Page 40 of The Dolce Vita Divas
‘I think all five-year-olds are the same,’ I said. ‘What about taking him for a walk around the garden? Looking for bugs or birds. It’s a beautiful afternoon out there. And more importantly, how is Andrea?’
‘She’s got a headache,’ Raleigh said. ‘I mean, we all get headaches, don’t we?’
‘She has a cluster migraine,’ Leo said firmly, ending his phone call. ‘It’s not the same thing at all. She’s very unwell.’
‘So where is Eric?’ Paulo asked, sneaking a look at his watch.
‘Watching television in our bedroom,’ Raleigh said, nodding towards the closed door, ‘but it’s all in Italian. And his iPad has run out of charge and the cable is in Andrea’s room somewhere.’
There was the sound of the door handle rattling, and a moment later Eric came out.
‘I’ve been out on the balcony, watching a man washing the windows,’ Eric said with an enormous grin of satisfaction.
Raleigh gasped with horror. ‘On your own?’
‘He was wearing rubber boots and a hat. And he had a bucket, and a spray bottle with blue water in it. I want to do that when I’m grown up. Or I’m going to be a cowboy.’
Raleigh looked a little shaken. ‘No, Eric, you’re going to Harvard Law School, remember?’
‘And then can I be a man with a spray bottle?’
‘Mmm, sounds a great job, buddy, everyone needs clean windows,’ Leo said enthusiastically, busy doing his five-minute father stint. ‘Would you like a drink of water?’
‘I’ve had pink juice. The man gave it to me. He had a spare can, and he opened it for me.’
Raleigh clutched at her throat and gave a strangled cry.
Paulo looked at his mobile, obviously trying not to laugh.
‘I’m terribly sorry, there is a problem in the kitchen, something to do with a delivery for tomorrow and a couple of waiters who are off sick. I must go and check.’
He gave me a grateful look and a wink and left.
‘We can go out into the garden for a walk around before bedtime,’ Leo said brightly.
Eric dropped his head back in the universal child language of acute disappointment and began to whine.
‘That sounds lame.’
I held out my hand and went into headmistress mode, speaking in a tone I had used to great effect down the years with recalcitrant children.
‘Perhaps you can go to the part of the garden where there aren’t any lights and then we can watch the stars come out as it gets dark. That’s what I used to do when I was your age. Let’s give it a try. Hurry up and put your sweater on and some warmer trousers; it might get chilly as the sun goes down. There aren’t a lot of streetlights here, so you will be able to see the stars far more than you can at home. And you never know, if you’re lucky we might rustle up some fries.’
‘Oh, okay,’ Eric said quite reasonably. ‘Are you coming too?’
‘Well, I suppose I can if you want me to,’ I said with a questioning look at Raleigh.
‘You won’t let him touch any bugs, will you?’ Raleigh said, nodding. ‘He had a worm in a matchbox once. I nearly fainted.’
* * *
We made our way to a delightful pergola at the far end of the garden, where there was a stone table and the sort of reclining chairs usually seen on film sets in Monte Carlo.
We got some drinks and Eric emptied his elegant metal cone of fries and then fidgeted around and dropped onto the floor where he scrabbled around for a while looking for a toy car he claimed to have lost. After a while he came back up and sat on the chair next to me with his legs sticking out.
‘This chair is prickly,’ he moaned as though he had been stabbed with a thousand knives.
‘But, honey, it can’t be prickly,’ Raleigh said.
