A Place in the Sun

Chapter 1

‘You have arrived at your destination. Make a U-turn. Turn left. Make a U-turn. Turn right. You have arrived at your destination.’

It feels like Groundhog Day , but it’s not wet or snowy, like the film. It’s hot. We have all the windows open. The aircon packed up when we were leaving France, and it’s getting hotter.

‘Make a U-turn! Turn left. Make a U-turn!’

‘All right, all right!’ I say, tired, flustered, and trying to switch off the satnav, punching the button.

I stop the car and put my head into my hands.

The heat sweeps in, wrapping itself around us, like a goose-down duvet.

I fan myself with an empty paper bag from one of the many roadside meals we’ve had on our journey from the UK.

At first I tried to make the road trip to Italy an adventure.

And the B-and-Bs we’ve stayed in for the last couple of nights have been small, friendly and lovely.

But now I want it to be over. I just want to have reached our destination.

‘Mum,’ Luca says, from the passenger seat beside me, my iPad on his lap, ‘this could be it. It’s like one of the pictures Dad took. Look at the village up there.’ He points towards a hilltop we must have driven past at least three times, maybe four.

‘Are we nearly there yet?’ asks Aimee, from the back seat.

‘Nearly, love.’

‘You said that ages ago,’ she says.

In the rear-view mirror I can see her flushed cheeks. ‘I know, love. But I promise we’re nearly there now.’ Just wishing we could find the place.

‘Make a U-turn!’ interrupts the satnav, bossily.

‘You and I are going to fall out, lady!’

Aimee giggles, cheering me up. ‘She’s not real, Mummy!’

‘Isn’t she?’ I tease. ‘I thought she was. I thought she ’d eaten all the wine gums.’

Aimee giggles some more. ‘No, that was you.’

‘Me? It wasn’t! It was the satnav lady – I heard her burp.’

And even Luca smiles.

It’ll be fine, I tell myself firmly.

‘She didn’t. She’s a machine!’ Aimee laughs now.

In the rear-view mirror, she’s clasping Mr Fluffy to her chest as I turn the car and set off up a narrow lane towards the hilltop village.

It’s overgrown and banked by tumbledown stone walls at either side, so tight that I’m not sure I should be driving along it …

I’ve spent three days in the car with these two and they’ve been brilliant.

I couldn’t be prouder. Luca has read the map all the way, regardless of the satnav.

Belt and braces! Aimee has watched films, played with her toys and slept.

Now I can smell the sun on the fields around us and herbs: rosemary, a hint of mint and wild fennel as the car and wing mirrors brush against the hedge. Aimee is still laughing, and I can’t help smiling.

‘Mum, watch out!’ Luca shouts, jolting my attention to the road.

I slam on the brakes and a man with three goats crosses from a field on one side of the road to another. I nod when he and the animals are safely over and he nods slowly back.

The children are no longer smiling and I need to find the house. My tetchiness returns.

‘Well, she’s clearly gone to sleep,’ I say, tapping at the satnav but getting no response.

I take the next left, then left again.

It has to be around here somewhere. I attempt to drive straight on but the road is even narrower. I reverse, passing the man and his goats again, this time raising a hand, trying to look as if we’re not totally lost and to convince the children that everything’s fine.

‘Mr Fluffy really needs a wee. He can’t hold it!’ Aimee brandishes the well-worn stuffed rabbit, its head lolling to one side.

I know she isn’t joking. Mr Fluffy needing a wee tells me I must find her a toilet very quickly.

‘You have arrived at your destination.’ The satnav bursts into life again and I slam on the brakes.

‘Up there, Mum. I think we have to go up there,’ says Luca, peering at the photos on the iPad and pointing towards the narrow lane.

‘I can’t get the car up there,’ I say, straining to see what’s ahead over the steering wheel.

‘Well, maybe we have to walk,’ says my ever-sensible son.

He’s right. We’ve exhausted the options by car. I pull into a passing point, a clearing in the hedge, and try, without luck, to push open the car door.

‘I’ll have to get out your side,’ I say to Luca, who is on the road, stretching, the iPad in his hand.

I lift my leg over the handbrake and, with his help, haul myself out, as a stray sweet wrapper and a McDonald’s bag fly past me.

We chase after them, pick them up, throw them back into the footwell and shut the door.

I’ll deal with them later. I look around.

It seems as good a place as any to park the car.

But it has all our worldly belongings in it – I don’t want to leave it for long.

We grab a few things from the boot and I lock up. I hold my face to the Tuscan sun, which makes my cheeks tingle. It feels good to be out of the car.

But in no time at all I’m keen to be out of the bright sunlight and in the shade.

‘Come on, let’s see if we can find it up here,’ I say to Aimee.

‘I can’t. Mr Fluffy still needs a wee,’ she says. ‘And he’s too tired to walk.’

‘Come on, Aimee, it’ll be fun,’ says Luca, and again my heart swells with pride as he helps jolly his sister along. ‘Come on, let’s sing. And we’ll find Mr Fluffy a loo soon.’

The three of us hold hands, like Dorothy on the yellow brick road, and begin to sing the Italian lessons we’ve listened to all the way down.

‘ Piacere .’

‘ Piacere .’

‘It’s nice to meet you.’

‘ Piacere mio .’

‘It’s nice to meet you too!’ we sing, and swing our arms with Aimee, walking in the shade up a steep hill, the midday heat bouncing off the walls along narrow cobbled streets and neglected buildings.

‘Hey!’ I hear someone shout, as we pass a row of rundown but typically Tuscan terraced houses, with a dining chair outside the front door and washing hanging from the upstairs balcony. ‘No! No, no, no!’

‘ Signora! Madam! Cosa fai? What are you doing?’

My Italian is rusty but I understand what’s been said. For a moment I wonder if the voice is speaking to us. I glance around, then up.

A large-chested woman is leaning out of her balcony with a stick, flicking it at some sheets hanging on the line there.

There’s another shout from a second woman. ‘Hey! Stop! That is my clean washing!’

‘And it is on my side of the boundary. Keep your washing to yourself!’

There is another shout: ‘Please keep the noise down. I can hardly hear my television,’ says a third woman.

‘Madam, do not touch my washing with your stick!’

‘Don’t let it flap in my window. I don’t want to be disturbed by your sheets while I’m trying to rest.’

‘And shut your window when you’re cooking. The smell puts me off my dinner.’

‘Yours makes my washing smell bad so I have to do it again.’

‘Perhaps this time it’ll turn out clean.’

I hurry the children along. They’re fascinated by the altercation, their heads turned back the way we came to watch the women, who are still berating each other from the balconies of their stone houses.

Eventually I spot it. I recognize it straight away from the pictures.

The house with peeling paintwork on the door is Casa Luna.

I take the iPad from Luca and hold it up, secretly hoping the photo will show something a little less tired and neglected further up the street, but this is definitely the right one.

It’s barely changed since the snap was taken.

Maybe the shutters are a little more weatherworn, and even more weeds are growing around the front door between the cracks in the paving stones. I take a big loin-girding breath.

‘We’re here,’ I say, a touch of disappointment mixed with a sigh of relief. ‘We’ve made it. Finally, we’ve found you, Casa Luna.’

For a moment, I stand and stare. The house I’ve heard so much about, in which I’ve invested so many dreams. It’s real. If only the dreams were. There’s a tug at my hand.

‘Mum … Mr Fluffy still really needs the toilet.’

‘Oh, yes. I just need to unlock the door.’ I reach into my bag and pull out the big metal key with the cardboard tag on it. I push it into the lock but I can’t get it to turn.

‘Mum, Mr Fluffy really doesn’t like this.’

‘Me neither,’ says Luca, quietly. ‘It’s too hot here.’

‘It’ll be fine.’ I try to sound calm. ‘Really. Once we’re in and sorted it’ll be lovely, you’ll see.’ My heart is pounding with the heat and I’m wondering what I’ll find once I open the door. I feel queasy.

‘I really need to wee, Mum! And so does Mr Fluffy!’

My nerves are jangling. This was the best plan. It was the only plan, a voice says in my head.

I give the key another firm twist and the lock clunks. Finally. We’re in the right place.

‘There!’ I say, wiping my brow and pushing at the door. It won’t open.

‘Mr Fluffy can’t hold it, Mum!’ Aimee does a little dance.

And now she’s said it, I really want to go too. It’s been a long journey from our last overnight stop at the border.

‘Help me,’ I say to the kids, who step forward and shove at the door. It opens with a creak.

I’m out of breath. ‘Well done, both of you. I’m really proud of you. Let’s just get inside and find the light switch.’ I feel for it. It’s pitch black in there with the shutters closed and, despite the warmth of the day, the house is cool.

I can feel rough stone crumbling under my hand as I try to locate the switch, running my fingers over the uneven surface. I touch something soft and sticky and pull them back. ‘Argh!’ I shake my hand.

‘What was it?’

‘Did something bite you?’

‘Mr Fluffy is scared!’

‘It’s fine,’ I repeat.

I think even the kids know it’s not. We’re somewhere in the middle of Tuscany in a hilltop village called Città dei Castagni, town of the chestnut trees.

It’s supposedly full of Tuscan charm, according to Marco.

He’d come home and told me what he’d done with our life savings, which didn’t amount to much.

‘Hey, both.’ I turn back to them standing on the doorstep.

‘There’s nothing to be scared of. Dad wouldn’t have bought this place if he didn’t think we’d love it and want to spend time here, would he?

’ I put my hands on their shoulders to reassure them and myself.

I remind myself of Marco’s good intentions and how impulsive he was. I loved that about him.

They nod.

‘He chose this place for us to have holidays here. One day it’ll be our for-ever home … once you guys have flown the nest.’ I smile, unable to imagine that right now.

Then Aimee says, her voice wavering, ‘I don’t want to live in a nest and neither does Mr Fluffy.’ She starts to sob.

I crouch down to her. ‘Not a real nest, honey.’ My chest tightens: I’ve got it all wrong again, a fairly constant state right now. I wish I knew it would be fine. But I don’t.

‘Come on.’ I straighten and take her hand. ‘We just need to find the light … It’ll be like camping. Like the time Dad put the tent up in the garden.’

‘And a mole tried to burrow under it and scared you to death!’ Luca laughs, then Aimee joins in and so do I.

It’s how we’ve got through, with laughter and our memories of the fun times.

We’re a tight little unit, helping each other.

I’d tried to hide the worst of it from them but they’ve seen me struggle these last couple of years.

When I thought they were in bed and sat crying my eyes out over reruns of Virgin River , I’d discover them sitting at the top of the stairs and have to blame the tears on my favourite TV characters.

Then I’d chivvy them back to bed, knowing they hadn’t believed a word I’d said.

I’d often fall asleep with them, all of us tucked up in my bed.

With Marco dying, the restaurant going, losing the house and now moving to another country, these children have had more than most to deal with.

But the holiday home is all I’ve got left.

Even thinking about losing the house makes my blood boil, and tears sting my eyes.

It was our home. I tried, I really tried, to keep it all going.

‘Mum?’

‘I’m fine.’ There’s that word again. Fine.

‘I wish Papa was here,’ says Aimee.

I pull her to my side. ‘Me too, honey.’

‘Me three,’ says my son, coming in to hug us.

‘Maybe he is,’ I say quietly.

Then, with a squeeze, I let them go and reach back through the door for the light switch.

‘Found it!’ I say, with my hand over it. ‘Ready?’

I push down the switch and suddenly there’s light.

I push the door further open. It feels as if we’re walking into a museum, dark with falling wallpaper and a sagging ceiling.

It’s packed to the gunwales with stuff. Piles of chairs and tables, clothes and books.

I do what I’ve learnt to do over the two years since Marco died: I pull up my big-girl pants. Then I step inside.

It’s not too bad, cleaner than I was expecting, just crammed with belongings that someone has clearly been hoarding. The kitchen looks usable.

‘See? I told you it would be fine. A bit of a sort-out will work wonders!’

A loud crackling sound, like the fuse of a firework being lit, and a bang, makes us jump. All the lights go out and there’s a whiff of burning.

For a moment, none of us speaks. Then Luca asks, ‘Mum, how long do we have to stay for?’

‘When can we go home?’ Aimee clings to me.

‘Soon, lovelies, very soon. We just have to get this place looking like it’s wearing its Sunday best, then sell it to someone who wants to love it and live in it.

After that, we can go back to England and find a lovely little house for the three of us near your school and your friends.

Just think of it as a lovely long summer holiday. ’

I hug them even closer. What on earth have I done, bringing them here?