Chapter Six #3
Judging by the tilt of Rosalie’s chin, Jade’s bluntness wasn’t well received. ‘Last time I saw him, he had long, dark hair with grey streaks and a plaited beard. He’s never materialistic or mean. Enjoys his own company but when he does mix, people seem to like him.’
Stiffly, Jade said, ‘I’m sure you love him. He brought you up. But Gran brought me up, so your experience of him and mine are poles apart. Did he tell you about Erin and me?’
‘Of course I love him.’ Rosalie cast down her light-brown eyes and shook her head. ‘He didn’t say much about his backstory.’
Backstory. Both Jade and Erin were dismissed in that one word. It made Jade feel as if she bristled all over, like a hedgehog.
For several moments, they sipped their drinks without making eye contact. The air felt heavy with unexpressed emotion. Finally, Erin cleared her throat. ‘Rosalie, what did you do during uni holidays? Go to wherever Joey was?’
Jade was absurdly reassured that Erin didn’t call Joey ‘Dad’, as if that aligned Jade and Erin – not against Rosalie, but with each other.
Rosalie looked surprised. ‘I shared a house in Sheffield, so I stayed there. I got holiday jobs.’ She grinned and her whole face lit up as if a shaft of sunlight had fallen on her.
‘At the end of the first year I decided to travel for the summer. I hooked up with a good crowd in Paris and didn’t go back to uni.
Me and a Spanish girl, Oleda, got on the books of an agency with great casual work.
We house-sat a boat on the Seine, then moved south and crossed into Switzerland to be dogwalkers in a boarding kennel.
After that, we looked after two ponies because the kids who owned them didn’t like to ride in cold weather.
We lived in a caravan in the paddock and I think it was as cold as the ponies’ stable.
’ When she laughed, her eyes shone like wet pebbles.
‘Wow.’ Erin looked fascinated. ‘Colourful.’
Jade added, ‘Adventurous.’ Evidently, Rosalie wasn’t as quiet and cautious as she’d first appeared when she’d paused inside the door and regarded everyone.
Jade tried to imagine embarking on such an uncertain life and failed.
At nineteen or twenty, as Rosalie must have been, Jade had been working here at Pensione Three Sisters as she had ever since.
‘Where did you shower and use the loo? Do caravans in pony fields come equipped?’ Erin asked curiously.
Simultaneously, Jade demanded, ‘Do you know where Joey is now?’
Again, Rosalie firmed her chin. She met Jade’s eyes. ‘No.’
As if Jade’s question had illuminated the deficiencies of the father who’d contributed their common DNA, silence fell but for guests’ voices on the stairs, probably on their way back to their rooms to relax for an hour before getting ready to go out. Two female voices and one male. The man laughed.
Erin ran her eyes over the comfortably worn kitchen, perhaps hunting for a new subject now Rosalie had effectively shut down the last one. ‘Mum was torn on whether she wanted me to refuse the inheritance in case it meant getting mixed up with Joey, or take it because of its value.’
Jade finished her tea, lukewarm now. ‘But you’re going to take it.’ She didn’t make it a question. Erin was here, wasn’t she?
Erin nodded. ‘Gran wanted me to.’ Her tone was light, as if they were at a book group discussing the plot of a novel.
‘Me too,’ Rosalie put in quietly but firmly.
Although it was on the tip of Jade’s tongue to voice her offer to buy them out there and then, she decided not to rush it.
Better to let them settle in. Maybe they’d develop a sense of not belonging that she could trade on later.
As if she was at a party making small talk, she turned next to Erin. ‘Mary Smith said you live in England.’
‘In Northamptonshire. I’m in comms.’ Erin’s eyes brightened, as if talking about a favoured subject.
‘I’ve worked in motorsport or its industry supply chain since uni.
I’m on an FTC at the moment – a fixed-term contract,’ she added.
‘It’s a bit of a punt, because it leaves me vulnerable as the contract ends, but it’s a great way of broadening experience and it got me a senior team-leader role.
I get on with my boss, Steffi, brilliantly.
She’s on an upward trajectory and I think she’ll find a way to keep me permanently.
It’s a male-dominated world, so women in motorsport stick together.
’ Her phone gave an excited ping as if to agree with her, and she took it out and glanced at it before stowing it away once more.
Erin’s life sounded glossy and fast-paced, and, like Rosalie’s adventures in France and Switzerland, a long way from Jade’s experiences, but she said, ‘Gran and Nonno used to like watching Formula One. They were tifosi like everyone in Italy. Ferrari fans,’ she translated.
Erin looked pleased at this small point of connection.
‘There’s a lot more to motorsport than Ferrari and F1, of course.
I work for an events-and-motorsport agency with clients across various categories.
Before that, I worked at a team that competed in junior open-wheel series, and before that for a wheel-and-tyre manufacturer.
I do sometimes date a guy who’s a hospitality-and-events manager at one of the F1 teams,’ she added.
‘Do you like Northamptonshire?’ Rosalie asked.
‘At the moment. I live in a cottage in a village. I rent, so I’m flexible if opportunities come up.
There’s a lot of motorsport in Italy, for instance.
Especially karting.’ Erin glanced out of the window as if expecting to see a kart track rather than the few metres of paved space behind the apartment.
Jade smiled thinly, prickled at the idea of Erin moving here, to her country. ‘Then, as you said, you’d better learn to speak Italian.’
Erin nodded seriously. ‘It would’ve been an advantage to have been brought up bilingual, like you.’
‘It’s a big one.’ Rosalie nodded.
Jade shrugged. ‘Small children pick up language fast. What else do you do? Apart from work, I mean.’
Erin looked surprised to be asked. ‘The gym. Play padel. Go to concerts sometimes.’
‘Are either of you married or anything?’ Jade switched her glance between the two women.
It was Erin who answered first, with a decisive shake of her head. ‘Mum guided me towards independence rather than blending with someone else’s life, then enduring the hassle that comes with undoing it all when you split up. You’re not, are you? Gran mentioned it in her letter.’
Jade tried and failed not to feel nettled again about Gran writing to Erin.
‘No, it hasn’t happened.’ Leo hadn’t wanted to stay.
She recoiled from the thought as if it had burnt her.
‘A year or so back I was in a relationship with Edoardo, but his idea of – what did you call it? “Blending with” his life? – was me giving up my plans to support his.’
Erin rolled her eyes, as if Jade had exactly proved her point.
‘I lived with a German guy for a couple of years, in Hamburg,’ Rosalie said.
‘Andreas. Nothing else committed. And I’m currently working at Blackpool Character Kingdom, dressing up as Bella Beaver or Professor Donut, mixing with the visitors.
I like music too. I’m going to a heavy-metal festival in Amsterdam soon. ’
Jade eyed her. Rosalie’s relaxed exterior evidently disguised an adventurous heart.
‘So, you still like travel.’ And Hamburg was where all the British musicians went to play in wild clubs, wasn’t it?
Sooo out of the realm of her experiences .
. . ‘Well.’ Jade rose abruptly. ‘Excuse me. Yara will have left, so I need to cover Reception.’ She didn’t say that she often covered it perfectly adequately from the apartment or front office, only emerging to answer the bell.
She needed space. She needed this space, without these interloping . . . relatives.
Rosalie stood up too, opening her mouth uncertainly as if not knowing whether to offer help. Don’t, Jade willed her silently. I feel stretched thin. I don’t know how to be. Gran would expect kindness towards you both, but I need a break.
‘I’ve visited Como before,’ Erin said suddenly, as she too got to her feet. ‘I used to travel to Milan with the tyre company and once I tacked on a few days around the lakes. I stayed at an Airbnb overnight here, before going on to Bellagio.’
Jade paused. It felt odd that they’d been so close together, geographically. ‘Did you know Joey was from here?’
‘No.’ Erin shrugged as she and Rosalie preceded Jade into the narrow hall.
‘I don’t think he ever told Mum much more than that he came from northern Italy.
See you later.’ Erin smiled, then strode across the honey-coloured tiles and waved before she disappeared under the arch to the sun-drenched street, taking out her phone to read the screen as she went.
Rosalie retrieved her jaunty-but-battered-and-stickered pink suitcase from Reception, pulled out the key Yara had given her, checked the room number and made for the stairs with a quick, ‘Bye.’ As she gave the impression of needing no assistance or guidance, Jade didn’t offer.
For the next couple of hours Jade worked desultorily, moving between the front office overlooking the street and the reception desk in case either Rosalie or Erin reappeared and realised she’d trumped up a reason to ease them out of the apartment.
She scrolled through bookings or perused bank statements with a gaze that did not see, while her thoughts flipped about like fleas on a trampoline.
Those women were her sisters.