Page 108 of A Wedding in Tuscany

‘It’s all right, Mum. Dad said.’

‘Well, have a lovely afternoon. Enjoy the first day of your honeymoon,’ she adds brightly. ‘Honeymoon’ is a bit of a stretch, considering we’ve only got one more night in Tuscany and tomorrow evening we fly back to London.

‘Thanks, Mum. Enjoy your round of golf.’ Dad drops a kiss onto the top of my hat before they head off towards the car park. I watch them go, catching Dad pat Mum on the bum and her swatting his hand away. They really do have a good marriage?yin and yang, they are, and still madly in love, even though they are vastly different people.

‘Was that your parents?’

Jean-Luc sits on the lounger next to mine, placing his phone on the table between us. ‘Yes. They’re playing golf today.’

‘No vacation from golf, even when they are on vacation.’

‘Exactly. If they ever build a golf course on Antarctica, I think they’d fly there just to play a round.’ He smiles, then settles in. ‘So, how were your phone calls? Any interesting assignments coming up?’ He’s got a series of interviews in Edinburgh next week about Scottish independence?he’ll be staying with Jae and Alistair?but after that, I’m not sure what else is on his calendar.

‘Er … the calls … they were not for work.’

‘Oh?’ If not work, then he must have been speaking to his family. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Pfft. I do not know, Catherine. It seems that we are behaving like the ostrich, non?’

My stomach curdles again. My straightforward husband is being cryptic and that can only mean one thing?he was speaking to his mother and she pressed the issue of our living situation. God, I wish everyone would just stay the hell out of it. Only, that’s not fair. They’re our loved ones. They care about us and the fact that even Sarah has asked about it means their concern is normal?annoying, but normal. Time to stop being an ostrich, I suppose.

‘Do you want to talk here?’ I ask. ‘Or in our room?’ Mum and Dad secured us an extra late check out, so we can stay until our farewell event. Actually, I suspect they’ve had to pay for an extra night, which is very sweet of them.

He lifts his gaze and scans the pool area, frowning slightly?though that could be from the sun. There are less than a dozen people scattered about?some on sun loungers, some in the pool, and one couple sits at a poolside table, sipping wine and playing cards. No one is within earshot, and who knows what languages they speak anyway. Essentially, we have the privacy we need for a difficult conversation. Only, it feels like the bright midday sun might be too incongruous with the subject matter.

‘Let’s go to our room,’ he says.

‘Of course,’ I say, standing and gathering my things. I only have one thing to say?‘I don’t want to move to Paris’?but they may just be the hardest words I’ve ever had to utter. As we walk in silence back to our room, carrying a bubble of tension with us, I go from a curdled stomach to waves of nausea. As soon as the door is unlocked, I run for the bathroom and slam the door, making it just in time to vomit up my honeymoon brunch.

‘Catherine, chérie … are you all right?’ Jean-Luc taps lightly on the bathroom door as I kneel on the cool tiles waiting to see if another wave is coming.

‘I’m all right,’ I say, my voice strangled.

‘Can I come in?’

‘No! No, sorry … just … may I have a moment pl?’ I don’t get the rest of the word out before I’m heaving again into the toilet. God?I’ve either totally overeaten or I’m more worried about this conversation than I could have foreseen. Eventually convinced there’s nothing left to bring up, I wipe my mouth with toilet paper and stand and flush the toilet. I go to the sink and peer at myself in the mirror, and the pallor of my skin is concerning.

‘Catherine?’ Jean-Luc’s worry carries through the wooden door.

‘Be right there,’ I say. I rinse my mouth, then splash some water on my face and pat it dry with a hand towel. I look at my reflection again and take a deep breath. I do feel better?no longer nauseous?and there’s no point in putting this conversation off any longer. I owe it to Jean-Luc. In fact, it’s overdue, my confession.

Confession. Is that what’s coming? I suppose it is. I confess that I have pretended everything is fine and perfect when really, I am terrified.

Because what if we come to an impasse? What if we can’t make a decision that we can both live with? My heart starts racing at the thought, one I’ve buried for months, and my breathing becomes shallow. I don’t want to vomit again, so I try to control my breath the way that Sarah does when she feels a panic attack coming on. As I breathe slowly and audibly, Lou’s voice echoes through my mind. ‘Be brave. Feel the fear and do it anyway.’ Strangely, it’s calming. I take one last slow breath and quietly tell myself, ‘Be brave,’ before leaving the bathroom to talk to my love.

‘You are afraid,’ he says matter-of-factly after listening to me ramble on for several minutes.

‘I … sort of. I don’t think I’m explaining myself very well.’

‘You are afraid that you will never assimilate into a Parisian lifestyle.’

‘Uh … no. If I’m afraid?and yes, there is some deep-seated fear amongst everything else?it’s that I can’t make you understand.’

‘Understand what exactly?’ Just that question tells me I am botching this. That and the deep crease between his eyebrows.

I take a breath and mentally regroup. ‘I am not afraid that I won’t assimilate into the Parisian lifestyle. There is a lot that I love about being in Paris. It’s a beautiful, beautiful city. I love the art and the architecture. I love walking the streets and waking late and sipping enormous milky coffees at tiny cafés. I love your apartment?’

‘Our apartment. It is ours now, Catherine.’

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