Chapter 15
Amy made sure she was up and dressed well before seven o’clock on Monday morning. After grabbing a quick cappuccino and a brioche at the hotel she hurried across to the house. Just as she got there, she was delighted to hear a vehicle follow her into the drive. It was Signor Rossi, the plumber, true to his word. Even better, barely two minutes later, the roar of a truck engine told her that Signor Pozzovivo and his two men had also arrived.
Keen to make up for inflicting English tea on the plumber the other day, she set about making coffee for all of them with her fancy new machine. She had only just finished one lot when there was a knock on the door. It was Signor Rossi’s cousin, Emilio the electrician, nostrils flaring as he smelt the coffee. His presence also reduced her fears of the coffee machine causing a major power outage.
The rest of the day was a confusing sequence of decisions to be made on the hoof. Still, she told herself, having to decide where to position a power point was a whole lot less stressful than doing a twenty-million-pound forex deal. She refused to venture into the cellar and told the electrician to install lights and sockets wherever he thought fit. The memory of the snake was still fresh in her mind. The good news was that the men all agreed that the only snakes around were harmless grass snakes, so that was one less thing to worry about. In fact, according to Lorenzo, the little yellow and black snake might well not have been a snake at all but a young slowworm. Snake or not, harmless or not, Amy knew that she had no desire whatsoever to find any more of them so she stuck to her plan of staying well clear of the cellar.
In the course of the day the coffee machine barely stopped as she ensured that the tradesmen were all happy. By the end, she had finally managed to get them to start calling her Amy instead of Signora and she was calling them all by their first names. This at least made it easier to distinguish the lanky electrician, Emilio Rossi, from his tattooed cousin, the plumber Angelo Rossi. It was just after four o’clock when she closed the door on the last of them and hurried around to Signora Grande’s house to pick up Max for his delayed daily walk. Both of them greeted her warmly and she and the Labrador had a quick walk in the fields, which cleared her head and blew the dust out of her lungs. After having skipped lunch, she was beginning to feel hungry – and filled with nervous anticipation at the evening to come. Was the aperitivo a date?
She went back to the house to lock up for the night and stood at the door looking inside. The floor she had spent days cleaning was now a dusty mess all down the middle where the builders had carted out the old kitchen and bathroom furniture. To the right of the fireplace, plugged into an extension lead on Mr Slater’s… her father’s old coffee table, were the electric kettle, coffee machine and the little cooker lent to her by Angelo the plumber. This had two hotplates and would be her only source of hot food if she were to decide to move in any time soon. The kitchen itself was now just an empty shell waiting for Lorenzo Pozzovivo and his men to replaster a couple of walls prior to fitting the new units. Electric cables and water pipes protruded from the walls, ready to be connected once the builders had finished their work.
The consensus was that she would be without hot water and power from the middle of the week for four or five days, so she resolved to stay at the hotel until then. Lucy was arriving the next day so it made sense to stay with her at the hotel until she left again. After that Amy could move into her first ever house – and what a house! It promised to be magnificent once it was finished. Of course, that then begged the question of what to do with it. She felt sure she should be able to sell it for a lot of money if she wanted, but the longer she stayed here in Sant’Antonio, the closer she felt to the community and she knew she would miss the place and all the new friends and acquaintances she was making. Alternatively, she could keep it as a holiday home but, as she knew only too well, the constraints of her high-pressure job would probably only allow her to snatch a few days off here and there.
She spent ten minutes washing the cups and checking that she had enough coffee, milk, sugar and biscuits to feed the workmen, whose appetite for coffee rivalled Max’s appetite for food. By her reckoning, Emilio the electrician had had seven cups of strong coffee in the course of the day and she wondered how he would ever be able to get off to sleep. She dried all the mugs and returned them to the box that would be their temporary home for the next week or two until the new kitchen units arrived.
All the time her mind was working, digesting the developments of the past few days. The discovery that a completely different man was her real father was exciting, but it threw up as many questions as it answered. Prime among these was what she should think of her mother, who had, after all, lied to her throughout her whole life.
It couldn’t have been easy for her mother to bring up a child single-handed on just a military widow’s pension – or had she? Maybe Martin Slater had contributed. Looking back on it, Amy couldn’t remember any particular financial hardship – although her mother had always been careful with money – so he probably had. Considering his reputation for generosity here in the town, she felt confident that he would have provided financial help for his daughter, even if her mother had banished him forever. Not for the first time, she wiped away a tear as she thought of the frustration he must have felt throughout his whole life, but then, of course, things must have been tough for her mum as well.
Amy knew she hadn’t been the easiest of children, especially during her teenage years. She had loved her mum – there could be no doubt about that – but she was the first to acknowledge that their relationship had never been a warm, cosy one. Somehow her mum had always been too unemotional, too withdrawn, and now, of course, she knew the real reason why. Not only had she lost her husband, but she had taken the decision to expel the father of her child from both of their lives and that must have taken its toll. If the letter in the safe was right, it had been her choice to sever all links with him, out of a sense of shame or guilt, and the result had been devastating, forever stunting her emotionally.
Amy knew that her mum had been a deeply religious woman – at least she had been after the death of the man Amy had been brought up to believe had been her father – and she had also been very stubborn. But, even so, surely she should have come clean and told her only daughter the truth as she entered adulthood? Amy now found herself in mourning for three parents, two of whom she had never met. She gave a deep and heartfelt sigh and headed for the hotel to change in readiness for her drinks with Adam.
After a quick shower, she stood in her room for a minute or two, trying to decide what to wear for the aperitivo. In spite of the glamorous name, she knew that this wasn’t going to be a James Bond-style black tie and evening gown event where they would be sipping vodka martinis, shaken not stirred. It would probably just involve sitting at a table in the piazza outside the hotel like she had been doing most evenings since arriving here. On the one hand, she wanted to look good but, at the same time, she had no intention of throwing herself at him. First, that wasn’t the way she was made. She had never been a particularly ostentatious person and she hadn’t brought a dress with her that could be described as even mildly scandalous. Secondly, there was the unresolved question of Adam’s relationship with Danny and she would look pretty foolish if she tried to act as a seductress, only to find that he wasn’t interested. And third, of course, was Gavin. Whatever his defects, she was still in that relationship and it wouldn’t be fair on him.
In the end she opted for one of her favourites, a light pink linen blouse and a pair of white jeans. Checking herself out in the mirror before leaving the room she decided that she would do. At least she was clean and she looked presentable. She went downstairs just as it was striking the half hour and found Adam waiting for her in the bar. He gave her an appreciative look and held out his hand. ‘Wow, you look great.’
She was completely unable to stop her cheeks from flushing as she shook hands with him and she hastily pointed towards the open doors. ‘Shall we go outside? It’s a beautiful evening.’ She didn’t remark that he was also looking very good in a light grey polo shirt and faded jeans. She could have done, but she didn’t.
Outside they sat down at her usual table and Giuliano came over to see what they wanted to drink. Adam didn’t hesitate.
‘It has to be champagne, doesn’t it? This is a celebration, after all.’
Amy shook her head. ‘It’s been a long day and if I have more than a glass of wine I’ll probably fall over. Besides, that would mean you have to drink the rest of the bottle and I imagine you don’t want to get hammered if you’ve got to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Instead, I would quite like an Aperol spritz.’ She glanced up to see if Giuliano had understood her order, even though it had been delivered in English, and she saw him nod.
Adam also nodded. ‘Okay, you’re the boss.’ He ordered a beer for himself and once the restaurateur had disappeared inside, he repeated his earlier comment. ‘You do look great, you know. Martin would have been so pleased.’ He leant towards her. ‘You have his eyes.’
Amy swallowed hard as she stared back into his eyes at close quarters. ‘I wish I’d known him. Tell me, did he have a special someone?’
‘I’m afraid that’s one area where I can’t help you. We never spoke about women but I would be surprised if he didn’t have somebody. He was a good-looking guy, as well as being charismatic.’ He waited until the drinks had been placed in front of them. ‘But to my knowledge, he never had a live-in girlfriend.’
The conversation drifted away from her father and Adam told her all about his upcoming trip to Brazil, which sounded pretty scary, trekking off into the wilds of the Amazon rainforest. She warned him to be careful, particularly to look out for snakes or those fish which could strip a man to the skeleton in two minutes. She wasn’t totally sure of her facts but she remembered hearing about something like that in a documentary. He promised to take care and then he got her to tell him about her job. In the end, although she had intended not to mention it, she told him about her scare when she had collapsed in the kitchen, and he was quick to offer advice in his turn.
‘The doctors were right, you know, Amy. You can’t take your health for granted. However much you enjoy your job, you’ve got to learn to take it easy.’ He then went on to make the suggestion that had been running around in her head ever since arriving in Sant’Antonio. ‘Why don’t you give up the day job and move over here? I’m sure you can find something to do and it’s a great place to live. Remember, your health has to be your number one priority. To be perfectly honest, that’s part of the reason I moved away from Hollywood. The pressure there is non-stop.’
They carried on chatting about less contentious subjects and all too soon he finished the last of his beer, gave her an apologetic glance, and stood up. ‘I’m sorry, but I need to make a move. I promise I’ll take you for that meal when I get back from Brazil.’
‘Well, you just look after yourself. Stay away from those creepy crawlies.’ She stood up as well and when he came over to say goodbye, she caught hold of his shoulders and kissed him on the cheeks. He didn’t recoil and, in fact, he looked as though he enjoyed the contact. She certainly did. Armed with that impression, she stepped back and finally found the courage to bring up the subject that had been playing on her mind all evening. ‘How’s Danny going to cope while you’re away?’
A look of surprise spread across his face. ‘Danny? He’ll be fine. He’s got Pierpaolo to look after him, after all.’
She watched him walk off across the piazza and there was one thought going round and round inside her head.
Who the hell was Pierpaolo?
She didn’t know what to think. Nobody had mentioned the name Pierpaolo to her before, so who could he be? Maybe this Pierpaolo was Danny’s love of his life? If that were the case then what did this mean as far as Adam was concerned? Did he have a significant other and who might that be? She had never liked uncertainty and these questions continued to nag at her all evening, even as she enjoyed a generous helping of the chef’s delicious lasagne made with spinach, mushrooms and aubergines. As she ate, she kept reminding herself that she was still in a relationship with Gavin – assuming he could eventually summon up the energy to contact her.