The Place We Met Read online

  ‘My Uncle Max lost his leg in the desert and his doctor gave him a new one,’ she informs us. ‘He has to plug it in at bedtime, like a phone.’

  The woman sighs and pats her daughter’s leg.

  ‘She’s talking about my husband’s brother,’ she explains. ‘He lost a leg in Afghanistan.’

  ‘I see.’ Vikram widens his eyes and looks back towards the bed. ‘It sounds like your Uncle Max is a very brave man indeed.’

  I expect the girl to agree, but she shakes her head.

  ‘No. He’s scared of spiders. Even I’m not scared of them.’

  ‘You’re not?’ I exclaim. ‘I think they’re the scariest thing in the world!’

  ‘Not scarier than sharks!’ she cries, adorably indignant. ‘And strangers.’

  ‘Yes, Poppy. Strangers are very dangerous and very scary,’ her mum says quickly, and Vikram and I nod in obedient agreement. I decide that I like Poppy very much indeed, and while the doctor takes Mrs Davis to one side to explain the course of treatment, I approach the bed and sit down on its edge.

  ‘It sounds to me like you’re the bravest one in your family,’ I tell her conspiratorially, and she smiles at me for the first time.

  ‘Here at All Saints Hospital, we have special stickers for our bravest patients – would you like to see them?’

  Poppy nods her head up and down slowly, her eyes widening as I reach into my pocket and pull out my stash. There’s a sheet of red hearts, one of gold stars and another of little cartoon dogs, each with a separate ailment.

  ‘Can I have two?’ she asks boldly, peering down at them.

  ‘You can have three!’ I whisper back, and again I’m rewarded with a smile. ‘Why don’t you look after these for me?’ I add, giving her the whole sheet of dog stickers. ‘Then you can use them to decorate the special cast that I’m going to put on your arm. How does that sound?’

  ‘Good,’ she says quietly, her attention now diverted by the different designs. One of the little black-and-white dogs has got a broken arm, just like her, and I point to it with a smile.

  ‘I think this one is a winner.’

  Working in A&E can be tough, but it’s also the most rewarding role in the world – and the only one I can ever imagine doing. It’s my job to care, to provide sympathy, to patch people up and send them on their way with a smile. I spend my days mopping up blood, wiping away vomit, holding hands, making sweet tea and, just occasionally, getting smiles from gorgeous little angels like Poppy – it’s moments like this that make the sadder ones worthwhile.

  I’m just carefully arranging a blanket over Poppy’s legs for her when I feel the vibration of my phone against my leg. I’m not supposed to have my mobile with me during work hours, so I ignore it, but I notice the flicker of bemusement pass across Vikram’s face as he hears it, too.

  ‘Take care of yourself now, Poppy,’ he says. ‘No more climbing trees until you’re all better.’

  ‘I promise,’ she says sweetly, going back to examining her stickers as he vanishes through the curtain.

  ‘He seems very nice,’ Mrs Davis says, rather wistfully, sitting back in her seat and visibly relaxing for the first time since she arrived.

  ‘Oh, he is,’ I reply. ‘Doctor Dhillon is one of the good guys.’

  ‘Are you and he …’ she begins, but stops as I shake my head.

  ‘Oh gosh, no.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she grins.

  ‘Mummy is very nosy,’ Poppy explains, not even bothering to look up, and we both chuckle.

  ‘The truth is,’ I say, smiling knowingly at Mrs Davis as I reach the curtain, ‘if I didn’t already have a lovely boyfriend, then Doctor Dhillon would be at the top of my list.’

  It’s another two hours until I have time to check my phone, but when I do I find that the text message is from Pete, as I’d hoped it would be.

  Hope you’re having a good shift – can’t wait to see you tomorrow.

  I lean back against the wall of the ladies’ toilet where I came to seek refuge and smile indulgently at myself in the mirror.

  I knew there was something about Peter Samuels that made him different. It’s been five months now since we met, and every time we see each other, I feel closer to him. My stomach still flutters with nerves when I’m on my way to meet him, but I feel as if he’s someone that I can really trust, which means everything to me. After what’s happened to me in the past, sometimes I find it hard to have faith in people – in men that I’m dating, especially – but Pete is the real deal.

  Perhaps it’s time to take our fledgling relationship up a notch, I think, tapping out an enthusiastic reply and adding my usual three kisses at the end. What I would like to do is spend more time with him, but real, quality time, not just a few hours here and there. A holiday is what we need – our first trip away as a couple. And I know just the place we should go.

  3

  Taggie

  Oh, great. I’m crying in the toilet again.

  Slamming the door of the cubicle behind me and flipping down the seat of the toilet, I bend my knees and stuff my fist into my mouth, managing to muffle the sound of my stupid sobs.

  This can’t keep happening. I have a job to do. You can’t very well coordinate a big, important event if you keep having to run off and cry in corners – and today is the biggest event I’ve ever done at the Casa Alta Hotel. In fact, it’s the biggest one I’ve ever done anywhere; my chance to prove to myself and everyone else that I can do the job I know I was born to do. But now, thanks to these unhinged emotions of mine, I’m at risk of messing all that up.

  Taking a deep breath, I remove my fist from my mouth and reach for some tissue to wipe away my tears. In the beginning, I didn’t cry at all. I was simply numb – dumbstruck, even – but lately I’m leaking so many irrational bouts of tears that anyone would think I was a water balloon that had been poked with a needle.

  No, this will not do. Taggie Torres is no weakling. The one thing I have never been in my entire life is a wimp, and there’s no way I’m letting these weird reactions wear me down. I will beat this; I must.

  The sound of the main door opening snaps me out of my melancholy train of thought, and I hold my breath as someone enters the stall next to me and hurriedly locks the door. Looking down, I see a swathe of white material under the partition wall and frown. If my calculations are correct – and I know that they are, because I’m very good at this job when I’m not abandoning it to cry covertly in toilets – then the only bride in this hotel should at this very minute be making her giddy way down the makeshift aisle I had set up in the ballroom to join her beloved.

  I pause, unsure of what to do next, and then I hear the unmistakable sound of crying.

  ‘Rachel,’ I murmur a few seconds later, leaving my own sanctuary and tapping gently on the wooden door of hers. ‘It’s Taggie. Is everything OK?’

  ‘No!’ comes the tearful reply.

  Jittery brides are not that unusual, but I’ve never had to deal with one before. I only spoke to this one fifteen minutes ago and she was glowing with expectant joy like a lava lamp in a dark room, so heaven knows what could have happened in the interim to send her scuttling in here.

  ‘Is it just nerves?’ I ask kindly. ‘An upset stomach?’

  ‘No.’

  I hesitate, unsure of what to say next.

  ‘Can I fetch anyone for you?’

  ‘No! I mean, please don’t. I just … I need a few minutes, that’s all.’

  More sobs.

  What I should be doing is telling her that everything will be fine. That the man waiting for her in the dark-blue suit is clearly crazy about her and that they’ll be sure to live happily ever after. The words are there, I can almost hear them, but I can’t quite bring myself to spit them out.

  ‘You know, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,’ I say instead, and I hear a snuffle of interest.

  ‘Seriously. There’s a back exit from the hotel that leads straight down to a jet
ty. I could have you in a boat and on the other side of Lake Como before you can say, “I do”.’

  I’m rewarded with a small grunt, and I’m just about to try another coaxing method when the main door bangs open yet again and a tall blonde girl appears. The maid of honour.

  We exchange a look that tells her all she needs to know, and I quickly stand to one side to let her take over.

  ‘Rach, it’s me, Hannah.’

  The sobbing begins again.

  The blonde turns her eyes to me and rolls them theatrically.

  ‘Whatever is the matter?’ she asks her friend.

  ‘I just … I think. I don’t know. This feels wrong,’ comes the stuttered reply.

  ‘Please let me in,’ soothes the maid of honour, but the door remains stubbornly closed.

  ‘I told her there’s an escape route,’ I put in, and the blonde girl looks at me with new-found respect. ‘You wouldn’t have to worry about a thing, either of you. I can deal with all the guests.’

  ‘I wish my dad was here,’ mutters the bride, and the crying grows louder.

  The blonde leans her head against the door and closes her eyes, bringing one hand up and resting it flat against the wood.

  ‘I wish he was, too,’ she says. ‘But I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.’

  ‘You can’t walk me down the aisle, though,’ wails the bride.

  ‘Wanna bet?’ retorts Hannah, and there’s a cough of laughter. We both take a step backwards as the lock clicks open and Rachel emerges. Her eyes are a bit pink and a few tendrils of dark-red hair have attached themselves to her cheeks, but other than that she looks fine. Radiant, in fact. Wedding make-up is an incredible thing.

  The two girls embrace and I turn away towards the mirror, studying my own reflection for any traces of my earlier upset. Unlike the bride, I don’t have a barrier of foundation three inches thick to save me, but thankfully my eyes look bright behind my thick lashes, my cheeks their usual smooth, light brown, my thick, dark hair pulled neatly up where it won’t get in my way. I look like me on the outside. It’s the inside that’s the problem.

  ‘Do you think I’m making a mistake?’ the bride is asking her tall friend now. ‘Marrying Paul?’

  ‘What?’ The maid of honour is clearly amused. ‘Listen here, woman – I haven’t spent the best part of two years making friends with your husband-to-be just to have you abandon him at the altar.’

  ‘Do you think he loves me, though? I mean, really loves me?’

  Hannah takes a moment to consider this, frowning at her friend in mock concern before poking her in the ribs with a finger.

  ‘Of course he bloody does. He loves you more than I love churros, which is really saying something. Now, can we please go and get you married already?’

  The bride nods, and I release a deep breath that I didn’t even realise I was holding in.

  ‘Thank you,’ mouths Hannah over her shoulder as they turn to go, and I smile in return, even though I wasn’t much help at all. The only solution I came up with was run, which is just bloody typical of me.

  This won’t do, I realise, as I make my way out to join the wedding guests. I need to get over this and leave the past where it should be: buried in a very deep hole somewhere remote. What’s done is done, isn’t that the saying? There can be no going back, so I have no choice but to move forwards.

  If it’s so simple, though, I wonder, watching from the back of the ballroom-cum-chapel as the bride is finally delivered by her best friend into the waiting arms of her husband-to-be, then why is it so bloody difficult?

  It’s another nine hours before I sit down again, and when I do, I make the very wise decision to do it on a stool in front of the bar.

  ‘Long day?’

  I smile wearily at my friend Shelley and kick off my high heels, bringing each stockinged foot up to rub in turn.

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘I don’t know how you walk around all day in those,’ she remarks, and we both look down to where my discarded shoes are lying on the polished wooden floor.

  ‘I have to,’ I shrug. ‘Not much choice when you’re five foot nothing.’

  ‘You’re a better woman than me,’ she jokes, lifting her own foot into the air so I can see the black trainers she always wears.

  I’ve only known Shelley since I began working at Casa Alta five months ago, but she’s already become my closest companion out here. I love the Italians, I genuinely do, but there’s something very comforting about having another English person on the premises. Someone who understands all those quintessentially British cultural references and appreciates sarcasm as humour. Like me, Shelley has been coming over to Lake Como regularly since she was a child, and like me, she’s picked up enough of the local language to blag herself a job in one of the hotels. Unlike me, however, she has the freedom that comes with a part-time bar job, while my position as the hotel’s resident tour guide is a little more time-consuming. Still, I’m not complaining. I’m lucky to have this job, and I know it. Being a tour guide here is a step closer to my dream role of events manager, and I don’t intend to waste any opportunity to illustrate just how great I’d be if my boss here at the hotel did eventually choose to promote me.

  The Casa Alta is situated on the west bank of the lake, halfway between the main town of Como at the bottom, and the large alpine village of Cernobbio, which is five kilometres to the north. Casa Alta translates literally as High House, which is appropriate in the case of this hotel, because it’s atop a very big hill. Unashamedly grandiose and reeking of history, the imposing yellow villa stands proudly up on its hilltop perch like an overstuffed canary, surrounded by lush gardens full of pine trees, jacarandas, ornate water fountains, statues and flower beds that are currently overflowing with white winter roses. Follow the grounds far enough down the hill, and you’ll discover a narrow stone bridge that leads right over the main road and along to the shore of the lake itself.

  As well as taking in paying guests, the Casa Alta is also open year-round to the public, who are free to roam the gardens for a small donation, which they leave in a wooden box down by the main gate. I can still remember coming here as a child and moaning to my parents about how bored I was, which seems so ridiculous to me now. These days, I could spend hours just wandering through the rooms and gardens of this place, watching the landscape change with the seasons and staring through the antique windows at the sunlight sparkling on the surface of the lake far below. It calms me to be here. I feel soothed and safe – cut off from the world but able to dip a toe back into it at will. Once I worked out that I had no choice but to leave England for a while, there was only ever one place on my list, and landing this job just a week after I arrived felt like fate.

  ‘Are any of the wedding guests fit?’ Shelley asks me now, easing the cork back into the top of a bottle of Barolo and pushing the full glass of red wine towards me.

  ‘Thanks.’ I take a sip. ‘Some of them aren’t too bad. But I wasn’t looking that hard, to be honest. I was too busy keeping an eye on the bride in case she made another run for it.’

  Shelley smiles. I told her all about the bathroom incident earlier.

  ‘There’s a tall guy with glasses who’s cute,’ she tells me, leaning over the bar so she can see through the open door into the adjacent room, where the reception is still in full and exuberant swing. ‘But I think he’s got a girlfriend.’

  ‘Right,’ I say, wishing I had it in me to contribute something more fun to the conversation. The truth is, I’m absolutely exhausted, but I won’t let myself slope off upstairs to bed until the last guest has tucked themselves in, and this lot aren’t showing any signs of slowing down. Because it’s December now and many of the hotels in the Como area have closed for the winter, my boss, Sal, is far more relaxed about the noise than he usually would be. The wedding party are pretty much the only guests here, save for a few regulars who visit the lake at this time every year, and Sal wants to encourage them to spend as much mone
y as possible at the bar.

  Today’s nuptials mark the last big-scale event of the year, which has happily fallen on the very same weekend that Sal’s occasional wedding planner chose to go to Paris with her boyfriend, meaning that I, his rather more lowly tour guide, got to take her place. What the Casa Alta really needs is someone to do the job of a proper events manager full-time, but I have yet to convince Sal to hire someone. And by someone, I obviously mean me.

  Doing the tours is a lot of fun, though, and despite the fact that it’s much quieter in the winter, I still have enough small things happening over the next month or so to keep me occupied – and occupied is exactly what I need to be. Distraction has turned out to be my best friend these past few months. Honestly, without it I dread to think where I would have ended up.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Shelley is peering at me. ‘You’ve been staring at that glass of wine for about five solid minutes.’

  ‘Fine.’ I shake my head and force a smile. ‘Just deeply in awe of my Barolo.’

  ‘It is the best wine ever,’ she concedes, putting her blonde head on one side. Shelley insists on wearing her long hair in two plaits while she’s working, and on anyone else over the age of seven, it would look ridiculous. Luckily for Shelley she has an adorably round little cherub’s face, and so the pigtails merely add to her overall appeal. The guy with glasses that she’s spotted must indeed have a girlfriend, because if he didn’t, I’d put good money on the probability that he’d be sitting where I am right now, trying to chat my friend up.

  ‘Talking of delicious Italians,’ Shelley says now, twirling the end of one of her plaits around her finger, ‘I met this bloke in town the other day that I think would be perfect for you.’

  ‘Doubt it,’ I snort, pulling a face.

  ‘He’s tall, dark, handsome,’ she begins, but I interrupt.

  ‘Wait – did you say tall?’

  She nods.