping down tables and counters isn’t enough to keep Simo off my mind.
When I don’t pay attention, I’m back in his arms, on the beach, at midnight, goosebumps covering my entire body.
‘What do you say – shall we get that pizza and watch Carol?’ Dad asks. And because I never pass an opportunity to watch Cate Blanchett play a lesbian with a fantastic wardrobe, I say yes.
It takes Dad longer than seems necessary to pop in and out of Daniel’s place, which leaves me alone on the sofa scrolling through the chat with Simo.
Typically we don’t text because we sit shoulder to shoulder.
He’s never had to learn proper response-time, which tests my patience.
I don’t want him glued to his phone when he should be spending time with his family, but honestly I feel like I might be going through withdrawal.
Two days ago we were so damn close, and now I hear from him once or twice a day.
If I don’t get my daily dose of Simo, I suffer.
Knowing that the number of texts a person sends you has no relation to how much they care for you is one thing, understanding it quite another.
It’s true, I’m the problem, but it’s not all my fault.
When Simo pulled me close, it meant something, right?
I didn’t imagine the slow dance or the embrace.
Then again, I wouldn’t put it past my deluded brain to read far too much into the way he doesn’t break eye contact recently, or the moments where he touches my arm, my thigh. It’s so casual it could mean nothing.
I throw my phone to the other end of the couch and get up. Ten seconds later, I knock on Miss M’s door and let myself into her top-floor flat. Her company is way better than the noise that my own thoughts make.
She doesn’t lift her head from the newspaper she’s reading, but raises a hand, heavy with the many rings she wears, and points to the pot of tea. Once I’ve refilled her cup, she folds up the paper.
‘If you’re hungry,’ she says and grabs my wrists, frowning at my chewed fingernails, ‘have a liquorice stick.’
‘I hate liquorice,’ I say, but I get her point.
She lifts her gaze to my face. Whatever she sees there makes her purse her lips.
‘And if your head is too loud, have a schnapps.’
‘That’s wrong on so many levels,’ I laugh, happy to be here in her presence. That loud head is feeling so much quieter already.
She waves my arguments away with a wrinkled hand.
‘You know, you and your father are cut from the same cloth. When you’re in love, you are helpless. Like a toddler with a scalpel. Couldn’t cut a straight line if held at gunpoint.’
‘Who gave the toddler the scalpel? And who’s holding it at gunpoint?’ I ask, and then, processing her words, ‘Wait, who said I’m in love?’
Miss M points to a spot outside the window, and I follow the line she draws with her finger.
I can see the foothills of the mountain range that separates us from the city, and the park with the shell-shaped stage.
But to see what Miss M means, I have to shuffle to her side of the table.
And there, between the lighthouse and the Christmas tree on the town square, sits the noticeboard.
I fall back on to my chair. ‘That’s just rude,’ I say. ‘And why do you need me to send you pictures of the noticeboard every Monday when you can see it from here?’
‘I can’t, can I? My eyes are old and tired.’
I scowl, not sure I believe her.
She waves her hand again. ‘Do you know how Lombard ended up with the noticeboard?’
I send her a confused look, then mumble something about Celtic calendars and fishermen.
‘Humbug,’ she notes. ‘No, when those fine lords and ladies whose names nobody remembers first decided they needed a mansion by the sea, they planned to build it in the very spot where the town square is today. It was an important place for the common folk in the area. A copse of apple trees grew there, and they believed those trees to be sacred. The lords and ladies agreed to move further up the coast, but the copse soon became a secret meeting point for the young lordling and a farmer’s daughter.
The years passed, and the daughter kept waiting for the lordling to ask for her hand in marriage, but for fear of losing his reputation, and his inheritance, the lordling never did.
One new-moon night, the farmer’s daughter stopped coming to meet the lordling, and in his despair, he lost his footing in the darkness and tumbled from the path into the sea, where he drowned. ’
I gasp. ‘He drowned?’