Chapter 27
Sunday flights from Pisa to London were all full so she managed to find herself a seat on Saturday afternoon. After booking it she sat and looked down at the Labrador, sprawled at her feet.
‘I’m going to miss you, Max.’ He opened one eye and the end of his tail wagged uncertainly. ‘But I can’t make the biggest decision of my life based on a dog, can I? That would be silly, wouldn’t it?’
He didn’t look convinced – but then, neither was she.
As she only had another day and a bit before leaving, she set about clearing everything away and using up the contents of the fridge, leaving just what she would need for two breakfasts and her mushroom dinner with Adam tomorrow. Once she was confident that things were more or less in order, she took Max for a walk up the hill and was delighted to run into a friend, or two friends, if she included Coco.
‘Ciao, Rosa, that’s good, I was going to come around and see you today or tomorrow to say goodbye.’
Rosa looked disappointed. ‘Do you have to leave? Now that the house is all finished we were hoping you’d decide to stay on.’
‘Unfortunately I have to be at work on Monday, but I’ll try and get back here at least for a few days before too long.’
‘Just a few days? That’s terrible.’ An expression of concern appeared on Rosa’s face. ‘You’re not going to sell the house, are you? We would hate to lose you from the town.’
They walked across to the old shed and sat down on the bench. Amy shook her head slowly. ‘I just don’t know. I suppose I might sell it, but I just can’t make up my mind.’
‘Why not settle down here? You know we’d love it if you did.’
Amy smiled at her. ‘Thanks, but I need a bit of time to think things through. You see, I have a big job back in London and it would be a massive step for me to just throw that away.’
They carried on chatting until Rosa had to head off home. Before separating, she gave Amy a big hug and kissed her on the cheeks. ‘Come back and see us as soon as you can. Promise?’
Amy nodded. ‘I promise.’
That evening she decided to go for one last dinner at the Corona Grossa and the first thing Giuliano asked her when he saw her was the same question Rosa had asked, and Amy gave him the same answer. She was spared from having to face another battery of questions by the arrival of a very welcome face. It was her half-brother and he came straight across to her with a smile on his face.
‘Ciao, Amy, I was just on my way home and I saw you sitting here. Have you got time for a chat?’
‘I definitely have.’ Amy jumped up and kissed him on the cheeks and then pointed to the spare chair. ‘Why don’t you join me for dinner? I’m going home at the weekend and I’ve no idea when I’ll be back next. I feel we’ve got so much to say to each other.’
Over a meal of cured ham and melon followed by smoked trout and a mixed salad, Amy gradually continued to bond with the brother she never knew she had. He told her about his years growing up effectively without a father, and she told him about her childhood in return. As they spoke, they both realised how similar their lives had been in so many ways. By the time Amy’s panna cotta arrived, she felt she knew him much better and she sensed that he had fully relaxed in her company.
After a warm embrace, and a promise to come back soon, she walked home with the sleepy Labrador, reflecting that Rolando was another reason why she should seriously consider starting a new life over here. The trouble was that the great unknown still remained: what would she do with her time?
The hours flew by and Friday evening was soon upon her. Tonight she didn’t bother dressing up particularly for Adam’s benefit. She told herself that this was because she was cooking and she didn’t want to risk getting splashes of hot oil on one of her good dresses, but it was also because the realisation had been sinking in that there was no point. It was all too clear that he wasn’t interested in her, and that was that.
Adam arrived to a rapturous greeting from Max and a more subdued greeting from her. She kissed him on the cheeks but then hurried back to the kitchen, leaving him in the living room with his canine friend. She called to him over her shoulder as she retrieved the raw porcini salad from the fridge.
‘Are you feeling brave? You offered to check out my father’s wine cellar downstairs. Would you feel like doing that now?’
He came into the kitchen, closely followed by the Labrador. ‘I will if you will. Why don’t you come down with me and you can take a look for yourself? I promise if there are any anacondas down there I’ll strangle them with my bare hands.’
She shuddered. ‘Don’t even joke about snakes. All right, I’ll come with you, but if I run off screaming you have to promise not to laugh.’
‘It’s a promise.’ Although he was already laughing.
She waited until he had gone down the stairs and had located the light switches. When the new lights down there illuminated the whole of the huge cellar area she took a deep breath and went down to join him. To the chagrin of the Labrador, he was left upstairs. The last thing Amy wanted was for a snake or a scorpion to hurt him, although from the plaintive whining noises filtering down to them, he wasn’t best pleased to be left behind.
Adam led her the full length of the cellar until they were standing right beneath the front door. Here she saw, for the first time, that a brick wall had been built across the far corner, creating a little triangular room. Adam went over to it, opened the old wooden door and located a light switch inside.
‘I thought so.’ He sounded triumphant. ‘Come in here and take a look at this.’
Carefully scrutinising the doorway for spiders’ webs or anything else that might look sinister, Amy stepped in alongside him, instinctively grabbing his arm with both of her hands for protection. At first, she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. The light bulb hanging from the ceiling didn’t give much light and all she could see until her eyes accommodated were loads of little spots in front of her eyes. It took a moment or two before she realised that what she was looking at were shelves filled with bottles of wine on their sides, and the little spots she could see were in fact the tops of the bottles facing her. She did a very quick count and gave up trying after reaching two hundred. Suddenly conscious that she was still hanging onto Adam’s arm – or more precisely his strong biceps – she released her grip on him and stepped over to investigate.
She glanced back at him. ‘Are these bottles of Signor Montalcino’s wine?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. All the bottles are corked. This is big-name stuff. Try checking some of the labels.’
She did as instructed and was soon feeling overwhelmed at the range and quality of the wines down here. There was everything from twenty-year-old Barolo to fine wines from Bordeaux, Rioja and even Austria, Premier Cru Meursault, Chablis and Sancerre and a whole shelf devoted to vintage champagnes. She turned back to Adam in amazement.
‘Wow, there must be a fortune in wine here.’
‘You can say that again. Like I told you, he knew his wines.’ He caught her eye. ‘His legacy to you just gets more and more impressive, doesn’t it?’
She was feeling quite emotional by this stage so she just waved in the general direction of the bottles and asked, ‘Red or white? Let’s open one tonight and toast him.’
‘Are you sure?’ Seeing her nod, he made a decision. ‘Red’s probably best as it doesn’t need to be chilled.’
She nodded. ‘Red it is. It’s the least I can do for him.’
She pulled out a bottle of ten-year-old St-Estèphe and blew away its covering of dust. ‘How about this?’
‘Looks very good to me.’
She followed him back to the stairs and this time as she climbed out of the cellar it felt less like escaping than before. So there were a few scorpions, so there might be a grass snake or a slow worm, the fact was that her father had collected an amazing selection of fine wines and left them for her. The least she could do was to find the courage to go down there every now and then and open one in his honour. But if Adam wasn’t going to be around, she knew she would be doing it with gloves and boots on.
They sat down to eat at the kitchen table and the porcini salad was greeted with his enthusiastic approval. After this she then got up to fry the porcini slices but, before making a start, she opened the fridge and pulled out her new Labrador dish. On this she had laid out a selection of ham, salami and cheese. As she set it on the table, she apologised and explained. ‘As I’m flying back to London tomorrow, I’m clearing the fridge, so I hope you don’t mind a few leftovers.’
‘Of course not. It all looks wonderful.’ He pointed to the bottle of wine, which had been sitting there since he had opened it. ‘Feel like trying the wine before you get the frying pan out? We probably should have let it breathe for a couple of hours or more, but it should be okay.’
He filled two glasses and handed one to her. ‘Here, are you going to say a few words?’
She took the glass from him and nodded as she held it up in front of her. ‘A toast to my dad. I love him even though I never met him and I’m sure if I’d met him I would love him all the more.’ Her voice broke but she just managed to add a croaky, ‘Cheers, Dad.’
‘To your dad.’ After clinking his glass against hers, Adam lifted his skywards. ‘Cheers to you, Mart. You were one of the good guys.’
The wine was predictably excellent. By tacit agreement they didn’t speak for a few minutes while Amy busied herself dipping the mushroom pieces in egg and flour and frying them. As she did so, she gradually regained control of her fragile emotions. Somehow, that sip of wine had brought her ever closer to the generous, loving, but complicated man who had been her father.
At the end of the meal, while they ate the fresh peach and apricot fruit salad she had made so as to use up the last of the fruit in the fridge, Adam looked across the table and asked that same question one more time.
‘So have you decided that your life is going to continue to be in London? No desire to come over here and put down roots in Tuscany?’
She took a sip of wine before answering honestly. ‘I genuinely don’t know. Part of me likes the idea of staying here, not least because it would somehow keep me closer to my father, but the ambitious part of me tells me to head back to my job.’ She gave him a few seconds to tell her he hoped she would stay but there was no response so she carried on. ‘Short-term, at least, I have no choice. I’m booked on a flight tomorrow afternoon and I’ll be back at work on Monday morning.’
‘And that’s what you want to do?’
‘Like I told you, I love my job – at least, I have done up till now. Let’s see how badly they’ve missed me over the last five weeks.’ She did her best not to let the thought of slimy Christian ensconced in her office ruin a pleasant evening.
‘Pierpaolo told me you had a collapse of some sort, brought on by overwork. Is that right?’
Amy smiled ruefully to herself. The love of Danny’s life certainly liked a bit of gossip. ‘That’s what the specialist at the hospital said. But it’s all right, I promised her and I’ve promised myself that I’m going to try to take things easier from now on.’
‘What does your boyfriend think about that? Danny told me he saw you at the restaurant with a man.’
Amy suddenly realised that she hadn’t told Adam about her breakup with Gavin. In fairness, he hadn’t spoken about any relationship he might have either. ‘He’s no longer my boyfriend. We split up while you were in Brazil.’
‘Was that because of your job? Did he think you were putting your work before him?’ He stopped and looked across at her apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, that’s no business of mine. I just get so used to asking questions for my work that it’s almost instinctive. Please excuse me. I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘It’s all right, I dumped him because he and I didn’t share the same values when it comes to being faithful.’ She considered for a moment. ‘I suppose I had been devoting a lot of time to my work, and he maybe was feeling a bit left out. But I still don’t think that’s a reason to leap into bed with another woman.’
‘That’s tough.’ She saw him take a sip of wine. ‘And that’s my own painful personal experience talking.’
Amy’s ears pricked up, but she refrained from asking for details, hoping he would say more. But all she got were a few words.
‘It’s a long sad story. I’ll tell you some time.’ She saw him glance at his watch and finish the last of the wine in his glass before standing up. ‘I’d better get back, I’m afraid. The trouble with working with the US is that it’s the middle of the afternoon over there and, of course, nobody thinks about the time difference. I have another Zoom meeting with Hollywood in half an hour, so I have to go.’
Amy stood up as well and, as she did so, she felt the Labrador stir at their feet. ‘Thank you for coming, and good luck with the award application.’
‘Thank you for inviting me, and for helping me with that damn form.’
‘Any time. Be careful in Somalia, won’t you?’ This was all sounding a bit stilted but what else could she say? Blurting out that she liked him a lot and felt attracted to him wasn’t going to help. If she did and it resulted in an outpouring of affection from him, it would make her return to London even more bittersweet. If it just resulted in him giving her a peck on the cheek and disappearing, that would do nothing to temper the sadness she was feeling at losing him from her life – or at least seriously limiting the times they would be able to meet up. His voice interrupted her thoughts.
‘When will I see you again?’
She wondered if he had been thinking along the same lines as she had, but his face gave nothing away. She could only shrug her shoulders.
‘I don’t know. Hopefully quite soon, but I’ve now used up all my back holiday entitlement so it’ll probably be a few months before I manage to come back over here. If you ever come to London, do give me a call and let’s meet up.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind. Thanks again.’ He reached out with both hands and caught her gently by the shoulders, pulled her towards him and for a moment she felt her eyes closing in anticipation but all she got from him were the usual pair of chaste pecks on the cheeks.
‘Arrivederci, Amy.’
I’ll see you again.But the question was when?