The Sunshine And Biscotti Club (4 page)

Alone in her old lemon scented room Eve checked her phone. A text from Peter saying ‘That’s good’ in response to her previous ‘Landed safely x’. He hadn’t put an x. But then Peter never put an x. He had whole dinner party discussions about the fact it was an x not a kiss and that it was completely unnecessary and ridiculous to include on a text message let alone an email. She often wondered if the script he was writing was full of rants about the misuse of letters in instant messaging. He’d asked her to read it once a couple of years ago and she’d been so sleep deprived and so stressed with the twins that it had taken her two weeks to get round to it by which time he’d changed his mind and gone into her email and deleted it from her inbox and then her deleted items.

She wanted to write something back; her fingers hovered over the keys of her phone, but she didn’t know what.

In the end she thought it best to leave her phone where it was, get changed into more weather
appropriate attire, and get outside to stop herself from dwelling on it all.

Wearing a pair of skinny blue jeans cut off at the knee, a yellow vest top that was showing its age, and an equally dilapidated pair of espadrilles that her daughter Maisey said made her feet look like lumps of cheese, Eve made her way out of the hotel, across the terrace, and down through the lemon grove in the direction of the lake.

The scent of citrus intensified the closer she got, the huge waxy great lemons hanging heavy from the branches, all knobbly and pitted. She wanted to reach up and take a bite straight through the skin; feel her eyes water as she squeezed the juice into her mouth.

It made her think of the first perfume she’d ever made—from a bag of Limoncello lemons Silvia had sent as congratulations on having the twins. There was a note that said, ‘The beautiful thing about women is they can change as many times as they like. You’re already a wonderful mother. Who will you be next?’

Eve had stood staring at the lemons. These wonderful fat things that weren’t to do with feeding babies or trying to work out why they were crying, or why she was crying as she sat alone in the draughty, crumbling cottage they had bought after she’d got pregnant. After she had been seduced by a photo in a
Homes and Gardens
magazine in the doctor’s waiting room of a picturesque village where everyone had chickens and
rose gardens and muddy wellington boots at the front door.

The lemons connected her back to the world. Not the pre-pregnancy one where she worked in marketing for a massive beauty company in the city. Where so many people wanted to talk to her every day she would sometimes put her Out of Office on and go and sit on the fire escape with her laptop just to get some work done. But the one before even her marriage, where she smelt the rain in the middle of the night and the bark of trees.

So she had sliced the lemons and she had squeezed them and she had gone outside and chopped all the heads off the roses in the rose garden, and then she had found the unused wedding-present pestle and mortar in the back of the cupboard and started to see if she could capture it all in a fragrance. She had got to work on who she would be next.

Now, as she popped out from the lemon groves and onto the lakeside shore, she was suddenly stopped short by a voice saying, ‘All right, Eve.’

She had to take a second to get her breath back from the shock.

He knew her name.

The guy got up from where he was sitting cross-legged on the pebbles. ‘Didn’t mean to scare you.’

Eve turned. The sun was in her eyes.

The voice made her expect dreadlocks, an arm almost covered in ink, and eyes that could spear a person from a hundred paces.

A wisp of cloud passed in front of the sun.

Holy shit. The dreads were gone. The eyes were still the same.

‘Hello, Jimmy,’ she said, her mind almost short-circuiting at the sight of him.

From her seat on the terrace, Libby watched Jimmy and Eve approach, the air between them like firecrackers popping in the sky.

Next to her, Dex and Jessica glanced up, saw Eve laugh at something Jimmy said, and then exchanged a look. Libby knew they were all thinking about the same thing. The casual flirting, the lazy hand-holding. How they’d roll in from some club together, Jimmy, with his arm slung casually round Eve’s shoulders, drunkenly rambling about getting free of the rat race, concocting starry-eyed visions of the two of them backpacking the globe, while Eve nodded along, fanning the flames of his dreams.

They were dangerous together; made more than the sum of their parts. Already Eve seemed to be burning brighter as she pulled up a chair, her hair glinting in the sun.

‘OK, so here’s the deal,’ said Libby when they were all seated. ‘I’m fully booked for the summer. I have just over a fortnight before the first customers arrive.’

Dex glanced around him and did a low whistle, his eyes taking in the lichen covered terrace, the rusted wrought iron tables, the chipped paintwork, the overgrown garden.

‘I know, it doesn’t look great,’ Libby went on. ‘And we certainly weren’t expecting it all to be perfect, but cash flow meant we had to open before we were ready. The main thing is that the outhouse is built. That’s where the courses are going to be.’

‘What courses?’ Jimmy asked, lounging back in his chair.

‘Cooking courses, for the moment,’ Libby said.

‘You should do yoga courses,’ he said.

Libby made a face to say that was the last thing she needed. ‘For the moment, Jimmy, I need to stick with what I know best and that’s baking. It’ll work as an extension of the blog and the supper clubs—you know, so you can come out here and have a slice of the life you read about. Soak up a bit of sun, learn to cook your favourite Italian foods, and go home relaxed and rejuvenated. It’s called the Sunshine and Biscotti Club.’

‘Very nice,’ said Jimmy, almost taken aback by the fact he was impressed.

Jessica nodded. ‘I came up with that. We’re in charge of design and marketing.’

‘Didn’t I come up with it?’ Dex said with a frown.

‘No.’ Jessica shook her head.

‘I really think I did,’ Dex said, leaning forward, elbows on the table.

‘You so didn’t.’ Jessica was aghast.

‘OK, OK, look, maybe you both came up with it. The important thing is that it’s going to happen in a couple of weeks,’ Libby said.

But Jessica wasn’t happy about letting the matter lie and was about to say more when an angry looking waitress appeared, arms crossed over her chest, and said, ‘Drinks?’

Jessica swung round in surprise.

‘Oh yes, that’d be lovely,’ said Libby, half standing in her chair. ‘Giulia, these are my friends, they’ll all be helping to get the place up and running over the next couple of days. Everyone, this is Giulia.’

Giulia stared at them all, her expression unchanged.

‘Giulia’s been here for years, worked for my aunt,’ Libby carried on brightly. ‘She’s a rock, I couldn’t do it without her.’

Giulia made a noise that could have been interpreted as a scoff of disdain. Libby could see the others glancing down at their laps or across to the lemon grove, as though the awkwardness in the air was something visible to look away from.

Libby kept smiling.

It had come as quite a shock when Libby and Jake had realised that, to all intents and purposes, Giulia had been inherited along with the hotel. There was no
getting rid of her. She turned up every day at the crack of dawn to clean and polish, then at midday she opened up the bar. The idea that they might close the restaurant for any length of time had been actively laughed at by the residents of the village—all anyone wanted from the Limoncello was the food. Jake and Libby could mess about with their renovations all they liked as long as Thursday to Saturday the restaurant opened. Dino the chef trotted up in the afternoons to start prepping with or without Libby’s say so. Jake had been happy to let them get on with it as long as the money came in and he got a bowl of spicy tortellini soup or thick tomatoey fish stew at the end of the day.

To Giulia, the Sunshine and Biscotti Club was some ridiculous whim of Libby’s that she had absolutely no interest or belief in. Left to her, not an inch of the place would change.

‘Maybe a bottle of Prosecco, Giulia? So we can toast everyone’s arrival?’ Libby said, glancing round the eyes-averted table and then back up to Giulia who shrugged and stomped back inside.

‘She’s a keeper,’ said Dex with a raise of a brow.

‘Well, to be honest, I don’t actually know what I would do without her,’ Libby said. ‘I mean I don’t know how to run a bar or a restaurant.’

‘But you can learn though,’ said Jessica.

‘Yeah.’ Libby nodded emphatically, half in an attempt to convince herself.

‘And what about money?’ Dex asked, leaning forward, his elbows resting on the table as he looked at her. ‘Are you OK for money?’

‘I think so,’ Libby said.

Dex frowned. ‘Think so doesn’t sound that certain.’

Libby glanced away from any direct eye contact. ‘Shamefully, Jake’s looked after all the money. I just need to get a clear handle on things, that’s all.’

‘Do you need to borrow any money, Libby?’ Dex asked, looking concerned. ‘I can lend you money if you need it, just ask.’

‘No, no, no.’ Libby waved a hand, ‘Absolutely not, I can’t take your money. And I don’t think I need it, I just need to sit down and sort it all out.’ She paused and blew out a breath.

Dex sat back again, his expression unconvinced as he kept close watch on her. Libby caught Jessica’s eye who made a face of pity and next to her Eve looked down at the floor.

Don’t cry, she told herself.

‘So anyway …’ she said, with a little shake and a huge smile. ‘What I need from you guys is just help with the cosmetics. The house, some of the rooms, the garden, that sort of thing. Just to make it presentable.’

They all nodded.

Libby nodded too. Then she smiled again. ‘Fab. Great. I think it might be fun. And also, it would really help me if just once a day we did some baking.’

‘Baking?’ Dex frowned. ‘I’m not really into baking, Lib.’

‘Don’t worry, it won’t be hard. That’s the whole point. It’s for everyone.’

‘I reckon you could bake, Dex, if you put your mind to it,’ Jimmy said with a grin, his big muscly arms locked behind his head.

‘I’d like to see you bake,’ Dex scoffed.

‘I could bake,’ said Jimmy. ‘What is it? Just flour and sugar, that sort of stuff.’

Eve rolled her eyes, half obscured by messy blonde hair. ‘You are unbelievably arrogant.’

‘That’s why you love me,’ Jimmy said with a wink.

Eve smiled then sat back, running her fingers along her bottom lip as she watched him.

Giulia arrived with the bottle of Prosecco and a tray of glasses.

Libby wanted Eve to stop looking at Jimmy the way she was looking at him. She wanted her to stop creating distractions. She was still annoyed at her for her earlier implied comments about the décor, annoyed at the gnawing feeling of regret, guilt even, that it had conjured inside her as she imagined her aunt nodding along with Eve about the changes. It made her want to suck all the white paint from the walls. But instead she focused on the planning. ‘Perhaps we could portion out the jobs now. Just so we’ve all got it straight in our heads. Maybe, Jimmy, you could do the garden?’

‘Aye, aye.’ Jimmy nodded. ‘Plants love me.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Dex, could you take the terrace? And the outside walls?’

‘If I must,’ said Dex, reaching forward to swipe the Prosecco from the ice bucket.

‘And, Jessica, perhaps you and I can make a start on the rooms?’

‘I can help with the rooms,’ said Eve.

‘No, I think it’s fine with Jessica and me. Is that OK, Jessica?’

‘Yep.’ Jessica looked up from reading an email on her phone and nodded. ‘Whatever you need.’

‘And, Eve, you could smarten up the area round the pool?’

‘There’s a pool?’ said Dex, glancing around trying to find it.

‘Behind those olive trees,’ Libby said, pointing to her right. ‘It’s tiny and really shabby. Is that OK, Eve?’

Eve shrugged a shoulder as if it had to be. ‘If that’s what you want, Libby,’ she said, her expression in the dim light of the terrace almost challenging.

Libby ignored it. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think that would work.’

Dex popped the Prosecco cork, splashed the frothing bubbles into the five glasses, and then raised his for a toast. ‘To Sunshine and Biscotti,’ he said with a grin.

As Libby chinked her glass she remembered Jake making exactly the same toast when they had arrived in
the spring, and wished for a moment that he was there. That it could all just have carried on exactly as it had been. She didn’t care what website he’d been using, just wished that she hadn’t found out.

When she saw all the others smiling at her, she forced a big smile in return, refusing to acknowledge quite how lonely she felt. Taking a huge gulp of bubbles, she picked up her phone and made them all chink their glasses again so she could snap it for her Instagram.

‘Hold it there. Jimmy, just move your glass up a bit. Dex, out the way. Yes, perfect. Brilliant.’

Perfect summer night toasting the Sunshine and Biscotti Club
, she titled it.

And as the evening wore on and the sun set around them, the moths starting to flutter around the outside lights, the Prosecco oiled the chat and the Instagram likes came rolling in, the perfect distraction from her worries.

‘So, what do you think? We paint this white or we keep the wallpaper?’ Libby was standing with her hands on her hips, staring at Jessica, the morning sun shining bright behind her.

Aesthetically Jessica was a minimalist. She had grown up dusting a house rammed with knickknacks—little ornaments, crucifixes, cross-stitches—and in retaliation kept her décor to the absolute minimum. Her artistic talent was in graphics and was predominantly computer based. She spent her spare time redesigning album covers to suit her own vision. Home furnishings were not her thing. ‘I don’t know really. I like white, but the wallpaper’s also quite nice. Quite authentic. Libby …’ Feeling herself starting to sweat in the searing morning heat, Jessica paused to undo the top half of the boilersuit overalls that Libby had lent her for decorating. ‘I’m not sure I’m the right person for this. I really think Eve might be better suited—’

‘No, you’re fine,’ Libby said, only half looking in Jessica’s direction as she struggled to tie an old scarf around her head. ‘We’ll paint it.’

‘How’s it going?’ Dex popped his head round the door and snorted a laugh when he got a glimpse of their outfits.

‘I was just saying that I think Eve would be better for this job,’ said Jessica.

Dex took one look around the room and said, ‘Oh yeah, definitely. Jessica’s crap at interior design. If she had her way we’d all just be in pods plugged into our laptops.’

Jessica shook her head at him pityingly. Dex winked at her.

‘Why don’t you get Eve to help?’ Dex said. ‘This is just her thing, isn’t it? She was always wafting about with rugs and scarves and things at the flat.’

‘No, it’s fine,’ Libby insisted.

Dex glanced down the corridor. ‘Hey, Eve! Come over here,’ he shouted.

‘Dex, what are you doing,’ Libby said, a little panicked.

‘What’s wrong?’ Eve asked, appearing in the doorway, one earphone in as she commented on some Lego construction one of her kids was showing her on FaceTime.

‘You have to swap with Jessica—she’s way out of her depth,’ said Dex, ushering her inside.

‘You’re so sweet together, you two,’ Eve said as she hung up the phone. ‘You’ve become like her big brother.’

Jessica snorted.

Dex puffed out his chest with pride. ‘I like to think I keep an eye out for her.’

‘You are unbelievable.’ Jessica sighed as she walked over and handed Eve her paintbrush.

Dex ruffled her hair.

‘Get off me,’ Jessica said, laughing, taking the opportunity to dart out of the room and down the stairs in case Libby somehow managed to get her way and summoned her back again.

The sun was burning bright as Jessica sauntered out onto the terrace. She breathed in the scent of the lemons, delighted to be working on her own in the seclusion of the pool area.

There was a bucket, soap, and a scrubbing brush ready and waiting by the gap in the olive tree wall that led to the pool area and she went over to pick it up. But, just as she was bending over, all her elation at having got away from the decorating was instantly dissolved by a voice saying, ‘Jessica?’

She paused where she was, her fingers gripping the handle of the bucket.

He was here.

She looked down at her outfit and thought,
Why do I have to be wearing a boilersuit?

‘Miles!’ she said, standing tall, the water in the bucket sloshing slightly.

He looked exactly the same but completely different, standing there in a white linen shirt, top button undone, khakis, and navy espadrilles. His black hair was scruffy but in a way that suggested it wasn’t usually like that; as though he’d had a long journey and no mirror to check it in. His cheekbones were less visible, less sunken, like he probably ate better than he did but, from the fit of the shirt, he clearly worked out rather than lay on his bed for hours with his guitar scribbling down lyrics.

Her brain tried to superimpose the old Miles over this version. The black skinny jeans, the black t-shirt, the cigarettes, the dirty hair, and the sneer, but it was almost impossible.

‘You all right?’ he said, running a hand through his hair.

‘Yeah, fine. You?’ she said.

When Jessica had thought about seeing Miles again she had envisioned it for some reason at her office, where she was immaculate, groomed, sleek, successful, and emotionally untouchable.

Now she stood in a bright blue boilersuit, the arms tied around her waist, wearing a black vest, pale skin untouched by sun, hair curling of its own accord. And she found she had nothing to say. No casual chitchat. Just an overriding desire to back away.

Rescue came in the form of Jimmy, who loped up the garden, rake over his shoulder, and shouted, ‘Miles, mate! How are you? Christ I haven’t seen you since New York.’

‘Hey, Jimmy! Good to see you.’

Jessica watched them for a second, but the mention of New York left her wanting to escape even more, so, with a back step and a small wave of her hand, she walked quickly to the shelter of the pool.

She took the few steps down past the olive trees, and came out in a courtyard pool area that looked like it had been bottom of the list of priorities for some years. The crumbling patio floor was filthy, sticky with sap and lichen, with tiles missing like pieces of a jigsaw. The rusted table and chairs were strewn with olive leaves and spiders’ webs that looped from the metal to the olive tree branches like Christmas lights. The sailcloth shades that cast a triangle of relief from the sun were green at the edges from mould and mildew. And the tiny pool looked as if no one had swum in it for decades, probably preferring the wide expanse of lake just a stroll away.

Jessica stood for a moment, letting her heart rate get back to normal, her hand resting on the rusted table. She could feel the sun beating down on her bare arms, singeing the skin. She needed a hat but it was inside and she couldn’t go back while Miles was still talking to Jimmy on the terrace.

She crept over to the row of rangy, unkempt olive trees in an attempt to peer through the gaps to see what was going on.

She could see Miles’s khaki clad legs. They made her think of all the unsuccessful dates she’d had over the years, no candidate matching up to her vision of him.

She could hear Jimmy as she peered through the leaves, unable to get a very good look, the branches all overgrown. Then Miles’s deep laugh.

She reached up and moved an olive branch out the way as surreptitiously as she could. Then she caught Jimmy say something about Flo, and Miles saying, ‘Yeah, it’s better.’ And she immediately let go of the branch and stepped away.

Flo.

Flo Hamilton was a friend of a girl who’d been on Jimmy’s university course and had taken Jimmy’s room in the boys’ flat when he’d left. She’d bounded in, all white teeth and American confidence. Jessica had made the mistake of not taking much notice.

Jessica heard Dex come out onto the terrace, and the sound of more back-slapping and guffawing. Then obviously Miles must have been shown inside and it all fell silent.

She rubbed her face with her hand and stood for a second before retying her hair and taking a proper look at the pool area.

It was an unloved little hideaway, enclosed on every side by olive trees whose branches snaked out in search of one another. Taking her bucket, Jessica went and sat in a big wicker chair in the one shady corner and stared across at the pool. It was just about long enough for two strokes of front crawl and was tiled in pearlescent black stones that made the water green and dark. It would be like swimming in twilight as the sun blazed overhead. Olive leaves scattered the surface like little boats.

She wondered if she could hide there forever.

It was the dirt that made her get up in the end. The desire to make this little area shine to its full potential.

She got to work with the scrubbing brush, the hard bristles scratching over the lichen-coated tiles. And the more she scrubbed, the more she fell into the monotony of the noise. It made her think of her parents’ house where she’d lived with sweeping and scrubbing as a background noise for years. Polishing and hoovering. Constant tidying. The dull thumping sound of the living room doors as their glass panels were dusted; the smell of white vinegar on surfaces and the sight of cloths soaking in bleach.

It was almost impossible to believe it had once been her life. Every time she thought about growing up in that house, which was as little as possible, she’d be astonished by her younger self, by her resourcefulness. Shut up in her room, every second of her life was
accounted for. She was confined by the overwhelming fear her parents had of the world and the people in it. The mistrust of society. Straight back from school, straight back from work. Jessica had waited years to squirrel away the cash to leave.

As the sun blistered down, the sound of her scrubbing was interrupted by a familiar voice saying, ‘Ah, you have been put to work.’

She stopped to look up and saw the guy from the bar standing with his arms crossed over his chest, dressed in leather motorbike trousers and a bright purple t-shirt, a smirk on his lips. ‘This outfit, it is very flattering,’ he said, pointing to her boilersuit.

Jessica raised her brows. ‘Are you stalking me?’

‘Ha, no.’ He shook his head, then took the couple of steps down to the patio. ‘I am looking for Ms Libby. I help her out a bit last week and I am free today so I thought …?’ He shrugged. ‘She might need more help. I am Bruno by the way.’

‘Libby’s inside,’ Jessica said, starting to scrub again.

He cocked his head, his eyes narrowing as he studied her. ‘You know in most cultures it is polite to return a greeting. A person might even say their name.’

She paused, wiped her brow, and then leant her hands on the edge of the bucket. ‘I’m sure they might,’ she said, one eyebrow arched. ‘But I think it would also depend on whether that person wanted the other person to know their name or not, wouldn’t it?’

Bruno held his hands up to object. ‘I don’t know what that person’s problem would be with just wanting to know someone’s name.’

‘Jessica?’ Miles’s voice called from the terrace and he jogged down the steps to see if she was still by the pool. ‘Jimmy said you had the bucket. Oh …’ He paused when he saw Bruno. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise you were with someone. Hi.’ Miles held out a hand. ‘Miles.’

‘Bruno.’

Jessica stiffened and she could see Bruno notice.

‘You are all friends?’ Bruno said as he looked between them.

‘Kind of,’ said Jessica.

‘In a fashion,’ said Miles at the same time.

Bruno nodded.

The sun seemed like the fourth person in the conversation, beating down on them all, firing up the unescapable cicadas, a tinnitus hum in her ears.

‘Yes,’ said Miles. ‘Yes, we’re all friends.’

Bruno had his eyes still on Jessica, absorbing her reactions. She looked down at the dirty tiles.

‘Well, I erm …’ Miles pointed to the bucket. ‘I just came for that. I’m giving Jimmy a hand.’

‘I kind of need it,’ Jessica said. ‘Isn’t there another one?’

Miles frowned. ‘I don’t know. Jimmy just said there was a red bucket.’

‘OK, fine,’ she said. ‘You have it. I’ll find another one.’

Miles looked a bit hesitant.

‘Seriously, have it, I can do something else,’ she said, pushing the bucket his way.

Miles walked over and picked it up, the water sloshing over the sides in what seemed to be his haste to leave.

Bruno watched him go and then said, ‘I’ll go and find Ms Libby.’

At the top step he stopped and glanced back. ‘I’ve never met a Jessica before,’ he said.

‘Well, now you have,’ Jessica said, pushing herself up to standing, still distracted by the arrival and departure of Miles.

He nodded. ‘You look like a Jessica.’

She put her hands on her hips and sighed. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Bruno shrugged. ‘An interesting challenge,’ he said with a smile, and sauntered off in search of Libby.