Chapter 37
“A party?”
“Yeah,” I say, “a party.”
It’s the start of our fifth week in Italy and I’ve had a progress update from Giuseppe, who’s assured me that the builders are still on course to finish at the end of the following week—just about.
Now that they’ve replastered Mabel and Archie’s bedrooms, they’re currently painting them lilac and sky blue: we needed colors the kids liked but that would also be understated enough to work for guests.
Archie originally wanted his favorite color green, but he insisted on a bright green and didn’t like any of the paler shades I suggested—so we settled on the sky blue of Manchester City’s kit.
Once the painting was underway, I checked my finances and saw I still have plenty of money left over from the sale of the cigarette case.
So I’ve gathered everyone together in the big lounge—which bears no traces of its former role as a temporary kitchen—and have just suggested throwing a party to celebrate the launch onto the rental market of the Castello Montemagno.
“Only a little one,” I elaborate. “Obviously, we don’t know that many people in Italy.
But we could invite Luisa and Stefano, Angelika, Giuseppe and the builders, everyone on the dig, and even people like Vito and our lawyer, Signor Mancini.
We could do drinks and a buffet and make pizzas and show everyone what we’ve done with the place. ”
“Can we play games?” asks Archie, Thor in hand.
“Of course,” I say. “We can organize them together and you can be our games master!”
“Woo-woo!”
“Can we invite Freya?” asks Mabel, her hair pulled back in a ponytail to show off her newly emerging cheekbones.
“Absolutely,” I reply.
“And Lina?” asks Callum, a little bashfully. Since last week, he and Lina have been messaging and have arranged to go for a walk later today, followed by pizza in the village.
“Yeah, it would be brill to see her,” I say. “So what do you think?”
Callum smiles. “I think it sounds mint.”
“Same,” chips in Mabel. “And I’ve just thought, I could create loads of content for our social media accounts. If we get all the guests to share and tag us in, we could start building up our following.”
“Fab!” I turn to Theo. “And what do you think, mio carissimo?”
Theo runs a hand over the hairs on his forearm. He breaks into a grin. “It’s a superb idea, mio tesoro.”
I grin back at him.
We decide to throw the party on our last night in Italy—a week on Saturday.
And for the rest of the morning, the five of us launch ourselves into planning the guest list, designing a digital invitation, and sending it out.
It’s almost enough to take my mind off the phone call I’ve arranged to make later.
But not quite.
Once the builders have left, Theo goes out for a run, Callum goes off to meet Lina—having changed out of his football shirt and asked for a spray of my aftershave—and Mabel goes to meet Freya to show her the kittens.
Only Archie’s left and I set him up watching a Marvel series on Theo’s iPad.
Then I go outside, over to the cluster of trees where we’ve set up the hammocks, where I know he won’t hear me.
I climb into one of them and lie down, telling myself I need to be as relaxed as possible while I do this.
I call Auntie Julie.
I start by updating her on the holiday and my birthday celebrations, then check in on the Airbnb lettings in Manchester. “And there’s something else I want to talk to you about.”
I recognize the sound of Julie putting her feet up on the pouffe. “What’s that, chuck?”
I fix my eyes on a little cloud, slowly drifting across the sky. “I found Mum’s letters. To Uncle Wilf.”
There’s a pause. I keep my eyes fixed on the cloud.
When Julie eventually speaks, her voice is quieter, more faltering. “And what did they say?”
“They said she was having an affair,” I answer, almost shocked to hear the words coming out of my mouth. “With some bloke called Gary. And that she was going to leave Dad and wanted to come to Italy for a bit.”
There’s a taut silence.
“So you know,” Julie says. “I guess there’s no point protecting you any longer.”
“No.” One of my sliders falls over the side of the hammock. “I think you need to tell me everything.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Absolutely.”
Julie gives a long sigh, then swallows.
“In the last year of your mum’s life,” she begins, “I sensed something wasn’t right with her, but whenever I asked, she just denied it.
Then I got a phone call from this girl Lauren I used to go to school with.
Well, she was a woman by then, obviously, and working in a hotel in town.
To be honest, I always thought she was a nasty gossip and I didn’t like her—I didn’t like her one bit.
Anyway, she said there was this woman coming into the hotel who she was sure was my sister and did I know she was having an affair? ”
I straighten out my legs. “And what did you say?”
“Well, I knew it was our Suzanne, as soon as she said it, I knew it. But I lied through my teeth and said I had no idea what she was on about. But Lauren said she was only trying to look out for me and the bloke your mum was seeing was trouble.”
“In what way? What did she mean?”
“I don’t know, chuck. I told you, I couldn’t stand the woman and I could tell she was enjoying the drama. So I made some excuse and pretended I had to go.”
“And then what happened?”
Julie breathes in and out, slowly. “I confronted our Suzanne about it. At least I did when I finally got hold of her. She avoided me for ages and I had to tell my boss I had a dentist’s appointment so I could get out of work early and wait for her at the bus stop.
The second she clapped eyes on me, I knew what Lauren had said was true. She had a guilty look on her face.”
I sit up. “And what did she say?”
“Well, at first she didn’t say anything. She pretended she was in a rush and had to get home. But I said if she didn’t tell me what was going on, I’d come back every day till she did.”
By now the anxiety is screeching through me. “And did she?”
“Yeah. We went and sat on a bench in Piccadilly Gardens and she smoked about ten cigs and told me she’d fallen in love with some fella called Gary and she was going to leave your dad.
I begged her not to and she said she knew I wouldn’t understand and that’s why she hadn’t wanted to tell me.
She said it was easy for me because I was happy on my own and didn’t understand what it was like to be in love. ”
Suddenly desperate to stretch my legs, I get up out of the hammock and retrieve my slider. “That wasn’t very nice of her.”
“Well, that’s what sisters are like. Brothers, too, I imagine.
Our Suzanne was always jealous of me for getting into grammar school and I was always jealous of her for having her pick of the fellas, especially now people had started saying I was on the shelf.
At the time, I wanted to get married and have kids but I was starting to face the fact it might never happen.
And here was my sister, who had everything I wanted and was chucking it all away. I have to say, I lost my rag with her.”
I notice a plant with bright orange flowers, some of which are dead, and start pulling off the heads. “So you had an argument?”
Julie clears her throat. “We did, chuck. Although I didn’t tell her what that Lauren had said about her fancy man being trouble. I didn’t want to hurt her. Not that it made any difference; she stopped speaking to me anyway.”
“And how long was that before she died?”
“Not long. A few weeks?”
I can feel my mouth drying up as I build up to the question I want to ask most. “So how did she die? If you weren’t speaking, I take it you two weren’t on a night out?”
There’s another tense pause. “Well, no, not exactly. But I was there.” I get the impression Julie’s struggling. “Sorry, this is really difficult.”
I toss the dead flowers onto the ground. “I need to know, Auntie Julie. Please don’t lie to me anymore.”
“I didn’t lie to you, Adam. You need to know that. Me and your dad did decide not to tell you certain details, but we never lied to you.”
I believe her: the story she’s given corroborates exactly what I’ve read in the letters. “OK, but please stop holding things back. You said you always hated it when older members of the family held things back from you.”
“Yeah, but it’s not always good to know everything, chuck. There are some things it’s better not knowing.”
I stop still, the anxiety tightening in my chest. I breathe in and out, slowly.
“So did Mum kill herself? Is that it?”
“No,” Julie answers, emphatically. “She didn’t kill herself.”
“Are you sure?”
“Completely sure.”
I sink down to the ground, my back coming to rest against the house’s bumpy wall.
I can feel the lifting of a heavy weight that’s been pressing in on me, a heavy weight that’s been pressing in on me for so long I’d almost forgotten it was there, that I’d started to think it was part of me, part of who I am.
So Mum didn’t want to get away from me. I was wrong.
“Look, chuck,” Julie breaks in, “it might be better if I sent you an email. It’s what we always tell people at work to do when they’re getting emotional. And I am getting emotional, and I’m sure you are, too. I need to think straight and not mess this up.”
I stare ahead. “But Julie, I really want to know.”
“And you will, Adam. You’ll just have to hang on a bit longer. Sorry.”
I let my head fall back against the wall. “Alright. But please don’t take too long.”
“So you’ve found out all that and been keeping it to yourself?” says Theo.
I swallow. “Yeah, I’m sorry.”
We’re lying in our temporary bedroom, in the room that used to belong to Wilf and Arnaldo, its walls replastered and waiting to be painted. I’m wrapped in Theo’s arms and my head’s resting on his chest.
“Ads, you don’t need to apologize,” he says. “I get why it was difficult. I get you had a lot to work out.”
I gaze up at the mosquito nets, one of the sides billowing gently as the fan rotates. “And I still am working it out. But now I know Mum didn’t take her own life, I feel much better about it.”
Theo lets out a breath and I feel it blowing through my hair. “I didn’t realize you’d thought that. I didn’t realize it had been causing you so much pain.”
“Yeah, but it isn’t anymore. And I can’t tell you how good it feels.
” I keep my eyes trained on the mosquito net and watch it billow.
“Although I still need to get my head around the fact she was going to run off with this Gary. I don’t know, I can’t believe she was going to make me move house and everything, to move in with some strange bloke.
Without the slightest consideration for my feelings. ”
I feel Theo shifting slightly. “Just a minute, you don’t know that. You don’t know she didn’t torture herself about it.”
“I suppose not.”
“Try and think about what it must have been like for your mum. It can’t have been much fun to be trapped in an unhappy marriage—I can vouch for that. And it sounds like she did her best to make things work.”
“Yeah, she stuck it out for a long time, I’ll give her that.” I reposition myself. “But I need to know what happened in those last few weeks. I need to know how she died.”
“Well, when the email comes through, we’ll work through it together. And we’ll work out a way forward—together.”
Happiness rings through me. “Really?”
“Absolutely. We’re partners, Ads. Your story is my story.”
And he pulls me closer.