‘Aye.’ Mairead fidgeted with her fork, the engraved design worn over years of use. ‘But I sometimes wish you’d send a wee message to Joey.’
Indignant, Jade dropped her spoon. ‘Why the hell would I? He never wanted me and he never asks after me. Sod him.’ Seeing Mairead flinch unhappily, she softened her tone. ‘I was upset when he didn’t come back for Nonno’s funeral, but I was upset for you. For me, facing the father who preferred a lifetime of drifting to visiting me evenoncewould have only made the day worse. And later, when you realised Villa Panorama was too much for you to run alone, Joey left you to it. He literally doesn’t care.’
Mairead’s hand sought Jade’s, warm and strong despite being as slight as the rest of her. ‘Aye, I know. I’m daft enough to love him, despite all his faults. You don’t think I should put up with terse emails between months of silence, but I do it because I’m scared of losing touch with him altogether.’ Her expression grew wistful. ‘Our connection feels as thin as a strand of a spider’s web, but there’s a wee hope inside me that I’ll see my fairy child again.’
And Mairead would never abandon Joey as he and Geneva had abandoned Jade. Swallowing a lump in her throat, Jade patted the older hand in hers. ‘Maybe he is a fairy child. But I think it’s more likely he has attachment disorder.’
Mairead snorted. ‘So how could he attach himself to girls so well?’ she asked drily. Her thin chest rose and fell on a sigh. ‘Anyway, I’ve strayed from the point.’ She paused, then saidcarefully, ‘I don’t know if you remember, but, when Nonno died, Joey refused his right to inherit a portion of his dad’s estate.’
Realising where this conversation might be going, Jade’s heart sank. ‘Oh.’
‘So.’ Mairead hurried on. ‘I want you to know that I’ve checked with Joey and he’ll do the same again when I die. Mary Smith, mynotaio, knows everything, so you won’t have unnecessary worries. Mary’s fantastic – even though she’s English,’ she added, as if all the conversation needed to lighten it was a little Scottish-versus-English rivalry. ‘I’ll arrange my funeral and everything.And,’ she added firmly, when Jade attempted to interrupt, ‘I don’t want you to mourn when I die. Listen to my words, Jade. Or Pensione Three Sisters really will have a ghost, because I’ll return to haunt you.’
Despite the sally, Jade didn’t laugh. She stared at her grandmother, icy dread trickling down her neck. ‘Why are we talking about this? Are you ill?’
Mairead waved the idea away, her dandelion-clock hair catching the daylight filtering through the leaded window behind her in a blaze of silvery white. ‘I’mfine, m’darling. The talk on the radio just got me thinking what needed sorting out.’
Jade allowed relief to sweep away the dread. ‘Then thanks for reassuring me, but whatever you arrange will be fine.’
Mairead’s blue gaze became solemn as it searched Jade’s. ‘Being fair can be difficult.’
Jade’s stomach lurched at the troubled expression in Gran’s eyes. ‘I’d understand if you wanted Joey to get his due. But I’d want to sell Pensione Three Sisters in that case. I couldn’t work with him.’
‘Selling is the last thing I want.’ Ignoring the remainders of the salad on her plate, Mairead rose and padded from the kitchen in her embroidered leather slippers. Soon she returned, carrying a rectangular wooden box, dark with the patina of age. Returningto her seat, she pushed the box over the table towards Jade. ‘Put that in your room.’
Jade stared at her grandmother, disquieted by her strange, sombre air. ‘Why on earth would I do that? It’s your jewellery. And Nonno’s.’ Mairead rarely wore more than the rings Rocco had given her, but Jade knew the box was filled with decades of birthday and anniversary gifts.
‘Because I want it to be yours.’ Then Mairead smiled impishly. ‘I’m too wee to go around dripping in jewels, and another thing the woman on the radio said was not to cling on to possessions once they’re no use.’
Jade stared down at the box. As a child, she’d loved to wind the key underneath and listen to a tinkling version of ‘La Bella Gigogin’, a folk song dating back to when this region, Lombardy, was part of the Austrian Empire. The varnish had worn off the wood around the tarnished brass catch and the tiny lever felt fragile as she flicked it open and lifted the lid. A lump jumped into her throat at the sight of gold and silver necklaces and earrings, neatly stowed. One compartment of blue velvet largely faded to grey held cufflinks and Rocco’s wedding ring. ‘But these are yours.’
Gently, Mairead took out Rocco’sfedering, the clasped hands signifying the joining of two people. ‘Aye.’ For an instant she nestled it beside her engagement and wedding rings, one with a cluster of diamonds and the other with the same stones set along the band. Then, gently, she laid it back in its compartment. ‘I want you to have them. Please, Jade,’ she added, as Jade tried again to protest. She gave one of her mischievous grins, despite tears swimming in her eyes. ‘I’m going to live until I’m a hundred and fifty, and I’ll never remember where I put them.’
Jade closed the box, slipped her arms about Mairead’s narrow body and hugged her tight, enjoying her grandmother’s talcum-powdery scent, wishing hard that shewouldlive for all thoseyears. ‘I’ll keep your jewellery box if you really want me to. And thanks for telling me that I won’t have to worry about Joey. Is that everything off your mind now?’
Mairead’s arms tightened around her, strong with love and caring. ‘Aye. I wish you a happy life, Jade.’
Late that evening Jade skipped along paved streets between the gracious buildings, admiring ornate plasterwork around doorways and scrolls of wrought iron at windows. Shops or restaurants occupied ground floors, but, above, the colours of the buildings were from a pastel palette of peach, cream or muted blue, or green, or perhaps a more earthy beige or terracotta – dignified, but pretty. Leo’s tiny apartment, however, where cooking, eating, relaxing and sleeping happened in one space, was in a building of natural stone. The interior was graced with mouldings and tall doorways, reminders that once his home had been a part of a grander one, and Leo’s cream-coloured sofa and double bed stood on a chessboard of brown-and-white porcelain tiles.
Shaking out her long chestnut hair, she let herself in the wooden outer door and then ran up the tiled stairs armed with a bottle of Oltrepò Pavese red wine and an eager smile.
Leo turned from the stove as she let herself in to the appetising aromas of cream and garlic, and opened his arms, brown hair slipping over his forehead despite a fresh haircut. ‘Ciao, bella.’
Depositing the wine onto a surface so she could slide into his embrace, she wound both arms around his neck. ‘Buonasera, handsome man.’ Though they could converse in either Italian or English with equal ease, for several minutes they let their kisses, and the press of their bodies, do the talking. Leo was strong and he was so tall that he made Jade feel her one metre seventy-eight was small.
At a hissing from the hob, he had to disentangle himself. ‘Dinner!’ Stirring the sauce briskly with his right hand, he lowered the heat under the pasta with his left, casting her an apologetic grin. ‘Pour the wine,cara. I thought we’d eat early, like Brits, to leave us the evening to enjoy.’ He winked.
Warmth tingled through her as she envisioned hours spent in the bed against the opposite wall, its sheets invitingly white and fresh. ‘Sounds good.’ Recovering her breath, she reached past him to extricate the corkscrew from a fat, yellow utensil pot.
They ate from white plates at his small glass table, twirling fettuccine and sipping wine that glowed like liquid carnelians. He entertained her with a story of a guest at Villa Panorama misplacing her dentures, speaking between bites, his bare legs hairy against hers beneath the table. His bright eyes gleamed like polished metal when he laughed. Here in northern Italy, close to the Swiss border, blue eyes weren’t unusual, even among those without a British parent. His brother Massimo had brown eyes, though, like their dad, Ferdinando.
‘You’re buzzed about something.’ She reached out to touch his cheek. He’d probably shaved this morning before leaving for work, but now gentle stubble grazed her fingertips.
Ruefully, he arched an eyebrow. ‘I planned to tell you later.’
His air of suppressed excitement made her put down her fork. ‘What? Is there a celeb at the hotel?’ Como city was the travellers’ gateway to Lake Como and, occasionally, a personality made an overnight stop at Villa Panorama, when staff would joke that the guest was on their way to George Clooney’s villa. Only trusted staff and family members were permitted to supply room service to the honoured visitors sequestered in the luxury suites on the topmost floor, accessed discreetly via an exclusive lift. When Rocco and Mairead had owned the hotel, the top floor had been for storage or live-instaff, and the lift had been the service lift, but Sheenagh and Ferdinando had completely transformed both.
‘Celeb? No.’ Leo’s eyes shone with excitement.
