Chapter Eighteen #2
‘How are we all getting on here?’ he asked, strong Italian accent.
‘Anything in the notebook for Damonte?’ He walked over to the bedside table.
There was a small notebook there, behind the water jug, that he picked up.
‘Gillian and I play Dots and Boxes,’ he said, showing them the top lined page, and evidence of the game where players create a grid with dots and then compete with a partner to draw lines between them to make boxes.
‘Hangman, too. She always beats me.’ Damonte and Gillian shared a smile.
‘And sometimes she leaves me instructions that she writes to me when I’m not on shift.
’ He turned to another page and read out affectionately, ‘Please can you locate some elderflower cordial to put in my water jug, as water gets really boring. Thank you, Damonte. Oh, and please can you ask reception if they can find a book for me, an English edition of The Thorn Birds, somewhere in Venice, for I haven’t read it for a long time. Sorry to be so demanding.’
Damonte grinned as he returned the notebook to the table.
‘He’s like putty in my hands,’ Gillian said, and everybody laughed, but still Gillian did not look at Olivia.
He turned out to be a chatty sort, Damonte, full of tales from outside the hospice and the streets of Venice that Gillian, from her bed, seemed to enjoy, and Olivia welcomed as a distraction.
At a humorous junction about a gondolier and a chicken, Olivia caught Gillian’s eye, hoping they could share a smile too, but Gillian glanced away.
Worse, Olvia happened to then catch Leo’s.
‘Perhaps we should go now,’ said Olivia finally, once Damonte had slapped his thigh and insisted that he must get on, before leaving the room with a finger point and a whispered and rather unnecessary, ‘You guys!’
‘I like Damonte,’ Gillian summed up from her bed, once Damonte’s footsteps had died away down the corridor. ‘He cheers me up. Can I have some more water, please?’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Leo, rising from his chair.
He went to the bedside table. ‘I’m writing Damonte an instruction, too,’ he said mischievously.
Smiling, he picked up the pen next to the notepad and scribbled something on it.
‘Bring Gillian better food . . .’ he read out, then he poured some more water into the tumbler and waited for Gillian to sip it.
‘Thank you for letting me come. It’s been lovely to meet you, Gillian. ’
He bent and kissed Gillian on the cheek, and Olivia stood up and kissed her on the cheek, too, alert for bristling, but Gillian’s face was impassive.
‘I can be here on Saturday morning,’ Olivia told her, but Gillian did not answer, and Olivia honestly did not know if she wanted her to show up here again.
‘Yes, we’ll come again on Saturday,’ said Leo. ‘Talk some more,’ and Olivia shot him a look he pretended not to catch.
Outside, the door closed behind them and Leo said, ‘Well, that wasn’t easy,’ and before Olivia could reply, he had enveloped her in a huge hug she immediately struggled to get free of.
She couldn’t bear his arms around her, the warmth of his chest, the smell of his aftershave.
The chemistry. The memories. She wanted out.
‘I probably deserved it to be,’ she said, having finally extricated herself. She smoothed down her hair, tried to compose herself. She couldn’t be hugged by him. She couldn’t have that pull inside her to never let him go.
‘Then you just need to talk some more,’ Leo said. ‘Both of you. Find the right words.’
‘I don’t know if I can.’ He looked a little disappointed she had wriggled out of the hug.
But he shouldn’t have done it. He shouldn’t have touched her.
She had never expected him to touch her again.
She had once said the wrong words to him, in a Tuscan lavender field, and what he’d told her there, too, had meant the end for them.
‘OK,’ he said measuredly. ‘But you’ll be here again on Saturday,’ he said as they walked back down the corridor. ‘She didn’t say no to you about that. It might be better.’
‘Maybe. You said you were coming with me.’
‘I will, if you want me to. She’s very important to you, isn’t she?’
‘She was my dad’s best friend,’ Olivia replied simply. ‘And, you know, you’re far too saintly,’ she said to him flippantly as they descended the quiet stairs together. She wanted to change the mood, get out of her own head. ‘Here in Venice. I’m slightly suspicious of it.’
Leo laughed. ‘Saintly? That’s a word that hasn’t been used about me before. What do you mean?’
‘The bedside manner. I was quite impressed.’
‘You’ve seen my bedside manner.’ Leo looked at her and she had to try hard not to blush.
‘And no need to be suspicious. I’m just trying my best. Want to go for lunch?
We don’t have to be at the bookshop until three.
And please don’t say you’ll think about it,’ he added.
‘Please say, yes. I think we’ve earned it, don’t you? ’
She thought about it. She was a little drained, and she was hungry. And he was right, they didn’t have to be at the bookshop until three o’clock. ‘Alright,’ she replied. ‘Where?’