Page 17 of My Lemon Grove Summer
‘I think we should all go and look at the houses, see if we can make a start. We can make sure you get the biggest garden,’ I say.
‘Thank you.’ Sherise smiles, but I’m not sure either of them is convinced they’ve done the right thing by coming here.
‘What about you, Ralph? What brings you to Sicily?’ Tabitha asks, and once again I’m not sure if she’s being a bit too forward and nosy or just interested. But I’m happy to give her the benefit of the doubt. All the time she’s asking other people about why they’re here, at least I’m not having to talk about Lennie and me.
Ralph looks around at us all. I get the impression the spotlight is the last place he wants to be in right now.
‘I left the army. Went into the City. Let’s just say I needed to be as far away from the City as possible. Thought this might be the place.’
‘Burnt out?’ says Barry, nodding and finishing the eggs and bacon.
‘Burnt, certainly,’ Ralph says into his coffee cup, making it clear he doesn’t want to talk any more.
We fall into silence. I’m not great with silence. And Tabitha seems to really be making an effort to get us to find out about each other.
‘I had a shop,’ I find myself blurting out, attempting to fill the awkward void. ‘It was my dream. Everything I’d ever wanted. Had a flat with a balcony overlooking the high street. I loved the buzz I got from it. Then the rates went up and I couldn’t afford it any more. I ended up working in a department store.’ I feel like I’m baring my soul. Telling my life story to strangers. At least I haven’t told them I grew up in a children’s home, or that if Valerie hadn’t stepped in that day, who knows where I might have ended up. A lot like my mother, I expect. ‘So,’ I try and move things along, ‘I’m hoping to open a shop here, and do online stuff. Set up a website. A vintage treasures kind of place.’
‘There should be loads of those around here,’ says Barry. ‘You could offer to do house clearances.’
‘Oh, I don’t want people to think I’m here to benefit from an ageing community!’ I say in horror.
Thankfully, Lennie steps in and smoothly changes the subject. ‘And I’m just looking for work. I was an estate agent, but I’ll do anything. Maybe something that will help the community.’
‘Lots of empty houses here,’ says Tabitha, who appears to be tapping on her phone again. ‘You could try and sell them?’
‘The thing is, there’s nothing to come here for. People don’t want to just buy a house, they want the area.’ Lennie slips into estate-agent mode. ‘As beautiful as this place is, there’s a reason they’re practically giving the houses away to people like us.’
‘People like us . . .’ Tabitha looks up and around at the group. ‘All here looking for a fresh start,’ she says quietly, her eyes darting between us.
‘A new opportunity,’ Ralph corrects her, pushing back his shoulders.
‘Yes, of course, that’s what I meant,’ she says, and returns to typing on her phone.
Lennie turns to Barry, who is using a piece of bread to wipe up the egg yolk on his plate.
‘Barry?’ he asks. ‘What are you hoping to do here?’
‘Well, I don’t really know . . . Maybe find a wife?’
‘Have you not been married before?’ Sherise asks.
‘Oh yes. Three times. Each one ended up a disaster. I worked as a postie all my life. When I was made redundant, my last wife divorced me, saying I got under her feet. I didn’t have anywhere to live. Couldn’t afford to buy. Bloody estate agents.’ He looks at Lennie, and for a moment I wonder if there’s going to be an atmosphere, but then they both smile and laugh good-naturedly and I find myself smiling too. ‘So I thought, why not? Let’s see what life in Sicily’s got to offer. It’s more than I’ve got back home. I’ve been sleeping on my daughter’s sofa. I think she was glad to see the back of me.’
I look at Tabitha, still staring at her phone, reminding me of myself before I left, waiting for messages that I thought would change my life.
‘What about you, Tabitha? What are you doing here?’
She looks up. ‘I’m actually here . . . well, because I want to finish the novel I’ve been trying to write. I have writer’s block and I thought that living somewhere like this would inspire me.’
‘Wow! That’s brilliant!’ I say, impressed.
There’s a lull in the conversation. Everyone has pretty much explained what they’re doing here, and we seem to have run out of things to say.
‘Well,’ I say at last. ‘I think we should go and see how the houses are coming on. Giuseppe said work was going to start. We could offer to help out. I’m okay with a paintbrush.’
‘And I can do bricklaying,’ says Lennie. I remember that he spent a summer in his twenties working for a local builder.
‘I’m all right at DIY,’ says Barry, grabbing his belt and pulling it up over his tummy.
