After the Lie: A gripping novel about love, loss and family secrets (15 page)

I
arrived
at reception before my mother, who was no doubt still scaring her bathroom toiletries into straight lines.

Tomaso was already there and jumped to his feet.

‘Lydia! How is everything?’ He gave me a hug, pressing his body into me in a way that made having a hotel room just a few hundred metres away incredibly dangerous. I caught the receptionist’s eye over his shoulder and wriggled free.

He looked more Italian than usual, something to do with the way he was wearing his scarf. Handsome as hell. God, if karma did exist, I’d be reincarnated as an earwig for my impure thoughts. Style had to be in Italian DNA. I pushed back my disloyal comparison with Mark in his Meatloaf T-shirt. I hoped Tomaso wasn’t thinking,
God, Lydia looks so English and frumpy
.

He spoke quickly. ‘Listen, before your mother arrives, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve arranged to meet Raffaella later this afternoon. She’s going to bring Giacomo to see me.’ He exhaled loudly. ‘I’m not sure whether it’s a good idea. What if he doesn’t even recognise me?’

‘You’ve got to do it, though. You couldn’t come to Florence and not contact them. What time?’

‘Not until about five. I thought it would give us time to eat first.’

‘Perfect. I’ve got to go to Hotel Cesare at six to meet the catering manager for tomorrow’s reception.’

I couldn’t help thinking that if I hadn’t seen Izzy and Jamie for nine months, I wouldn’t have waited until after lunch. In fact, my heart was constricting at the mere thought of it. And just as I was mulling over the phrase, ‘Nowt so queer as folk’, my mother arrived. Her beady eyes focused my mind on the fact that two acquaintances don’t usually stand so close that the hairs on their arms touch. I shot over to the desk to pick up a map, reminding myself just how much I had to lose if Detective Dorothy got suspicious.

Tomaso took the hint and morphed into tourist guide extraordinaire. ‘Dorothea? Are you ready for this?
Andiamo
, let’s go.’

We walked along the river towards the Ponte Vecchio. I trailed behind the other two as the narrow pavements didn’t lend themselves to group conversations. Now and again, I’d hear my mother clinging obstinately to her version of the facts of the Florentine Renaissance in direct contradiction to Tomaso’s informed account. If nothing else, she would be an excellent rehearsal for dealing with his difficult wife later on.

As we headed over the bridge, I took a moment to admire the gold in the jewellery shops. Unlike Mark, who would have wandered off to look at the view down the river, Tomaso came to stand next to me, pointing out a blue sapphire necklace he thought would bring out the colour of my eyes. ‘Let’s see,’ he said, staring directly into my eyes for way longer than a simple ‘blue, brown or green?’ inquiry. I felt the odd sensation of having one discussion while another silent conversation was taking place. My mother thrusting her guidebook under my nose ended all conversation – mute or otherwise.

Just over the other side of the bridge, Tomaso led us into a little square. ‘Here. My son’s favourite restaurant.’

My mother did an exaggerated recoil of surprise as though Tomaso had announced he was the owner of a couple of albino llamas that he was preparing for space travel.

‘I didn’t know you had a son,’ she said, in a tone that was approaching affronted.

Tomaso, who was turning out to be quite the feather-smoothing expert, laughed and said, ‘There’s such a lot you don’t know about me, Dorothea. You can do twenty questions over lunch if you like.’ He indicated an outside table. ‘Let’s make the most of the sunshine.’

His fingers rested briefly on my neck as he tucked my chair in for me. I jerked away, blushing and glancing around the square to find something to distract my mother from the physical tension enveloping me every time Tomaso came within touching distance. In desperation, I pointed out the row of Vespas lined up against one wall. That, of course, led to the ‘I hope you’re not going to let Jamie get a motorbike’ rant, but did allow my face to resume its normal colour.

‘So, a little wine, ladies?’

I blanked out my mother, who was making ‘drinking at lunchtime is for the debauched and depraved’ faces. ‘Yes please.’

But Tomaso was insistent. ‘Go on, Dorothea, you must try the Vernaccia. It comes from San Gimignano, a little medieval town in the Tuscan countryside.’

‘Twist my arm, then, Tomosi. Just a drop. You’re turning out to be a bad influence,’ my mother said.

I wondered if she realised her favourite saying, ‘Many a true word is spoken in jest’ was racing along behind her, ready to bite her on the backside.

While Tomaso ordered some local specialities for us, I watched the world go by. The thing that struck me most was that the old people didn’t just give up. No one was wearing ugly shoes or trousers flapping around their ankles because there was no point in buying a new pair as they’d be dead soon. Instead, there was a neatness, a sense of grooming about them, as though it was a civic duty to put on lipstick or to press a shirt. My mother would have fitted in well. I, on the other hand, would need a completely new wardrobe.

As Tomaso poured the wine and debated over the best, the freshest, the most authentically Tuscan dishes with the waiter, a family walked in – the grandparents, a mother and a son, who was sitting on his father’s shoulders. They looked like something from a cereal advert, where everyone was running barefoot with a kite on a hill. My mother usually hampered my own three-generational enjoyment by glaring at the kids for bad language, not picking their feet up, forgetting to use their napkins, elbows anywhere – in fact, the thousands of little details that would bring on a ‘youth of today’ diatribe. I dreaded the day she copped the spectacle of Izzy and her friends taking selfies, pouting into their phones like adverts for a dodgy massage parlour.

The father swung the boy down, who squealed and ran into the restaurant, shouting, ‘
Gelato!
’, which even my stunted linguistic abilities recognised as ice cream. They all trooped in behind him.

When the waiter bustled off, I waited for Tomaso to lean in with some more anecdotes about Florence. But he was looking beyond me, at the family who’d come into the square. ‘That’s my wife.’ The words, ‘And my son,’ came out as though they were burning up his throat.

The distress in his face made me want to lead him away from the table and bundle him round the corner, where he could organise his emotions.

‘Do you want to go? Do you want us to go?’

The tiny glass of wine had affected my mother’s empathising ability, which probably resided on a pinhead even in normal circumstances. ‘Go? But we haven’t eaten yet. Why would we go? Surely Tomosi can be civil to his wife. I thought you young ones took all that sort of thing in your stride.’

We both ignored her. Tomaso looked glazed. ‘My son was on that bloke’s shoulders.’

I risked putting my hand on his arm. ‘He could be just a friend. He won’t replace you anyway.’

‘Giacomo probably doesn’t even remember me.’

‘We should leave.’ Crostini and family showdown were just moments away.

‘No, I’m not running away from my own son.’

I tried again. ‘It might be better to wait until the time you’d arranged with Raffaella, rather than catch her on the hop in front of the whole family.’

Just at that moment the waiter came out with little plates of bruschetta, mushroom polenta and a platter of cold meats and cheese. I had the fleeting thought that it would be a tragedy to leave all this sitting on the table. Then I felt horrible for even considering those garlicky mushrooms when Tomaso’s life was falling apart in front of him.

Through the restaurant window, I could make out the family standing at the bar. Given the Desperate Dan amount of food Tomaso had ordered, there was no chance that we’d roll out before them.

Tomaso pushed his chair back. ‘I’m going in. Excuse me.’

If my mother hadn’t been sitting there, I would have flung myself on him and held him back. ‘Tomaso, don’t do that. Wait till they come out.’

As it was, his wife and the man appeared first. There was something regal about her. I bet she never had to stop ladders in her tights with nail varnish.

I froze. It was like watching a huge umbrella catch the wind at the beach and failing to grab it before it went spinning off across the sand, spearing toddlers and wreaking havoc among the picnics.

The woman turned her amber gaze towards us. Her hands flew to her face. ‘Tomaso!’

Then a long torrent of Italian poured out so fast that I wondered if Tomaso’s brain could compute quickly enough to absorb it. I couldn’t make out the words but the emotion was painful to watch.

Suddenly her attention turned to me and my mother. It didn’t take much imagination to grasp the gist of ‘You don’t bother seeing Giacomo for nine months and think you’re going to introduce him to your bit on the side? And even your new mother-in-law? Sod right off.’

I was doing that international hands-in-the-air thing of ‘You’ve got it all wrong.’ I managed to say, ‘We’re here for work,
lavoro
.’

Raffaella, however, wasn’t in Esperanto mode. Raffaella’s boyfriend put his arm round her shoulders to steer her away. I did worry for a split second that Tomaso was going to launch into a Hugh Grant/Colin Firth-style fisticuffs that would end up in the square’s fountain. I jumped up. I was going to have to appeal to the boyfriend.

‘Do you speak English?’

His eyes flicked over me. Clearly I didn’t make the grade owing to my lack of Chanel sunglasses, but he nodded.

‘We are here for work, I’m organising an English wedding. Tomaso is my interpreter. He needs to talk to his wife. For Giacomo’s sake.’

Before he could answer, the wife swung round. Her eyes drilled into me. ‘Do not, do NOT say the name of my son.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my mother folding and unfolding her arms in a gesture that signalled the beginning of a tirade about manners, but luckily Raffaella’s rising decibels were holding everyone’s attention.

‘Okay, I’m sorry. I just think you two should move away before G—, I mean, your son, comes out. Why don’t you go for a coffee? Your boyfriend can tell your parents where you are.’

Raffaella marched over to Tomaso, jerking her head in the direction of the street.

‘Sorry about this. I’ll see you later at the hotel.’ Tomaso pulled out his wallet but I waved him away.

I sat back down, my heart racing. Through a mouthful of salami, my mother was shaking her head and muttering, ‘What a to-do. I don’t know why they think you’re his girlfriend’. The boyfriend came over and stood in front of our table, making me aware of every last grey hair on my head, every pore that I hadn’t massaged with miracle shrinking cream.

‘Good luck with Tomaso. He won’t be a very nice boyfriend.’

‘He’s not my boyfriend. Work colleague.’ I didn’t dare look at my mother in case she picked up on the tiny notch below complete conviction in my voice. Outrage was always trickier to pull off when it was struggling to make itself heard through a cover-up.

The boyfriend gave me a knowing look and pulled the skin down under one eye. I gathered that was the Italian equivalent of ‘Yep, my foot’.

I turned away and stuffed a whole
crostino
in my mouth, a kind of Italian up-yours. This might have been more effective if I hadn’t inhaled a breadcrumb and coughed small particles of mushroom everywhere.

I didn’t bother looking at the disgust on his face. Or my mother’s – her idea of filling her mouth too full was eating a whole grape in one go. I was just wondering how we could possibly eat enough cheese and cured meats so that the waiter wouldn’t be offended, when Raffaella’s mother flurried over and practically jabbed her finger up my nose. I wasn’t sure what she said, but from her Michelin-Man mime, I think she was suggesting that I could do with losing a few kilos. Crikey. I’d never been to a country where being a size 14 got you ridiculed in public. But I supposed she was only defending her daughter. When Izzy’s friends left her out, posting pictures of the whole gang having ‘the best time ever’ without her, I wanted to get in there and have a go, too.

Without language on my side to communicate, I went for a peace offering with the cheese plate. Raffaella’s mother smashed it out of my hand. It arced up into the air, sending Tuscany’s finest produce crashing down onto the cobblestones.

My mother recovered herself the fastest. She leapt to her feet, slamming her fists on the table and making the wine bottle wobble dangerously. She drew up her five-foot frame like a goalie trying to intimidate the opposition and shouted, ‘Go away! Go away and leave us alone, you horrible little woman.’ She started pushing her backwards. The grandmother slipped on a piece of rogue mozzarella and did a cartoon dance as though she was trying to run on a pile of ball bearings. My mother tucked her hands behind her back, making no attempt to stop her breaking her coccyx. Thankfully, the boyfriend came in useful for something other than sowing doubts about my fidelity in my mother’s mind and grabbed her. But my mother was not finished. Not by a long way. Her bellows of ‘My daughter has
nothing
to be sorry for!’ bounced off the arches, lanterns and medieval doorways, rattling the shutters for show time in every apartment surrounding the square.

I wished that she’d been right.

A
s we walked away
from the restaurant, my mother seemed energised by the British grandma versus Italian
nonna
argy-bargy. ‘I’m not going to be made a fool of by a bunch of cowardly Itais. In the war, they were the first ones running for the hills.’ I did wonder whether my mother actually held a view that didn’t have the
Daily Mail
as its source.

Dad would have been horrified at her behaviour. And if he ever came to know about it, mine too. In an urgent need to atone, I opened my map and pointed to a trio of churches within walking distance. My mother was barely able to contain her excitement that the first church, Santo Spirito, had
thirty-eight
chapels. Oh goody. But even I had to admit that the square itself was soothing to the soul, lined with cafés and trattorias, with an elaborate fountain in the centre where old ladies – hopefully non-cheese-plate-smashing pacifists – sat chatting, with an indulgent eye on their grandchildren. As far as I could see, no one minded if kids screamed, kicked or pushed each other over as long as they a) didn’t get dirty and b) didn’t take their coats off.

For the first time that afternoon, I was able to appreciate my surroundings, spying into the imposing courtyards beyond huge wooden doors, running my fingers over chunky ceramic tiles. I was just admiring a little shrine to the Madonna when a movement in an alleyway caught my eye. With a lurch of recognition, I saw Tomaso, his hands holding Raffaella’s wrists, speaking to her with an urgency, an intensity that suggested there was still a story to unfold rather than just a couple of loose ends to snip off. The fight had gone out of her. A little softness had crept into her face. She had her head on one side, very Sophia Loren coquette. She reached up and took his face in her hands. I turned away. He wasn’t mine to intrude upon, though there was no mistaking the dull ache of jealousy that I would have to deceive myself about.

I trained my mother’s gaze in the opposite direction by pointing out the simplicity of the church façade and scurried past. The next couple of hours shuffling around Santa Maria del Carmine, San Frediano in Cestello and a myriad of saints in various stages of suffering seemed a small price to pay for arriving back at the hotel without any more hand-to-hand combat.

I dispatched my mother to her room to rest and headed out for my meeting with the hotel’s catering manager. Now I was alone, I could stop lying to myself: I’d expected Tomaso to text me to let me know when he’d be back.

If
he’d be back.

I hated the idea of him taking Raffaella home for good old-fashioned make-up sex.

Even though I couldn’t possibly have sex with him myself.

By the time I’d liaised with the sort of chef you could imagine throwing tiramisu in a tantrum, the prospect of a jolly dinner à deux with my mother made me want to hole up in my room. I hoped the waiters were polishing their shoes and their ‘right away, madams’ – we’d been in Florence less than a day and Anglo-Italian relations were already under fire.

I rounded the corner back to my hotel, depressed rather than uplifted by the streets bustling with people living life to the full instead of just marking time. A teenage boy pushed his bike, leaning over the crossbar to kiss his girlfriend, oblivious to the human traffic jam behind him. A dark-haired girl pulled at her friend’s sleeve to make a point, followed by laughter, a great burst of unconstrained joy. No one looked as though their lives were a jumble of last year’s Christmas lights they couldn’t quite unravel.

I pulled out my phone for the umpteenth time. No word from Tomaso. And why should there be? Because he’d made me feel special? Because for the first time in years I could speak openly without being judged? I grouched into the hotel. The receptionist called to me, ‘
Signora
. Your mother is in the dining room already, with your – boyfriend?’

I didn’t know which emotion to nail down first. The shock that this woman on reception was shouting about Tomaso being my boyfriend for all to hear? Joy that he was back? Relief that I wouldn’t have my mother spotlighting on me for the next two hours? Or puzzlement that my mother, who ate less than Izzy’s gerbil, hadn’t been able to wait until seven-thirty for me?

Tomaso was leaning back in his chair, expansive and relaxed. I searched my mother’s face for clues that he’d been too open and aroused her suspicions. Nothing. She waved when she saw me. ‘Coo-ee, darling! I heard Tomosi come back and I didn’t know how long you’d be, so we thought we’d come down and have some
antipasti
.’ My irritation subsided. My mother was clearly proud of her new Italian word. And Dad would be so thrilled she’d had a nice time.

I shouldn’t be angry with her just because I wanted Tomaso to myself.

Throughout the meal, it became obvious that was never going to happen. I was dying for a few minutes alone with Tomaso to find out how he’d got on with Raffaella but my mother was like a jukebox that never runs out of money. As soon as one topic of conversation came to an end, she’d pop up with another ‘must-know’ question about Italy. Now and again, Tomaso’s hand would brush mine as we reached for the menus, as he poured me water, as he picked up my fallen napkin. I had to make a concerted effort to keep my voice steady and meet my mother’s eye, focusing on her ‘plans for tomorrow’ against a great surge of lust that made my breathing uneven. I kept asking her if she was tired, if she wanted me to take her upstairs but she developed a sudden desire for coffee – which she never drank late at night – until I couldn’t find a reason to stay up any longer myself.

‘Right. Better get up to bed then. Big day tomorrow.’

All three of us wandered along the corridor. Tomaso and I said an awkward goodnight outside our rooms, with my mother still rattling on about a lovely evening, ‘So much to tell Arthur.’

Tomaso disappeared into his room, bidding me ‘Sleep tight’ with a look that suggested he’d hoped sleeping would have been the last thing on the agenda. I stood with my door open until my mother was safely ensconced in her room, not sure whether I was hoping or dreading that Tomaso might reappear.

I could hear him moving about in his room opposite, then water running. The shower? Cleaning his teeth? Either of those could mean anything. Then my mother suddenly popped out again. ‘Lydia? Aren’t you in bed yet?’

I stuttered, floundering for an explanation. ‘I thought I heard you knock. Must have imagined it. Goodnight, Mum.’ I spoke loudly in case Sod’s law sent Tomaso sneaking out into the corridor and the whole Florentine adventure descended into a Benny Hill farce.

I slammed the door shut. Then lay in bed awake until the early hours, both resentful and grateful for my mother’s chaperoning skills.