Chapter 21
21
‘We’ve come to say goodbye,’ Raleigh said. ‘I hope you really are feeling better. Your black eye doesn’t look quite so bad.’
‘I’ve been using some concealer,’ I said with a grin.
‘We will be leaving for the airport soon. I could get some more there and send it on to you?’
I had been in the middle of my packing, sorting out my things into the depressing groups of dirty laundry, things I had brought and not worn, and the few gifts I had bought for my granddaughters. How was it that my belongings never fitted into the cases as easily on the return journey?
I realised I was being careless with none of the special folding and rolling techniques I had used, and my shoulder and ribs were still sore, so that didn’t help. Packing a case to go home was never very enjoyable at the best of times. Perhaps I would have to take everything out and start again, which would be even more annoying.
Leo and Eric stood next to her in the doorway of my room, Eric still wearing his new jeans, but this time teamed with a check shirt. Evidently the stegosaurus T-shirt was a step too far for Raleigh. Leo was smart in well-pressed chinos and a white polo shirt; Raleigh looked as though she was going to a fundraising event in a grey silk dress and heels. I could only assume they were flying in the posh seats, otherwise she would look like wreck by the time they got home. Or maybe rich people’s clothes didn’t crease and stain like mine did?
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘Honestly, my shoulder feels so much better already. Come on, Eric, there’s no need to look so tragic.’
‘Well, I disagree,’ Leo said firmly. ‘It could have been a lot worse, and Eric needs to know that. Actions have consequences.’
I held out an arm to the boy and after a moment he raised his head, ran to my side and buried his face in my waist.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, his voice muffled.
‘I’m fine, really, I am,’ I said. ‘Just don’t do anything like that again. Do you promise me?’
He nodded silently.
‘Then that’s okay.’ I looked across at Leo. ‘I take it your dad has told you his plans?’
Leo nodded. ‘He has. He explained everything and I’m glad for him. And more than a little relieved. It’s been something that has been worrying me for a while. Leaving a management team in charge is never the same.’
Raleigh agreed. ‘We knew we wouldn’t be able to take over. I mean, what do I know about running a hotel? Although I’m good at staying in them. And I have so much to do when we get back. There’s a black-tie dinner for St Xavier’s to celebrate the school’s tenth anniversary which I have to help plan.’
‘What do they need now? A Hadron Collider?’ I said, and Raleigh giggled.
Eric looked up at me.
‘Can’t you come with us? Please?’
‘No, I have my own little boy to sort out,’ I said firmly. ‘Have a safe trip home, be a good boy on the plane and look after Andrea.’
He nodded again.
‘Promise?’
‘Promise. When are you coming to see us?’ he said. ‘Mommy said I could ask you.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I’ll have to see.’
‘You could come for my birthday,’ he said, ‘that’s in February. I’m going to be six.’
‘Well, maybe I will,’ I said.
‘I hope you have a safe trip,’ Raleigh said, ‘and come and visit us very soon. We have plenty of room, and Eric will be asking on a daily basis, if I know him.’
She gave me a very gentle hug and murmured in my ear.
‘Thank you, for everything. You may not know it but you have made such a difference. Come and see us, you are always welcome.’
Leo kissed my cheek, and then with a bit of last-minute fussing about boarding passes and passports, they were gone.
I wondered for a moment if I ever would travel to visit them, and then I thought yes, why not? This, after all, would be part of this new independence I had been thinking about, doing exciting things.
Then suddenly, as was usual for him, Eric came rushing back and he threw his arms around me again, making me wince a little as he crushed my sore ribs.
‘You’ve got to look after Nonno now we are going home,’ he said, ‘otherwise he won’t have anyone to talk to. And you could come to my party together. He said he would like that.’
I laughed, delighted at the prospect of doing just that with Paulo at my side.
‘We’ll see,’ I said, giving him a last hug. ‘Now hurry up, you don’t want to miss your plane.’
* * *
The following day was our last in Capri. Now that Leo and his family had gone, it seemed as though our holiday really was over.
Susie, despite our agreed talk about our newfound independence, decided she was going to spend it with Raimondo, having lunch at some delectable restaurant he wanted to take her to, high on the cliffs above Amalfi.
I had retreated to my favourite spot in the gardens and was enjoying my coffee in the company of the hotel cat, who was scowling at me from a safe distance up a tree.
‘So now that Susie has gone off for the day, I suggest we do the same,’ said a voice behind me, and I turned to see Paulo. And despite my feisty statements to Susie, my insistence that we, as mature sensible women, didn’t need anyone’s approval, my spirits raised at the sight of him, and I felt happier than I had for years.
We understood each other better than we had before. It was as though a line had been drawn in the past behind us, and we had stepped over it into whatever the future had to offer.
‘What have you got in mind?’ I asked with a huge smile.
He sat down in the chair next to me and stretched out his legs in front of him. And then he gave me a grin that was so friendly, so familiar, and somehow tinged with mischief that I felt myself relax.
‘As long as you feel up to it I suggest a boat trip. I promised you one, didn’t I? The sea is very calm. And it’s going to be a lovely day.’
* * *
The feeling that this day was really the end of something, but also the beginning of a new chapter, intensified. And although I felt rather sad, there was also something inside me that I didn’t immediately recognise. Not excitement, exactly; something deeper than that. There was something else to look forward to, a different sort of life. One for me.
* * *
Half an hour later, we pulled away from the jetty at Marina Grande in our boat – a gozzo caprese , I was informed, a traditional wooden boat that would have held several people, but this time we were the only ones on board.
The captain, a grizzled, silent man, steered us expertly over the rocking water as we left the harbour, and I hoped I was not going to be seasick. That really would have spoiled the experience, but after a few minutes of concentrating on the horizon, I began to feel better.
The charm of the string of pastel-coloured houses clinging to the cliffs above us was more apparent as we went further out to sea. Other boats passed us and the ferry from the mainland bringing new visitors to the island. There were passengers waving, cheerful, looking forward to their own adventures and experiences.
How different I felt compared to when Susie and I had arrived. Then I had been so anxious, worried sick about meeting Paulo again after such a long time. Knowing that in all the intervening years I had never really forgotten him and had often wondered about him and his life. I had tried and failed to leave him firmly in my past; but now, none of that mattered. I believed in myself, and I realised he did too.
Perhaps I had never expected to see him again, but after everything, Ellen, most ironically, had brought us back together. And things between us were good, better than that, which was something I hadn’t even considered might happen.
Maybe I had hoped for a tentative acknowledgement of what we had been to each other. I had never for a moment anticipated that old feelings might resurface. That we might look at each other and remember what had been. What might have been.
The rocky headlands, some of them covered in tumbling vegetation, reared up above us, and across the water we could see caves and rock falls on the shoreline, the waves busy at the foot of the cliffs. And then we rounded a corner of the coastline, and there in front of us were some huge monoliths sticking out of the water. I gasped to see them, and I felt Paulo take my hand.
‘The Faraglioni rocks,’ Paulo said, ‘the ones I told you about. Stella, Mezzo and Scopolo. Centuries ago, fires were lit on the top, to warn sailors away from the dangers of the coast.’
‘How on earth did people get up there?’ I asked.
Paulo laughed. ‘I can’t imagine, I would not like to try. But look, this is the most wonderful part. The arch through the Mezzo. Many people come here for just this view. When I was a boy, I swam through it. I don’t think I would like to try that now either.’
I sat back in my seat and looked up at the towering rocks above us, and I felt the boat slow as we got closer. It was as though all my senses and feelings had been awakened, the warmth of the sun on my shoulders, the freshness of the breeze, the sound of the sea birds high above us, the rocking of the boat and the slap of the water against the sides. And Paulo’s hand in mine again, warm and familiar.
We waited for a few minutes while another boat went through in front of us, and we could hear the cheers and whoops from the passengers.
‘You know the legend?’ Paulo said. ‘When you go under the bridge, you kiss for luck and for happiness. And you can make a wish, and maybe the sea gods will grant it.’
We exchanged a look, both of us smiling, and as the boat inched forward under the rocky arch, he put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in towards him. And then he kissed me.
‘I have made a wish. Have you?’ he said.
I looked at his face, once so dear and familiar, and now that feeling returned.
And I did.
And then I leaned my head back and looked up at the sky, and I wondered if this was possibly the best day of my life. And tempting as that thought was, I didn’t want it to be. I wanted there to be other good days, other adventures, other best days to look forward to, not back on.
Paulo closed his eyes for a moment and frowned, as though he was trying to get his thoughts in order. At last, he spoke.
‘I have been happy, and sometimes sad, like most people. But my life has not ended, I can see that now. After Ellen died, I wasn’t sure if I should just carry on, waiting until the end, not sure when or how I would die too. But now, perhaps life – and you – have taken me on a different path.’
‘I was just thinking the same thing,’ I said. ‘I want there to be things to look forward to. I want my best days to be ahead of me.’
And at that moment I remembered what I had said to Susie: lots of water under lots of bridges. There’s nothing to tell.
But this time was different.
The beauty of this place, the air, the sunshine, the colour and the sea and Paulo. They all brought a long-buried sensation back to me. And I realised what had been missing from my life for so long. Those things he had said about me.
Passion. And courage.
* * *
We drove back to the hotel just after four o’clock, my face slightly windburned and glowing from the hours we had spent out at sea. On the way, we stopped in a little wine bar perched on the edge of a rocky promontory where the waitress was beautiful enough to grace any catwalk in Paris, and the wine came in a carafe with two glass tumblers, scratched with age and use, and it was perfect.
‘Now then, there is something I have been meaning to do ever since you got here.’
‘Yes?’ I said, slightly breathless all of a sudden.
He pulled out his mobile phone and handed it to me.
‘Please, will you put in your phone number, your email, your address, and any other way that I can contact you. Social media, carrier pigeon, anything!’
I laughed and did so, my fingers trembling. How silly to feel like this at my age. Like the same insecure and rather unsophisticated person I had been when he first met me. And yet somehow, I liked the feeling. The hard outer shell of being an adult had softened slightly, and I could almost remember what it felt like to be young and optimistic. To be wanted and valued just for myself.
‘I will let you know what happens,’ Paulo said, ‘about the hotel. I will go and see Stephanie tomorrow to see if there has been any progress. After you have gone.’
After I had gone .
It was sobering to think that this place, no matter how important it had become to me in the last few days, would continue perfectly well without me. The sun would rise, the shops open, fish would be caught, meals eaten, sea birds would wheel in the sky above it.
‘I’ll miss this place,’ I said, ‘and I’ll miss you terribly.’
‘I will miss you. But this will not be goodbye. It cannot be.’ He put his phone away and tapped the pocket. ‘We both have too much to do.’
‘Do we?’
‘Indeed, we do. If nothing else we have been invited to another party, this time in America. Where I am assured by my grandson that we will dress up as cowboys, but I have it on good authority that we will not be lassoing anyone.’
‘Well, I would hope not,’ I said, ‘and if he is anything like my children were, by the time his birthday comes around, it may have changed to spacemen or dinosaurs. And he did tell me he wanted to be a doctor.’
‘Well, let’s wait and see, shall we? And you, Joanna. What next?’
I sighed. ‘I have to deal with much more mundane things. The first thing I need to do is go back and get all the kids’ junk out of my garage, and the attic too. I’d forgotten about that. It’s over ten years since any of them actually lived at home. And when I moved, I just took all their unwanted stuff with me, and over the last few years they have been adding to it, which is ridiculous. Whatever I have been storing for them, they obviously don’t need most of it. Then I need to make sure Alex finds himself a new place to live and doesn’t just settle into my house for the foreseeable future. And I need to follow your mother’s example and look for things that are fun. I have spent long enough with my life in neutral. I want to make the most of whatever time I have left. And not live with regret.’
He reached across the table and took both of my hands in his.
‘I don’t want to waste another minute. I told you I loved you then, Jo, and I still do. I think we have something wonderful to offer each other. Something that doesn’t happen very often. And this does not diminish the love Ellen and I had for each other. She knew that I loved her, I was loyal and faithful to her, but she also knew you were special to me. Look, I know Susie and Raimondo are out this evening. I don’t want you to be eating alone in the dining room, not when you are going home tomorrow. Let’s have dinner together in my flat. We can talk some more and I will give you some of the finest wine in my cellar, something I have been keeping for a special occasion. I think this is it, don’t you?’
‘Oh, Paulo,’ I said, tears in my eyes, ‘what will everyone say? What will our children think? What about your mother?’
‘What about us?’ he said firmly. ‘Just for once, what about us ? You and me. Do your plans for the future include a companion? Someone to perhaps help you with your luggage and advise on things? But only if advice was needed, of course.’
‘They might,’ I said, and I grinned at him, ‘if I could find someone who is kind, handsome and available.’
Paulo took my hands and kissed the back of them.
‘I like to think I am kind and before too long when the sale of the hotel is finalised, I will definitely be available,’ he said.
‘You are also still very handsome.’
He laughed and shook his head.
‘I’m not sure about that.’
‘Well, I am, and I am right, so let’s not argue about that.’
He looked up at me, his eyes suddenly serious.
‘I have a better idea. Let’s learn the lesson that the last forty years have taught us – let’s not argue at all.’
* * *
I went to my room to freshen up for dinner, and my mind was in a very different place from a week ago. I was loved; at long last, I was valued. I was not just the shredded remains of my past, an unsatisfactory wife, a mother who was taken for granted. I was, after all, still me. Still wanted and appreciated for who I was. Not for my youth or my charms, or my usefulness, just for myself. It was a heady realisation.
I was standing looking out at that wonderful view again, wanting to always remember it and the way I felt this evening, when there was a knock on the door.
I opened it to find Ceci there, stylish as always in a pale pink dress and white pashmina, the outfit finished off with a dazzling diamond necklace.
‘May I come in?’ she said. ‘Freddy and Lucia are waiting for me in the dining room. I have left them both there with particularly dry martinis, something they both love. And she is doing her best to be pleasant and agreeable. I’m going to miss her. I know we argue a lot, but then we always did. It doesn’t mean anything. They will be perfectly all right for ten minutes. And it will do them both good to miss me.’
She went to sit in the most comfortable armchair and fussed a little with the hem of her dress. I began to feel nervous, wondering what she had to say to me. Had Paulo spoken to her? Did she know?
‘I’ve come to interfere,’ she said, ‘because at my age no one dares to stop me, and to tell you something. It might take me a while. Per favore, sii paziente – be patient. I first married when I was nineteen; I’ve told you a little about that. It wasn’t a happy marriage, but it did give me Paulo, which was a blessing. I came back here for a short time to live when that marriage failed, and my parents family who were running this place, took us in. Now, if you wanted to find a couple who argued! Mio Dio, sometimes the air was blue with their shouting. But when my mother died, my father gradually lost his zest for life. I didn’t want to see the same thing happen to Paulo. I married again, unwisely as it turns out. Follemente innamorata – I was madly in love. Or so I thought. Madness like that never lasts and no one wants to live in a state of insanity, do they? It wasn’t until I was fifty, perhaps fifty-one, that I found Freddy, the first man who loved me for who I was. A man who always put my happiness first and still does. And as I said to you, a man I like. And just as Freddy always puts my happiness first, Paulo is that sort of man too. So I ask you, do you love him?’
I felt quite giddy for a moment and sat down on the edge of the bed. I looked at her, her gaze focused on me.
‘I do,’ I said. ‘I think I always did. But I came here to celebrate Ellen. It’s not right that this should happen.’
Ceci laughed. ‘My dear, when would it be right? He has been on his own for five years, maybe for longer than that if my suspicions are true. I am a mother, just as you are, and I knew better than to ask too much. He is going to sell this hotel, and I do understand why. But what, I wonder, will he do next? I like you, Joanna. And I love my son. I have seen you together this last week. The way you look at each other. It’s as though nothing has changed, isn’t it, even after all these years. Yes, don’t look so surprised, I guessed what you were to each other. And I have seen a sort of sadness in you that I recognise. I may laugh about my failed marriages; I may say things to cover up what went wrong. But I know that you, like I have been in the past, have been in mourning for a lost life. Your hopes that were lost, your expectations and dreams of the sort of life that you wanted but did not achieve. I know exactly how that feels. Was it his fault? Was it my fault? Was it the other woman?’
I could feel myself almost tearful at that point. She was right.
Ceci patted my hand. ‘I have told Paulo this. There came a time when I had to let go of the past. To forget the mistakes I made, the wrong choices, all the time lost. And when I did that, I could allow myself to have a future. Now I am telling you to do the same thing. I asked Freddy this morning why he wanted to marry me all those years ago. I had two failed marriages behind me. I was not a good bet at all. And he said, “I had waited long enough to find you.” And I think maybe you and Paulo have waited long enough too. Don’t you? Don’t let that chance, that precious opportunity, slip away from you.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, even closer to tears.
Ceci looked at me, more kindly this time, her head on one side.
‘Being swept off your feet by first love can be delightful, but it can be wonderful with both feet on the ground.’