Page 35 of Far from Home
‘Well, thanks, Danny, I’ll try not to worry.’
‘That’s the spirit!’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Now I really have to go. Ciao.’
He blew her a kiss and disappeared into the dark, leaving her standing there helplessly. Finally she locked the door and wandered back to her wine glass, doing her best to analyse the thoughts running through her head. The shiver of apprehension that had run through her at hearing Danny’s news had served to reinforce just how much of an impression his big brother had made on her in such a short time.
She had lost her mother, two fathers and Gavin. Could it be that she was now also going to lose Adam?
Chapter 20
Monday morning brought the builders back to finish off. The walls were painted and the place began to look like a home again. Amy spent a lot of her time making coffee and, in between, she carried on with the task of cleaning the house. Diego, one of Lorenzo Pozzovivo’s men, tiled the bathrooms and kitchen, while another painted the replastered walls, so that by the time Wednesday came, everything essential inside the house had been done.
At the end of what was their final working day here at l’Ospedaletto, Amy produced a huge chocolate cake but confessed that she had bought it from the baker’s because she needed to experiment with her new double ovens a few times before risking making a cake of her own. She served this to them with glasses of Signor Montalcino’s wine and sent them off with slices of cake for their families. She thanked the two Rossi cousins, Angelo and Emilio, as well as Lorenzo and his men, for doing a fantastic job so amazingly quickly and she told them she was going to throw a party to celebrate completion of the work. Although her original intention had been to organise a ‘do’ for everybody including her new neighbours and friends this weekend, she told them it would have to be next week so as to give herself more time to prepare.
In fact, it wasn’t really that she needed much more time to get the house ready for visitors but because she wasn’t feeling much like celebrating. She had spent every day since the weekend scouring news reports in different languages in the hope of getting more information about Adam and his film crew. It had rapidly emerged that there was very little news apart from the fact that they had been expected back at their base about a hundred kilometres upstream from Manaus the previous Wednesday and were now a full week overdue. A Brazilian journalist who had been working with them was quoted as saying that the area where they had been filming was very remote and people had gone missing there before. He was unable to say whether this had been due to malignant forces, dangerous animals or inhospitable terrain, but nothing more had ever been heard of them.
This information hadn’t brought her any comfort.
She had found herself thinking about Adam a lot, remembering little things like the colour of his eyes, the sound of his voice and the clothes he wore. The more she thought about him the more she realised how little she knew about him. They had spent so little time together and yet here she was, missing him as if she had known him for years. After she finally closed the door on the last of the tradesmen, she slumped down on the sofa and stretched her legs, feeling satisfied that the work was finished but also feeling melancholy, partly at the disappearance of Adam, and partly at the thought of her father. She hoped he would have approved of what she had done to his house.
Although she had been dining alone at the house for the past few nights, tonight she felt the need for human companionship, so she picked up Max from Signora Grande and took him for a good long walk around town before heading for the pizzeria again. It was almost full and the atmosphere animated, and she only just manged to find a spare table. As she was making her way across to it, she spotted two familiar faces at the far end of the old covered market. One was Domenica, the woman she had met at Rosa’s party and who had allegedly known Martin Slater better than most. With her was a young man whom Amy recognised immediately. It was none other than the young man from the town hall who had suddenly changed from helpful to rude. When Domenica spotted Amy she beckoned, and Amy had no option but to lead Max over to say hello.
‘Ciao, Domenica, it’s good to see you again.’ As the young man concentrated his attention on making a fuss of Max, Amy wondered idly whether he was a relative, friend, or even toy-boy. Domenica was still a very attractive woman, after all, even if the young man was probably half her age. When he glanced up from the Labrador, his expression was far from welcoming, but Amy was determined to rise above any petty jealousies. ‘Hello, again. You were very helpful to me when I came to see the mayor.’
This at least forced him to say something and he managed it with an attempt at good grace, but she could see it was an effort.
‘Good evening.’ Not the longest utterance in the history of the world but at least he shook hands with her, although he didn’t stand up. Domenica shot him a sharp look and introduced him.
‘Ciao, Amy. Let me introduce you to my son, Rolando. He’s taking me out tonight for my birthday.’
Amy wished Domenica a happy birthday but the atmosphere was definitely strained so she soon left them and headed across to her own table. A friendly waitress arrived to take her order and Amy chose apizza ai frutti di marewhich would presumably have lots of lovely seafood on it. She also decided she was in need of a large beer tonight. She badly wanted to talk to somebody so she pulled out her phone and called Lucy.
She started by telling her that Lorenzo Pozzovivo was now no longer coming around to her house every day and Lucy, who still hadn’t got over the shirtless trench-digging incident, sighed longingly. Amy then told her about the curious scene she had just witnessed here at the pizzeria with Domenica and her son. Lucy sounded as puzzled as she was feeling.
‘Any idea what was bugging him?’
‘I have no idea.’ Amy related the events at the town hall when she had given her address and he had suddenly changed. Lucy couldn’t understand it any more than Amy could.
‘And he was all sweetness and light until you gave him your name and told him where you were living? Maybe he had a run-in with your dad, but everybody’s been saying what a nice man he was. Weird…’
‘I’ve been meaning to speak to his mother one of these days as she told me she knew my father – possibly very well. Maybe her son doesn’t like me because she had an affair with my father and that broke up her marriage or something like that. At the very least if I sit down and talk to her I should be able to learn more about him even if she doesn’t know what’s got into her son. Maybe he was just pissed off about something completely different. Maybe they’d just had a fight. I’ll try to find out where she lives and I’ll go and knock on her door one of these days.’
She then went on to tell Lucy that there was still no news about Adam, and Lucy was as optimistic and supportive as ever. ‘Try not to worry. His Jeep’s probably broken down and he’s having to hike out of the forest.’
‘I believe they were travelling by boat.’ Remembering the piranha fish, Amy added the obvious proviso. ‘They certainly couldn’t swim back or they’d be eaten alive. Mind you, if they tried to trek through the jungle they’d run the risk of being killed by a poisonous anaconda or attacked by a tiger.’
Lucy giggled. ‘Anacondas aren’t poisonous and there are no tigers in South America, Amy. Try not to worry, He’ll be fine, you’ll see.’
Amy had long known that Lucy’s knowledge of the birds and the bees was encyclopaedic, but she hadn’t realised that it extended to reptiles and mammals. But this helped. A bit.
Amy had been calling in on Danny most days in search of news, but to no avail, and by the time she went round on Thursday morning to paint the plates she had made, she could tell that even Danny’s optimism was wearing thin. He told her he had been in regular contact with the Canadian embassy in Brazil, who had promised to keep him informed of any developments, but Adam and his team had been missing for over a week now and every day that passed increased the chances that something serious had happened to them.
Amy painted a host of little black Labradors on the now bone-dry, hard dishes but her mind was in the Amazon rainforest and the results were a bit of a mess. Danny assured her that they would look fine when the final glaze had been baked on – repeating that the imperfections would just add to the rustic appeal – although she had her doubts. When she had finished, he made her a coffee and they sat outside under the olive tree and Danny started talking quite nostalgically about his big brother.
‘I keep telling him to find himself a job which isn’t so dangerous. A couple of years ago he was locked up in an Iranian prison for weeks, then he was held hostage by rebel forces in Eritrea, and only last year he got bitten by a rabid dog in Nigeria. Although he had had all his injections, he had a very nervous wait for several months until they gave him the all clear.’
‘Why does he do it, Danny?’
He gave her a little smile. ‘If I had a dollar for every time I’ve asked him that, I’d be a rich guy. He just tells me it’s the job. He loves what he does, I get that, but I don’t see why he has to risk his life for it.’ He shot her a glance. ‘Sound familiar?’
