Chapter 32 #2
I sit back at the table and take a swig of my drink. “So did Wilf come up here a lot?”
“Every Thursday afternoon at first. Then when Edgar died, we spent more and more time together. During the pandemic, we saw each other pretty much every day. He even moved in for a few months. There were only the two of us so we became like a little family.”
I check on Archie and worry I’ve made his task too hard. I steer him in the right direction, then sit back down. “And did you ever go out?” I ask Angelika. “When it wasn’t the pandemic, I mean?”
“Oh, yes. We’d go to Lucca for dinner on the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro. Willie loved it there. Apparently, it’s where Arnaldo came to meet him when he arrived in Italy.”
I pull my chair closer. “Really? He said something about that in one of his letters.”
My heart drops. I didn’t intend to tell her I’d read the letters: it just slipped out. I hope she doesn’t turn on me for snooping.
Angelika arches an eyebrow. “So you found them, did you?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Should I not have read them?”
She rearranges her bracelets and bangles. “Don’t be silly, darling. If Willie left them, I’m sure it’s because he wanted you to.”
I let out a breath.
“Oh, and we’d sometimes go to opera at the Teatro del Giglio,” she continues. “That’s also in Lucca. Or the open-air Puccini festival in Torre del Lago. That also brought back his happy memories of Arnaldo.”
Seeing that Archie has no idea where the key is, I stand up and approach him. “I’ll give you a clue,” I say. “It’s hiding underneath something beginning with a C.”
Archie scrunches up his forehead. “Chair?”
“No. It’s in the water.”
“Captain America?”
“No, but that’s a good guess.”
Archie points at Lina. “Curly hair?”
I raise both eyebrows. “No, but you’re getting warmer.”
I give him an encouraging grin and sit back down, as he swims towards Lina and Callum.
“You know, I was sad to lose Willie,” Angelika continues, “but I think he was ready to go. He used to say he and Arnaldo had been apart for too long.”
I nod. “Twenty-five years is a long time.”
“Absolutely.” She takes out another cigarette and lights it. “I’ve managed five without Edgar and that’s bad enough.”
“Callum!” Archie shouts, excitedly. He dives down to retrieve the key from under his brother’s foot.
“By the way,” says Angelika, “now you’re in the house, we need to carry out Willie’s wishes for his ashes. You know he wanted to have them scattered with Arnaldo’s?”
I’m embarrassed to realize I hadn’t even thought about this. “Oh, right. Where’s that?”
“In the castle, darling.” Angelika takes another drag and directs a plume of smoke into the sky.
“Well, actually, we stood next to the wall up there and threw the ashes over the side. We weren’t allowed to scatter them around the actual castle, as it’s a protected building.
You have to get permission for these things. ”
“Shit, how do I go about doing that?”
Archie is hauling himself out of the water and running over to me. “Adam, that wasn’t fair!”
“It’s fine, I’ll do it,” says Angelika. “I did it for Arnaldo and Edgar. I know the man in the town hall in Camaiore.”
I brace myself as Archie throws himself at me. “Has the same guy been doing the job for twenty-five years?” I ask Angelika, as he starts attacking me with wet slaps.
“And the rest,” she answers, stubbing out her cigarette. “You know what small towns are like. But he’s divine. And he knew Willie and Arnaldo’s story. He was very sympathetic, actually. I’ve seen him since Willie died and we’ve spoken about it, so it won’t be a problem.”
I lift up Archie and shake him, making him giggle and squeal. “Thank you,” I say to Angelika.
“Now come on,” she commands, standing up. “Let’s find this one a treat.”
At the sound of the word treat, Archie wriggles out of my grasp and onto his feet. “Yes, please!”
Angelika smiles. “I don’t think any of the others will be interested.”
I look at Mabel and Freya, who are engrossed in devising some kind of synchronized swimming routine. Lina is sitting on Callum’s shoulders so he can throw her off and she can scream, loudly.
“No,” I agree.
Angelika flips open her lace parasol. “And would you like to see Willie?”
Lina screams again, so loudly it makes me wince. “What do you mean?”
“His ashes?” Angelika replies. “They’re in the living room.”
“Oh, right, sure.”
Her eyes twinkle. “When we pass the kitchen, let’s pick up another bottle of Prosecco. If Lina’s going to carry on screaming like that, I’m going to need it.”
Later, Theo and I make the children pizzas, then leave them to go out on a date night.
The idea came up when Callum and Mabel offered to babysit Archie.
At first I said thanks but declined: I’m still worried about money and how I’m going to pay Giuseppe for the retaining wall and storm damage—although Angelika gave me an idea on that front.
But Theo insisted we should take the kids up on the offer and it would be his treat.
So we’ve come to Lucca, to the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro.
It’s a lovely evening and still very warm, but we’re bored of wearing shorts and T-shirts so have dressed up in chinos, loafers and linen shirts, which we ironed—joking it was the first time we’d ironed anything in weeks.
We stroll around the oval-shaped piazza, admiring the buildings of various heights that are painted lemon, wheat and a gorgeous honeycomb, their upper floors private residences—many of them with balconies—their lower floors occupied by restaurants, most of which have outdoor seating spread out over the paving stones.
We find a table at the same restaurant where we ate on our first night in Italy—which we remember wasn’t expensive—and order a bottle of house red.
“Here’s to your fab A level results, mio carissimo,” I say, holding up my glass.
“Thanks, mio tesoro,” says Theo. “Here’s to all the students getting good news tomorrow!”
We bring our glasses together and savor our first sip of wine.
On reading the menu, we see that polenta has been translated as “cornmeal mush,” which makes us laugh—although, unsurprisingly, neither of us fancies it.
Theo orders octopus then roast lamb, while I opt for an insalata caprese followed by seabass.
Our waitress is skinny, with short hair in a mullet and a tattoo of a paw print on the side of her neck.
She begins speaking to us in Italian and we congratulate ourselves on not standing out as much as we used to—before we have to admit defeat and ask her to switch to English.
In the center of the piazza, a busker with a sound system is playing a clarinet along to backing tracks of love songs from films—currently “Unchained Melody,” from Ghost.
I tell Theo that Angelika confirmed Wilf and Arnaldo did indeed meet on this piazza when Wilf came to Italy. We imagine how Wilf must have felt to have given up everything and be alone and terrified, then to come here and finally be reunited with Arnaldo.
“Whatever either of them was feeling,” I say, “it must have been awful not to be able to express it.”
Theo turns his glass, gazing at the wine as it swirls around. “Can you imagine going through all that and not even being able to hug each other?”
“I just thought,” I burst out, “that’s the color I’m going to paint their old bedroom!”
“What?”
I nod at a building on the other side of the piazza. “Over there, that gorgeous honeycomb. In honor of their reunion in Italy!”
Theo grins. “Outstanding.”
As the light fades and the streetlights flicker on, the busker switches to “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic. Our starters arrive and I tuck into my caprese. I find myself thinking about Mum and Gary on their first date in an Italian restaurant. I wonder what Mum ordered. Had she eaten it before?
“You’ve gone quiet,” Theo says. “What are you thinking about?”
I consider telling him about Mum’s letter and what I’ve found out. I probably should tell him. And I want to tell him.
But this isn’t just about me. And I don’t want to spoil the evening.
“Just Wilf and Arnaldo,” I answer. “Thinking about them makes me appreciate how lucky we are.”
“Absolutely. We may have had our challenges, but nothing like what they had to go through.”
I nod, solemnly. “Does it make you feel a responsibility to get it right?”
Theo shrugs. “It would if I didn’t want to get it right anyway. But the commitment’s already there.”
I smile. “It is for me, too.”
Theo puts down his glass and lays his hands flat on the table. “Besides, I feel like we are getting it right.”
A voice in my head says, You need to tell him about Mum.
I dismiss it. “Me too.”
I gaze into his dazzling blue eyes, just like I did on our first night on the piazza. And, as the waitress moves in to top up our glasses, I lean forward and kiss him.