Chapter Thirteen #2
Geneva twisted her lips to one side. ‘In fact, I did. I have friends in Como and you lived in local hotels. That kept you visible.’ But then she added, ‘I understand your reaction.’
With a last long look, she turned on her flat, flapping mules and let herself quietly out of the office door. A minute later, Jade watched through the slats of the blind as her long-absent mother strolled past the window without any sign that the meeting had affected her.
Jade, in contrast, had to take a long moment, forcing her hands not to shake and wiping damp palms on her dress, while her heart felt as if it were trying to escape her ribcage.
She turned when a knock sounded on the door and Yara popped in, a smile lifting her round cheeks. ‘A lady left you this phone number.’ She held out a scrap of paper.
Numbly, Jade took it, murmuring her thanks. Yara whisked out again, leaving Jade staring at white paper, bearing a phone number and the single word, Geneva, in scrappy blue script. Darkness threatened the edges of her vision.
Her glance slid to the wastepaper bin.
She could rip it up.
But, instead, she slipped the paper into her pocket and feeling that she still needed to settle before attending to the constant admin the pensione demanded, let herself out of the office, across Reception and into the apartment.
In her bedroom, she looked around, fingering the paper, unwilling to keep it but not quite able to let it go. Finally, she lifted the lid of Gran’s jewellery box and dropped the note in, to lie beside other things that she wasn’t sure what to do with.
The afternoon dragged. Taking the view that there was no point wasting a bad mood – was that yet another piece of homespun philosophy she’d taken from Gran?
– Jade attacked the job she least wanted to do and collected insurance quotes, before selecting an option and putting through payment. Then she texted Vittoria.
I need wine. Join me?
It wasn’t completely Italian to drink outside mealtimes, but she wasn’t completely Italian.
Vittoria messaged back, Of course! as if Jade weren’t dragging her away from whatever she’d been busy with, or maybe a well-deserved riposo, as Vittoria had worked from seven this morning until 2 p.m.
They met in a café close to one of the city walls and roughly centre point between Three Sisters and the apartment where Vittoria and Angelo lived in the residential district of Como Borghi.
Soon they were seated under shady parasols.
Before Jade was a large glass of rosé wine, and before Vittoria a glass of white.
‘Salute!’ They toasted one another, before expelling matching sighs.
‘Angelo has begun his new job and ha la luna di traverso.’ Vittoria sniffed.
‘To have the moon on its side’ was an Italian saying, similar in meaning to the British ‘he’s like a bear with a sore head’.
She punctuated her words with dramatic eye-rolls.
‘He hates the commute, but likes the job and the money.’
‘Poor Angelo.’ Jade commiserated. The train to Milan could be a zoo.
Vittoria sipped her wine, which twinkled in the sunshine. ‘And now you. Why are we drinking? Why is your face . . . ?’ She screwed up her mouth and wrinkled her nose.
Jade laughed, but she needed several sips of her own wine before she could share what was making her feel like the bad-tempered baboon Vittoria had depicted.
‘A woman visited me today. Geneva Gallo.’ And, as Vittoria’s eyes widened to saucers, she nodded.
‘Yep. The woman who gave me hair like this.’ She brandished her curly ponytail.
‘Merda.’ Vittoria gaped. ‘What does she want?’
Jade found herself making the baboon face again and hastily wrenched it to its usual shape. ‘A job.’
Vittoria pursed her lips, then waggled her head as if it contained a pair of scales weighing her thoughts. ‘Well . . . you could use more help.’
‘Vittoria!’ It was Jade’s turn to gape. When she realised a group of men on a nearby table had turned to listen, she lowered her voice to a hiss.
‘She dumped me. Then she strolls in, introduces herself, says she’s down on her luck and so would I please employ her? That’s damned cold. I owe her nothing.’
Vittoria shrugged. ‘I agree. But we don’t always do things because we owe a debt. It’s because it suits us, or we’re curious, or we think it’s right.’
Shaking her head, Jade snatched up her glass, flounced back in her chair and watched people strolling by. She didn’t care if she was wearing the baboon face. She’d wanted Vittoria to assure her that she’d done the right thing, the only thing, in sending Geneva away.
Vittoria patted Jade’s knee. ‘I’ll buy more wine.’ She signalled to the waiter.
‘Espresso for me, this time. I’ll have to get back.’ Then Jade fell to brooding over Geneva, wondering whether her fidgeting from foot to foot had indicated shiftiness.
Or if she’d been embarrassed.
And she’d left so easily. Had she learnt not to expect much of life . . . ? For the first time, she wondered whether Geneva had only hoped for a job . . . or something more.
That evening, after she’d closed Reception and eaten chicken with potatoes without much appetite, she called Sheenagh. ‘You’ll never guess who arrived at Three Sisters today.’
Sheenagh hazarded, ‘George Clooney?’ Then, more sharply, ‘Who? Are you OK?’
‘Just shocked. It was my mother.’ She pronounced the final word with mocking emphasis, as air quotes didn’t work over the phone.
‘You’re . . . you’re serious?’ Sheenagh squeaked. ‘Oh, darling. What did she want?’