Page 37 of A Place in the Sun
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I spend the following day, Monday, trying to clear plaster out of the house and clean the work surfaces. I’m exhausted and every movement seems an effort, but I have to be able to make coffee and find plates for the children to eat. But Stella is uppermost in my mind: how does she know Marco? What could she have to tell me about my husband that I don’t know? Giovanni told me to speak to her. But I’m not sure I’m ready for anything she has to say. I thought I knew Marco as well as he knew me, totally and completely.
By evening, when the children return from their second night at Caterina’s, I’ve washed the bedding, swept the plaster into piles to be walked around, wiped the windowsills and mopped the floors. In all my time working there, Marco is nowhere to be seen.
The children return full of stories of fun with Pietroand Isabella. I thank Caterina and she tells me she’s here to help. Just like La Tavola when she arrived in the village.
‘I left a very bad situation,’ she tells me, making sure the children are out of earshot. ‘My husband was a bad man. I made the decision to leave and take the children. I just went. I had no idea where, just that I needed to put as much distance as I could between us. I’m so grateful for the help I found in La Tavola and from Giovanni. The past isn’t forgotten, but here, we have a now and a future.’
I can’t speak – the words catch in my throat. I hope she understands I’m grateful for all she’s done for me.
The following morning, having slept like a log, I creep downstairs in the early morning sunlight and go outside. I can sit there and just be in the now. I’m wondering if Marco will be at the kitchen table and, if he is, how I’ll feel about him now that Stella has turned up. I’m very mixed-up, trepidatious, yet hoping I can see him. I can’t. He’s not sitting there as he was before. My heart dips in disappointment, wishing he was still here for me, but he’s finally left me, abandoned me when I needed him most, when I needed him to explain about Stella.
I wander over to the cafetière by the kettle. Suddenly I hear a noise outside the back door. A bleat. Slowly, I open the back door. A goat is standing there, staring atme. It opens its mouth.Baaaaa!Its long beard swings. I jump back in surprise.
Baaaaa!it says again, and steps forward. I move further back and grab a tea-towel: it seems to be attempting to come into the house.
‘Shoo!’ I wave the tea-towel at it. ‘Shoo!’
There’s another bleat, and another … Two more goats are in the garden, bleating at me.
‘Shoo!’ I say louder, even though they’re making me smile.
I hear footsteps upstairs.
‘‘What’s happening?’ Luca calls.
‘Have we got sheep in the garden?’ That’s Aimee’s voice.
‘Goats!’ Luca corrects her.
‘Put your shoes on,’ I shout up to them. ‘Mind the fourth step! Watch out for the plaster!’
Luca and Aimee rush downstairs in their pyjamas and towards the door, sidestepping the piles of plaster as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
‘What’s happening? Where did they come from?’ asks Luca.
‘No idea,’ I say, still waving the white tea-towel as if in an act of surrender. And in some ways it feels like it is. I seem not to be in control of anything going on here. All my plans to tart the place up and sell it on quickly have gone out of the window. A bit like my parenting skills: I want to tell the children to be careful,not to get dirty, don’t go far, but they’re outside before I can say a word.
The goat nearest the door bleats again.
The children throw back their heads and laugh.
‘He’s funny!’
‘And tickly!’ says Aimee, as the goat nibbles her pyjama top.
‘Perhaps they want breakfast,’ says Luca, frowning, as if he’s always thinking about what needs to be done.
‘Here, give him this,’ I say, and hand over some stale bread from yesterday. Luca offers it to the goat, which starts to nibble it, and gives some to Aimee.
They’re giggling again.
‘And there’s another!’
‘And there!’
‘Mum, they’re eating everything!’
