One Night in Italy
Contents
Prologue
Io ricordo
– I remember
Chapter One
Mio padre
– My father
Chapter Two
Arrivederci
– Goodbye
Chapter Three
Una telefonata
– A phone call
Chapter Four
Il segreto
– The secret
Chapter Five
L’investigatrice
– The detective
Chapter Seven
Una amica
– A friend (female)
Chapter Eight
La Cucina
– Cooking
Chapter Nine
Il diario
– The diary
Chapter Ten
Buon Natale!
– Merry Christmas!
Chapter Eleven
Riunione
– Reunion
Chapter Twelve
Emergenza
– Emergency
Chapter Thirteen
La vigilia di Capodanno
– New Year’s Eve
Chapter Fourteen
Che lavoro fai?
– What do you do for a living?
Chapter Fifteen
Il bar
– The bar
Chapter Sixteen
Una scoperta
– A discovery
Chapter Seventeen
Il foglio di calcolo
– The spreadsheet
Chapter Eighteen
L’agenzia di lavoro
– The employment agency
Chapter Nineteen
La fotografia
– The photograph
Chapter Twenty
Cosa stai facendo?
– What are you doing?
Chapter Twenty-One
La cena
– Dinner
Chapter Twenty-Two
Il caffè
– The café
Chapter Twenty-Three
All’ufficio
– At the office
Chapter Twenty-Four
L’abito nuziale
– The wedding dress
Chapter Twenty-Five
All’ospedale
– At the hospital
Chapter Twenty-Six
Coraggio
– Courage
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mi dispiace
– I’m sorry
Chapter Twenty-Eight
L’attrice
– The actress
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Il giardino
– The garden
Chapter Thirty
La verita
– The truth
Chapter Thirty-One
Il ragazzo
– The boyfriend
Chapter Thirty-Two
Il spettacolo
– The performance
Chapter Thirty-Three
Due notti a Roma
– Two nights in Rome
Chapter Thirty-Four
Qual è il tuo numero di telefono?
– What is your telephone number?
Chapter Thirty-Five
Due settimane dopo
– Two weeks later
Epilogue
Io ricordo
– I remember
Prologue
Io ricordo
– I remember
For years afterwards, whenever she thought about that summer in Italy, she remembered the scent first: the fragrant pink bougainvilleas around Lucca’s poolside bar mingling intoxicatingly with the tang of coconut sun oil and cigarette smoke. Back then, she was young and carefree, with a red dress, a devil-may-care attitude and the best tan of her life. The air had shimmered with heat and a million possibilities. Anything might happen.
On the day that everything changed, she had spread her towel on a sunlounger, peeled off her dress and sat down, adjusting the straps of her bikini. Then, just as she was about to lean back and relax, her skin prickled: a sixth sense, maybe. Peering through her sunglasses, she noticed a man in the deep end of the pool, leaning against the side, his broad tanned arms gleaming with tiny water droplets. He seemed to be looking right at her.
Was she imagining it or was he giving her the eye? She propped up her sunglasses to check, the world swinging into sudden brightness. He totally
was
giving her the eye. What was more, he was bloody gorgeous.
Heat flooded her body as they exchanged a long, loaded look. The clamour of the poolside seemed to vanish as if the world had been muted. All she could hear was the thud of her heart.
Oh, what the hell, she thought recklessly; she was single and on holiday and up for some fun. He might be all of those things too. Without a second thought, she winked at him. Her heart galloped as he grinned back, revealing perfect white teeth. And then he was pulling himself out of the pool, water streaming down his muscular arms: he was tall and athletic, early-twenties at a guess; golden skin and a crooked smile. As he straightened up, she couldn’t help noticing the way his swimming shorts just revealed the tops of his hip bones, and she shivered with sudden desire.
He walked over to her, beads of water still clinging to his body, his eyes never leaving hers. ‘
Ciao, bella
,’ he said, his voice low and husky.
Her blood drummed through her. Her breath caught in her throat. It felt as if this was the moment she’d been waiting for all summer. She raised an eyebrow flirtatiously and smiled back. ‘
Ciao
,’ she said.
Chapter One
Mio padre
– My father
As a journalist, Anna Morley was used to thinking in headlines; it was second nature to her. Without consciously doing it, even the most ordinary event in her life was transformed into a punchy soundbite etched in large black capitals in her mind.
HACKED OFF! Female journalist, 32, misses bus home.
DANGER ON OUR STREETS! Loose paving slab ‘an accident waiting to happen’, says local resident, 32.
LET THERE BE LIGHT Council slammed over patchy street-lighting. The
Herald
campaign starts today!
THE HUNGER GAME Starving writer, 32, curses self for not stopping at the corner shop for a tin of beans.
Admittedly, none of the headlines were particularly scintillating. But then neither was her life, to be frank. If she died right now, and needed an epitaph for her grave, the words ‘Same old, same old’ would sum things up perfectly.
But then came the most shocking news story of all, right when she was least expecting it, and afterwards nothing felt ‘same old, same old’ again. It was astonishing how one conversation could change everything.
Clemency House was the care home eight miles out of Sheffield where Anna’s grandmother, Nora, lived. With its strong smell of wee, disinfectant and overcooked cabbage, it was home to an assortment of pensioners in varying states of confusion and decrepitude. It was certainly the last place on earth you would expect to experience an epiphany.
Anna visited her nan on the last Sunday of the month and knew almost all the residents by now. An excited twittering would greet her arrival in the lounge – ‘Ooh, it’s Anna’; ‘Wake up, duck, Anna’s here, look, come to see Nora’; ‘Anna! Cooee!’ – which always made her feel like a minor celebrity as she worked her way through the sea of white hair and support stockings.
‘Hello, Mrs Ransome, that’s a lovely dress you’ve got on today.’
‘Hello, Violet, how’s your great-grandson doing?’
‘Hello, Elsie, I’ve brought you today’s crossword if you want it?’
Nora would rise up from her favourite toffee-coloured wingback chair and offer her soft, powdery cheek for a kiss, then they’d drink stewed tea and chat together for an hour or so, before taking a slow turn around the garden so that Nora could moan in private about whichever resident was getting on her nerves that week. And that was usually that.
This time, however, the pattern changed. It was a windy autumn day with dark clouds shouldering each other across the sky, while inside, the central heating was cranked up to soporific levels. Anna was just about to suggest going out for some fresh air when a storm suddenly broke and rain began sheeting down dramatically, spattering great heavy drops against the windows.
‘Goodness!’ Nora quavered, blinking in alarm, one hand up at her crepey throat. She was dressed as ever in a strange combination of garments, today’s outfit a cream blouse and bobbly green fleece cardigan, her favourite tweed skirt and thick brown tights that pooled in wrinkles around her swollen ankles.
‘Maybe we’ll stay indoors after all,’ Anna said, discreetly checking her watch. Three o’clock. Pete was meant to be coming round for dinner later – ‘a roast’, she’d promised him ambitiously, and she knew for a fact that there wasn’t a single vegetable to be found in her house, let alone anything she could conceivably baste in oil and bung in the oven.
Nora turned and stared at Anna as if seeing her for the first time. Her dementia was an unpredictable beast; some days she seemed perfectly lucid and managed to keep up with a conversation, but other times, a veil of bewilderment would slide over her face and she would spout gibberish. ‘You do look like him, you know,’ she said from out of nowhere. ‘Gino, wasn’t it?’ Her false teeth were slipping, making her words indistinct.
‘Gino?’ Anna echoed. ‘What are you talking about, Nan?’
‘The Italian. You know.’ Her eyes were cloudy and faraway, her gaze wandering from Anna’s face. ‘Your father.’
Anna’s stomach lurched. She must have misheard, surely. ‘My
father
?’
Nora frowned. ‘Didn’t I just say that? Your poor mum.’ She shook her head, gnarled fingers clenched around the arms of her chair. ‘Nothing but trouble!’
Anna had difficulty breathing for a moment. She opened and shut her mouth, her brain fusing red hot with shocked, urgent questions. ‘Was that his name?’ she asked dazedly. At last, she thought. At last! ‘Gino? Was that his name?’
‘It’s a long way to Tipperary,’ Mrs Ransome started singing in the background, her voice high and reedy. ‘It’s a long way to go.’ Several others joined in, and Anna had to raise her voice.
‘Nan?’ she urged when no answer came. ‘Was my father called Gino?’
Nora blinked. ‘Look at that rain!’ she marvelled. ‘I’d better get my washing in, hadn’t I?’
‘Nan, you don’t have any washing here. We’re in Clemency House, remember?’
‘It’s a long way to Tipperary, to the sweetest girl I knooooow . . .’
‘I did my whites this morning,’ Nora said dreamily. ‘Albert’s shirts and the bed sheets. Meredith’s Sunday school dress with pink ribbons.’
And she was gone, swallowed up by the confusing mists of the past once more. Albert was her husband, long since buried. Anna had no idea who Meredith might be.
‘Nan, listen to me. Do you remember Gino? What did he look like?’
Somebody was clapping out of time, Anna registered dimly. ‘Goodbye, Piccadilly – join in, Nora! – Farewell, Leicester Square . . .’
Nora wasn’t listening; she was in her own parallel version of the world, her head cocked as if hearing distant voices. ‘And the tablecloth! That gravy took some scrubbing to wash out, didn’t it, Susan?’