One Night in Italy (36 page)

Prince H!
she typed.
We need to meet up and drink schooners! Let’s make a plan.

A split-second after her message appeared under his, so did another one. From Dan.

PRINCE!
he’d typed.
Mine’s a VB, mate. Name the time and place.

Oh Gawd. Awk-ward, as Phoebe would say. He must have been typing his message at the exact same time she was. She bit her lip, wondering whether to comment on this.
Great minds!
or
Jinx!
or
OMG, we were always on the same wavelength, Dan, we are destined to be together!

Hmm, maybe not.

Before she could think of anything cool though, Harry had already posted a reply.
Hey guys! Good to hear from you. Are you two still together?

What a question.
If only, Harry
. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, debating how best to reply.
No
and a sad face? Definitely not.
No, he chucked me?
Ick. Harry didn’t want the gory details. Maybe it was best not to reply at all.

She leaned towards the screen as a new message flashed up from Dan. And then all the breath seemed to be sucked out of her as she read,
No, mate. Sadly I blew it, like the prick I am.

Christ.
Sadly I blew it
? Did that mean he regretted it? Or was he just being polite, to save her feelings?

You always were a prize tool
, Harry replied cheerfully.
So – drinks, then? We should definitely get the Sydney crew together. Soph, are you in too?

Her fingers froze on the keyboard. She felt totally thrown by the way this conversation had turned. Oh shit. Drinks with Harry and the Sydney crew – massive yes. Drinks with Harry and the Sydney crew including Dan – massive don’t know.

Then she got a grip. Knowing what a flake Harry was, this whole meeting up thing might never get off the ground. And even if it did, she could always duck out at the last minute. No way was she going to say
No
on Facebook and have Dan think she still carried a torch for him.

Sure thing
, she typed breezily. Then she turned off the laptop before she could get drawn into anything more definite.

‘Here you go. Eggs, bacon, teabags, some mince. A bag of carrots, Cox’s apples, milk and butter. That was everything, wasn’t it?’

‘Thanks, petal. Let me make you a brew while you’re here.’ Roy shuffled towards the kettle while Sophie began putting his groceries away in the fridge.

She had been a frequent visitor to Roy and Geraldine’s little two-up-two-down terraced house in Nether Edge recently, as had the other members of the Italian class. Catherine popped in regularly to whip round with the hoover. George had come by to mend a broken stair-rail, while Anna brought pies and cakes that she’d baked, claiming they’d only go to waste if he didn’t have them. Phoebe, bless her, had borrowed a manicure set from the salon and gone into the hospital to paint Geraldine’s nails a vampish shade of dark red, too. Three other ladies in the ward had already requested her return, apparently.

‘. . . which I wasn’t sure about,’ she heard Roy say just then. ‘What do you think?’

Sophie jerked back to the here and now as a steaming mug was plonked in front of her. ‘Sorry, what? I was in my own world there,’ she confessed.

‘You do seem a bit distracted today, love,’ Roy said, heaping sugars into his tea and stirring. ‘What’s up?’

Sophie sighed. ‘Oh, it’s just…’
Shut up
, she chastised herself before she could get any further. Roy didn’t want to know the ins and outs of her lovelife. ‘Just nothing,’ she said lamely.

‘Is it heck nothing. Go on, try me. I’m a good listener.’

Sophie smiled. ‘Honestly, it’s nothing.’

He raised a silvery eyebrow suspiciously. ‘I’ve been married to Geraldine nearly forty years, pet, I’ve heard it all, you know,’ he told her. ‘Come on. Is it a bloke? Do you need me to go round and have a word with him for you? Used to be a good boxer, me, back in me army days.’

The thought of Roy throwing a punch at Dan on her behalf made Sophie’s lips twitch. ‘Don’t tempt me, Roy,’ she said.

‘So it
is
a bloke. Giving you the run-around, is he? The swine.’

‘Well . . . it’s complicated.’

‘The best ones always are,’ he said sagely. ‘Here, I’ve got some biscuits somewhere, Anna brought them round. Shortbread, very good.’ He bustled about, finding the tin and some plates, and set them on the table. ‘Tuck in.’

‘Thanks.’ All of a sudden, Sophie found that she did want to talk about the dilemma which had been buzzing around her head for the last few days. ‘This guy, then,’ she began haltingly. ‘I thought he was the love of my life a few years ago, more fool me. We were in Australia together, and just so happy. I’ve never felt like that before – or since. Then he dumped me out of the blue, left the country, and that was that.’

‘Sounds a bloody fool if you ask me,’ Roy commented, dunking his shortbread.

‘Only now he’s got back in touch,’ Sophie said. ‘And I don’t know what to do.’

I’m sorry
, he’d written in a private Facebook message the day before.
I behaved like a self-centred prat. I thought I wanted freedom but I just missed you the whole time. I was so miserable without you.

Maybe it’s too late and you’re with someone else now, in which case I hope you’re happy together. Ah bollocks, of course I don’t. I hope he’s a twat and you’re about to dump him. I would love to meet up anyway. What do you think? Have I blown it?

Love Dan x

‘Hmmm,’ Roy said, when she’d recounted the details to him. He chewed his shortbread thoughtfully. ‘Well, we all make mistakes. Takes a certain kind of person to own up to them, though.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s taken him long enough, mind. It’s three years since I saw him, you know. He obviously wasn’t
that
bothered.’

Roy shook his head. ‘Me and Geraldine split up once,’ he said. ‘Back when we were courting. Had an argument over the daftest thing – she had borrowed my sister’s bike and left it outside the library. Wasn’t there when she came out. But would she say sorry when it were her fault it got pinched? No, she bloody well would not.’

Sophie smiled, loving the thought of a teenage Geraldine cycling around the city. ‘I bet she was gorgeous when she was young,’ she said.

‘Aye, she were that. Gorgeous as a June rose, but stubborn as a one-eyed mule. We broke up over it, any road. I was getting it in the neck from our Janet, while Geraldine tried to blame
me
for lending her the bike in the first place.’ He shook his head. ‘I went out with Mary Gibbons instead but my heart was never in it. And Geraldine went off with Bobby Henderson, who everyone knew was a piece of work.’

‘So what happened?’

‘We were at a dance at Cutler’s Hall, all four of us. She were in this dress – I’ll never forget – white with pink roses, and her long hair all pinned up. Smashing, she looked. She’d got a job as a conductress on the tram at the time, so I went up to her and asked, “Can I have a return, please, Miss?” “A return?” she says, a bit snooty like. “A return to where?” “A return to where we were before that argument about the wretched bike,” I said.’

‘Aww,’ Sophie said, wrinkling her nose. ‘Roy, that’s lovely.’

‘And from that day on,’ he said, ‘we were never parted.’ He drank his tea, misty-eyed with nostalgia. ‘So you see,’ he went on, ‘if you both want to try again, you can. Don’t let history muck things up.’

‘Well, it worked for you,’ Sophie said, remembering with a pang how Dan had been back then – tanned and carefree, always laughing. She could remember how his skin felt against hers as if it were yesterday.

‘It did,’ he replied. ‘And it might work for you too, if you give it a go. What have you got to lose?’

‘Pride, dignity, self-respect . . .’ She ticked them off on her fingers.

‘But it’s worth a try, I reckon. The love of your life? Asking for another chance? You can’t say no to that, Sophie.’

‘No,’ Sophie agreed. ‘I guess I can’t.’ She drained the tea and got to her feet. ‘I’d better get on, anyway, I’m meant to start work at the café in half an hour. Thanks for the chat – and you’re right, by the way. You
are
a good listener.’

‘You have to be, with a wife like mine,’ he said, pulling a funny face. ‘Thanks for bringing my shopping, duck. And good luck with this fella. If he has any sense he’ll be grovelling for you to take him back.’

She smiled faintly. ‘I’ll let you know.’

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Il giardino
– The garden

‘So,’ Mike said, leaning back in his chair and shooting Catherine a wary look. ‘What happens now, then?’

It was Thursday evening and they were in the Plough again, their own personal Switzerland of meeting places. Time to lay those cards on the table, Catherine thought to herself. Time to nail this once and for all.

Tonight she’d come better prepared, having thought long and hard about what she wanted as well as how he could make amends. Mike had arrived looking pale and unshaven, with bags under his eyes and bad skin hinting at sleeplessness. Good, Catherine found herself thinking without much sympathy. If anyone deserved a few long, dark nights of the soul, it was him after his shabby behaviour.

Drinks on the table, she eyeballed him right back. ‘I want to stay in the house,’ she said.

‘Here we go,’ he said. ‘I should have known you’d twist this around to you.’

Up yours, Mike
. ‘Not just for my sake,’ she went on, as if he hadn’t spoken, ‘but for Matthew and Emily too. They need stability while they’re at university; it’s only right that they should still have their childhood home to come back to in the holidays.’ She folded her arms. ‘Three years, that’s all, just until they’ve finished at uni. Four, if you think, as I do, that they might need a bit of time to sort themselves out afterwards and find jobs. Then you can sell it, if you want.’

‘Hmm,’ he said non-committally.

‘It’s not as if there’s anything left on the mortgage,’ she added, having undertaken a thorough sweep of all the household paperwork in recent days. ‘And in the meantime I can manage the bills on my salary. It won’t cost you a penny.’

‘Your
salary
?’ he scoffed. ‘You’ve got a job?’

She knew he was being particularly vile because she’d rumbled him, but all the same, she wished he didn’t have to say it as if the thought of her working was such a joke. ‘Yes,’ she replied tightly. ‘I have, thanks.’

He snorted. ‘First time for everything,’ he muttered under his breath.

A tickertape flashed through her head of all the dinners she’d cooked him, all the baskets of laundry, all the bulging binbags and ironing and stair-hoovering. Then came a final image of her hands tightening around his meaty, ungrateful neck. ‘I would have
loved
a job before,’ she snapped, ‘but you always told me my job was looking after you and the kids. Remember?’

‘Bollocks,’ he said unconvincingly.

‘You wrecked my confidence. You told me I couldn’t do anything, and said nobody would want me,’ she went on, her voice rising. ‘You were so macho about being the provider, the hero of the family who paid for holidays and treats, that you never once supported me when I talked about working or going back to college.’ She glared at him. ‘
Now
do you remember?’

‘No,’ he replied, although the shifty look in his eyes told her a bell was ringing loud and clear in his head. He fidgeted on his stool. ‘What’s the job, anyway?’

Just look at that patronizing smirk; he couldn’t wait to rip her and her mysterious new job to shreds. In Mike’s opinion, being a doctor was the most noble profession out there; anything else was inferior.
Nothing very noble about taking backhanders though, is there, Mike?
she felt like saying.

‘It’s just a job,’ she replied steadily, refusing to compete. Only, to her, it was more than that, of course.

The day before, she’d driven out to the nursery in Risbury with her job application form, only to be greeted by the manager, Maggie, who read it through there and then. Maggie showed her around the place and the two of them had a lovely chat about plants and gardening in general as they went. The nursery looked great: a large shed where three other women stood around a big table, a seed tray of vermiculite and compost each, planting seeds or thinning seedlings with the radio playing songs in the background.

I could do this, Catherine thought, her confidence crystallizing in a way that it never had in all the recruitment agencies she’d slogged around. What was more, the nursery ran an inspiring outreach programme, helping to train troubled teenagers in horticultural skills, and she was dying to get involved with that, if possible.

‘It all looks great,’ she said to Maggie at the end. ‘Thanks for your time. Let me know if you’d like me to come in for an interview or anything.’

Maggie burst out laughing. She was a big buxom woman with auburn curly hair, dark blue eyes and soft freckled skin. In her fifties now, she must have been stunning in her day. ‘What do you think
that
just was?’ she said, a hand on her hip. ‘That’s as good as my interviews get, doll!’