Chapter 28
Amy got back to London on Saturday evening still feeling downbeat. There had been tears in her eyes when she had presented the other Labrador dish she had made to Signora Grande and had given the big dog a last affectionate hug. All the way back on the plane she had been unable to concentrate on anything but Sant’Antonio and its inhabitants – all of them, both human and canine – and she knew she was going to miss them and laid-back life in the lovely old Tuscan town. And then, of course, there was l’Ospedaletto and the memory of her father, but even thoughts of him did little to cheer her. He had left her a wonderful house, but she was having to leave it. He had, by all accounts, been a lovely kind, generous man, but she had been prevented from ever meeting him. A combination of his insistence upon keeping the promise he had made to her mother, coupled with her inflexibility and stubbornness, had ruined the lives of both her parents and, looking back, had probably impacted her own. It was therefore with a heavy heart that she unlocked the door to her flat and turned on the lights.
Lying on the door mat was a jumble of mail, mostly adverts for pizza delivery services and cheap funerals. Underneath these she found Gavin’s key. It appeared that he had respected her instructions to return it to her after removing his belongings. That chapter of her life, at least, now appeared to be finished. She set down her bags and wandered into the kitchen. Needless to say, the fridge was empty – all except a lone bottle of Pinot Grigio. She took it out and opened it, poured herself a glass and located a packet of cheese and onion crisps. She was just sitting down to this meagre dinner when her phone started ringing. It was Lucy.
‘Welcome home, Amy. Glad to be back?’
‘Hi, Luce. To tell you the truth, I have no idea. Yes, in a way it’s good to be back on familiar territory and I’m looking forward to going into the office on Monday, but I can’t help thinking about Sant’Antonio.’
‘Anybody in particular you’re thinking about?’ Lucy didn’t give her time to answer. ‘Tell me later. I’m guessing you’re sitting there all alone with an empty fridge, so why don’t we meet up for a curry?’
‘That sounds like a marvellous idea, Luce, but haven’t you got better things to do on a Saturday night? I assumed you would be entertaining one of your phalanx of men friends.’
‘I’ve got some news on that front. I rather think that the phalanx – good word, that – has reduced itself to one man.’ Sensing Amy’s heightened interest, she continued. ‘I’ll tell you about him over a rogan josh.’
‘That’s excellent news – both the man and the curry – but why aren’t you with him tonight?’
‘He’s a pilot with British Airways and he’s on his way back from Agadir as we speak. I’m meeting him at midnight.’
They met up in the Bengal Palace and Amy immediately quizzed her friend about the man in her life. It turned out that this was a new boyfriend and, at long last, it sounded as though Lucy might finally have decided to abandon her wild ways after finding Mr Right. Needless to say, in return for this revelation, Amy had to sit through an interrogation of her own that finished with Lucy wagging her finger at her.
‘Your man is obviously off his head. From what you’ve told me, and from the way you speak about him, it’s clear to me that the two of you are made for each other. Now, if you’d just listened to Auntie Lucy and jumped on him, you wouldn’t be in this position now.’
‘What position?’
‘Sitting here with a face like a wet weekend. You should be bubbling over with joy. You’ve found out who your dad was and that he was a famous writer; you’ve discovered you’ve got a brother you knew nothing about; you’re the owner of a medieval palace, and you’ve got more money in the bank than I could even dream of having. Instead, look at you: you look as miserable as sin.’ She produced a mischievous grin. ‘Although in my experience sin can be a lot of fun.’
‘No, I’m not really miserable.’ Amy held up her hand to prevent Lucy from interrupting. ‘I’m just confused, that’s all. I’m looking forward to going back to work on Monday but at the same time there’s a part of me that questions whether I’m doing the right thing. Maybe my future lies in Tuscany. Just give me a few weeks to sort my head out.’
After ordering their meal, Lucy returned to the subject of Adam. ‘Do you think he’s got another woman? Is that it?’
Amy had been doing a lot of thinking about this. ‘When I told him I’d broken up with Gavin he made a comment along the lines of, “That’s tough, I know what it feels like,” or some such. I wonder whether he was in a relationship that ended badly and it’s a question of once bitten, twice shy.’
‘You could be right, but if that’s the case you just need to work on him. Get him talking about it and let him get to know you properly.’ Lucy waited until the waiter had brought them two bottles of beer. ‘The only thing is that in order to do that, you need to be there, not here.’
Sunday was overcast but Amy did her best not to let the weather affect her mood, which was subdued enough as it was. She spent the day cleaning the flat, doing the laundry and she only went out briefly for a food shop to refill the fridge. She only had one iffy moment when she saw a blind lady with a black Labrador guiding her along the pavement. Amy had to struggle for a moment not to drop her bags of shopping, fall to her knees, and embrace the dog, who just wandered stolidly past her. Yes, it wasn’t just humans over in Italy that she was missing.
On Monday morning Amy went back to the office. It came as no surprise to find slimy Christian with his feet still quite literally under her desk. He had the cheek to look surprised when he saw her.
‘Hi, Amy, you’ve come back. I didn’t think you were going to.’
She felt her hackles rise. ‘What did you think I was going to do? Stay on holiday forever?’
‘Something like that. After all, you’re not well, are you?’
She took a deep breath and somehow managed to paste a smile on her face. ‘I’m fine now. I was just a bit rundown, that was all. I’m looking forward to getting back to work…’ She let the smile slip slightly. ‘In my own office. So while you collect your stuff and move out, I’ll go and tell Scott I’m back.’
The interview with her boss was far less confrontational, and he looked genuinely pleased to see her back. She came straight to the point. ‘How have things been while I’ve been away, Scott? I hope Christian didn’t disgrace himself.’
‘Christian did okay. He’s not like you; he needs a lot more watching, but he coped. Now, are you sure you’re fit and well again? You had us all worried you know.’
‘That’s kind, Scott, but I’m fine again now. I’ve just had five weeks’ holiday in Italy and I feel revitalised.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it, but just make sure you don’t overdo it. You’re an important part of the company, and we wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.’
This sounded pretty good and she returned to her now empty office with a smile on her face. Unfortunately, as the day continued, the smile gradually wore off and when Scott shooed her out of the office at half past six, she was once again feeling dispirited. Unusually for her, throughout the day her concentration had repeatedly been interrupted by thoughts of that little town in Tuscany and its inhabitants. As a result, things hadn’t gone as smoothly as she would have hoped, and she went home feeling even more confused and uncertain about the direction of her life.
It took her until Wednesday to come to a decision. That evening she made up her mind that the time for a change had come. What this change would be, remained to be seen. She found herself thinking more and more about Sant’Antonio, her father, the house and, inevitably, Adam. He hadn’t been far from her thoughts all week, and a couple of times she had come close to calling him or texting him to check that he was all right in Somalia. Only the memory of his reticence to let their relationship develop into anything more intimate stopped her from contacting him, for fear of just making herself look foolish. Interestingly, she also found herself thinking more and more about Max the Labrador. She really missed him and she realised just how much he meant to her after such a short time. She took heart from this. At least she could honestly say that she wasn’t just considering abandoning her career because of some forlorn longing for a man who patently wasn’t interested. He might not love her, but she felt sure that Max the Labrador did.
On Thursday morning when she got to work, she went straight in to see Scott. She had been preparing her speech all night long and had slept only intermittently as a result. He must have seen something on her face when she went into his office and he looked up with concern.
‘Hi, Amy, what’s up? Is something wrong? Are you all right?’
She cleared her throat nervously before embarking on her speech. ‘Hi, Scott. We need to talk. It’s like this: something’s changed in me. I’m not concentrating like I used to and I keep thinking about everything that happened in Italy and everything I’ve left behind over there.’
In response to his quizzical expression she gave him a quick outline of the amazing discovery of her long-lost father, the inheritance, and the way the little town had got under her skin – although she omitted to mention the big black dog and the man who had also got under her skin. By the time she finished, she was feeling quite emotional but she managed to keep a lid on it while she added her last words. ‘I think I’ve got to accept that I’m no longer pulling my weight here. My head’s too confused and something deep down inside is calling me back to Italy. I’m very sorry, Scott, but I’ve come to tell you that I’ve decided that I’m handing in my notice. I’d like to thank you and everybody here for giving me some very happy years, but I need to move on. Of course I’ll work out my notice and I’ll give Christian as much help as I can before I go. I’m sure he’ll be able to take my place. The last thing I want is to leave you in the lurch, but please accept my resignation.’
‘No.’
She looked up from her feet, puzzled at his response. ‘No? No what?’
‘No, I don’t want to accept your resignation. We need you, Amy.’ Scott stood up and waved her into one of the comfortable chairs by the window and then he came and sat down opposite her. Her eyes were on the dark waters of the Thames far below, but without it registering, as she listened intently to what her boss had to say. ‘Karl and I’ve been talking. We were wondering how you were going to react when you came back from that collapse. That must have given you a hell of a scare. I was going to talk to you tomorrow but seeing as you’ve brought up the subject, we have a proposition for you.’
Amy leant forward, surprised and intrigued.
‘The fact is that we don’t want to lose you. The solution we’ve come up with is to promote you and, at the same time, to reduce your workload.’ Before she could query what he meant by that, he explained. ‘Like I told you on Monday, Christian did a pretty good job while you were away, but he and the rest of the department need somebody to keep an eye on them. As the company expands I’m getting busier and busier, and that’s why we’ve come up with a proposal for you. How would you feel about overseeing this whole department, but there’s no reason why that can’t be from a distance? Do you have a good Internet connection over in Italy?’
She nodded and he continued.
‘This would be a supervisory role, so we wouldn’t expect you to work all day every day, so there should be no risk of you having another collapse. All our dealers here would be instructed to run all major transactions over a certain limit past you for authorisation, and you’d have the authority to advise and step in where necessary. We reckon you could easily work from anywhere in the world and just stick your nose back into the office every month or two just so you remember what we all look like. How does that sound?’
It sounded almost too good to be true.
By the time she emerged from Scott’s office, her head was swirling. To her amazement, everything had happened so fast. She had told him she was delighted to accept his proposal and it was agreed that her new job would commence with immediate effect. This meant that if she wanted to head back to Italy even as soon as this weekend, that would be fine. Needless to say, the first thing she did when she got home was to call Lucy and ask her to come round for a drink. She had no qualms about buying a bottle of good champagne and a couple of slices of a totally decadent sticky chocolate cake from the delicatessen on the corner to celebrate. Lucy listened eagerly as Amy recounted what had been agreed between her and Scott and gave her a warm hug at the end of the exposition.
‘That’s perfect, isn’t it, Amy? You get the best of both worlds: you keep the job you love but you also get to go and live in the place you love.’ She reached for her glass of champagne and clinked it against Amy’s. ‘Cheers, sweetie, and talking of things that you love, or more precisely somebody you love, what happens now?’
Amy had been expecting the question and had been rehearsing her answer. ‘The first thing I’m going to do when I get back to Sant’Antonio is to take him for a long walk so he can pee on all the trees to mark his territory.’
Lucy spluttered into her champagne. ‘I’m assuming you’re talking about your friend the Labrador, but I knew a man like that once.’ She caught Amy’s eye. ‘So what about your man, then? What happens next?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’ Amy nodded a couple of times to reinforce her words. ‘I mean that, Luce. I’m going back to Sant’Antonio for all sorts of reasons and Adam is only one of them. Who knows how things might turn out between us over time but, for now, all that counts is that I have a clear idea of what I want to do with my life.’