Chapter 20
20
I stayed in my room, just venturing onto the terrace outside my window where I sat in a chair and Susie fussed about, asking me if I wanted a rug over my knees. Which I didn’t because it was still quite warm.
I sent an email to my family explaining what had happened and reassuring them I was fine. Although I did receive a couple of panicking calls from my daughters when I sent them a WhatsApp selfie of my bruised face.
Alex sent me an unexpectedly long email; he had apparently been busy with work and reassured me he had definitely not had any friends round. Apart from a couple who wanted to watch the football. And a colleague from work who had just broken up with his girlfriend and needed a place to stay for the weekend. And he promised he would touch up the paintwork on the bannisters when he had a moment.
My daughters sent video messages from their children who, despite it still being early October, were asking if I could make them some Halloween costumes. When did that become such a thing, I wondered. I didn’t remember trick or treating when I was a child.
Jess, who was married to a solicitor, asked if I was going to sue, and Kat asked what on earth I had done to my hair and if I would be better by Christmas.
Then I began to worry about how everyone would fit in to my little house now that my granddaughters had both outgrown their travel cots, and then firmly pushed the problem from my mind. It was a long way off, after all. Who knew what I would be doing by then?
I might be off on a Christmas cruise or staying somewhere snowy, which was always something I had wanted to do. Vermont, perhaps, or Austria. The possibilities were endless if I just opened my mind to them.
Having finished my rather pleasant daydream of sitting in a log cabin by a roaring fire with a mug of hot chocolate in my hand with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking some suitably festive scenery, I then sent them some more cheerful views of Susie carrying two glasses of wine towards me with a big grin on her face, a beautiful sunset and another reassuring selfie after I had borrowed some of Susie’s Touch Eclat concealer.
‘Would you mind awfully if I went out this evening?’ Susie said. ‘I mean, there are lots of people around in case you need something.’
She was standing in the doorway fiddling with the handle and not quite meeting my eye.
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘You’ve been fussing around me all day. I’m guessing this is for an outing with your admirer?’
‘Well, he did say he would like to take me out to dinner. And you really are looking better. Not the black eye, of course. I mean, that’s going to take a bit of time to go, but you don’t seem quite so battered. Did you ask Gina to do that to your hair, by the way? It’s a bit different. I’ve never seen you with big hair before. You look like you’re going to take off.’
‘I’m absolutely fine,’ I said, trying to pat my hair down and make it look a bit less exuberant, ‘and I really don’t need people to fuss or keep my company all the time. And Gina just did what she felt like.’
‘Ceci wanted to come and see you. I think now Sylvia has gone, she is feeling a bit out of sorts. I know they squabbled all the time, but I have the feeling they both secretly enjoyed it. Lucia is still here but they don’t seem quite the force with only the two of them. And Raleigh and Leo wanted to come and say goodbye too. They are off tomorrow, back to America with the boy wonder.’
‘Poor Eric, how is he?’
‘To be honest he doesn’t seem quite as bad. He was sitting between his parents looking very chastised at breakfast this morning. Not running about and not arguing either. And I did see Andrea sitting with her feet up by the pool having a quiet hour to herself for once. I think your accident really shocked all of them, not just Eric. It’s about time something did in my opinion. All that “No No” parenting nonsense, I think they have given up on that.’
‘Good job too,’ I said. ‘They do say kids push their boundaries, and he didn’t seem to have any.’
‘So wise. So, what do you say about this evening? Are you sure you don’t mind?’
‘Not at all,’ I said, ‘and I hope you have a wonderful time.’
Susie grinned. ‘I’ll try. Well, I won’t have to try too hard, because he’s such easy company. Right then, if you’re okay for a bit, I’ll let him know and then go and get ready.’
‘You mean he’s still around?’
Susie blushed. ‘He’s downstairs. He’s waiting to see what you say before he books the restaurant.’
* * *
Just as I was wondering if I could face going downstairs that evening for something to eat, there was a knock on my door. I opened it to find Paulo there with a little metal trolley which he pushed into my room.
‘I have brought you some supper,’ he said. ‘Pasta carbonara, because it used to be your favourite.’
He bent and kissed me and brushed my cheek gently with his thumb.
‘You poor thing.’
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Getting better by the minute.’
I watched as he whisked off the metal covers to reveal two steaming bowls of pasta. It smelled divine and my mouth watered for the first time in a while. How wonderful that he had remembered.
‘I hope you don’t mind if I join you?’ he said. ‘My son and his wife have gone out for the evening, Andrea and Eric are packing ready for their journey tomorrow. My mother is sulking because Lucia has met up with an old friend and they are having dinner together so she doesn’t have anyone to argue with, so you can see I too am at a loose end.’
‘Can’t she argue with Freddy?’
‘They never do, he just let’s her get away with everything. You’re sure you don’t mind me staying?’
‘I’m absolutely delighted,’ I said, and we sat outside on the terrace in the warm evening air, while below us the lights from the garden glowed in the dusk.
‘It feels like the end of things,’ I said after a while. ‘People going home, and the gardens look less busy too. I know that the season is finishing. Isn’t this the time when you should be taking a break?’
He didn’t answer for a few moments as – having reassured himself that I was no longer on any medication – he opened a bottle of Pinot Grigio and poured out two glassfuls.
I held my glass up to look at it.
Even the wine glasses here were things of beauty. Elegant narrow stems and lovely engraved bowls, not like the supermarket versions I was used to. Perhaps in future I would do things more stylishly. I had seen something similar in a local antique shop for a ridiculously low price, and I decided I would buy them if they were still there on my return. There was joy to be had in such things. There was nothing wrong with making life better in small ways.
I had already decided that from now on I would wear my new clothes and decent underwear instead of keeping them ‘for special occasions’, and at my age who knew when that would be? What if the opportunity to do so never came? I was determined to take pleasure in every day, not keep putting things off until the future.
‘I have had news from Stephanie,’ he said at last. ‘There is a new bid on the table from the hotel chain. They have increased their offer.’
‘An offer you can’t refuse?’ I said, taking a sip of my wine.
He gave a little laugh. ‘Quite possibly.’
‘So what will you do?’
He picked his cutlery up and then put it down again.
‘I think I will accept. It will be the end of an era; I can see that. But I told you, I don’t want to do this until the day I die. I need to do something else.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘And you’re sure?’
‘As sure as I can be,’ he said. ‘What is the alternative, after all? To hang on for more years, until one day I cannot carry on and the problem falls on my son to deal with?’
‘Have you told him? You really should, don’t you think?’
‘I have. I told him this morning, and my mother too. I’m sure she has something to say about it, but to be honest after she and my father split up she hardly lived here at all. She left me with my grandparents, and then Ellen and I brought the place up to date, made changes and improvements while she settled in Florence with Freddy.’
‘She’s a lucky woman, finding someone so compatible,’ I said.
‘She says it took her fifty years to do so, but it was worth the wait.’
‘You must have so many memories of this place. It might be more difficult to leave than you think.’
He sprinkled a little more parmesan onto his pasta and then looked across at me.
‘There are things I will miss,’ he agreed, ‘but a lot of things I won’t.’
He picked up his wine glass and held it out towards me.
‘A toast, to the future, to life and to us.’
He held out his wine glass towards me, and I suddenly couldn’t meet his gaze.
So this was it. He was talking about us.
Us.
Our lives had gone in such different directions. He had moved on and so had I. So many years had passed; neither of us were the same people we had been back then. He had been here in the land of sunshine and colour and warmth, with Ellen and his family, and their friends, while I had taught at little schools, and raised my own family in the damp English countryside.
The thought struck me, despite all those differences and all those years apart, that perhaps there were also still things we had in common. I knew when I was younger I had been stubborn and argumentative. And so had he. Perhaps that similarity was what had attracted us to each other back then, but maybe the decades that had passed had brought changes to both of us. If nothing else I knew now which battles were worth fighting and which weren’t. Maybe I had grown up after all.
I realised he was still waiting, and I clinked my glass against his.
‘To all those things and more,’ I said at last.
My phone buzzed with the arrival of a text. It was from Alex, of course.
I’ve been working from home and there’s no milk or bread left. I’ve looked in your freezer and I can’t find any. When is the next supermarket delivery?
‘Is there a problem?’ Paulo said.
‘There certainly is,’ I said, biting down my irritation.
And then I knew there was something I had to do, and soon.
‘I’m so much better now, I certainly don’t need any more time in bed, and you have some decisions to make. About the hotel, and the future. And so do I. Well, not the hotel bit because obviously I haven’t got one, but we both have plans to make and ideas to sort out, don’t we?’
He topped up my wine glass and then he nodded.
‘I will arrange some flights for you and Susie. It will be up to you to drag her away from Raimondo. I know one thing – when all this is sorted out, I don’t want to lose you for a second time.’
I didn’t think I could breathe properly for a moment and then I took a deep breath and I smiled up at him.
‘No,’ I said, ‘nor do I.’
‘I would like us to start again,’ he said, ‘to find our own contentment. To remember the past but also learn from it. You had your life, and I had mine, and I do not wish them away, not at all. And I do not regret the choices I made. But I do want something else now. I want to get to know you again. I don’t want to remain stuck in the past.’
‘No,’ I said, with a huge smile, ‘nor do I.’
And suddenly those things seemed possible. There were opportunities for both of us. How marvellous that felt, to know that we both had new chances to explore the future, new lives to find.
* * *
We talked and talked about the past. He even went to find a couple of photographs in his desk, not of just us two because that would have been rather strange if he had kept them, but of all our friends. Parties we went to, picnics on the beach which went on for hours while the sunset faded, and the only light on our faces was from our driftwood bonfire.
It was strange looking at us back then. The colours from the photographs had faded with age. There was Susie with her shock of pale, red-gold hair. Ellen, beautiful, and aware of the camera, posing her long legs like a model. Me, head thrown back in laughter, a beer bottle in my hand. I could almost feel the warmth from the fire, hear the chatter, the terrible guitar playing from a young chap I’d dated for a few weeks whose name I couldn’t remember.
We had thought we were invincible back then. Old age and illness and mortgages and relationship difficulties were for other people. We were different, weren’t we?
Perhaps every generation feels the same at that age – ridiculously confident, invulnerable to the problems life might throw at us. We thought we were special, that we knew so much more than everyone else, didn’t we? And yet we hadn’t; we were wrong, of course.
Those decades had gone by in a heartbeat. We’d both had careers, triumphs and disappointments. Our children had grown up, relationships had come and gone, marriages had failed, illness had come for some of us after all.
We laughed and exchanged memories and agreed we had been so young back then, so foolish. And yet after all that time we still liked each other – wasn’t that what Ceci had said was the most important thing? And because of that, there were still possibilities. For what, I wasn’t sure. Friendship? Companionship? Something more maybe.
There was a part of me that was enthusiastic about the prospect, and a little part of me that held back. This was not the time for reckless declarations. To take our relationship any further. There was time for that. Apart from anything else, my ribs were still sore; I didn’t think I would be very alluring when I was covered in scratches and bruises even if I did put my best underwear on. And yet the prospect of it was so exciting. I’d waited for so long to feel like this, to want to be close and intimate with him. To be able to touch his skin, be near to him.
He needed to get his life in order, and I needed to do the same. Thinking about that in this place, where life seemed warm and easy, where every corner revealed a new, wonderful view was impossible.
I needed to go home to my funny little house where the front door stuck in wet weather and the garage and the attic were full of my children’s junk. Boxes of schoolbooks, unwanted furniture, a mountain bike in pieces, skateboards and tennis racquets.
You can’t throw that away! Just hang on to it for a bit, and I’ll sort it out one day.
Well, that day was coming sooner than they thought.
* * *
‘Do we have to go home?’ Susie said mournfully at breakfast the next morning when I told her my decision. ‘It’s so lovely here. And Raimondo really does have a boat and a beautiful house. He wasn’t stringing me along, and he has mentioned no interest in my bank account or my pension, so you can stop worrying about that.’
‘Paulo is going to arrange our flights, and yes, we do need to go home,’ I said firmly. ‘There is nothing stopping you from coming back.’
‘True,’ Susie said, brightening up, ‘and I’ve realised I want to sort out my flat. I’ve been meaning to redecorate for months, but I kept putting it off because Simon said he couldn’t bear the disruption and we could never agree on colours. And of course, Raimondo could come and see me, couldn’t he? I’d better clear out the spare room. It’s full of junk at the moment.’
‘Spare room? Really?’ I teased.
Susie blushed. ‘Maybe.’ She fiddled a little with her cutlery and then took a bite of her Danish pastry. ‘It’s years since I’ve felt this happy. Since a man has been kind to me and made me feel good about myself. It will take getting used to. I’m not being silly, am I? My track record with choosing men isn’t great.’
‘Of course you’re not being silly, but look at the practicalities. You still haven’t got all of Simon’s stuff out of your flat. In the grand scheme of things, you’ve only just broken up with him. The other woman, remember her? You need time, to properly finish off one relationship before you go dashing into another one. You’ve only known this man for a short time. You can exist perfectly happily without someone for a bit, you know.’
Susie sighed. ‘I know you’re right. But I don’t like being on my own, I never did. What if this is my last chance? I’ve made such a mess of things in the past.’
‘Last chance for what? Can you hear yourself?’ My voice got a bit squeaky with indignation at that point. ‘Last chance to be happy? In these last few days, I’ve realised I have to be happy with myself first. It’s taken me a long time to see that. For the last few years I’ve been plodding on, doing the same things, putting the bins out on the right day, cutting the hedges back, balancing things and budgeting because that’s what I always did. There’s more to life than just carrying on, there has to be.’
‘What things?’
‘Living. Learning new things. We always considered ourselves liberated women, didn’t we? Going to university, having the sort of careers our mothers never could, buying our own car, changing phone providers. I don’t know – doing the things we always put off because we chose to put someone else first. Now we don’t have to. Now we really can just do what the heck we like. Go to Paris in the spring, paint our nails blue, sit in bed all day and eat cake, redecorate without having to ask for someone else’s opinion. Isn’t that the ultimate liberation?’
‘I’m not really enjoying this pastry. I wish I’d had one of those almond croissants instead,’ Susie said, eyeing the buffet table.
‘Then have one,’ I said, and we both laughed.