Chapter 4
They headed across the road and Amy gave Gavin a brief translation of what Signora Grande had said before selecting the biggest key from the bunch and using it to unlock the massive gates. Although the lock looked a bit rusty, it opened without protest and they walked through onto a broad gravelled parking area in front of the building. Around this were fine tall oleander bushes, even taller clumps of bamboo and a series of vicious-looking spiny cactus plants, some almost as big as she was.
L’Ospedaletto was built of dusty sandstone, the mortar weathered by the passage of the seasons and many of the joints dug out over the centuries by generations of birds and animals. Massive wooden doors right in front of them in the lower part of the building protected the entrance to a cellar or garage under the property, and the house itself was accessed up a flight of old stone steps that led to a terrace. An ancient rambling rose sprawled across the whole fa?ade with buds already well formed. It wouldn’t be long before they flowered and when they did this whole area would no doubt smell divine. As Amy climbed to the front door, families of lizards scuttled into crevices in the walls. She caught Gavin’s eye and grimaced. Hopefully they weren’t going to find the house full of reptiles.
At the old wooden front door, one of the more modern keys turned the lock and they stepped inside, glad to get out of the direct sunlight. It was cool and dark in the house and the drop in temperature compared to outside was welcome. Amy stood on the doormat and breathed deeply. The last hour had been unexpectedly emotional. It was good to have a moment to herself. She stood there, vaguely conscious of Gavin moving about, before light suddenly flooded into the house and along with it she felt a wave of warm air from outside as he went around the room, opening the windows one by one and pushing the heavy wooden shutters outwards. The sound of birds twittering in the trees outside suddenly became much louder and Amy shook her head, emerged from her daze and stared about in wonder before glancing at Gavin.
‘Wow! What a place.’
He looked equally impressed. ‘You aren’t joking.’
The front door led straight into a single, remarkable room. The walls were bare stone and the arched window surrounds were made of carved stone. The ceiling was very high – two or three times the height of her flat back in London, but it was the shape of the ceiling that was most impressive. It was ribbed all along its length with stone arches that supported the massive dark timbers that in turn carried the floor above, giving the room an almost ecclesiastical feel. The ceiling timbers were very old beams, likely oak, and the plaster between the beams had clearly not been painted for a long, long time. It could almost have been a chapel, or the great hall of a castle, although it was completely without ornamentation. The room was enormous and a hundred people would have been able to fit in here without trouble.
‘Mr Slater certainly had no shortage of space if he felt like entertaining. You could shoot Strictly in here.’ Gavin sounded as awe-struck as Amy felt.
Amy stared around the room. The floor was paved with ancient terracotta tiles that looked as though they had been there since the dawn of time. In the middle there was a huge old table, surrounded by a dozen chairs. Against the side wall were numerous bookcases and at this end of the room, a leather sofa was positioned in front of the monumental fireplace, with a number of old rugs strewn across the terracotta-tiled floor. At the far end, a stone archway led to a kitchen area. The overall impression was of immense space and a terrific sense of history.
‘Come and take a look out here, Amy.’
Amy glanced across and saw that one of the huge archways along the right-hand wall had been transformed into a pair of French windows leading into the garden. She followed him out onto the patch of gravel that served as a patio. This was flat, although the hillside sloped steeply upwards to their left and down towards the road to the right. All around them were bushes and cypress trees, many of them considerably overgrown, and a strong scent of rosemary was in the air. A fine palm tree towered above them, almost as tall as the house. The result was a dappled area of blessed shade where the air temperature was not only bearable, but delightful.
‘What a place!’ She couldn’t help repeating herself. ‘The house is amazing and the garden could be a real gem with a bit of effort.’
She saw Gavin shudder. Manual work had never been his thing. ‘A bit? You’d need a gang of labourers with chain saws.’
‘But it’s gorgeous, even if it is a bit overgrown. Mr Slater certainly had an eye for property.’
Gavin was fiddling with his phone. After a few seconds, he waved it at her and pointed up the hill. ‘The signal here’s rubbish. I need to make a call. I’ll be back in five minutes.’ And, without giving her a chance to say that she might like to come with him, he disappeared through the trees.
She sat down on an old bench and admired the view, soaking up the warmth and the clean country air. For a few moments she allowed herself to dream of giving up her life in London and coming over here to live. In fact, she had been considering it from the moment they had pulled up outside the notary’s office. Of course, that wasn’t going to be possible for two reasons: her job and Gavin. He didn’t speak a word of Italian and she couldn’t imagine him ever being willing to give up his job, his friends or the big city. But, for a few minutes, she let herself enjoy the thought. There was something about Italy that felt so familiar and yet so exciting.
She was still sitting there ten minutes later when he reappeared. ‘I had to walk halfway up the hill before I got a proper signal.’ His tone made clear what he thought of such a primitive place. ‘Maybe the peasants here make do with jungle drums.’ He sat down on the bench beside her. ‘What are we going to do about accommodation for tonight? You’re not planning on staying here in this house, are you? A hotel will be far more comfortable.’ And Amy knew how important Gavin’s personal comfort was to him.
‘I suppose we might stay here, but first we’d better check out the rest of the house before I commit myself to anything I might regret. I’m still a bit worried where all those lizards disappeared to.’
They went back inside and walked slowly through the house. Apart from the huge living room on the ground floor, there was a kitchen, a bathroom and another room piled high with junk. The kitchen itself wasn’t a pretty sight. The units were all in good repair, but very old-fashioned and covered in a thick coating of dust. The mould growing around the sides of the sink would probably have got Alexander Fleming very excited and Amy could see there was a major cleaning and disinfecting job to be done here. She opened the fridge and rapidly closed it again. The contents had doubtless been there since well before Mr Slater’s death the previous year. No amount of cleaning would remove the amorphous brown mass that had slid through the bars of the shelves before congealing in the vegetable compartment at the bottom into the sort of droopy, melting shape that would have made Salvador Dalí proud.
She started to compose a mental list of things she would need before the place could be rendered even remotely habitable. Fridge occupied the top line. She felt Gavin’s eyes on her and gestured towards the fridge.
‘That’ll have to go, and I’m afraid the cooker’s had its day.’
He grimaced. ‘It looks positively lethal.’
The rusty cooker was attached to a gas cylinder by a length of seriously corroded rubber pipe. This had probably started life red or orange, but it now reminded her of a rather wrinkly poisonous snake.
Gavin ran his finger across the worktop and it came back not only black, but sticky. He removed a tissue from his pocket and fastidiously wiped his hand clean. ‘New kitchen: stick it on your list.’
‘How do you know I’m making a list?’
‘Because that’s what you do. Well, go on, deny it. Tell me you aren’t preparing a list of things you’ll need to do.’
She just shrugged sheepishly and carried on with her survey.
Halfway along the wall of the living room was an ancient wooden staircase that led up to the first floor. It creaked ominously as they climbed – and it was a long way up. On the upper floor they found no fewer than six large bedrooms and a study. There was a big, solid wooden bed, stripped of all bedding, and some hefty matching furniture in the first room, with two beds and a dressing table in the next. Otherwise, the other rooms were quite empty, except for the study at the far end of the corridor. When they got there, Amy paused at the door and looked around.
It felt strange, almost improper, to be invading this very personal space. The floor was covered in odd bits and pieces, ranging from a couple of tennis racquets and a fishing rod to what looked like a rusty cannonball, while the desk was piled high with books and papers. Light filtered in through the louvred shutters as far as the other wall, which was filled by a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, packed with books. A battered old Remington typewriter took pride of place on the desk, and alongside it, a pen was lying on top of a pad as if the owner had just popped out to make himself a coffee. But, of course, Amy found herself thinking with a twinge of regret, he wouldn’t be coming back ever again – whoever he had been.
‘He certainly liked reading, didn’t he?’ Gavin was clearly amazed at the number of books squeezed onto the shelves that lined the walls.
He went over to the window, twisted the handle to open it and unfastened the shutters. As he pushed them outwards, sunlight came flooding into the room.
‘Wow! There’s quite a view from up here.’
Amy joined him at the window. They were now at the back of the house, looking out over a sea of vines that stretched up the hill above them. The leaves of the vines were a wonderful bright green, not yet burnt brown by the onslaught of the summer sun. Nevertheless, even now in early June, the stone surround to the window frame was hot. High summer here was likely to be boiling. Amy wondered how cold it would get in winter. She glanced sideways at Gavin.
‘Did you see any radiators?’ He shook his head. ‘That’s what I thought. Although it seems almost unbelievable on a day like this, I imagine it can get pretty chilly here in the winter. Take a look at that heater.’
In a corner of the room was an antiquated electric fire. It looked as if it had been manufactured around the year of Mr Slater’s birth, or even earlier. The twisted brown flex that snaked out of the back of it looked even more potentially deadly than the gas hose downstairs. Central Heating System went onto Amy’s mental list. This was rapidly getting longer and longer and it was time to write it down. She picked her way through the piles of clutter across to the desk and sat down on the fine old wooden swivel chair. The floor and the chair both creaked as she did so.
She located a pencil and picked up a piece of paper to write on while Gavin poked about on the bookshelves.
‘I wonder if he was a historian. There are loads of history books here – in English and in Italian.’
‘Who knows? Maybe the lady across the road can fill us in.’ Another thought occurred to Amy. ‘You said there wasn’t a mobile signal; what about an Internet connection? I haven’t seen a computer, so does this mean the Internet hasn’t reached Sant’Antonio yet?’
‘By the look of it, he only used that old typewriter. How antiquated can you get!’
While he checked his phone again and shook his head, she found a clean sheet of paper and started to write. After New Electrics, Internet Connection and Plumbing, she looked up. ‘I haven’t seen a bathroom up here, have you?’ He shook his head so Amy added New Bathroom upstairs and they headed back downstairs.