Page 7 of A Place in the Sun
‘Just down there.’ Luca points. ‘In the falling-down house. Casa Luna.’
‘It’s dark. The lights don’t work. Mr Fluffy doesn’t like it. He wants to go home.’
‘Ah,’ he nods, ‘Casa Luna. It sold a couple of years ago.’
‘Yes!’ say the children. ‘Our papa bought it, but—’
‘It’s time we were going.’ I stand up. ‘Could we have the bill, please?’
The man stands up too, as does the dog, which has been lying between him and Luca.
‘He died,’ Luca finishes.
I pull out my purse to pay.
The man holds up his hand.
‘Just let me have the bill, please,’ I say.
‘There’s no charge.’
‘I – I’m not looking for charity! Or sympathy.’ I’m suddenly hot and cross.
‘I’m not giving it. It’s just there’s no charge. We’re not a restaurant. We don’t charge.’
I put my purse away. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, and hurry the children to their feet. ‘Quick, time to go!’, I say, trying to entice Luca away from the dog.
‘Oh, but you wanted to know of someone to help with the electrics. I can.’
‘No, no, it’s fine. It’ll be fine.’ My cheeks are burning as I hurry the children out of the courtyard and down the hill to the house. Have I just sat down and ordered food in someone’s home? I want the hot, dusty cobbles to open and swallow me. I don’t need help. I can do this myself. I pull out my phone and google ‘blown electrics’. The sooner I get things sorted, the sooner we can leave.
4
‘But, Mum,’ Luca sounds as frustrated as I feel, ‘the man back there said he could help.’ He throws his arms into the air, just like Marco did. ‘Why don’t we ask him?’
I’m holding my torch in one hand and staring at the fuse-box, my eyes starting to blur with tiredness. I’ve tried every different combination I can think of to get the electricity back on. Outside, the sun is setting and I know that evening will soon be here and it’ll get darker. From what I can see, there are no streetlights to ease the situation.
‘Mum, we need help,’ he says. Aimee is clutching Mr Fluffy and telling him not to be scared because Mum’ll sort it.
‘I’ve phoned someone I found online. Left a message. I’m sure they’ll be here soon. Hopefully they’ll understand my garbled message in English with the oddItalian word thrown in,’ I say, trying to reassure him and still hoping I can fix it myself: there’s no way I’m going back to ask the man whose home I’d sat outside to help sort my electrics. He’d done more than enough already. I couldn’t have been more embarrassed.
That night, the electricity still isn’t on. As night falls, we close the windows downstairs and climb up to where we’re going to share the one double bed in the largest bedroom – Mr Fluffy insisted on it. I make the bed, pulling a sheet over the heavy mattress as dusk starts to fall.
The room is full of cases of clothes, but the bed is lovely and the windows are open to amazing views of fields stretching from the house down the hillside. I can smell the warm air as it creeps in through the open window, earthy scents from the ground below, and hear the whirring of cicadas.
‘But Dad always left a light on at night.’
‘I know.’ I wonder how to do this. ‘Tell you what, we’ll leave the torch on my phone on. It’ll be like camping! Like when we set up the tent in the garden.’
‘Yes, and never went anywhere, like other kids in school, because summers were too busy in the restaurant, and winter was office Christmas parties, and January and February were too cold and we were back in school,’ says Luca.
I flinch, the mistakes of the past coming back to haunt me again. If only we had made the time, for all our sakes. But, then, we didn’t know how hard itwould be to keep the restaurant going, or that I’d be doing it on my own after Marco had gone, like a fish trying to swim upstream. It had been a losing battle, with everything becoming so expensive and the chance of making any profit practically non-existent. It was like drowning in quicksand, every day, with more and more bills that I just couldn’t pay.
‘But we’re here now. Like Dad planned. A place for holidays and for us to enjoy being together. This’ll be fun. We’re in Italy. The sun is shining and we’re here for a whole six weeks! Just like a summer of camping.’
I can tell they’re not convinced, as we climb up onto the high dark-wood bed and the children fall asleep after the three-day journey in the car. It’s hot, sticky and still. I toss the covers aside and lie there listening to their regular breathing and watching the bats flit to and fro outside the window, eventually dropping off myself. I’ve left the window and shutters open, and between bouts of light sleep, I wait for dawn to come, my only accompaniment the sound of cicadas and mosquitoes.
The following morning my legs itch. They’re red and soon raw from my scratching where the mosquitoes feasted on me last night. They didn’t bother with the children, which is a good thing.
