Chapter Five #3
It was too hot to hurry so he ambled towards the gracious Palace Hotel that, since the nineteenth century, had gazed out over the lake to welcome visitors.
In front of it was an offshoot of the small canal network that had once made guest access possible by boat.
At the roundabout, he turned uphill between the bus station and railway station, Stazione Lago, then left into Via Rezzonico where his parents had moved after vacating the hotel accommodation in favour of Massimo.
Their asymmetric, angular, contemporary apartment building was faced in pale-grey material and horizontal rails topped the terrace walls.
His parents lived at the top. It had surprised him that they hadn’t chosen somewhere in the historic city, one of the beautiful, traditional apartments built around a courtyard with an enormous ornate gate to keep out uninvited guests, but Sheenagh had been pragmatic.
‘We want modern convenience, somewhere to park two cars and not to have to apply for permission to drive through the area pedonale to our home. Our terrace overlooks the duomo and a sea of terracotta rooftops, so why do we care that the street isn’t beautiful? ’
On the entry keypad, Leo pressed the button marked Apartment 501 and wiped his forehead on his arm, happily anticipating his parents’ air conditioning as he gazed into the doorbell camera. At length, Ferdinando answered in a growl. ‘We’re ill.’ The growl dissolved into a barking cough.
Leo felt guilty. He hadn’t contacted his parents since obeying his mother’s request to encourage Jade out two days ago. ‘I came to see what you need. Are you OK for food and medication?’
Ferdinando coughed again. Cough, cough, cough. When he’d caught his breath, he gasped out, ‘I’ll ask your mother. She’s in bed.’ Cough, cough, cough.
Five minutes later, Leo was on his way to the Carrefour mini market for cold remedies and a shipping order of tissues.
To these he added a jar of honey for his father, who ate it by the spoonful whenever he had a sore throat, and a bunch of flowers for his mother, because he thought she’d like them.
Forty minutes later, almost boiling like a kettle in the heat, he pressed the apartment’s entry-system button again. This time, it was Sheenagh’s voice that rasped through the speaker like Darth Vader. ‘I’ll buzz you upstairs, but leave the bag on the doorstep.’
Leo debated. It didn’t sit well with him to so easily abandon the people who’d loved him all his life. ‘I could make you a meal.’
Sheenagh went off into a coughing fit. When she’d recovered, she croaked, ‘Thanks, Leo, but leave the shopping on the step up here so I can bring it in.’ The door clicked open and the speaker fell silent.
There was little Leo could do but pass through the smart glass door, cross the cool white vestibule, take the elevator to the fifth floor and leave the bag on apartment 501’s doormat, tapping the door so they’d know he’d been.
He waited, but Sheenagh must have been watching through the spy hole because she called through the door.
‘Just leave, darling. I’m not giving you my germs.’ Her words were followed by a trumpeting nose-blow.
Leo winced. ‘If you’re sure.’ At least he’d enjoyed two minutes in the air con on his journey from the main door.
Then Sheenagh’s voice came again. ‘Jade called me. Those new sisters of hers are to visit.’
‘She told me.’ He remembered her huge, apprehensive bronze-amber eyes. As children, they’d had a cat, Piccolino, with eyes like that. If you looked carefully, there were tiny green flecks among the gold. ‘Are they arriving today?’
Even through the door, he heard his mother sigh. ‘They are. I wish this damned cold would disappear, because she sounds as if she could do with a hug. Anyway, thanks for your help. See you when we’re better. Off you go now. Shoo.’
Grinning at being addressed as Piccolino once had been, he returned to the elevator, trying to imagine himself saying, ‘Mum sent me to give you a hug,’ and Jade stepping willingly into his embrace.
More likely she’d tell him where to go.
It took him fifteen minutes to toil back to Villa Panorama, the sun baking him through his T-shirt while the roads teemed with traffic and the pavements with people.
The queue at the gelateria beside the marina snaked across the road and almost up to the nearest boat.
It was a similar story at the funiculare as eager people awaited one of the two stepped carriages to convey them up the steep, shining silver rails to the village of Brunate.
Finally entering Reception, Leo was glad to see Massimo’s office door was now open.
His younger, ganglier brother was seated at his desk, apparently locked in contemplation of the wall, smiling dreamily.
Leo stepped into the room. ‘What’s the swoony face for? Soppy,’ he said, in case ‘swoony’ wasn’t in Massimo’s English vocabulary, not having spent the years in England that Leo had.
Massimo didn’t rise to the teasing, but grinned, his brown eyes still . . . well, swoony. ‘I was thinking.’ Then his mouth stretched into an even wider smile. He fell into Italian as he lowered his voice. ‘Shut the door.’
Leo did so with a shove of his foot, then plumped down into one of the pale-blue leatherette chairs. ‘What?’
It hadn’t seemed possible for Massimo to beam any more broadly, but somehow he managed it.
‘I’m going to be a father,’ he whispered.
‘Sofi’s ten weeks pregnant, so we’ve decided to tell our families.
She’s gone to meet her mother for lunch now.
’ He pulled a mock-fearful face. ‘But don’t tell Mum that I told you first or she’ll go crazy. ’
Happiness surged through Leo and he leapt to his feet. ‘That’s brilliant! Awesome! Wow.’ He rounded the desk and pulled his brother up for a back-pounding hug. ‘How’s Sofi?’
‘Fine, except for horrible morning sickness, the poor woman. That’s why I was worried about you staying in the apartment when you called to say you were coming home.’ Massimo looked freshly apologetic. But there was also a hint of pride and wonder at such proof the pregnancy was real.
Leo suffered an unexpected pang that his little brother was moving on so purposefully and joyfully with his life when Leo’s had hit a brick wall he couldn’t yet see a way over or round.
He covered the discomfort with effusive congratulations.
‘Happy days, Massi! Give Sofi my love.’ He hugged Massimo again and they chatted for a while before he left his brother to return to his duties.
Now was not the moment to discuss Isabella and Teddy’s unexpected phone calls and how they’d made Leo feel.
‘Remember Mum and Papà don’t know yet,’ Massimo called after him.
‘I will,’ he said over his shoulder. Reception was busy and he had to thread his way between guests at the crossroads between the bar, the lounge, the front door and the gardens.
Businesspeople in office wear who’d booked lunch or a conference room mingled with cheerful tourists in denim shorts and bright T-shirts.
He meandered out to the back gardens, pausing to watch an older couple sharing coffee and a newspaper.
He could see his parents like that in twenty years. And Massi and Sofi in fifty.
When he’d zigged and zagged up the path to Villetta Nascosta, rather than rediscovering his appetite for researching businesses for sale, he felt at a loose end.
He was delighted for Massimo and Sofi – of course he was – but the past couple of hours had shown him that, having built a separate life for years, now he wanted someone to talk to, his family members were, for their various reasons, unavailable. It wasn’t deliberate or planned.
But it was lonely.