Chapter Thirty-Five #2
He denied her request. He stepped forward and he hugged her. She resisted, her body rigid against his, her face turned to the side on his warm chest, trying not to breathe him in.
‘It’s OK,’ he said, stroking her back. ‘It’s OK.
You’re right, I’ve not been fair. My mixed signals.
Me not letting you go. I just wanted to be with you, Olivia, that’s all,’ he said, pulling back from her so she could see his face, and what she saw there gave her hope.
His hazel eyes were soft and deep, his mouth was smiling, just for her.
His words . . . I just wanted to be with you, Olivia.
‘And what do you mean?’ he added softly. ‘Fall back almost in love—?’
‘The Artichokes! What’s The Story With the Damn Artichokes?’
It was a furious shout from somewhere behind them. Through an open window. A voice Olivia recognised, even after all this time, as Isaac’s. She and Leo looked at each other, the moment punctured.
‘I really don’t want to go in there.’ Leo frowned. ‘We’ll talk about this later. Olivia.’ He touched the side of her face. ‘I promise we’ll talk about this later.’
He took her hand. They walked along the front of the house, its stone soaking up the midday sun, to the shuttered front door.
Inside was a cool, spacious hallway that opened to a large, open-plan sitting room with stone walls and curtainless windows, a small bar to the side.
To the rear were stable doors Olivia supposed could be flung open to the lawn, and an archway to the right led to the kitchen.
As they entered the kitchen, Leo let go of her hand.
‘Isaac!’
Isaac didn’t look up. He was bending over a chopping board doing something taxing with a large slab of fish and a paring knife.
The kitchen was in disarray: produce and herbs and half-opened paper parcels over every surface; copper saucepans sitting on a huge range, lids high-hatting in steam; leaning towers of plates and bowls on the floor; fridge door ajar, cupboard doors adrift.
‘Isaac?’ Leo walked over to him and patted him on the shoulder.
Isaac wasn’t alone in the kitchen. There was a chef at the sink who turned around and rolled her eyes good-naturedly at Olivia.
‘I’m here with my old friend, Olivia,’ Leo said quickly to Isaac’s bent head. ‘We met at a writers’ retreat and she’s on her way to Venice, so I’m driving her there. Via here.’
‘What?’ Isaac finally looked up and wiped a meaty claw across his forehead.
His face was red, his eyes bloodshot. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said, staring at Olivia.
‘Didn’t you come to a dinner party once?
Right, right. Fine, I suppose. Another bugger to upset with my heinous cooking.
’ He bent his head again and carried on operating on his fish.
‘I’m sure it won’t be heinous, Isaac.’ Leo placed a placating hand on a sweaty arm. Olivia thought he seemed relieved at Isaac’s begrudging acceptance of her.
‘Humph.’ Isaac shrugged him off. ‘I’m not so certain about that. We’ve had a series of utterly impossible disasters.’
‘Nothing that can’t be rectified, Isaac.
I’m Magdalena, the sous chef,’ said the lady at the sink.
She was elegant in a black jersey and clean navy-blue apron, her dark hair pinned off her neck.
‘Your stepfather has been an absolute pain in the arse,’ she said to Leo, her English impeccable.
‘But he’s a genius, as ever, so we indulge it. ’
‘Genius only gets you so far,’ grunted Isaac. His apron was filthy. ‘Without the right ingredients.’ He stared now at Olivia like she was some alien species, and Leo didn’t fare much better. No pleasantries, then, she thought. No ‘How’ve you been?’
‘And all the right ingredients are here,’ soothed Magdalena.
‘Including the artichokes, which are safely in the fridge, doing exactly what they’re supposed to do.
So far today, Isaac has objected to the wrong-size carrots, the texture of the pepper and the available quantity of saffron,’ she explained to Leo and Olivia.
‘But this is Tuscany. We use what is on our doorstep, or nothing at all.’
‘I’m sure it will be delicious.’ Olivia thought it definitely smelled so. There was something wonderfully garlicky and aromatic escaping from under the bouncing lid of at least one of the saucepans.
‘Humph,’ was Isaac’s distracted reply. He didn’t look up. ‘By the time the fucking guests get here, I may have to retire to the cottage garden with a shotgun.’
Olivia laughed – well, it was funny – but no one else did. ‘Would you like us to do anything?’ she asked. ‘Help . . . in any way . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Just go and wait outside,’ he said huffily.
‘Or get a drink or something. Everyone will be arriving at six o’clock sharp.
And God only knows if we’ll manage to get anything decent out for anybody .
. .’ He grabbed a large stainless-steel bowl containing a batter-like gloop from the maelstrom of the counter he was standing at, and started whisking at it frantically.
‘Oh, and your mother’s here,’ Isaac snapped at the bowl.
‘She flew out yesterday. To support me, apparently, although all she’s been, since she got here, is a ruddy nuisance. ’
‘Mum?’ Leo turned a little white. ‘Well, that’s a surprise. Where is she? I can—’
‘Leo!’ There was an open door from the kitchen to what Olivia supposed to be the cottage garden and Caroline, in yellow floral sundress and white Birkenstocks, stepped through it, a wooden truckle with a slope of hammocked daisies crooked over her elbow.
‘I’m so happy to see you! I got Patricia to take care of the dogs, and I caught the late flight from Bristol last night.
You’re looking wonderful, darling. I said to Isaac you’d have a nice healthy tan .
. . Who’s this?’ She stopped. One of the daisies flopped over the side and to the floor.
‘This is Olivia,’ said Leo weakly. ‘My old friend. You met her once, quite a long time ago, at Foxes.’
‘Hello,’ said Caroline suspiciously, turning back to Leo. ‘You’ve not brought Cressie?’
Leo stepped forward and hugged his mother. Olivia couldn’t see his face as it was in Caroline’s shoulder. ‘Hello, Caroline,’ she said waveringly, to Caroline’s face over his back.
Caroline didn’t reply, and when Leo reluctantly finished the hug and turned around, Olivia raised her eyebrows at him in a question he didn’t answer.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Caroline. Her hair was a soft grey now, her eyes a little more lined. ‘Why would you bring a friend here and not your fiancée?’
‘Fiancée?’ Olivia rounded on Leo.
‘I can explain. Perhaps we could go out into the garden and—’
‘Leo and Olivia are just here as author friends,’ interrupted Isaac robotically, over the scurry of his whisking.
‘They bumped into each other at a writers’ retreat, and they’ve travelled here together before Olivia goes on to Venice.
That’s what I’ve been told. And that better be the case, or I don’t think Cressie will be too happy about it! ’ he exclaimed loudly.
‘What is going on?’ Caroline asked. She stared at Olivia as though she were a phantom, which Olivia felt she was in this family, after all this time.
‘I’ll talk to you in a minute, Mum, I promise. Come with me,’ Leo commanded to Olivia, and he grabbed her hand and pulled her through the open doorway.
The cottage garden was pretty. Lazing wildflowers turned their faces to the sun. A low wall of smooth round stones bordered the space. Beyond, the lavender fields were a purple haze.
‘This better be good!’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Leo, a frantic look on his handsome face. ‘I can explain . . .’ He stepped over and pushed the kitchen window shut from the outside.
‘Cressie?’ Olivia was incredulous. ‘You’re with her? She’s your fiancée?’ Leo nodded miserably. ‘I don’t believe this!’ She thought of the London Library again, Cressie’s face, Leo’s eyes. ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’
‘We got together,’ said Leo, shamefaced, and she had never seen that look on him before. ‘About a year ago. We’ve been together for a year. We got engaged.’
‘How lovely!’ she said with venom. ‘I’m so pleased for you. What a great story. So what the hell am I doing here?’ She opened her arms sarcastically to the beautiful scenery. She felt sick. Leo was engaged. He had brought her on this road trip and he was engaged.
‘I’ve been a bloody idiot,’ he said. ‘But I just wanted to see you. I just wanted to spend some time with you.’
‘I don’t understand it!’ she cried. ‘Why would you want to, if you were marrying someone else?’ That would explain the no touching, she thought. The separate rooms. How bloody noble of him! She was gripped by a lurching pain, a glancing blow to her stomach.
‘I needed to see you.’
‘Why? Because you found out I was at a writers’ retreat just up the road? Because you thought it would be a laugh, after five whole years of not seeing each other?’
‘It hasn’t been a laugh . . .’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No, it hasn’t.’ She was furious. ‘Why her?’ she asked. ‘Why did it have to be her?’
Leo looked crestfallen. ‘Because she never made any secret of the fact that she liked me. Because she was around. She’s always been around. And . . .’ He looked rather sick himself. ‘I was persuaded to get together with her because of the deal.’
‘What deal?’
He spoke quietly. ‘Because of the deal Isaac is hoping to do with Robert Defrey.’
Olivia took a sharp intake of breath. ‘Wow!’ she said.
‘Wow. Now I’ve heard it all. So, at Isaac’s bidding, you finally did the decent thing, the thing your old friend from home had been waiting for all this time, and asked Cressie out.
And then, happily, you fell in love, and now you’re going to get married.
How long did it take, Leo, to fall in love with her, once you started dating?
Two months? Three? Six?’ When in seventeen years he wasn’t able to fall in love with her?