Chapter Three
Though Leo was delighted with the refurbished interior of Villetta Nascosta, Sheenagh frowned around the living space of white kitchen and the grey sofa and coffee table. ‘Look at the mess on the floor tiles, Nando. We shouldn’t use that builder again.’
Knowing his parents’ preoccupation with standards could lead to lengthy conversations, Leo chipped in before Ferdinando could do more than frown at blobs of grout marring the tile.
‘What a fantastic spot, so green and private yet only metres from the hotel and minutes from the city.’ He’d left the front door open, preferring the whirr of cicadas and the scent of grass to the air-conditioned chill indoors.
The far-off calls of people on the street below carried on the whispering breeze. ‘We should talk about rent,’ he added.
Ferdinando gave his rich, rolling laugh. ‘Non penso.’ He ruffled Leo’s hair as if he was a boy, though he had to reach up to do it. ‘I don’t think so,’ he added, as if repeating it in English would give his pronouncement weight.
‘Of course not.’ Sheenagh began showing him around the bijou property.
‘There’s only one bedroom, but it’s roomy.
And here’s the bathroom.’ She indicated a glass shower enclosure and gleaming white sanitaryware before returning to the kitchen.
‘While we were at lunch, I sent someone to stock the essentials.’ She opened the fridge.
Leo laughed as he surveyed the packed shelves. On Sheenagh’s list of ‘essentials’ were lettuce, basil, cucumber, tomato, asparagus, a squash, an artichoke, chicken, fresh tortellini, white wine, a lemon, olives, garlic, bufala, pecorino, fresh eggs, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
Finally, his parents left him to unpack.
‘We’ll all meet at eight in Bar Fiori, for dinner, as Lounge Panorama is set up for the repast tomorrow,’ Sheenagh said, a proclamation rather than an invitation.
She hugged Leo, and then she and Ferdinando hurried off down the winding cobbled path to the hotel’s main garden below.
Leo changed into shorts and enjoyed the cool floor beneath bare feet, and the singing of birds drifting in through the open door.
As he unpacked jeans, trousers and shirts, the image of Jade Beretta in Lounge Panorama sneaked back into his mind.
In his memories, she was always laughing and sparkling, hair bouncing, her gold-flecked eyes alight.
He switched on the Italian news on the bedroom TV, but neither the value of the euro nor the antics of a politician prevented him from recalling Jade’s expression today. So sad.
By the time the Sartori family gathered for the evening meal in Bar Fiori, Leo had changed again, this time into trousers and a pale-grey shirt, knowing Papà wouldn’t eat dinner in public in shorts.
Massimo was already at the table, slighter but almost as tall as Leo, hair so gelled that it showed the furrows of his comb. He leapt up to drag Leo into a hard hug. ‘You found your way home.’ Wearing the hotel uniform of dark blazer and trousers, he’d probably come straight off duty.
‘I knew you’d missed me.’ Leo hugged Massimo and then ‘accidentally’ ruffled his smart hairstyle.
Massimo’s wife, Sofi, was slim, with pale blonde hair clasped loosely behind her head, her purple-framed glasses dwarfing her small features. ‘Sofi.’ The hug Leo awarded her was much gentler, feeling she’d snap if he treated her to the boisterous embrace he’d given his brother.
Sofi coloured. ‘Ciao, Leo. Benvenuta.’
Sheenagh and Ferdinando hugged everyone and then the family took their seats, chatting in a mixture of Italian and English, because Sheenagh spoke English better than Italian and Sofi spoke Italian better than English.
As Leo listened, he noted that almost every table in Bar Fiori was in use.
The hotel was popular not only with tourists but with locals and, as it was summer, Villa Panorama’s guestrooms would probably be full.
A young waitress in a white shirt and black trousers arrived with a stack of leather-backed menus. Massimo introduced her to Leo. ‘This is Paolina.’
‘Buonasera, Paolina. I’m Leo.’ Needing to be introduced to staff at the family hotel only served to make him newly aware of the sixteen years he’d been away. When he’d left for that first job in England, Paolina, with her smiling eyes and tidy hair, would have been a toddler.
While everybody read the menu, Paolina brought glasses and condensation-cloaked water bottles. Then Massimo received a text that made him frown and rise to his feet. ‘I’m needed at front desk.’
Leo almost enquired why, but remembered in time that he didn’t work here. After his brother’s initial hesitation over Leo’s return, he must be careful not to overstep.
It was only a few minutes before Massimo returned and Ferdinando peered over his black-rimmed reading glasses enquiringly. ‘OK?’
‘It was Jade Beretta.’ Massimo still frowned.
Leo paused his conversation with Sofi about her job in childcare.
‘Jade?’ Sheenagh’s forehead furrowed. ‘Does she want changes in tomorrow’s arrangements?’
‘No.’ Massimo resumed his seat. ‘But she’s anxious because everywhere she’s been today people have said they’ll attend the funeral. She thinks we’ll be too nice to tell her if Mairead didn’t pay us enough upfront.’
‘Did you explain that Mairead insisted on reassessing the bloody funeral tea every year? It’s paid for. There will probably be a refund.’ Sheenagh’s frown only deepened.
‘I explained.’ One side of Massimo’s mouth quirked up.
‘Then she worried that there wouldn’t be enough Ledaig, her gran’s favourite whisky.
I reminded her Mairead left eight bottles with us years ago.
’ Although the name of the whisky was spelt L-e-d-a-i-g, he gave it its proper, gallic, pronunciation of ‘Letchik’.
Sheenagh sighed. ‘Obsessing over details is probably her way of coping. Poor love.’ She turned to Leo. ‘You’ll be coming to the funeral?’
Despite the questioning intonation of the sentence, Leo felt his mother expected him to say ‘yes’. Still, he replied dubiously. ‘Jade didn’t seem overly happy to see me.’ And she was entitled to nurse negative feelings.
Ferdinando’s grey brows beetled. ‘Jade was once your girlfriend and Mairead always made you welcome in her home. You should mourn.’
Sheenagh took her husband’s hand. ‘But Mairead said we’re to celebrate.’
Ferdinando grunted. ‘No visitation, no vigil, no mass. You Scotswomen are zany.’ But he smiled at the ‘zany’ Scotswoman who’d been his wife for nearly forty years.
‘Well,’ Leo said slowly. ‘I don’t want Jade to think I’m lacking respect.
Mairead was great even if she didn’t stop referring to me as “wee Leo” until I was twenty-two.
’ It was one of a hundred good memories.
And good memories of Mairead led inexorably to good memories of Jade, of which there were many.
In fact, the only bad memory was the betrayal in her eyes when he’d made such a mess of inviting her to share his life.
Next morning, Leo surveyed his wardrobe.
As a hotelier he had several dark suits, but it took a minute to find his black tie, which he’d packed inside a shoe for some reason.
Then he wandered out of Villetta Nascosta’s garden through the gate and into the garden for guests – which was at the side of the hotel but almost hidden from the road by being above it, and disguised by yew, palm and cypress – feeling incongruous as he passed tourists lazing on loungers.
In the glossy reception area, Sheenagh’s eyebrows flew up in aghast crescents when she saw him.
‘Didn’t I tell you? Mairead wanted everyone to wear colours.
’ She pointed to her own yellow suit, which set off her sandy hair. ‘Mairead loved colour.’
Ferdinando grumbled. ‘Colours at a funeral. It is disrespectful.’ His drab olive-green suit with a white shirt and black tie only just qualified as ‘colour’.
So Leo puffed back up the sloping path to Villetta Nascosta to scramble out of his black jacket and into a petrol-blue blazer before returning to Lounge Panorama to help Massimo arrange dark-red chairs at right angles to the glass doors overlooking the gardens.
‘And one of these to each chair.’ Massimo passed him a stack of yellow booklets, Celebration of Life printed in flowing purple script above a photo of a laughing Mairead.
She was raising a glass of wine on which sunlight had bestowed a perfect starburst.
Leo lingered over the photo. ‘That’s exactly how I remember her.’ It prodded a soft spot in his heart.
An hour later, almost every chair was occupied by someone there to remember Mairead.
Leo recognised people from school and others from the hoteliers’ community.
Many studied Mairead’s photo and smiled.
He sat a few rows back, beside his parents, and watched Jade enter.
Face pale, her corkscrew curls were piled atop her head and her summer dress was sky blue.
Her shoes were purple. The woman beside her wore a green dress and yellow shoes, and Leo recognised her as Vittoria, Jade’s friend who’d worked at Pensione Three Sisters.
Sheenagh and Ferdinando went forward to give Jade long, hard hugs that spoke not just of commiseration, but of love and friendship.
Mindful that she’d rebuffed his affectionate gesture of outstretched hands yesterday, Leo remained seated.