Chapter 2
I scan the walls with the torch on my phone, then open the first set of windows and push aside the shutters to let in the light. It’s still dark, but not half as bad as it might have been.
‘Let’s open all the windows and shutters for some air,’ I say, navigating the big kitchen table as I head to the back door to open that too.
‘Mr Fluffy needs a wee!’
‘Oh, yes.’ I push open another door. ‘In here,’ I say, checking the loo first. Again, it’s relatively clean.
‘Leave the door open,’ says Aimee, as she sidles in.
‘We’ll get settled and Mr Fluffy sorted, and then I’ll try to find an electrician,’ I say, as brightly as I can.
‘Will the electrician make the place less scary?’ Aimee says, as I flush the loo and turn on the taps for her to wash her hands. It’s cold but it’s water. I hold out my T-shirt for her to dry them and she walks out, hugging Mr Fluffy, her head down, her nose on the top of his head.
I feel like crying, but if I started I probably wouldn’t be able to stop. I swallow the lump in my throat. ‘There’s nothing to be scared of. Remember, Dad chose this place for us,’ I repeat. ‘This is an adventure.’
‘Mr Fluffy’s hungry,’ says Aimee.
‘I’m starving,’ says Luca, and his stomach growls. His hands fly to it and he looks surprised, making us all smile.
We’re standing in what looks like someone’s front room after they’ve just walked out, leaving everything they’ve ever owned in it.
There are photographs on the walls, vying for space, and it smells musty.
It’s as if time has stood still, since the door was closed on the place, however many years ago that was.
‘It’s not scary. It was someone’s home,’ I say. ‘We just need to make it our home. Make it how we’d like it.’
I stare at the photographs, the lace doilies on the dark-wood sideboard, loaded with china ornaments and crockery, and wonder where to start.
‘Let’s go and find something to eat,’ I suggest, ‘and ask around for an electrician. Then we’ll come back and make our beds.
Everything will look better in the morning.
And we’ll go shopping now, get what we need for breakfast,’ I say cheerily, looking at their wary, yet trusting faces.
Inside I feel tired, scratchy, and my spirits are dipping.
Oh, Marco! Why did you have to leave me?
A bloody heart attack of all things, I think angrily.
And why didn’t we get round to tackling proper grown-up issues like life insurance?
Because we were always too busy trying to make the restaurant the best it could be, dreaming of the day when life would be easier and we’d come to stay in our little piece of Italy. My eyes prickle.
I usher the children out of the door – it takes the three of us to pull it shut. I lock it, although, looking around the quiet street, I’m not sure why. I turn in the direction of the terraced houses where the three older women were arguing. It’s quiet now.
‘Come on, Dad wouldn’t have wanted us to feel like this.’ I put on a smile. ‘He’d have wanted us to enjoy ourselves. We’ll go and find a restaurant or café. Papa wouldn’t have bought a holiday home without somewhere good to eat nearby!’
I stop and take in the view. Now I know why Marco bought this place.
He said he could see us sitting out here in our old age.
There is a heat-haze over the golden hills in front of me and the higgledy-piggledy village houses seem to be tumbling down the hillside towards huge open fields, punctuated by cypresses and what may be chestnut trees too.
The sun is sinking a little lower in the sky, and tears spring to my eyes.
It really is beautiful, and I wish Marco was here to see it.
Maybe he is, I muse, imagining him beside me admiring at the view.
‘You okay, Mum?’ asks Luca, touching my hand.
‘Fine, my lovely. Fine.’ I smile at him, take hold of their hands and squeeze.
The three of us walk out onto the road and, following my instinct, which is about all I have to rely on, these days, we head up the hill towards the remote village Marco described to me after he’d put in an offer on the house.
‘How could I not, Thea?’ he’d said. ‘It was a steal!’ I remember him grinning, which made me smile, because however madcap his ideas were, I’d loved them – and him.
I breathe in the warm air. Maybe if Marco and I had taken time off, closed the restaurant for a few days, planned a proper holiday together, he wouldn’t have been trying to make plans for our future on his own. And I wouldn’t be trying to sell this house alone.