Page 5 of Change of Heart
Count Lodovico showed no sign of wanting to follow his daughter and when she actually went over to him and gave his arm a tug, he pulled away irritably and turned his back on both of them. Assuming that he knew why Alice was here, this wasn’t a positive sign by any means. Maybe he didn’t feel so convinced about the idea of opening the castle to the public as Simonetta. Presumably he was the owner and ultimate arbiter of what happened here at the castle, so if he wasn’t interested, this didn’t look good at all. Alice found herself wondering if this whole trip had maybe been a waste of time before it had even started.
Leaving him standing there among the pictures of his ancestors, Alice followed Simonetta down a long corridor lined with suits of armour and vicious-looking medieval weapons with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Chapter 4
At the end of the corridor was another beautifully carved door and beyond it a huge high-ceilinged living room with windows looking out over the roofs of the town further down the hillside. Alice could see a couple of people walking across the piazza, while a blue and white bus slowly made its way through the narrow streets. She didn’t envy the bus driver. It had been tricky enough manoeuvring her little Fiat through the tortuous streets of the town centre, let alone a monster like that, but it did show that tourist coaches should be able to get up to the castle, and that would be a bonus – if the baron agreed to the project, and that looked as if it was by no means certain.
It was noticeably warmer in this room, no doubt due to the roaring log fire in the huge stone fireplace at the far end. It wouldn’t be long now until the end of April, and presumably fires would gradually cease to be necessary. She spared a thought for how cold it was likely to be here in the depths of winter. A quick glance around the room revealed no sign of radiators, and she suppressed a little shiver of apprehension. Simonetta led the way across to the fire and they sat down opposite each other. As they did so, a large grey cat which had been relaxing on a rug in front of the fire reluctantly rose to its feet and shot them a disdainful glance before stalking off and disappearing behind one of the aged leather sofas.
Another figure appeared from a smaller door at the far end of the room. She was probably in her sixties and she was dressed from head to foot in black. Simonetta spotted her and glanced across at Alice.
‘Have you eaten? Can we offer you something? At least a coffee, or maybe a cup of tea, if you prefer?’
Alice had only had a cup of tea and some biscuits on the flight, but she wasn’t really hungry, so she gave Simonetta a grateful smile. ‘A cup of real Italian coffee would be wonderful, thank you. That’s something I haven’t had for ages.’
‘I’ll have the same, thank you, Ines.’
The lady in black gave a nod and a little smile before turning and disappearing from the room again. As she did so, Simonetta picked up on what Alice had just said. ‘You used to live in Italy, didn’t you? Your Italian’s very fluent, even though I believe you’ve been back in England for some years now. Is that right?’
Alice nodded and took a deep breath. It was time to tell her tale. Briefly she told Simonetta about the five years she had spent in the Dolomites, and described the sort of work she used to do at the old monastery. Simonetta looked interested as Alice told her about the administrative duties she had had and she nodded in sympathy when Alice told her the reason why she had left.
‘I was with a group of friends in the high mountains and we were caught up in an avalanche. My left leg was badly crushed and they had to amputate it below the knee.’ She took a deep breath as the memory of that terrible time washed over her yet again, but she did her best to sound confident as she continued. ‘It could have been a whole lot worse but I had to give up the job and come home for quite a long period of convalescence.’
‘If I hadn’t been told that you had a problem with your leg, I wouldn’t have noticed. I had no idea it was so serious, but you seem to get around very well.’
Alice felt a little surge of triumph. ‘It’s okay, thanks. It’s taken me a while to get used to the prosthetic, but I manage quite well, although my knee has to do all the work and it aches a bit every now and then. About the only practical problem I have is that I need an automatic car as it was my left leg that was crushed. Otherwise, as long as I don’t have to run any marathons, I get by.’
The coffee appeared at that moment, and Alice was able to take a break, greatly heartened by Simonetta’s reaction to the disclosure of her disability – very different from that of her former boyfriend. The coffee was brought in by a good-looking young woman probably around the same age as they were, late twenties or early thirties. She was carrying a silver tray and on it were two exquisite little porcelain espresso cups, a very ornate silver coffee pot and a matching plate piled high with what looked like home-made biscuits. Alice murmured her thanks, which were echoed by Simonetta.
‘Thank you, Silvia.’ The maid nodded and turned away without a word, shooting Alice a curious glance as she did so. Alice caught her eye and gave her a smile and the woman produced a nervous smile in return. Simonetta pointed towards the biscuits. ‘Silvia’s mother, Ines, makes the best biscuits in the world. These are a local speciality. She’s been making them for me since I was a baby. Do try one.’
Alice picked one up and nibbled it, tasting marzipan, honey and hazelnuts. Simonetta was right, it was delightful, and the thought immediately occurred to Alice that a regular supply of home-made biscuits in a café up here in the castle would no doubt be very popular with visitors. She made appreciative noises and was soon on her second biscuit as the interview proceeded. She went into considerable detail about the work she had been doing at the manor back in Devon. She had already decided to tell the truth about her promotion to assistant manager, only for government funding cuts to be about to see her demoted again. Just as with the revelation about her leg, she knew it was important to be honest from the start. In return, Simonetta started to tell Alice more about the castle itself, but a voice from behind interrupted her. Alice turned and saw the baron standing at the door. She hadn’t heard him arrive and she wondered how long he’d been standing there.
He launched into a rambling history of the family, but his daughter expertly managed to steer the conversation back to the twenty-first century and asked Alice what she thought of the castle.
‘It’s a stunning and unique historic building in a fabulous location, and I feel sure if it’s done right, it’ll prove to be a great success with Italians as well as with foreign tourists.’
She saw Simonetta shoot what looked like a triumphant glance across at the baron but there was nothing in return. Alice found herself wondering if he had even been listening. Undeterred, Simonetta then asked a big question. ‘How much do you think it’s likely to cost to carry out all the work that’ll be necessary?’
Alice shrugged. ‘I honestly can’t say at this point, but if I can have a look around, I’ll have a better idea.’
Simonetta jumped to her feet. ‘Absolutely, if you’d like to come with me, I’ll give you the tour.’ Leaving the baron standing on his own, she led Alice back into the corridor again.
The tour lasted well over half an hour, and by the end of it, Alice was feeling quite overawed. The place was enormous.
When they finally returned to the lounge, Alice was delighted that she had managed to do the whole tour without too much discomfort but it was a relief to have a chance to sit down. The baron was still standing in exactly the same position, but he had turned towards the fire that had died down considerably. He gave no sign of registering their return, his eyes staring deep into the glowing embers. Simonetta knelt down between him and the grey cat, who had emerged from his hiding place, and added a couple of big logs and a handful of kindling. Once the flames had begun to lick up the sides of the fresh logs, she returned to her seat and shot Alice an enquiring glance.
‘Well, what do you think now you’ve had a look around?’
Alice gave her a beaming smile. ‘Amazing! Thank you for the tour. It has confirmed my initial impression that this is a very special place indeed.’ Out of the corner of her eye she saw the baron turn towards her and felt him scrutinising her as she continued. ‘The good news is that to my untrained eye – I did a certain amount of building surveying at university, but I’m not an architect – it looks as though it’s all structurally pretty sound, and I couldn’t see any significant subsidence or worse. Yes, there’s a lot that’ll need doing, particularly on general modernising and on the health and safety side, but I didn’t see anything that could prove to be disastrous.’
‘And the bad news?’
‘The cost of it all. Like I say, I’m not an architect, but even hoping that any structural repairs aren’t too serious, all the surveys and bureaucratic hoops you’ll have to go through in order to get permission to open to the public aren’t going to be cheap. For a start, a historic property like this will no doubt come under the remit of theBelle Arti.’ She heard an exasperated snort from the baron. ‘I’m sure you know how difficult they can be.’ She had already crossed swords with the Italian state heritage authority when she had been working up in the Dolomites, and she knew they could be pernickety in the extreme, just like their British counterparts. ‘I imagine they’ll expect you to replace oak with oak, stone with stone and so on, which could cost an awful lot.’
‘Can you put a figure on it?’ Alice could tell that Simonetta was on edge.
‘I can only guess. Until you get a full survey done, it’s hard to know. You’ll need to employ new staff – not just somebody like me to run things – so you probably need to reckon quite a few hundred thousand euros, maybe a million or more if there’s a lot to be done.’
