Page 6 of Escape to Tuscany

The kitchen door opened. Achille stuffed the kerchief back into his pocket.

‘Stella!’ my mother scolded. ‘What are you doing still hogging the stove? Where is your brother’s soup?’

‘It’s all right, Mamma.’ Achille got up and went over to her, put an arm around her shoulders. ‘I’m fine. I’m not hungry. And Stella should stay in the warm. Look at her, she’s shivering.’

And I was. I was shivering, and not from the cold – although I was cold – but because the events of that day were crowding in on me. I couldn’t stop thinking about that convoy rolling on unimpeded, the trucks full of frightened people being carried to their deaths.

My mother looked at me with blank disdain. I could see it in her face, how little she thought of me in that moment – and not in the sense that she despised me, although perhaps she did, but in the sense that I scarcely figured in her world. She turned back to Achille.

‘You shall have a bath, then, before your father comes home. I’ll heat up the water. Stella, go and fetch the tub, and then you can start on the potatoes for dinner.’

Achille opened his mouth to protest, but there was no point. I got up and went to do as I was told.

3

Tori

The flat is beautiful. I can see that really. White walls and green shutters, the floor a green-brown-cream tile that might be ugly elsewhere, but this is Florence. It’s very small – probably someone’s old living room carved in two, with a bedroom only just big enough for a double bed and a chest of drawers. I don’t need more space, though. I don’t want more space.

The agent, Chiara, throws open a window and beckons me over. Leaning out, she points up and to the right, and there – crowning above a row of uneven terracotta-tile roofs – is the great orange dome of the cathedral.

‘See?’ She beams at me, and I know she’s expecting me to smile back. I know she wants me to be excited about this. It is exciting, of course, and I’ll be excited at some point if I ever stop being tired.

‘Lovely,’ I say, and step back from the window. It’s cool in this living-room-kitchen-hallway thing, sheltered from the fierce afternoon sun that’s scorching the building opposite. That I can appreciate.

‘Three hundred and fifty euros per week,’ Chiara says. She’s tiny and slim and immaculately dressed, probably around my age – so early thirties – and she speaks perfect English with a slightly American accent. She is the first agent I tried, because she was at the top of the search results forflorence flat rental estate agent, and this is the first flat she’s shown me. 350 a week. I try to do the maths in my head, but it’s foggy.

‘What’s that a month?’

‘Now, here there’s a deal.’ Chiara beams again. ‘If you want it for a whole month, you can have it for 1300. All bills included, of course.’

It’s a nice flat and this is a nice street and I want to lie down. There’s a voice in my mind, Duncan’s voice, saying:Thirteen hundred euros a month for two rooms? You do know you’re being taken for a mug?

‘How about for longer?’ I say.

‘Longer? Like two months?’

‘I don’t know yet. A year, maybe more?’

‘Right,’ Chiara says. ‘I see. So you want to stay in Italy long-term?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. I thought I should give it a shot while I can – you know, with Brexit coming and no deal yet. It feels kind of urgent.’

‘And what are you going to be doing here? Do you have a job lined up in Florence?’

‘I’m a freelancer,’ I say. ‘A writer. I can work where I like.’

Chiara is studying me now. I see myself through her eyes: ancient cotton shirt, jeans, long blonde hair in need of a trim. Greyish, just-off-the-plane skin. Shoes, good shoes but definitely countrified, possibly smelling of damp because, after five years on a farm in the West Highlands, everything I own smells of damp. But then her eyes reach the handbag, the faithful old Fendi given to me by Granny.

‘You’re a writer,’ she says, with a distinct note ofreally?

‘Yes. Well, I do a bit of everything. Bit of journalism, bit of copywriting, bit of editorial stuff – whatever people need.’

This doesn’t have the reassuring effect I’d hoped for. Chiara looks positively alarmed. ‘And you’ll be looking for freelance work here in Italy? Because I have to warn you, the economy…’

‘Oh, no. I’ve got a pretty good client network back in the UK. I’m actually taking a bit of time for my own work at the moment, finishing up a book for Swithin and Sons – non-fiction. Under contract, of course.’ I say it with all the confidence I can muster.

Chiara’s smile switches back on. Oh, thank God. ‘Right,’ she says. ‘Well, this could work out nicely. I happen to know the landlady is thinking about looking for a longer-term tenant – at least, she was the last time we spoke. This could save us all a lot of trouble. Let me just call her now.’ She whips a phone out of her oversized bag and paces off into the tiny bedroom, talking in rapid Italian. My Italian is reasonable enough – I’ve just about kept it alive with reading and music and sneaking bits of Italian Netflix while Duncan’s in bed – but my brain can’t handle the switch, not today. I stare out of the window at the vivid-yellow houses opposite until she comes back in.

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