Chapter 15
Ginny was a glutton for punishment. There was no other explanation for why she kept attempting to have a normal conversation with Rhys. She tried to convince herself that it was just because they were trapped in a car together for the hour’s drive to the chapel.
He was good with directions, though, probably because there was nothing personal about telling her to turn off the autobahn.
‘It’s kind of funny that Andreas is getting married in a place called San Valentino,’ she couldn’t help commenting. ‘It’s more romantic than I would ever have expected from him.’
She was more comfortable behind the wheel after they turned off, leaving behind the main arteries linking the regional capital of Bolzano with the northern valleys.
Here, the hillsides were green and gold, brightening the otherwise grey day.
They passed a vineyard, the vines glowing orange.
Densely packed apple trees on a farm on the other side of the road were bright yellow, with red fruit still hanging on the branches.
‘I’m now convinced that the parish church of Saint Valentine in the middle of autumn is the perfect time and place to get married.’
She received only a ‘Hmmph’ in response, which she quixotically decided to take as agreement.
‘For other people, of course,’ she added. ‘I’ll have to put this church in our files. Our clients would love it.’
‘There are lots of places named after Saint Valentine. I had to check which you meant, because there are several, in this region alone.’
‘Now you’ve burst my balloon,’ she muttered. ‘I suppose you don’t like Valentine’s Day either.’
‘Giving a romantic gift when there’s an expectation of a romantic gift defeats the purpose.’
‘You prefer to give surprise gifts?’ she teased.
She was pleased with herself when he shifted uncomfortably. ‘Gifts aren’t really my strong point.’
‘Your ex-girlfriend didn’t mind?’
When his gaze flickered warily to her, she snapped her mouth shut. Oops, she wasn’t supposed to know about that.
‘Sorry, Kira mentioned an ex.’
‘It was a long time ago,’ he mumbled. ‘If she was disappointed I didn’t give her gifts, she never told me.’
‘You didn’t give her anything?’
He opened his mouth, fidgeting again. ‘Um, turn left up ahead.’
Ginny had to concentrate for a few minutes to coax the Fiat around a hairpin curve and accelerate up the steep road, but soon they were puttering through a fairy-tale landscape of chalet-style houses with wooden gables, spreading fruit trees in their seasonal finery and neon-green meadows.
‘Wow, we’re really in the middle of nowhere,’ she commented, marvelling at the narrow strip of bitumen they were driving on and that they were only ten minutes from the autobahn.
‘Look!’ Rhys gestured ahead and Ginny peered out to catch a glimpse of distant jagged peaks, sheer and grey and worn into dramatic, irregular shapes by time and the elements. ‘The Geisler peaks, I think.’
‘If we can see them from the church, we’ll have to get them in the background of the photos.’
‘I’ll look for a good location when we get there. It’s just up ahead, through those trees.’
After driving through a little wood, passing neat piles of logs, they emerged on the other side to see a grey chapel with rugged stonework and a thick spire. Ginny had to brake suddenly.
She wasn’t sure where to park, so she pulled in by the water trough, where another little Fiat was already stopped.
When she climbed out of the car, the air was cool and clear and the view along the valley, the ridges of forest and the peaks in the distance made her pause to take it all in for a moment.
Sophie would be living here, for the first few months of the baby’s life anyway.
To think she’d fallen in love with Andreas before she’d ever seen where he came from.
‘Hello! Lovely to see you again, Ginny.’
She turned to find Petra stepping out of the other car. Ginny shook Andreas’s mother’s hand warmly. ‘Thanks for meeting us here. Andreas did all the administrative arrangements, so I haven’t had any contact with the priest.’
‘You mean I made the arrangements, but yes, come and meet Wolfgang. He’s opened up for you.’
Ginny followed Petra around the side of the church while Rhys dawdled behind, framing imaginary photos, she imagined.
‘I didn’t know about you and Rhys,’ Petra said brightly. ‘It’s a miracle what you and the ladies at I Do have managed with the stubborn souls at Great Heart.’ Her tone was light with amusement.
‘Oh, Rhys and I aren’t together,’ Ginny insisted, keeping her voice low in the hope that he wouldn’t hear the conversation. ‘He came along to test out camera settings.’
‘Oops, I’m sorry,’ Petra said. ‘After last night – the waltz – I assumed.’
‘No,’ Ginny said awkwardly. ‘He just took pity on me. I’m the only single woman at this wedding.’
‘It’s wise to be choosy, Ginny,’ Petra said kindly. ‘You’ve got lots of time.’
Ginny swallowed a rueful response and arranged a smile on her face when an old man emerged through the doors to greet them.
The priest had the same cracks and rough-hewn features as the tiny church, a twinkle in his eye and a firm handshake.
He showed them into the simple building with pride, pointing out the sign declaring that the structure had been built in the year 1303.
Inside, the walls were whitewashed between the pink gothic rib vaults, except for incomplete pieces of a colourful fresco.
A man on a white horse with a red cross on his shield brandished his lance, smiting an awkward-looking yellow dragon that had something of the dog about it.
‘The altar is from the year 1500,’ Petra said, translating for the tall priest. Intricate and gilded, the piece looked as though it belonged in a museum.
When Ginny approached to study it, she couldn’t believe at first it was made of wood, the filigree detail was so finely carved.
The figures of Mary and Jesus and other saints were painted a sallow skin colour, looking out of ancient eyes on a world the artist wouldn’t recognise.
‘Our little church has a long history,’ Wolfgang said, his words clipped and clear, although thickly accented.
Rhys lifted his camera and fiddled with the settings, while Ginny took notes on her tablet about the placement of the decorations, the bouquets that Gabri would create for the ends of the pews.
Even her trainers were loud on the old flagstones.
The low heels she usually wore in professional situations would have sounded like tap shoes.
‘I brought this for you, from the church records,’ Wolfgang said, drawing Ginny’s attention from the pink marble pulpit on one side. The priest held out an old album to Petra, open to a slightly yellowed photo that was instantly recognisable as the exterior of this church.
‘Oh!’ Petra exclaimed, leaning down to look. ‘Look at us. We were never so young and foolish when we got married.’
Ginny peered at the picture of a young couple under the tree outside, the bride in a long-sleeved vintage satin dress with caps on the shoulders and a rather playful lace veil.
The groom’s moustache was a little too big for his face and his suit sleeves too short, but Ginny thought that, for a wedding that clearly took place in the eighties, it could have been much worse.
‘This is you and Oswald?’ she asked. She doubted she would have recognised them, although there were some clear echoes of Andreas’s wiry hair and rugged features in his father. ‘You were married here?’
‘Forty-two years ago,’ Petra said. ‘Wolfgang married us, too. Everyone in our family gets married here. You have no idea how pleased I was when Andreas agreed they would too. I thought we’d done something wrong, the way he always ran away from family and commitment, but I see now, he just needed time and the right person. ’
Ginny’s throat clogged uncomfortably. The photo reminded her of similar ones hanging in the house where she’d grown up. Her father and stepmother, grinning in elation, her lace dress catching in the wind.
She remembered that day. She’d been six years old. Mainly she remembered going to bed that night at her grandmother’s house, crying and punching her pillow, her whole body shaking with the emotions she’d been too confused and afraid to express in public.
‘We can recreate this picture after the ceremony on Saturday.’
Ginny nearly jumped when Rhys spoke. She hadn’t heard him come up behind her and now he was standing unexpectedly close. She stepped away under the pretence of counting the spaces in the pews, but she lost count over and over.
It was a relief when the priest locked up and said his farewell, followed soon after by Petra. Rhys was hidden behind his camera, the lens pointed at the church and the vivid yellow tree.
Petra and Oswald had been married in the spring, not the autumn, she thought absently, remembering the photo with lush green leaves and pink flowers in the background.
‘Are you okay?’
Her hand flew to her chest as she whirled to find Rhys watching her, his camera hanging over his shoulder now. ‘Yes,’ she insisted. ‘I just… We’re going to need more ribbon for the pew bouquets.’
She perched on the low wall beneath the tree, staring blankly at the yellow leaves, browning off at the edges.
‘I don’t know where all the guests are going to park.
And I’m worried I should have made the order of service bilingual instead of doing one German version and one English version.
Maybe we’ll need a translation from Italian.
Can you even get legally married just in German here?
What if Sophie doesn’t understand? Do you think Petra has covered all of this? ’
Her chest tightened and she absently reached for a little fuzzy case that had fallen from the tree, two nuts peering out. But it wasn’t covered in fur, they were spikes.
‘Yow!’ She snatched her hand back and was shocked when Rhys took it between both of his warm ones.