Chapter 11
ELEVEN
WREN
The hotel was a two-storey whitewashed villa with a covered veranda on the roof, immaculately kept – the white paint was so fresh and bright it was almost hard to look at in the sunshine. It had climbing greenery across the walls and plants on the veranda above that spilled their leaves over the top, so that the building looked enveloped in nature. The garden was mature with shrubs and lemon trees, and smelled divine.
As Wren walked up the uneven footpath, trundling her small suitcase behind her, she was glad she’d come. Even if she would be sleeping alone.
The smiling man at the small reception building by the entrance had given her a chunky brass key with the number three inscribed on the fob. She hoisted her case up a short flight of stairs and let herself in.
The room was lovely; a double bedroom decorated with pale creams and beige, with features that leaned more towards North African, such as the intricate headboard, which was carved with a swirling cut-out pattern, and the co-ordinating Moorish-style bedside tables. There was a small, neat kitchenette and an en-suite bathroom, tastefully decorated with teal herringbone tiles and a huge white bath which she longed to sink into as soon as she could. A door was open to a first-floor courtyard terrace that looked out over the Bay of Naples. The place was like something out of a dream.
A dream she should have been sharing with Alex, she thought, blinking away the sting of tears as she put her suitcase on the bed and started to unpack. The tears felt acidic, laced as they were with anger as fresh and raw as their break-up.
He’d followed her to the Community Kitchen to check up on her, to make sure she really was where she said she was. The thought of it still made her pulse quicken with rage. He’d still refused to admit that was why he’d been there, and instead he’d just been incandescent with fury at being covered with the defence spray. Any guilt Wren felt from accidentally coating him in the stuff, which stank to high heaven, was assuaged by the realisation that their relationship couldn’t continue. She’d known it right then, standing in the dark car park. It had been almost like turning off a lightbulb – Alex’s face, twisted with anger at the spray and the accusations, had become unpleasant to her, almost repulsive, and her heart had hardened with a speed that had shocked her.
In the following hours, after sleeping in the spare room, she’d emotionlessly planned her next steps. And the next day she’d executed them, packing some bags, heading to Libby’s, where she’d started making lists of things she needed to do to disentangle herself from him. House, bills and so on. And then she’d cried for hours. Regardless of how he’d treated her, dismantling her financial ties to him was going to be infinitely easier than letting go of the emotional ones. The happier times, before he’d grown more and more hard to please, were the memories that seemed to push their way to the front, making her grieve for a relationship that she now knew had been lost long ago. And it was this realisation that reassured her that, in spite of her heartache, she’d done the right thing.
That night, she’d texted Alex, asking him if he was planning on going to Sorrento on his own, to which he’d responded with a long, rambling message about how she’d shattered his dreams and how dare she even suggest… So she’d taken the opportunity, while he was on his evening shift, to go home, grab her suitcase and passport and, after a moment’s consideration, offer Alex’s place on the plane to someone else.
‘Knock knock,’ came a voice from the doorway. ‘Eeh, this is posh,’ said Alan, looking around the tasteful room. ‘Is that a coffee machine? Very swish.’
He made a beeline for the Nespresso machine on the kitchenette counter and started tinkering with it, opening the water dispenser and peering inside. He picked up a little espresso cup and mimed holding it to his lips, pinky finger extended, then fumbled the cup, catching it at the last minute before it shattered on the tiles.
‘Reflexes of a cat,’ he said with a wink, then proceeded to knock the stack of coffee pods all over the floor, upending the full water dispenser as his hands flailed to catch them.
‘How’s your room, Dad?’ asked Wren, gathering up the pods as he swabbed the floor with one of the expensive-looking hand towels from the bathroom.
‘Oh, it’s smashing, pet. It’s spot on.’
Wren had booked her dad the only available room in the complex – a small single with a ‘garden view’ that might possibly be overlooking a small patch of grass and a whitewashed wall. She hoped Alan wasn’t trying to make her feel better about the stark comparison with her own room, which he’d refused to take instead of her. She’d decided that Alex’s plane ticket shouldn’t be a complete waste. It had been years since her dad had been on holiday, and he didn’t really have anyone to go with, so she’d invited him along. Despite his ability to wreck a Nespresso machine, she knew he would also be good company.
Alan caught sight of the open terrace door and rushed outside. ‘Well, it’s almost as nice as the view from the cottage,’ he said with a grin. ‘Hey, kidda, who’d have thought we’d be standing in a spot like this, eh?’
Wren smiled, but immediately Alan winced.
‘Sorry, pet. I know you’d rather not be here with your dad.’
Wren breathed deeply. ‘I would actually.’ And she realised this was true. ‘To be honest, when I think about standing here with Alex, all I can imagine is that bloody itinerary he made up. I’d have had three seconds to look at this view, then he’d be dragging me off to get fitted with abseiling equipment.’
Alan grimaced. ‘Would you mind if we don’t make use of all the bookings. I’m not that fond of heights, and abseiling always looks a bit constraining on the knackers.’
‘Lovely,’ she groaned, although her lip twitched at the corner. ‘But I’m in full agreement. Let’s make this holiday as lazy as possible. I want to go home half a stone heavier, with pasta poisoning and stripes imprinted on my back from a sun lounger.’
‘Count me in. Now, how’s about that first dose of pasta then?’ Alan bobbed on his heels, visibly enthused.
‘No time like the present,’ agreed Wren.
She scanned the room once more. It really was beautiful. But it needed just one thing to make it feel like hers. She opened her suitcase, tipped it over and poured all of her clothes, toiletries and accessories over the bed. The suitcase made a gratifying clunk as it dropped onto the tiles. A ripple of satisfaction went through her. Alex would have had a fit. But Alex wasn’t here.
Taking a deep breath, she turned away from the comforting chaos and followed Alan out the door.
They walked down to the bay, weaving through the narrow streets between tall buildings painted yellow, orange and warm cream. Above, there were red-brick clock towers, patches of sky that were beginning to turn from blue to amber and barely a cloud. The compact streets should have felt oppressive, but to Wren they were the opposite – the burnished tones of the walls around her made it seem almost cosy. There were hanging baskets of bright flowers, and shops with colourful awnings, one selling rows and rows of sandals, hung from the wall by ribbons of every shade in the rainbow. Fruit stalls and coffee shops were bursting with colour and aroma, so that just walking down the streets was a treat for the senses.
‘Looka!’ said Alan, twirling a postcard stand. ‘I should send this one to Johnny Boy.’
He plucked out a postcard bearing a cartoon picture of a dog slurping up spaghetti, a close-enough approximation to a certain classic film that Disney would raise an eyebrow.
‘Aw, Dad, do you think he’s missing you?’
‘Not at all,’ he said, chuckling and putting the postcard back. ‘Cliff sent me a photo of him eating his own little roast dinner, stuffing, the lot. He’s having the time of his life.’
Alan’s friend – his only friend – had taken John in while they were away. Cliff worked with her dad at the lighthouse visitors’ centre, and his name, considering his place of work, still made Wren smile.
Near the postcards was a shelf with various leaflets for tourist attractions. One in particular caught Wren’s eye.
‘On the subject of lighthouses…’ she said, presenting one to her dad.
‘Oh, now that’s a beauty,’ he said, holding the leaflet at arm’s length to admire it. ‘Punta Carena lighthouse. It’s on Capri, it says.’
‘Just over the bay. Do you want to go and see it?’
‘Well, aye. If we’ve got time.’
‘We’ve scrapped the itinerary, remember? We’ve got all the time in the world.’
Alan grinned and tucked the leaflet into his pocket. ‘Talk about a busman’s holiday. Wait ’til I tell Cliff.’
Wren shook her head. To be fair, if there was one person in the world who would be chomping at the bit to hear tales of Italian lighthouses, it would be Cliff. She, on the other hand, would suffer a visit to make her dad happy.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get some food, and we can see about Capri tomorrow.’
They walked towards the coast and emerged onto the Marina Grande, a pretty harbour. It was, confusingly, smaller than its sister, Marina Piccola, according to her basic research on Sorrento, and was bustling with tourists and Italians.
There were signs being erected here and there, advertising the Festa di Sant’Anna. A quick word with a friendly local revealed that this was an annual festival, celebrating Saint Anne, the patron saint of pregnant women. Wren looked up at the lights being strung up around the church and along the harbour railings, and took a photo for Libby.
She texted it to her and received an immediate reply:
Patron saint of pregnancy, my arse. I’m going to worship the gods of the epidural.
Wren and Alan took a table at a seafront restaurant, ordered glasses of wine and the catch of the day, which turned out to be sea bass.
It was a strange feeling, being there, eating freshly caught fish and drinking Pinot Grigio with her dad as the sun went down over the Bay of Naples. She watched him destroying the pile of chips he’d ordered as a side, and her mind wandered back to the Community Kitchen and her realisation that he might not have been telling her the whole truth. The sun was dipping lower, and the day had grown cooler, but she couldn’t be sure if that was the only reason for the goosebumps that now prickled down her arms. She opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted.
A man wearing a pale, crumpled linen suit appeared beside them and started playing a tune on his violin, smiling at each of them in turn. Wren stared up at him, and he winked. The song was in Italian, but she distinctly heard the word amore on more than one occasion. Her smile had already frozen on her face when he paused playing and reached into a knapsack at his side, producing an imitation red rose wrapped in heart-patterned cellophane and nudging it towards her dad.
Alan’s face went instantly puce. ‘Nah, nah, son. She’s not?—’
‘I’m his daughter,’ yelped Wren so loudly that other tables looked over. The violinist looked confused so she said again, lowering her voice. ‘Me and him… not together. Um, father and daughter?’
The violinist frowned and pushed the rose towards Alan more insistently, the language barrier not helping at all, and her dad pressed it back with his hand.
‘ Bella signora …’ he said, gesturing at Wren, slightly pityingly. ‘Beautiful, no?’
‘Yes, yes, very beautiful,’ said Alan through gritted teeth. ‘But she’s not my wife. Not . Wife .’ He pointed to his ring finger, where the wedding ring he’d received from Wren’s mam many moons ago still sat, and then at Wren’s bare ring finger.
The man’s eyebrows rose then waggled. ‘Ah! Naughty, naughty …’ He made a tutting noise while grinning. Wren buried her face in her hands.
‘Not that either,’ growled Alan.
When Wren looked up, she saw her dad pushing a five-euro note into the violinist’s hand, face like thunder. ‘Now bugger off.’
This the violinist seemed to understand, so he tossed the rose onto the table and walked off with his nose in the air.
Wren finally met her dad’s eye, then they both looked down at the rose and exploded with laughter.
‘Oh my God,’ whispered Wren. ‘What just happened?’
‘Talk about lost in translation,’ Alan said, chuckling as he wedged another handful of chips into his mouth and shook his head.
‘Well, thank you for the rose,’ she said, thinking that if Alex had been sat opposite, he probably wouldn’t have bought her one even though they were together.
Their waiter bounded over to top up their wine. He was young, maybe early twenties, and had previously been polite and efficient, but now he looked positively fizzing with attentiveness.
‘Apologies for our musician. Anyone can see you’re father and daughter.’
He held Wren’s eye and gave her a smile as he poured. ‘Very beautiful,’ he said.
Wren flushed. Was he… hitting on her? In front of her dad?
‘The Isle of Capri,’ the waiter quickly added, nodding to the island in the distance, now bathed in the glow of the sun as it set behind it. ‘It’s very beautiful – you must go.’
‘Oh! Right. The island.’ Wren cringed. Of course he was talking about the view. She was extremely deskilled at interpreting advances, clearly. Years of being in a committed relationship would do that to a person.
‘Of course,’ he said with a smirk. ‘It is a magical place. You’ve heard of the sirens?’
‘Um…’
‘The sirens were beautiful ghost women on Capri – they lured fishermen to their deaths with their singing. And the Blue Grotto… you have heard of that, of course?’
Wren nodded. She’d heard of the grottoes on Capri, caves filled with sea water that glowed an eerie blue and green.
‘Well, inside there, legends say there were mermaids and witches. It’s an isle of beautiful, dangerous women.’ He held her gaze more intensely this time, and Wren realised she wasn’t actually mistaken about his intentions. She bit her lip, trying not to laugh. He was trying this in front of her dad . ‘Actually, my uncle has a boat. How about tomorrow?—?’
‘I’m busy!’ she chirped, trying to quell the bubble of amusement that threatened to burst. She had to give him credit for the myths-and-legends spiel, but he was far too young, and she shuddered to think how many women he’d tried this on before. ‘ We’re busy,’ she reiterated, nodding towards Alan. ‘But thanks for the recommendation – we’ll be sure to take a look before we go home.’
He pursed his lips and nodded, beating a hasty retreat before she could even say thank you for the refill.
Alan slurped his wine and raised his eyebrows at her over the top of the glass.
‘Don’t even…’ she warned.
He put his glass down and ran his pinched fingers over his lips, a smile quivering at their edges.
They looked out across the bay for a while in contented silence. Capri sat in the middle distance, its twin hills backlit by the setting sun. The silence made space for Wren’s thoughts to work back to a less cheerful place. Before she could stop herself, she turned to her dad.
‘Did you ever go on holiday with my mam?’ she asked, circling her finger around the top of her wine glass and trying to keep her tone light.
‘Once or twice. Nowhere as snazzy as this though. Shame, she would have loved it here.’
‘Would she?’ asked Wren carefully. ‘I feel like I know so little about her. What with never meeting my grandparents. And we don’t really talk about her that much.’
Alan shifted in his seat and took a drink. Playing for time. This happened often when the subject of Caron was raised.
‘I know.’ His voice was quiet, the mood plummeting. ‘I’ve said before, it’s difficult.’
Wren didn’t say anything for a moment, daring herself to ask him the question. Why had he clammed up when he’d said he’d met Edie and talked about his daughter Serenity? A name he never used. She chewed her lip and tried to build up the nerve to ask.
But then the waiter returned to take away their plates and the moment was lost. She gratefully received the dessert menu and was surprised to feel relieved when Alan started enthusiastically and inaccurately trying to pronounce delizie al limone when making his order. She ordered a panna cotta and decided that a sweet distraction was probably for the best – for now.