Briefly, he found himself dumb with astonishment. Was he in some parallel universe where he had to explain the obvious? Or was Isabella playing games? As if physical distance from the handset would help, he laid it on the counter and put the call on speaker. Patiently, he recapped their situation. ‘You and Teddy eased me out of the Black Falcon. You and I aren’t together. Standoffishness is kind of implied.’ He glanced at the laptop screen, filled with details of small hotels andpensioni. Going it alone was looking more attractive by the second.
Isabella heaved a dramatic sigh. ‘But Dad and I have argued because the night manager’s resigned after he criticised her.’ Her voice wavered. ‘The car thefts have got him charging about like a bear with a sore head. He’s laying everything on me. And now he’s going back to South Africa in a strop, though he’s making out it’s because he’s sick of the English weather.’ She ratcheted up to what was close to a wail. ‘He says I was hasty in splitting with you.’
Incensed by Teddy’s mendacity and, despite everything, outraged on Isabella’s behalf that Teddy was running out on her after the heap of trouble he’d caused, Leo snapped, ‘That’s bullshit. How can you have been “hasty” when it’s taken months to negotiate? He wanted me out so he could boss you about and lord it over the staff. If things aren’t going smoothly, he’ll have to suck it up.Merda,’ he added. Isabella only knew a few words of Italian, but ‘shit’ was one of them.
For once, she didn’t fire up in Teddy’s defence. ‘Well, he’s not going to suck it up. He’s blown hot and cold on me since you left, and now he’s buggering off to South Africa. I’ll be overwhelmed. And, if he withdraws financially, underfunded.’
It was said so starkly that Leo was shocked. Even if she’d brought it on herself, it was painfully clear that she was horrifiedby the turn of events. ‘Teddy can’t demand his dosh out of the hotel with no notice, can he?’ But he could hear the doubt in his own voice. Leo had left Isabella and Teddy on July 6th and today was only the 24th. If they’d managed to fall out so spectacularly already, anything could happen. He thought of Jade worrying over the fate of Pensione Three Sisters in a similarly uncertain scenario – when she’d done nothing to bring the situation on herself.
Isabella sounded close to panic. ‘I don’t know! But I can’t manage the financial burden of the Black Falcon alone.’
‘I suppose you’ll have to get legal advice.’ Which would be the second time in a year as, of course, lawyers had been involved when Leo had been eased from the business. ‘He’s probably stressed about too much happening. Returning to South Africa’s a huge reaction to the issues you’ve described. Sit down and talk.’
Her voice began to tremble. ‘We’re not on speaking terms. Thanks anyway.’ Voice clipped, as if she actually meant, ‘Thanks for nothing,’ she ended the call.
Her snitty disappointment affected Leo more than it should. Only a few weeks ago Isabella and Teddy had all but dusted their hands, glad to be rid of him. Perhaps he should be gloating if they’d turned on each other, but instead he felt uncomfortable and unsettled. Once, Isabella had been his girlfriend.
Should he call Teddy back and explain that Isabella seemed to be crushed, and they should talk rather than argue?
Fucksake.He tossed down his pen.
That wassonot his role. Hehadno role. He was no longer a partner in the Black Falcon.
But the interchange had temporarily leeched the pleasure from exploring possible new enterprises. He stretched and then wandered outdoors into the dappled sunlight between the palm trees, hearing a faint rumble of traffic from a road further up theslope. Maybe he should get lunch in Bar Fiori and see if he could locate Massimo to chat things over.
The sun between the trees laid bars of light across the path that wound downwards. Villa Panorama mainly attracted adults, but there were some teens on their phones in the gardens now the UK kids were on school holidays. Como wasn’t the kind of place where every hotel had a pool and a kids’ club. There were lidos with public pools at either end of the lakeside for those who liked the sunbed life, but otherwise Como attracted those who liked history, art, culture, walking, boating and nature. And spending money in nice shops.
Hands in his shorts’ pockets, he wandered into Reception. Two front-desk staff were busy with guests. He now possessed the code to access the back-of-house area, but when he caught Massimo’s voice floating from his partially open office door he peeped in cautiously, in case his brother was busy on a call. What he found was Massimo and Sofi in a clinch behind the desk, Massimo’s smart uniform jacket crumpled by Sofi’s enthusiastic embrace. His dark head was tilted down to her, and her fair head was turned up to him. The air around them smouldered.
Leo reversed smartly out, unseen and unheard.
A middle-aged woman in a black dress and sandals was fitting new cups into the sleeve beside a nearby water cooler and glanced at him curiously, calling, ‘Buongiorno,’ without pausing. He returned her greeting.
Plainly, it was inappropriate to hover until Massimo had stopped devouring his wife, and Leo knew his parents wouldn’t be in their own office, as they were still unwell, so he returned to Reception, where a knot of chattering teenagers made faces while a laughing couple tried to take their photos. Once out of the front door, he strolled down the short drive to the street and decided to check his parents had everything they needed.
With the July temperatures up in the thirties, the midday sun instantly made him wish he’d brought a hat. Sellers often meandered along the prom, a stack of colourful hats in each hand and a stack on their heads, but he couldn’t see one now. The light bouncing from the lake made him wish he’d brought sunglasses too. He closed one eye against the glare. A ferry was chugging towards its mooring with a cheery toot, its deck alive with passengers. In summer, it seemed a ferry was constantly arriving or departing Como and tourists mobbed the ticket office each morning like a football crowd.
It was too hot to hurry so he ambled towards the gracious Palace Hotel that, since the nineteenth century, had gazed out over the lake to welcome visitors. In front of it was an offshoot of the small canal network that had once made guest access possible by boat. At the roundabout, he turned uphill between the bus station and railway station, Stazione Lago, then left into Via Rezzonico where his parents had moved after vacating the hotel accommodation in favour of Massimo. Their asymmetric, angular, contemporary apartment building was faced in pale-grey material and horizontal rails topped the terrace walls. His parents lived at the top. It had surprised him that they hadn’t chosen somewhere in the historic city, one of the beautiful, traditional apartments built around a courtyard with an enormous ornate gate to keep out uninvited guests, but Sheenagh had been pragmatic. ‘We want modern convenience, somewhere to park two cars and not to have to apply for permission to drive through thearea pedonaleto our home. Our terrace overlooks the duomo and a sea of terracotta rooftops, so why do we care that the street isn’t beautiful?’
On the entry keypad, Leo pressed the button markedApartment 501and wiped his forehead on his arm, happily anticipating his parents’ air conditioning as he gazed into thedoorbell camera. At length, Ferdinando answered in a growl. ‘We’re ill.’ The growl dissolved into a barking cough.
Leo felt guilty. He hadn’t contacted his parents since obeying his mother’s request to encourage Jade out two days ago. ‘I came to see what you need. Are you OK for food and medication?’
Ferdinando coughed again. Cough, cough,cough.When he’d caught his breath, he gasped out, ‘I’ll ask your mother. She’s in bed.’ Cough, cough,cough.
Five minutes later, Leo was on his way to the Carrefour mini market for cold remedies and a shipping order of tissues. To these he added a jar of honey for his father, who ate it by the spoonful whenever he had a sore throat, and a bunch of flowers for his mother, because he thought she’d like them.
Forty minutes later, almost boiling like a kettle in the heat, he pressed the apartment’s entry-system button again. This time, it was Sheenagh’s voice that rasped through the speaker like Darth Vader. ‘I’ll buzz you upstairs, but leave the bag on the doorstep.’
Leo debated. It didn’t sit well with him to so easily abandon the people who’d loved him all his life. ‘I could make you a meal.’
Sheenagh went off into a coughing fit. When she’d recovered, she croaked, ‘Thanks, Leo, but leave the shopping on the step up here so I can bring it in.’ The door clicked open and the speaker fell silent.
There was little Leo could do but pass through the smart glass door, cross the cool white vestibule, take the elevator to the fifth floor and leave the bag on apartment 501’s doormat, tapping the door so they’d know he’d been. He waited, but Sheenagh must have been watching through the spy hole because she called through the door. ‘Just leave, darling. I’m not giving you my germs.’ Her words were followed by a trumpeting nose-blow.
Leo winced. ‘If you’re sure.’ At least he’d enjoyed two minutes in the air con on his journey from the main door.
Then Sheenagh’s voice came again. ‘Jade called me. Those new sisters of hers are to visit.’
