The Place We Met Read online

‘Why what?’ I ask.

  ‘Why I …’ He pauses, takes a breath. ‘Why you’re so damn irresistible.’

  ‘Soppy idiot,’ I say with a laugh, but inside my intestines are tangled like wool. He was going to tell me that he loved me then, I know he was. So, what stopped him?

  23

  Taggie

  Once we’ve settled the bill at La Grotta and downed the shots of limoncello handed around for free by an exuberant Giorgio, I tell the group that they have the next few hours free to roam the streets of Bellagio by themselves. Many of them want to go back to the beach we visited earlier to take more photos, while Gladys is intent on dragging Will-yum around the shops and Sue is keen on visiting the Basilica di San Giacomo with Tim. They all have their bearings now, because I’ve shown them most of the area anyway. Well, except for one place – but that’s for my eyes only.

  Elsie and I make our slow way back to her yellow house on the hill, and I make us a cup of tea, sipping it at the kitchen table while she bustles around feeding the dogs and chopping onions and garlic in preparation for a soup for later. She obstinately refuses my offer of assistance.

  ‘I like doing it,’ she insists, wiping her streaming eyes on the bottom of her apron. ‘You work hard enough without having to wait on me hand and foot.’

  I’d argue back, if there was any point whatsoever, but I do rebel a bit by slyly cleaning the toilet and basin when I nip into the bathroom for a wee.

  It’s nearing four p.m. when I hug Elsie goodbye and make my way out through the front porch, admiring the multi-coloured glass panels as I go, then almost tripping over the altar broom balanced against the wall of the house. What is it with me and clumsiness lately? I really must try to get a bit more sleep.

  This whole area has barely altered since I was a child, which makes me love it all the more. So many of the homes up here are vast and grandiose, but Elsie’s single-storey cottage is cosy and charming, and it has character, too. I associate it with so much happiness, and even now it still pains me a little to leave it behind, even though I know I’ll be back again within a matter of days. I’m just debating paying a visit to my second favourite location in Bellagio, when my phone rings in my pocket.

  ‘Hello, Mum.’

  ‘She’s alive!’ she cries, and I grimace into the handset.

  ‘That joke has never been funny.’

  ‘Oh really? Why are you laughing then?’

  ‘I’m not,’ I protest, but even as I say the words, I’m giggling. My mum and I go through this same spiel more or less every single time she rings me.

  ‘I’d stop joking if you’d start answering more often,’ she tells me, and I grumble incoherently. She’s right, of course. I do screen her calls – but it’s not because I don’t want to talk to her. I just don’t want to talk about that.

  ‘So,’ she says, without preamble. ‘About the flat.’

  I sigh.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Your dad says the work is almost done, and the second valuation is scheduled for the first week of January.’

  ‘Right.’

  I don’t want to think about the flat, our flat. Which was supposed to be our home.

  ‘We’ve been over there this morning,’ she continues, ‘and it’s looking good. Your dad thinks you’re looking at three hundred thousand at least.’

  ‘Did you see …?’ I begin, the final word withering and dying on my tongue.

  ‘Him?’ Mum guesses, and I swallow rather than reply. ‘No, he’s away. He texted Dad to let us know, which I suppose was decent of him.’

  I tut.

  ‘It will all be over soon enough, my darling. Once the place is sold and you have what is rightfully yours, none of us ever have to mention him again.’

  This should cheer me up, but instead it makes me want to cry, and I lean against a low stone wall for support.

  ‘Sorry,’ I mutter, only just managing to stop my voice from cracking. ‘Sorry that you’ve both had to deal with all of this crap.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Mum croons, and I picture her familiar, pale-skinned face tilted to one side. I might have my father’s eyes, and his thick black hair, but my delicate little shape is all my mum. If only I still had her incredible strength to go with it.

  ‘It’s no bother at all. I only wish I could do more to cheer you up.’

  ‘Have you …?’ I try again, but it’s impossible to say his name without giving in to the tears. Luckily, however, my mother is a very shrewd lady.

  ‘The last time I spoke to him was at the beginning of this month,’ she says, being careful to remain stoic. ‘Your dad was out when he called, so he got me, which I could tell he wasn’t thrilled about. We just talked about the flat and he asked how you were – but don’t worry,’ she adds, hearing my sharp intake of breath. ‘I didn’t tell him anything at all.’

  My shoulders droop in relief.

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  ‘There’s really no need for thank yous,’ she says in earnest, and I want to cry again because she’s being so nice. I wasn’t fair to either of my parents when I went back and lived with them. All they wanted to do was be there for me and help, and I closed myself off and refused to let them in. I thought it was better to shield them from it, but they have never given up asking if I’m OK.

  ‘I just …’ I pause, taking a deep breath and deciding to be honest with her for once. ‘I just don’t know what I would do if I had to face him. I’m scared of how I would react.’

  ‘That doesn’t ever have to happen,’ she reminds me. ‘He can’t get to you over there in Italy.’

  He can’t, it’s true. He may know that this place was special to me when I was a child, but I never brought him here. I’m confident that he wouldn’t think to look for me here even if he wanted to find me, which I’m sure that he doesn’t. I’ll never forget the look on his face the last time I saw him, that mixture of pity and guilt and misplaced affection. He’d tried to touch me, and I’d clawed at him and screamed. I was like a wounded animal, and he was my tormentor.

  I blink away the memory along with my tears, and ask my mum to tell me what else has been going on. After a few minutes, she hands the phone over to my dad, who asks me hesitantly if I’m eating enough, and what the latest tour group are like. Happily, this gives me the perfect excuse to tell him all about Gladys and Will-yum, and he’s soon shouting highlights out to my mum in the background, the two of them chuckling as I explain about the Peach Perfection collection. By the time I hang up, the fingers of my right hand have practically frozen to the phone, and I rub them together vigorously as I make my way back down the hill.

  I reach the harbour before any members of the group, and decide to sit for a while watching the sun sink down behind the mountains, choosing a wicker chair outside a café and pulling the complimentary blanket over my knees. Now that the shadows are beginning to lengthen, the temperature is dropping rapidly, and when the waiter strolls across to take my order, I ask for a glass of vin brulé, thinking that I can drink it at the same time as checking my emails. There’s still so much to organise for the New Year’s Eve party, and I’m currently waiting to hear back from two potential DJs, plus a local guy who says he can lay a temporary dance floor in the ballroom. However, just as the waiter returns and puts my drink down on the table, Marco comes into view up ahead, his hands deep in his pockets and his forehead creased into what looks like a scowl. When he walks closer and spots me, however, his expression is immediately transformed by an easy smile.

  ‘Ciao,’ he says, as soon as he comes into range, bending over to kiss me lightly on either cheek and then gesturing to the chair beside me. ‘Can I sit?’

  ‘Of course.’

  There’s a beat of silence as he arranges himself on the cushion, crossing one long leg over the other and resting his ankle on his knee. Unlike me, he doesn’t pull the blanket over himself, but I notice that he, too, opts for a hot drink when the waiter appears. The vin brulé here in Bellagio isn’t a
s sweet as the stuff down at the Christmas Market in Como, but rather tangy and tart, and I empty in a sachet of brown sugar and stir it.

  ‘Elsie is a lovely woman,’ Marco announces, squinting slightly in the setting sun.

  I nod. ‘She is, but she’s also a troublemaker.’

  ‘How do you know her?’ he asks, and so I tell him about Elsie’s friendship with my late grandmother, and about how she moved here for love.

  ‘I can tell she is a romantic,’ he says, smiling as he sips his coffee.

  I laugh out loud at that. ‘Maybe in the beginning,’ I tell him. ‘But I think all that had worn off by the third husband.’

  ‘Third?’ Marco widens his eyes. ‘Well, now I like her even more than before.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear it,’ I say honestly.

  ‘Where are your people?’ is his next question, so I reassure him that Gladys isn’t currently in the vicinity, and he visibly relaxes.

  ‘How did your meeting go?’ I ask politely, remembering how fired up he was about it on the boat up here this morning, but his face immediately darkens.

  ‘It did not go well.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ I hesitate. He isn’t even looking at me now, but staring moodily out over the water. Gulls are dancing on the surface, and the distant houses on the opposite shore are glowing bright like hot coals in a grate.

  ‘I need to make more money,’ he sighs, swilling the dregs of his coffee around in his cup. ‘The plan I have, it is going to cost me much more than I thought.’

  ‘How much more?’ I enquire nosily.

  He looks at me, his mouth downturned.

  ‘Many, many thousands of euros.’

  ‘That many?’ I say, trying to jolly him. ‘It must be quite something, this plan of yours.’

  ‘It is not a plan, it is a dream,’ he corrects, picking at the rubber sole of his shoe. ‘You cannot put a price on a dream.’

  Except this one, clearly, I think, but decide it’s best not to say and risk antagonising him.

  ‘How long have you been dreaming about it?’ I prompt, and he looks wistful as he replies.

  ‘Since I was a little boy.’

  I can’t imagine this tall, masculine man ever being a little boy. It’s impossible to picture him without his easy confidence and those looks he keeps giving me, so loaded with suggestion. He must have had the same strange green eyes as a child, but he would not have understood the power of them until much later in life. One of the best things about being young is that you never see yourself through anyone’s eyes but your own, and you accept yourself, for the most part. It’s only when you grow up, and start to rely more and more on the opinions of other people, that the early version of you is lost. For me, it was always my height. Being smaller than most caused others to treat me more delicately, as if I was a fragile ornament that might break if it was touched. As a result, I became tougher, and now one of the things I hate most is people trying to protect me. There is nothing more patronising than a man calling me ‘cute’.

  Marco, however, has done no such thing – despite having to come to my rescue at the beach two months ago. In fact, now that I think about it, he’s never mentioned my height once, or looked at me like I’m a feeble little pixie. Perhaps that’s why I’m warming to him so easily.

  I extract my phone from my pocket to check the time. It’s gone five p.m. now, not long until the boat arrives. I suppose I ought to get up and start searching for the members of my group, but it’s so nice and cosy here under the blanket. I don’t think Marco is going to elaborate on this dream plan of his. He’s fallen into a sullen silence beside me, his eyes fixed resolutely on the water and his foot tapping out his impatience beneath the table. When I drop down some money and start to get up, however, he quickly follows suit.

  ‘Can I walk with you?’ he asks, and I smile.

  ‘If you want to.’

  We start by looping through the trees in the courtyard next to the water, the two of us trailing our hands across the rough bark as we pass each one. A further stroll leads us along the promenade, where stripped jacaranda trees are casting shadows across the pavement, and the approaching dusk is making the mountains glow blue. The sun is barely visible now, just a twinkle on the horizon, and the water below has turned silver in the dusk.

  I take deep breaths of cold air down into my lungs, feeling my senses open to drink in all the sights, sounds and smells, and listen while Marco tells me about his job at the restaurant, and the plans he has for New Year’s Eve.

  ‘Do you know where you will be?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m organising a big party at the Casa Alta,’ I tell him, feeling myself expand with excitement at the mere thought of it, only for nervous energy to creep into all the gaps when I remember the emails that I still haven’t found time to answer. ‘I had to talk my boss into letting me do it, so I’m hoping it will be a big success. Shelley’s been helping me, too. I sent her into Como today to put up posters.’

  ‘But you must watch the fireworks,’ he says.

  ‘We will,’ I assure him. ‘But from up at the hotel.’

  ‘It is better by the water,’ he says, and I nod to show him I agree.

  ‘I don’t think it would go down too well if I snuck away,’ I say lightly. ‘Sal would probably fire me.’

  ‘I think you should come to Vista Lago,’ he replies. ‘Where my friend works. We are having a party also.’

  I smile gratefully, but I don’t tell him what I’m thinking, which is that the prospect of New Year is a scary one for me – and not just because the party I’ve been planning is my big chance to prove myself to Sal. Such a lot was lost this year, and I’m not sure how I’ll feel when it reaches its end. Perhaps it will be a positive step towards recovery, or maybe it will send me right back to where I started when all this happened – I just don’t know. At least overseeing things at the Casa Alta on New Year’s Eve will provide me with a brilliant distraction. After Elsie’s house, the old hotel is the place that I feel the most safe and secure here in Como, and I’m not sure that going to a party in a bar with Marco and his mates would be a good idea. I must make sure that Shelley doesn’t find out it’s even happening, or she will drag me all the way down there by my size threes as soon as the clocks have struck midnight.

  We make it back to the café having rounded up most of the group, and I see that a small crowd has already started to form next to the jetty. There’s no sign of the boat yet, and so Marco and I duck out of the cold underneath a covered archway, where a souvenir shop has set up racks of notebooks, postcards and calendars.

  ‘Oh look, chihuahuas,’ I say, reaching down to grab a calendar off the bottom shelf. Unbeknownst to me, however, Marco has spotted another one two shelves higher, and he goes to grab it at the same time as I bend forwards. There’s a thud as his hand connects with my nose, and I stumble backwards in surprise, my eyes streaming and my hands clamped over my face.

  ‘Scusa, scusa!’ Marco cries, rushing towards me. But before he can get there, he’s grabbed from behind by a pair of very big hands and roughly yanked off to one side.

  ‘I saw you, mate,’ shouts the intruder. ‘I saw you hit your girlfriend.’

  My eyes are still watering too much to see what’s going on, so I flail one of my hands uselessly in front of me.

  ‘Stop it,’ I mutter, as loudly as my throbbing nose and mouth will allow. ‘It was an accident.’

  I can still hear scuffling noises, and then Marco begins shouting at the man in Italian, telling him to let go of him or else. Bloody men.

  ‘STOP IT!’ I yell, this time letting go of my bleeding nose and blinking away my tears.

  ‘Fucking hell – Taggie!’ exclaims a shocked voice, and everything inside me freezes in place.

  It can’t be him. It can’t.

  I bring a shaking hand up and use the sleeve of my coat to wipe away the tears and blood covering my face. I almost don’t dare open my eyes again, but something deep
inside me compels me to do so. And there, standing not more than a few feet away from me, his mouth slack with disbelief and his eyes wide with shock, is my ex-boyfriend, Pete.

  24

  Lucy

  One moment we were walking along, hand in hand, admiring the sunset and discussing where to have dinner, and the next Pete had vanished. I watched in alarm as he bounded across the road and underneath a covered archway, only for sounds of a violent scuffle to follow him out. Too shocked and scared to do anything other than stand still and stare, I heard a flood of Italian followed by the sound of a woman shouting, ‘Stop!’ It was this, in the end, that unstuck my boots from the ground and propelled me forwards. I don’t know what I was expecting to find, but never, not in a million centuries, would I have guessed it would be this.

  ‘Taggie?’

  I hear Pete say her name just as I recognise her. She’s even more petite than she looked in the photos, and though her face is a mess of blood and tears, she’s unmistakably the same woman from the photographs. Pete is gazing at her with an expression of pure horror, while another man, who’s tall and looks to be Italian, is rearranging his leather jacket and muttering under his breath.

  ‘What happened?’ says a voice, which I only realise is my own when the three of them turn to look at me.

  ‘I hit her,’ the Italian says, his voiced tinged with contrition. ‘It was by mistake, an accident. The calendars …’ He trails off as he realises nobody is really listening. Taggie – so that’s her name – looks as if she’s about to faint, and Pete appears to have lost both the power of movement and speech. As bewildered as I am by all of this, my medical training remarkably still manages to kick me into action, and I hurry across to Taggie and wrap my arm around her shoulders.

  ‘She’s shaking,’ I tell the two men calmly. ‘Can you fetch me a chair, please?’

  I direct the second comment towards the Italian, and he does as he’s told, coming back less than half a minute later with a wicker café seat looped under one arm.