Page 36 of Change of Heart
They finally returned to Varaldo and as agreed he came in for a cup of tea and a slice of the cake she had made the previous day. This was a lemon drizzle cake and, although she reckoned she should have added a bit more lemon, it tasted okay and he sounded enthusiastic. He then surprised her.
‘This cake is so much better than the ones I produce.’ He grinned. ‘I blame it on the old oven in my place.’
‘You bake your own cakes?’ Was she hearing right? This was surely the Holy Grail of boyfriends – although, she was quick to remind herself that he wasn’t her boyfriend yet. But a man who could bake? ‘Wow, I’m impressed.’
He was still grinning. ‘When I was working for Mario – he’s a baker and he specialises in the finest pastries and cakes – I learnt to make all sorts of stuff from profiteroles to rye bread.’
Barely half an hour later he reluctantly stood up and told her he had to go. Overcome with the desire to continue their time together, she stood up too and grasped tightly him around the waist, pressing herself against him.
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay? I wish you would.’ And she wasn’t just talking about staying for more tea.
She felt his lips press against her forehead. ‘There’s nothing I’d like more, but I have to be in Rome for a meeting at ten o’clock tomorrow morning so I need to get back to Parma to catch the train this evening. I’m staying with friends in Rome and they haven’t met Frank yet and they’ve told me to bring him. This’ll be the first time he’s ever been on a train so wish me luck – it could be chaos. I’ll be home late on Tuesday night so how about you come to my place on Wednesday or Thursday and I’ll cook for you? Would you like that?’
‘I’d love that.’
She kissed him with real passion and knew that time would pass all too slowly before they were together again. Still, she told herself pragmatically, at least she now had something to look forward to, and it was looking as though her fears had come to nothing. Finally, regretfully, he tore himself away and she could still feel his touch as she watched his car disappear down the road.
Chapter 22
Next morning’s family meeting produced an interesting development. Once everybody was seated, the baron held up a formal-looking white envelope and brandished it at them. ‘This arrived in the post for me this morning. I’ll read it to you.’
As the others sat back and listened, he read out the letter. It was from the mayor’s office at the town hall informing the baron that there would be a public meeting at six o’clock on Wednesday evening to discuss the plans to develop the castle into a tourist attraction. Members of the family and/or their representatives were invited to attend. When the baron reached the end of the letter he looked around the room. In case the full ramifications of this had not registered with everybody, he proceeded to spell them out.
‘Under normal circumstances in a situation like this I would expect the architect in charge of the project to be there. I imagine the mayor will have assembled a number of so-called experts to try to prove that we shouldn’t go ahead with our plans, and it really needs a qualified and experienced person to reply to any technical questions, not just us as the owners of the property. The problem, of course, is that the architect in question happens to be the mayor’s son and the two haven’t spoken for years.’
Alice and Simonetta exchanged glances but it was the elderly baroness who spoke up.
‘You’re totally right, Lodovico, the architect must be there, but he probably knew that this day would come and I’m sure he can handle it. I do think either you or one of the children must be there as well. And Alice, of course.’
The baron looked determined. ‘I most certainly will be there. I have no intention of letting Cesare Montorso claim that I’m deliberately staying away. I know the man; if I don’t go, he’ll say that I have no concern for the local people and consider myself far too high and mighty to get involved with the common man. Well, I intend to be there to prove him wrong.’ He let his eyes sweep across the room again. ‘Naturally if Alice would like to come, and if either or both of you children would like to come, I’ll be more than happy, but this is something I’ve got to do, and I agree with you, mother, we will need the architect by our sides.’
Alice was delighted to hear the steely resolve in his voice. With his rather woolly, absent-minded manner, she had somehow been expecting him to delegate responsibility elsewhere, and she was pleased to find him prepared to step up to the mark. An image of him dressed in one of the suits of armour from the corridor crossed her mind and she smiled to herself. Clearly, if the mayor was looking for a fight, the baron was up for it. As for Luca, she felt sure that this meeting would prove far more stressful than a normal public meeting because of the presence of his father, but as the baroness had said, he must have known when he took the job that at some point a confrontation would have been likely. Simonetta’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
‘Good for you, Papà.’ She sounded genuinely proud. ‘I’m definitely going to be there. Achille, what about you? Can you make it on Wednesday evening?’
‘Of course. I have a meeting in Parma that afternoon, but I’ll make sure to be back in time. I agree with you completely: we need to show a united front.’
Simonetta transferred her attention to Alice. ‘And of course you must be there, Alice. Would you be kind enough to call Luca and tell him about this, please? I’m afraid it’ll come as unwelcome news to him.’
News of the meeting certainly didn’t come as welcome news to Luca when she called him on his mobile, but from his voice it sounded as if it wasn’t that much of a surprise. ‘I was wondering if he might do something like this. In fact, I’m impressed that he’s actually behaving like a proper public official and including the populace in the decision-making process – or at least trying to give that impression. With the referendum coming up, a public meeting makes a lot of sense.’
‘And how do you feel about being there? It’ll mean seeing and probably talking to your father again.’
‘I’ve known from the start that this was going to be almost inevitable. To be quite honest, although part of me is dreading it, deep down inside I’d like to see the man again, even if it’s just to discover if he’s really become as bad as people say. As for possible objections, I’ve been preparing some ammunition, so I should be able to field any awkward questions.’
Wednesday’s meeting took place in a large room in the town’s Community Centre and when Alice walked in with the family she was mildly surprised to see that almost all the seats were already taken. Whether this was because the mayor had made sure that all his supporters were in attendance or whether this indicated genuine interest on the part of the population of Varaldo remained to be seen. Seats in the front row had been kept for the family so Alice and the others had to walk down the central aisle to take their places. Simonetta offered to take her grandmother’s arm, but the proud old lady shrugged off the offer and managed it all by herself. Alice and Luca walked side-by-side and she was pleased to see him being greeted by a good number of people as he made his way through the crowd. Among these were Giorgio from the restaurant, Alice’s landlords, and Emilia from the stables. There was no sign of Luca’s twin brother, but this was no doubt because he was back home looking after the farm single-handed.
Alice sat down next to Luca and, in spite of the circumstances, a little tingle of pleasure ran through her as she felt his warmth beside her. In front of them, a table had been set up on one side of the stage with a dais on the other. Behind the desk was the town clerk and another staff member from themunicipio. A few minutes after six the mayor appeared on stage and made his way over to the dais and waited while the town clerk called for silence. Alice kept a careful eye on Cesare Montorso. Tonight he was looking smart, business-like and even affable, smiling and waving to faces he recognised in the audience. If he noticed his son in the front row, he gave no sign of acknowledgement. When he started to speak, he produced a brief outline of his main objections to any development of the castle and then called two expert witnesses: one from the university of Bologna and one from something called the Italian Rural Life Society. Simonetta whispered in Alice’s ear that she had never heard of this group, and Alice turned towards Luca on the other side of her to check with him but when she saw the concentration on his face she decided not to bother him with questions.
She could see that his attention was totally focused on his father. She could only imagine what must be going through his head after over fifteen years apart. The fact that his father was looking presentable and sounding professional probably came as a surprise after the horror stories circulating in the village, and Alice wondered whether Luca might be having second thoughts about his decision to support his father’s sworn enemies.
The white-haired professor from the university of Bologna launched into a long rambling discourse about medieval castle building without really making any particular point relevant to this meeting. The man from the so-called Rural Life Society did his best to convince the audience that the town would instantly be inundated with floods of tourists and that this would completely change the character of the place as traffic chaos ensued. It was quite clear that he was one of those people who were not prepared to accept change of any kind and Alice wondered how many people in the audience would in fact sympathise with this view. When he finally sat down again, the Town Clerk turned towards the baron and asked if he or his representative had anything to say.
As already agreed, the baron deferred to his architect and Luca stood up and climbed the half dozen steps onto the stage. As he passed in front of his father, he gave him a formal nod and Alice clearly heard him say, ‘Good evening, Mr Mayor.’ The mayor gave no sign of even hearing this and his face remained impassive as Luca walked up to the dais and looked out over the audience.
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Luca Montorso and I’m the architect responsible for the project to open Varaldo Castle to the public. For those of you who don’t know, the mayor is my father, and it grieves me that he has chosen to let his personal animosity towards me and the Varaldo family stand in the way of what will be without question a blessing to the town. The castle is almost a thousand years old and has a unique place in Italian history. It deserves to be opened to people from all over the country and, indeed, the world, to visit and explore. Up till now, few of us have ever seen inside the castle, and I salute Baron Lodovico for his decision to share his home with the world.’
He went on to list the advantages he believed this would bring to the town and followed this with a well-reasoned demolition of the objections of the two ‘expert’ witnesses. By the end, Alice sensed that many in the audience had been swayed by his words and for the first time she saw an expression of frustration or more on the face of the mayor. After Luca had finished speaking, there was a round of applause and the face of the mayor darkened even further. As his son left the stage, he leapt to his feet and strode across to the dais. Alice saw concern on the face of the town clerk who looked as though he was trying to catch the mayor’s eye to dissuade him from doing anything silly, but Cesare Montorso was beyond listening to reason. He stared malignantly down at his son with a look of such bitter hatred in his eyes that it actually drew a gasp from members of the audience.
