Page 91 of The Dolce Vita Divas
‘Good, and how incredibly romantic. And talking of romance, I had a phone call from Raimondo earlier on, and some more flowers. I’m going to have to buy another vase to put them in; they are in a wine cooler at the moment and the others are in a bucket. He’s coming to see me for Christmas. I was going to invite you over, but I’m guessing you’re going to be far too busy.’
I smiled to myself; I was counting off the days until I was due to fly back out to Naples. The more I thought about it, the more excited I became. I had splashed out on some smart clothes too, the sort that ordinarily I would keep for a special occasion. Well, if this wasn’t that, I didn’t know what was. I had taken a lot of the old garments I owned to the charity shops, and some which were too battered and worn to the recycling bin at the supermarket. As I pushed them through the slot, it felt like such a triumph, as though I was ditching the old me, but more than that, I was accepting that there could be a new me. One who actually wore smart things and decent underwear.
I had to admit, it wasn’t easy; it took some time and three trips, because everyone seemed to shop online, and I wanted to go into an actual shop. Perhaps I was unusual? And as I was about to buy some smart black trousers, I remembered what Ceci had said about black being lazy and put them back on the rail.
* * *
A few days later, the skip arrived outside my house and at the weekend everyone arrived to start work. It was surprising how enthusiastically they sorted things out, and yes, they dumped a lot of thoseprecious and irreplaceableitems into the skip themselves.
We made quite a party of it actually. And we had a lot of laughs about it all. Remembering their childhoods, their hobbies and little dramas.
At one point the day turned into a version of an American legal drama when the prosecution (me) and defence lawyers (Jess, Kat and Alex) haggled and tried to thrash out some sort of plea bargaining to be allowed to leave certain things in the garage as long as they were prepared for me to change my mind at any future date and insist on the removal of, for example:
A folder of Jess’s art coursework, much of which even she couldn’t explain, and the corner of it had been eaten by mice.
Alex’s first football boots which, despite the fact that Alex had never played meaningfully in a proper football match at any level, he wanted to save for his own as yet unplanned firstborn son.
Two plastic boxes of Kat’s crafting supplies and wool, in the unlikely event that her daughter Maud might one day want to recreate the Bayeux tapestry.
I said yes to all of them; I wasn’t quite as ruthless as I had pretended. We sorted everything out into things that were unsavable, others that could go to the charity shops, and a few that they took home.
But by the time the skip was picked up again at the start of December, I could, for the first time since I had moved into my house, park my car inside the garage. It felt like a triumph.
23
So much had happened since then. I knew I was not the same person I had been; I was certainly not living the same life.
Alex moved out into his new flat at the beginning of December. Jess had made plans for them all to go to her for Christmas celebrations because as she said, she had the biggest house and twice as many bedrooms as I did. That seemed to give them a lot of pleasure, and they were all looking forward to doing something new, making traditions of their own as I had hoped, so perhaps they could see I had been right after all.
I went back to Capri for Christmas, to find that sun-kissed island was preparing for the winter months. It was raining and a cold wind was blowing in from the sea.
Even the ferry crossing from Naples was different this time. The sea was rough, the boat rocking and uncomfortable. Someone said there had been no crossings at all the previous week because of the bad weather.
The prospect of not being able to make the journey was too awful. But then at last, the ferry reached the harbourside at Marina Grande and I picked up my cases, checking I hadn’t left anything behind. All the time I was remembering how anxious I had been last time I’d made this journey, not knowing for a second that it would be a trip that would change my life forever.
What I didn’t know, of course, was how it would feel to be back with him. With Paulo. Just us, without the distraction of the hotel to run, the other guests, without worrying about the memory of Ellen.
Paulo was there at the quayside, waiting for me, shrouded in a waxed coat with the hood pulled up, and his face broke into that wonderful and familiar smile as he saw me. As I waited to start down the gangplank, I took a deep breath, feeling as though I might burst with excitement and happiness. This time it would be all right.
Since my first visit, we had spoken on the phone most days, exchanged emails and texts. How different from last time when he hadn’t known how to contact me. I had learned so much about him, and about myself.
I knew about the delays with his solicitors as the sale of the hotel went through; he knew about my family, the clearing out of my garage. He knew that Alex and Kat were going to spend Christmas with Jess, that my neighbour Juliette – would be keeping an eye on my house when it was empty. It was surprising how helpful, how kind, people could be if one just asked.
He knew, and perhaps shared, my feelings about this second meeting. Was he as anxious as I was? Did he wonder about how things would progress in the next few days? What level of intimacy we might reach?
‘Welcome back,’ Paulo said as he swept me into a hug, his cheek cold against mine. ‘Let’s get you out of this rain. It hasn’t stopped for two days.’ He stopped then, leaning back to look at me. ‘Perhaps you will bring the sunshine back? It’s wonderful to see you again. I’ve missed you so much.’
‘I’ve missed you too,’ I said, smiling so much that my face was beginning to ache.
And then someone struggling with an armful of laden carrier bags banged into us, and we realised we were blocking other people. And so we hurried into the car park, where the little Hotel Massimo truck was waiting.
As we drove through the town, I could see a lot of the tourist shops and hotels had closed for the winter, but some shops and restaurants were still open, decorated with fairy lights which blew and flickered in the breeze and many had Christmas trees inside which shone out into the dark afternoon. A couple of the shops had extravagant displays of beautifully wrapped gifts in the windows, which made me want to stop and stare. There were strings of little blue lights strung between the masts of the boats in the harbour and between the streetlights like a sparkling canopy. Everything, me included, felt very different from my last visit.
‘The last guests left yesterday,’ Paulo said, brisk and businesslike as we drove up the hillside away from the marina. ‘Sylvia has gone to England to be with her daughter and taken Lucia with her. My mother and Freddy will arrive tomorrow morning and they will leave after Christmas to spend the New Year with his daughter in Milan.’
‘I can’t wait to see her again; I like her enormously. She’s very wise. She gave me some excellent advice the last time I saw her.’
Paulo turned fleetingly to smile.
