The Wedding Diary (Choc Lit) (16 page)

‘Hi, Cat,’ said Adam, who hadn’t quite believed that she would come to Tuscany, and also couldn’t quite believe he’d asked her in the first place.

It had been different in the days of letters, when you’d had more time to think, cross out, rip up and chuck into the bin. Nowadays, one click, one touch, one mad, impetuous impulse, they were all it took to change your life for good – or bad.

‘Hi yourself,’ said Cat, and smiled at him.

As usual, she looked adorable – her eyes were bright and glowing like the rarest Chinese jade, her skin was lightly tanned from walking in the summer sunshine, or what there had been of it this year, which in England wasn’t very much, and there were Redouté roses blooming in her cheeks.

One stray lock of hair had fallen down and lay against her cheekbone, and he got a sense of déjà vu as it took all his willpower not to reach out to loop it up again.

But he’d decided in advance that there would be no touching and definitely no kissing. Cat was going to have a break. He meant to make her life less complicated, not foul it up some more.

He took her case and carried it through Arrivals. She was travelling very light, he thought. Where was all the stuff that women usually lugged around? The styling products, the good-hair-day equipment, the million little travel jars of gunk, the clothes for all occasions from masked balls to slobbing round on Sunday mornings, the fifteen pairs of shoes?

Since he’d sent that e-mail, he’d been thinking he had made a terrible mistake, inviting Cat to come to Italy. But, now she was here, he found he was delighted she had come, and realised he had been inspired.

They’d do all the usual tourist stuff, he told himself. They’d see the sights of Lucca. They’d drive into the countryside, go round a few
castelli
, have lunch in family-run
trattorie
, chill out and have some fun.

It would be no big deal.

If he didn’t touch this girl, if he didn’t think about how lovely it had been to kiss her on her lovely mouth, and if he could forget she was a woman, it would work out fine.

‘How long will you be staying?’ He hoped that she would say until the Sunday afternoon, or even Monday morning.

‘I’m flying back on Monday,’ Cat replied. ‘I hope that’s going to be all right? I had to bite the boss’s arm off – more or less – before he’d let me have a long weekend. You’d think I’d asked him for three months, not just three days.’

‘You’re indispensable, that’s why.’

‘Well, of course,’ said Cat. ‘I’m the only one who has a clue about the payroll, how to keep the diary, all that stuff. What about you, Adam, when are you going home?’

‘I must be back in England on Tuesday afternoon. No, not that way, Cat,’ he added, and he put his hand between her shoulder blades. Just to guide her in the right direction, obviously.

This didn’t count as touching, he assured himself, even though his hand was tingling now and he felt like he had slapped his palm down on a hotplate and could almost feel the blisters rising. ‘Over to the left – that’s the way out.’

‘Oh –
uscite
– that’s exit, right?’ Cat turned and shrugged apologetically. ‘Sorry, you’re going to think I’m very stupid. I’ve never been to Italy before. I don’t know any Italian.’

‘I know a bit,’ said Adam. ‘But my accent’s rubbish, so Italians laugh at me and beg me to speak English. Pietro, that’s the guy I came to see, says it hurts to listen to me trying to speak Italian.’

‘He speaks perfect English, then?’

‘It’s better than my Italian, anyway.’ Adam led her through the busy concourse, out into the petrol fumes and the intoxicating summer atmosphere of Tuscany. ‘Pietro’s a nice guy. I’m sure you’ll like him. We’ve fixed up a good place for you to stay.’

Pietro and his uncle were sitting at a table outside the uncle’s restaurant, drinking coffee in the summer twilight, and when Adam and Cat turned up they both jumped to their feet.

‘Pietro, this is Cat, my friend from England,’ Adam said in English, because he was reluctant to provoke another round of ridicule about his bad Italian.

Pietro shook Cat’s hand and said hello, adding in perfect but accented English that he hoped she’d had a pleasant journey.

‘Yes, it was fine,’ said Cat. She smiled at him, then at his uncle, who was trying to tidy up his shaggy grey moustache, combing at it with his fingers, twirling up the ends.

Adam saw at once she was a hit, that these two men were smitten. So perhaps, he thought, she had this effect on every single man she met?

Maybe what he felt for Cat was friendship? Just ordinary, everyday affection, the kind he felt for Gwennie, after all?

Pietro introduced her to his uncle, who took her hand and kissed it, then turned back to Pietro to tell him in Italian that he was impressed by Signor Lawley’s choice of
fidanzata
.

‘Excuse us just one moment,’ said Pietro.

Then he and his uncle had a shrugging and gesticulation-laden conversation in the local dialect. Adam understood the gist of it – this
bella signorina
wasn’t Signor Lawley’s
fidanzata
. She was Signor Lawley’s friend, which was why she needed her own
apartamento
. She wouldn’t wish to share.

Pietro’s uncle looked again at Cat and then at Adam. He muttered something about certain people being lucky bastards, having friends like these. If he himself was ten years younger …

Then he shuffled off into the restaurant, coming out ten minutes later with a mediaeval-looking key.

‘My uncle says the
signorina
has the
apartamento
which is right above your own,’ explained Pietro, as his uncle beamed and rattled on in voluble Italian and offered Cat the key, a scrolled and curlicued affair similar to the one which opened Adam’s own front door.

‘We hope she will be comfortable there,’ Pietro added courteously. ‘She’ll find milk and fruit and basic groceries in the kitchenette. The bed will be made up. But if she needs anything else, or she has any questions, she only has to ask.’

‘Thank you, Pietro,’ Adam said, as Cat looked at the key. ‘
Mille grazie
, Signor Benedetto.’

‘What were those two saying?’ Cat enquired, as Adam led her through a vaulted archway into an oval space, which on this summer evening was still full of market stalls.

‘You’re a very beautiful young lady, and they hope you’ll have a lovely time in Italy.’

‘Yeah, I bet.’ Cat’s green eyes narrowed. ‘Why did they take half an hour to say it?’

‘Italian’s quite a convoluted language. It often takes six words to say what English says in one.’

‘I see,’ said Cat, but she still sounded unconvinced. ‘Adam, what is this amazing place?’ She stared up in astonishment at the yellow stuccoed houses built into the ancient arches, towering to a height of three, four, five, six storeys high.

‘The Roman amphitheatre,’ he replied. ‘Lucca was a Roman city, a provincial capital, and here was where the people came to get their entertainment on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.’

‘Oh, like we go to the Dome or Wembley?’

‘I expect so, yes.’

Opening a dark green door which looked as if it had been there since Roman times itself, Adam led Cat up a narrow flight of concrete stairs – up and up and up, past many other doors and sounds of people singing, arguing and shouting in Italian, of televisions blaring, of barking dogs and pots and pans and crockery being bashed around.

She was breathing hard, as if she couldn’t manage one more step, when he stopped outside a plain black door. ‘This must be it,’ he said.

So Cat unlocked the door and walked into a little sitting room, with a tiny kitchenette and bathroom leading off.

‘Come in,’ she told him.

He went into the sitting room and opened up the heavy shutters to let in the dying light, together with the evening sounds and sights and smells of Lucca.

Cat gazed all around the room.

‘But there’s no bed,’ she told him, frowning.

‘It’s probably through here.’

Opening another door he peered into the murk. Cat followed him and, as her eyes adjusted, she gasped delightedly, staring at the high, white bed which was carved with cherubs, satyrs, goddesses and fauns, at the chestnut-beamed and lime-washed ceiling, at the painted chairs and dressing table, at the patterned terracotta tiles on the floor.

‘It’s lovely,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘Where will you be, Adam?’

‘In the room right under you, so no midnight dancing on the ceiling – understood?’

‘I’m not going to promise, but I won’t wear my tap shoes, anyway. Okay, what’s the plan?’

‘I don’t have any work appointments until Monday morning, so if you like we’ll do some tourist stuff?’

‘I like,’ said Cat. ‘I definitely like. But now—’

‘You’re tired?’ said Adam, as she yawned and rubbed her eyes.

‘Yes, I am – a bit,’ admitted Cat, and then she shrugged apologetically. ‘I know I’m very boring, but would you mind if I went straight to bed?’

‘I wouldn’t mind at all,’ he lied. ‘You get a good night’s sleep,’ he added. ‘If you want anything to eat or drink, there’ll be tea and coffee and biscuits in the kitchen cupboards, peaches and bananas in the fruit bowl, and milk and bread and butter in the fridge.’

‘Pietro and his uncle have thought of everything,’ said Cat, impressed.

‘They might have forgotten the champagne and caviar.’

‘I’ll let them off, but just this once – and Adam?’

‘Yes?’

‘Thank you for inviting me to Lucca. You can’t imagine how good it feels to get away from London.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Adam said, and then he put his hands behind his back, standing like a senior member of the British Royal Family, so he couldn’t touch her, so he couldn’t take her in his arms and kiss her on the mouth, the neck – or even at all.

‘There should be some towels in the bathroom, and spare pillows in that chest of drawers,’ he added briskly. ‘So now, you get your head down. I’m going to walk you off your feet tomorrow.’

Then he went downstairs.

‘Where’s your pretty friend?’ enquired Pietro, as Adam sat down at his usual table and began to study a menu which he knew by heart.

‘She’s tired,’ said Adam as he looked intently at the list of
primi
piatti
. ‘So she’s gone to bed.’

‘I see,’ Pietro said, and then he grinned. ‘I hope she won’t be lonely, Adam, up there in the roof all by herself.’

When Cat opened the shutters the next morning, the sun came streaming in like liquid gold. She heard the cries and clatter of the market which was set up in the oval of the Roman amphitheatre far below. She could smell coffee roasting and realised she was hungry.

It must be time for breakfast, she decided. What would there be for breakfast here in Lucca – fresh-baked rolls and froth-topped cappuccinos? She hoped so, anyway.

She leaned out of her window, looking at the pigeons which roosted on the ledges all around the amphitheatre, and cooed and preened and swooped on anything they thought was edible.

She wondered if the little wrought-iron balcony which led off her kitchenette was safe for anything heavier than a pigeon? Maybe not, she thought – she wouldn’t risk it.

‘What are we going to do today?’ she asked, when Adam rang to ask if she was up.

‘We’ll have some breakfast in Pietro’s uncle’s restaurant. Then we’ll go and have a look at Lucca. We’ll walk all round the city walls, perhaps? We’ll go inside some churches and some mansions which are open to the public. We’ll go and see a garden in the sky.’

‘We’ll see a what?’ asked Cat.

‘A garden in the sky.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Where is it, then?’

‘On the Torre Guinigi, the only tower in Lucca which still has a garden on the roof. In the old days, lots of towers had gardens at the top, or so Pietro says. But this is the only one that’s left.’

‘Adam, I know the place you mean!’ cried Cat. ‘I’m looking at it now. I saw it when I opened up my shutters. A red brick tower with trees on top. I didn’t think they could be real. So we could go there, could we, climb up and see the garden?’

‘Yes, but you’ll need comfortable shoes. A tower as high as that one’s bound to have a couple of hundred steps, and there won’t be a lift.’

‘I’ve brought my oldest trainers.’

‘So put them on, then come and have some breakfast.’

It took a while to do the tourist stuff in Lucca – to walk all round the ancient city walls, to visit gilded mansions in whose shuttered rooms there were whole centuries of treasures, to sit in cafés shaded by green vines or foaming white wisteria which filled the air with fragrance, to drink
caffè latte
,
cappuccino
or
espresso
and eat sweet almond pastries in a mediaeval square surrounded by
palazzi
and
chiese
which were all works of art.

‘Good to go?’ asked Adam, as Cat licked her fingers then drained the last of her third
caffè latte
.

‘Yes,’ she told him, getting up and stretching. ‘Good to go. I want to see inside that big white marble church we passed when we walked round the walls.’

‘The one where there’s the pickled body of a local saint in a glass case?’ asked Adam, looking at his guide book.

‘Oh? Well, maybe not!’ Cat pulled a face. ‘Okay, I want to go to the cathedral, and buy something for my mother and for Tess and Bex, and then go up that tower to see the garden in the sky.’

‘Sit down again and have another of those pastries if you’re going to do all that,’ suggested Adam.

‘Must I?’ Then Cat grimaced, mock-dejected, and she grinned a wicked grin. ‘Oh, go on, then – if you’ll have one, too.’

The churches took some time, and it was almost evening before they climbed the Torre Guinigi, arriving with a scant half an hour to spare and buying the last two tickets of the day.

‘Cat, I didn’t think to ask, are you okay with heights?’ asked Adam, worrying slightly as they scaled the narrow wooden stairs, leaving the original wide stone staircase far below.

‘I’m fine with heights, but how much further is it, do you reckon?’ Cat demanded, breathing heavily.

‘I think we’re nearly there.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ puffed Cat.

‘Come on, old age pensioner, just a few more steps.’

Several minutes later they had clambered through a trapdoor and were standing in the garden.

‘What do you think?’ asked Adam.

‘It’s just incredible.’ As Cat got her breath back, she looked around the garden, at the trees which would have shaded many generations of the Guinigi family from the blistering summer sun. She scanned the Lucca skyline, then gazed towards the snow-capped Alps which closed the far horizon. ‘What an amazing view!’

She turned toward the amphitheatre next. ‘Adam, there’s my room up in the roof!’ she cried, and beamed at him. ‘I can see the window. I’ve left one shutter open, so I know it’s mine.’

‘There’s mine, below it.’ Adam pointed. ‘What a shame they don’t have gladiatorial combats any more. We could have sat and watched the entertainment from our balconies.’

‘So it was a real amphitheatre, then?’ said Cat. ‘They did have gladiatorial whatsitsnames? They threw real Christians to real lions?’

‘I don’t know if they had any lions. But the Romans were a brutal bunch, and Pietro says they probably had wild beast fights with lots of blood and gore. All that
Gladiator
stuff, you know?’

‘I love that film,’ said Cat.

‘I do, too,’ said Adam. ‘Great battle scenes, although some of the footage looks quite dated nowadays. The CGI guys have raised their game a bit. But it doesn’t seem the kind of thing a girl would like.’

‘You’re suggesting I’m some sort of weirdo?’ Cat grinned up at him. ‘You’d be amazed what girls like, Adam Lawley – stock car racing, pints of Guinness, BMWs, great big dogs. If you had a relationship with one – with a girl, not with a great big dog, that would be very wrong – you might be surprised. Anyway, after Romans had got tired of throwing lions at Christians and having wild beast fights?’

‘In the Middle Ages, people started filling in the arches, and by the fifteenth century the place looked very like it does today.’ Adam glanced at the holm oaks which were growing in two clusters in the rooftop garden. ‘These trees, I wonder if they know what dangerous lives they’re leading up here in the sky?’

‘I’m sure they do,’ said Cat. ‘But they’re still determined to hang on. They’re going to push their roots into the brickwork, come what may. They know if they should go, the tower goes too.’

‘As long as it doesn’t go within the next five minutes, we should be all right. Cat, I’m sure I heard them ring the bell, and we’re the only people still up here. It must be time to leave.’

‘Just another minute or two, okay?’ Cat leaned over the parapet. ‘I feel like a princess in a fairy tale, up here in this tower. I could be Rapunzel, letting down her hair.’

‘Your hair’s not long enough for you to be Rapunzel.’

‘Do you want to bet?’ Still turned away from him, Cat pulled out the clips and shook it loose, so it fell down her back in dark blonde waves. ‘There – could a prince climb up it, do you think?’

‘Come back from the barrier, Cat. It doesn’t look particularly solid, and it’s not very high. It was probably designed so people could be chucked over the edge with minimum inconvenience to the chuckers.’

‘You could have a point,’ said Cat. Adam saw her shudder, but she didn’t move. She went on looking at the view.

‘Cat, please come away!’

‘I wonder, Adam, if I were to jump, if I could fly?’

Then – as she had most probably intended, he decided later – Adam found his hand was on her arm, holding it tight.

He pulled her back from where she stood against the parapet, back towards the oak trees, and then he pulled her closer, so she couldn’t escape again.

The holm oaks cast a cool green shade through which the sunlight filtered here and there, dappling Cat with green and gold and making her look like an elf, a sprite, a water nymph. She raised her face to his and smiled at him.

‘You’re wicked, aren’t you?’ Adam said. ‘You enjoyed it, didn’t you, scaring me?’

‘I didn’t mean to scare you, Adam.’ Now, Cat’s eyes glowed emerald in the soft rays of the sinking sun. ‘I only wanted to see what you would do.’

‘Come on, we’re going back downstairs.’

‘I know, but not just yet.’ She touched his forearm with her finger tips. ‘You have to kiss me first.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You don’t want to kiss me, Adam?’

‘You know very well I do.’

‘So – why don’t you, then?’

‘I don’t think I should.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I asked you here to have a fun weekend and do some tourist stuff, not force myself on you.’

‘You’re telling me I need to use more mouthwash or chew some spearmint gum?’

‘I’m telling you that I don’t want to complicate your life.’ Adam kissed her lightly on the mouth, making sure his own was firmly closed.

But Cat refused to let him go.

She locked her hands behind his head and kissed him back, opening her mouth, inviting him to do the same, delighted to discover he could not resist her long.

This isn’t about sex, she told herself, as she tasted almonds, coffee, him. This isn’t about love. This is about affection. Adam likes me. I like Adam. Why should we not kiss?

There won’t be any fallout. It’s not as if we’re starting a relationship. Adam doesn’t do relationships.

Anyway, I’ve had enough of being in relationships. I’m through with being in love. All love has done for me is cause me pain. But Adam makes me happy.

I think it’s time for happiness.

It’s time to have some fun.

The holm oaks sighed and whispered in the breeze. The evening air turned cool and velvet-soft.

‘It must be getting very late,’ said Cat.

‘It must,’ said Adam.

‘We’ll go and have that Prosecco, shall we?’ she suggested, as she took her arms from round his neck.

‘Yes, okay,’ said Adam, releasing her reluctantly.

Then he stroked a lock of dark blonde hair back from her forehead, and kissed her on the temples one last time.

They walked back to the trapdoor.

It was shut.

Adam grasped the handle, pulled it, but it wouldn’t move.

‘I think it’s locked,’ he said.

‘It can’t be locked,’ said Cat. ‘They wouldn’t lock us in here for the night. They don’t know what damage we might do. Give it one more tug.’

So Adam yanked at it again and still it didn’t move.

‘What shall we do?’ asked Cat.

‘You know you fancied being Rapunzel? I reckon now’s your chance. I’ll abseil down your hair. I’ll go and find the guy who has the keys, then come and let you out.’

‘You know you said my hair would not be long enough for all that climbing up and down it stuff? I reckon you were right.’

‘Then it will have to be Plan B. We hang over the parapet and shout.’

‘What’s the Italian word for help?’

‘It’s something like
soccorso.
Or maybe it’s
aiuto.
I don’t think it matters. We just have to wave our arms and yell.’

‘Adam, this is so embarrassing.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Adam. ‘Pietro and his uncle will dine out on it for weeks.’

‘It’s always been on my to-do list, get locked inside a tower.’

‘So you can cross it off tonight.’

‘Oh, Adam – don’t look so annoyed. This is all so daft, you have to laugh.’

‘But we could be stuck up here for hours. You’re hardly wearing anything, and I bet it’s bloody cold by three or four o’clock. You can have my shirt, of course, but that won’t keep you warm.’

‘We’ll have to make a camp fire.’

‘Yes, that’s a possibility,’ said Adam, looking at the trees. ‘At least there’s lots of wood.’

‘We wouldn’t dare.’

‘They’d execute the pair of us.’

‘They’d do it in the amphitheatre, wouldn’t they, with lions and tigers borrowed from some zoo?’

‘I expect so,’ Adam said. ‘So come on, Cat – get shouting.’

As it turned out, Cat didn’t do much shouting. Adam’s voice was stronger, carried further, and soon a small, excited crowd had gathered on the street a hundred feet or more below. People were pointing up at them and calling out advice.

‘
Someone needs to go and fetch the guy who keeps the keys
,’ cried Adam, hoping that was what he’d really said – he wasn’t absolutely sure.

‘
All in good time, my friend
,’ a teenaged boy yelled up at him.

‘
I see you have some lovely company!
’ called out a man. ‘
We wouldn’t want to rush you!
’

‘
You stayed up there on purpose, didn’t you?
’ shouted someone else, and all the others laughed.

‘
We’re sending for the caretaker, don’t worry.
’

‘
Let’s hope he hasn’t lost the keys!
’

‘
You’ll have to stop up there all night.
’

‘
You’ll be pretty chilly by the morning.
’

‘
No, you’ll have your love to keep you warm!
’

‘What are they saying, Adam?’ Cat demanded. ‘It sounds as if they think we’ve been—’

‘They say the guy who has the keys is on his way.’

But then he put his arm around Cat’s shoulders, and all the people on the ground began to cheer and whistle.

‘
Go on!
’ called the teenaged boy. ‘
Give her one, why don’t you?
’

‘
Give her one from me, as well!
’ shouted somebody else.