As he turns away for a spoon, Phoebe reaches for the bottle of wine, only to find it’s empty. Kate has left nearly half a glass on her side of the table. Would it be so bad to finish it off? It would be a shame to let such nice wine go to waste, she tells herself as she quickly pours it into her own glass while Luca’s back is still turned.
‘Here we go.’ He passes over a spoon laden with a scoop of the creamy filling.
‘Wow! That’s good,’ she says as she licks the very last scrape of sauce off the spoon.
‘You think so? I’m not sure …’
‘No, seriously, that’s the best canno … callo … cannoli I’ve ever tasted.’
He laughs, and Phoebe thinks it might be one of the nicest sounds she’s heard in a long time.
‘I’m glad you liked it.’
She suddenly becomes aware of how foggy her brain feels. Maybe she should have stopped after a glass or two of wine. But she needed it after the day she’s had – after theweekshe’s had. It feels good to have everything softened like this. She feels relaxed. So relaxed, in fact, that she finds herself standing up and taking a step towards Luca.
He gives her a questioning look, raising one of his dark eyebrows. As if he’s asking a question she isn’t entirely sure of theanswer to, only that his eyes look like caramel and he smells like vanilla and has a smudge of icing sugar on his nose and she misses the feeling of being held by someone and, well, why shouldn’t she just kiss him if she bloody well wants to?
She wobbles a little on the spot and Luca reaches out and takes hold of her hips, steadying her. The heat of his hands through her jeans gives her the confidence to lean forward, tilting her body towards him, mouth reaching for his. His lips are warm and surprisingly soft and it feels so good … until suddenly he is dropping his hands from her hips and stepping backwards. Phoebe stumbles, her arm catching against the table. The empty bottle of wine rolls onto the floor with a loud smash, followed by the wooden board, scattering the last remnants of the delicious food everywhere.
He stares at her and at the mess and she steadies herself against the table edge, her head spinning and embarrassment pooling in the pit of her stomach.
‘Oh shit.’
‘Don’t move, let me clear this up.’ Luca darts quickly into the kitchen, but Phoebe feels too mortified to wait until he returns. All she can think about is the feeling of him stepping away from her. She throws some money for the meal on the table and picks her way through the broken glass, letting the door swing shut behind her as she races, stumbling, upstairs to her empty flat.
CHAPTER 29
Phoebe hadn’t planned to go swimming again so soon, but when she wakes early the next morning with the taste of wine and regret in her mouth, she grabs her swimming things without thinking, loading them onto her motorbike alongside her work gear. She tries hard not to glance into the window of Giuglia’s as she sets off, or to think about the delicious espresso she could be having right now if she hadn’t made such a bloody fool of herself last night.
Every time she thinks about what happened, she cringes. Of course Luca had stepped away from her. She had totally misread the situation and now she will have to spend the foreseeable future trying not to run into the person who works directly below where she sleeps. And ordering two separate coffees every morning from the Cosy Corner because the staff there refuse to serve her a triple shot.
She arrives with a headache pounding against her temples,but as soon as she sees the meadow and the water running through it, something inside her relaxes. Then she spots the group of women on the bank – Kate, Sandra, Jazz and Hester already getting changed and chatting to one another – and a smile appears on her face as they wave at her warmly.
This time when they swim, they talk a bit more about their lives beyond the river, Kate sharing her struggles with early motherhood and Sandra reassuring her that everything she’s been feeling is perfectly normal. ‘I had the most awful postnatal depression after my second,’ she announces breezily. ‘Often thought about running away to go live by myself in a bothy in Scotland. But it got a lot better. You’ll get there, sweetheart.’
Kate ducks her head underwater then and Phoebe wonders whether it is because she is suddenly possessed with the urge to look at the mud and rocks on the riverbed or maybe if it is to let tears merge with the river water. Either way, she bobs back to the surface seeming refreshed.
Jazz talks a bit more about the trials and tribulations of being a twenty-six-year-old back living with her parents and Hester updates them about her upcoming exams and how her application is coming along to study nursing at university the following year. As soon as she hears that Phoebe is a nurse, Hester’s face lights up like a Christmas tree that’s just been switched on and she bombards Phoebe with excited questions. To Phoebe’s surprise, when she tells her she is a community mental health nurse, Hester’s enthusiasm doesn’t waver.
‘Oh wow, that’s awesome. I’ve been reading up about mental health nursing as part of my prep.’
‘Have you? It’s a field that can get overlooked. I’ve hadpeople tell me that what I do isn’t “proper” nursing.’
‘What a load of nonsense!’ says Sandra. ‘I’ve seen enough over the years to tell me that the mind is the most complex part of the human body. It’s easy enough to set bones or take blood, but navigating the human mind … that takes great skill. And courage, I’d rather imagine.’
‘Well, those other things are tough too,’ Phoebe replies, not wanting to undermine the work of anyone else in her field. But she’s always secretly agreed with Sandra. It’s one of the reasons she was so drawn to mental health nursing in the first place. The subtle complexities of the job, combined with a desire to help people through the toughest moments in their lives that came to her at a young age.
Her hand subconsciously lifts to her arm, where she traces the letters of the tattoo there.This too shall pass.
‘My job is a bit different to being, say, a nurse in a cardiology or gastroenterology ward at a hospital. I administer all kinds of medication, but I do a lot of other things too that some people – old-fashioned people – don’t think of when they think of nursing. For example, I’ve actually got an idea to run past you …’
Phoebe had hoped they would like the idea, but the level of enthusiasm from the swimming group gives her a well-needed boost.
‘What a great idea,’ says Kate. They’re back at the meadow now and help one another up the bank, which is slippier today from the rain that fell in the night. ‘I’d love to help, if I can.’
‘Me too,’ says Jazz, wringing water from her hair.
‘Count me in,’ adds Sandra.
