The Wedding Diary (Choc Lit) (17 page)

‘They’re saying he won’t be long,’ translated Adam.

‘Yeah, right,’ said Cat suspiciously, as more cheers and whistling floated up from far below.

The caretaker arrived at last, pushing his head up through the trapdoor and opening it wide.

‘
Signor
,
signorina
, I’m so sorry, how can you forgive me?’ he began, wringing his hands and looking as if at any minute he would start to cry.

As Cat and Adam followed him down the creaking wooden staircase, he carried on talking twenty to the dozen in Italian, repeating he was sorry, but he knew he’d rung the bell. He’d never left anyone in the tower before. He called on all the patron saints of Lucca to confirm this was the case.

‘It’s okay,’ said Adam. ‘It’s no problem, doesn’t matter, we’re not blaming you. We’re grateful you could come and let us out. I didn’t notice everybody else had gone.’

‘You were with a lovely girl, that’s why,’ the caretaker told Adam. ‘This
bella signorina
, she would make any man lose track of time.’

As they left the Torre Guinigi, the people on the pavement clapped and cheered.

A few men made comments which Adam was glad Cat didn’t understand, although he knew she couldn’t fail to get the gist of them, especially when the comments were accompanied by explicit gestures and a lot of grinning.

As the crowd dispersed, Adam gave the caretaker some euros, thanked him once again and said goodnight.

‘What shall we do next to draw attention to ourselves – fall down a well?’ suggested Cat.

‘Or what about free-climbing up the tower of the cathedral as an encore – that should draw a crowd?’

‘Or we could be boring and go and have some supper, couldn’t we?’

‘Then do more tower stuff tomorrow, right?’

They walked back through the darkening streets, past restaurants and cafés full of people eating, drinking, all enjoying sitting out under the bright, white stars.

‘Where would you like to eat?’ asked Adam.

‘What about that place with the white flowers and all the vines where we had coffee earlier today?’

‘Yes, that sounds perfect,’ he agreed.

So they ate their supper sitting in the perfumed twilight, beneath a heavy canopy of white wisteria blossom that filled the night with scent, where moths as big as sparrows fluttered, batting their soft wings.

‘You okay?’ asked Adam as the waiter brought their coffee.

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ said Cat. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘You’ve gone very quiet.’

‘I’m very tired.’ Cat yawned behind her hand. ‘All that exercise I’ve had today – I’m not as fit as you.’

‘I’ve worn you out.’

‘I’ve had a lovely time,’ insisted Cat.

‘But you got locked inside a tower.’

‘It was sort of fun.’ Cat smiled at him. ‘It was a big adventure, wasn’t it?’

‘It was a big embarrassment as well.’

‘We might end up on YouTube. There were lots of people filming us on mobile phones. Let me get this,’ she added, as the waiter brought the bill.

But Adam covered her hand to stop her reaching for her bag and then got out his card.

‘We’d better get you home to bed,’ said Adam.

He led her through the narrow winding streets, which were full of things to look at, wonder at – fountains, churches, palaces and statues, gardens rich with perfume and cafés full of noise and merriment. It was the sort of night when anyone with any heart could very easily fall in love.

But you will not fall in love with him, Cat told herself. You will not hold his hand.

So whose hand was she holding, then?

I’m tired, she told herself, and Adam walks so fast. I need to slow him down. Otherwise I’ll lose him and then I won’t be able to find my way back home.

‘Who’s the fella with the fiddle?’ she enquired, stopping to admire a fine bronze statue of an eighteenth-century musician. She realised she was a little drunk – but happy drunk, not maudlin drunk, just glad to be alive.

‘Luigi Boccherini,’ Adam said as he read the inscription. ‘He was a composer born in Lucca in 1743, and it’s not a fiddle, it’s a cello.’

‘Oh, I beg its pardon.’ Cat looked up at Adam. ‘I expect he wrote a lot of highbrow, very intellectual stuff?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Adam. ‘I’ve never heard of him. I’ll look him up. Cat, what sort of music do you like?’

‘Lady Gaga, Amy Winehouse, Coldplay – I change my mind according to my mood. What about you, Adam?’

‘I like almost everything – rock, some R & B, some jazz, some folk, some classical. I’m promiscuous, me.’

Promiscuous, thought Cat. It gets worse and worse. I’m falling for a guy who doesn’t do relationships and now says he’s promiscuous.

‘Tell me about your family,’ she said, to cool the conversation down. ‘Where were you born, and were you happy when you were a child? What did your parents do before you came along?’

‘I was born in Middlesex,’ said Adam. ‘I had a happy childhood. My father was a Russian double agent. My mother was the daughter of a Transylvanian countess and a big game hunter from Brazil.’

‘So that explains the Spanish eyes.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Oh, nothing, Adam.’ Cat felt her colour rise. ‘Please, take no notice. I’ve had too much to drink and I’m just wittering on. What about when you were growing up? Did you get in trouble with the law? Did you get expelled from half a dozen different schools?’

‘No and no. I’m sorry, Cat,’ said Adam. ‘I don’t know what to tell you that won’t put you to sleep. My mother came from Stockport and I think I told you my father was a builder, that he ran his own small business, doing mostly bathrooms, kitchens, home extensions, boring stuff like that?’

‘Yes, I think you mentioned it. Mr Brick the builder, Mrs Brick the builder’s wife and Master Brick the builder’s son,’ said Cat. ‘What about Miss Brick the builder’s daughter?’

‘I’m an only child.’

‘What about your parents – do you still have the set?’

‘Dad had a fatal heart attack when he was fifty-five. My mother never came to terms with it. She’s never thrown out any of his stuff.’

‘That’s why you have so many hankies, right?’

‘I’ve dozens of the bloody things,’ said Adam ruefully. ‘Do you have brothers, sisters?’

‘No, I’m an only one, like you.’

‘It’s a big responsibility.’

‘Yes,’ said Cat, and sighed. ‘I’ve always felt there was this sort of pressure. Do well at school, get married, be a doctor or a lawyer, get a mortgage, have some children, do us proud. It must be the same for you.’

But then she blushed again, embarrassed. ‘God, what am I saying? I didn’t mean anything, you know. I don’t want you to think—’

‘Cat, it’s all right.’ Adam gave her hand a friendly squeeze. ‘I wasn’t thinking anything at all.’

By the time they reached the amphitheatre, Cat was busy having a violent argument with herself.

She wanted him, she really did, and she was almost sure he felt the same. She somehow knew he wouldn’t make assumptions. He wouldn’t think that just because she’d kissed him she’d given him the right to take things further, do anything he liked.

Glancing at him in the scented darkness, she saw his eyes were bright. His pupils were dilated. She knew that if she offered him the slightest of encouragement—

But should she, shouldn’t she?

As he unlocked the dark green door, she looked at him again. It will be okay, she told herself. Just remember that he doesn’t do relationships and it will all be fine.

As they reached his landing, she touched Adam’s arm and smiled at him. ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ she whispered.

‘I—maybe not,’ said Adam. ‘You’re a lovely girl. You’re beautiful, you’re fun. But when I said come to Italy, all I wanted was to make you smile.’

‘You did,’ said Cat, and now she wound her arms around his neck. ‘See how I’m smiling? Let’s see you smile, too?’

‘You’re sure you want to do this?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’ Cat looked up at him, into his eyes. ‘Adam, I’ve just thrown myself at you. I’d appreciate it if you’d catch me?’

Adam unwound her arms from round his neck and took her hand.

He led her up the stairs.

Cat meant to take it slowly, do the sexy siren thing, to drive him wild with desire.

She meant to have him snorting like a stallion as they reached a shuddering, mutual climax, complete with Dolby Digital of waves crashing on shores and angels singing, obviously.

But she’d overdosed on the Prosecco. So she could not stop giggling and laughing, and making him laugh, too.

As she undid a button on his shirt, she wondered why he made her feel so happy – so ridiculously, brilliantly, wonderfully happy – when she had so many worries, problems and anxieties back at home.

She’d think about it later, she decided, as he slid his hands under her top.

She had other stuff to do tonight.

She spent a lot of time exploring him. She found a mole shaped like a crescent moon on his left shoulder, gravel marks from a forgotten accident sprayed like a constellation on one forearm, a whorl of curling hair around his navel. ‘I think you’ll do,’ she said.

‘It’s kind of you to say so.’ Adam had also been undressing Cat, and now he peeled her knickers off so she was naked, too. ‘Do you know you have the most attractive belly button in the world?’

‘I didn’t know women could do that,’ said Adam thoughtfully, as he and Cat lay tangled up in white cotton sheets upon the carved and gilded bed.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Cat, her green eyes narrowing suspiciously, but looking playful, too. ‘What did I do?’

‘Some sort of magic.’ Adam was lying on his side, gazing drowsily at Cat and playing with a strand of hair, curling it around his index finger, pulling it straight, then letting go again. ‘I don’t think you’re real. You’re a ghost, a goddess. I’ll wake up in a moment and you’ll vanish, like a dream.’

‘I’m not a dream,’ she said. ‘But I am going to vanish for a moment. I need a drink of water.’

Cat swung her legs out of the bed. She pulled the sheet off too and wrapped it round her body, leaving Adam naked.

He rolled on to his stomach and smiled lazily. ‘Make me some coffee, could you, goddess?’

‘Yes, all right – one sugar, isn’t it?’

‘Make it two,’ he said. ‘After all that exercise I feel I need a carbohydrate hit.’

‘You poor old thing,’ said Cat. ‘I’ve worn you out.’

‘You have indeed,’ said Adam, and he groaned theatrically. ‘I’ll be good for nothing for a week – or even three.’

‘I hope it was worth it, then.’ Glancing back at him, Cat started to giggle naughtily. ‘My goodness, Mr Lawley – you’ve got a lovely bum!’

‘Thank you very much, Miss Aston.’ Adam reached languidly across the bed – and then, as quick as lightning, he yanked the sheet off Cat, who squealed in protest. ‘So have you.’

They woke in the cool, grey dawn, made early morning love then dozed again.

Since all the wedding, money, Jack and Fanny Gregory stuff, Cat had been a virtual insomniac, a clock-watcher, a midnight wanderer. But today she realised she’d had a whole six hours, and she felt wonderful. She curled up next to Adam and fell into a dreamless, tranquil sleep.

They woke an hour later to a deafening cacophony of bells, crashing and reverberating round them, making the whole amphitheatre shake.

She thought – it took them several centuries, but in the end the Christians won.

‘What shall we do?’ she asked, or rather shouted.

‘I’ll take you to Fiesole.’

‘Where or what is that?’

‘It’s a little town up in the hills.’

‘It’s in the what?’

‘I’ll tell you in a moment. Thank God for that,’ he added, as the bells stopped clanging and now began to toll lugubriously. ‘It’s a very old Etruscan town. It’s in the hills above the valley of the Arno, overlooking Florence, and it’s very pretty, or so the guidebook says.’

‘Do we drive there?’

‘We could go by bus and train, mix with real Italian people, get a flavour of the country?’ Adam glanced at Cat. ‘Italian trains are really something. Lots of them are double-deckers, fast, luxurious and comfortable. But if we drive we won’t be tied to timetables.’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Cat and smiled at him. ‘You make the decision.’

‘Okay, we’ll drive,’ said Adam. ‘We can have a look around and then go on to Florence, if we’ve time, and if you’d like to do more tourist stuff?’

‘You mean there’ll be more towers?’

‘Oh, absolutely – lots more towers. You can’t move in Tuscany for towers. We can go up the tower of the
Duomo
.’

‘Ooh, me knees,’ said Cat.

‘I think there’s a lift for old age pensioners like you.’ Adam grinned. ‘But you might have to prove you’re over sixty before they’ll let you use it.’

‘Stop calling me an old age pensioner.’

‘Well, you’re not far off – how old did you say you were that time we had a drink in Walthamstow?’

‘You watch yourself,’ growled Cat.

‘Or you’ll do what?’

‘You wait and see.’

‘Yeah, right – I’m scared.’

‘You ought to be.’ Cat hit him with a pillow, a very heavy, hard Italian pillow, and it knocked him flat on to his back.

He grabbed her as he toppled backwards.

She collapsed on top of him, convulsed with fits of giggles.

‘I’ll show you,’ he muttered.

‘Show me what?’

They didn’t get up again for half an hour or more.

Cat decided Italy was magical, that it must be enchanted.

Lucca was most certainly a city made for lovers. She knew she wouldn’t, couldn’t have felt the way she’d felt last night – the way she still felt now – in any other place.

She could not imagine living here and not being happy. No wonder Mrs Gallo, who was the cleaning lady at Chapman’s Architectural Salvage, always looked fed up. She’d been born in Tuscany, but now she lived in Walthamstow.

‘What’s next, after Italy?’ she asked, as they drove out of Lucca. ‘Where will you be working?’

‘I’ll still be in Dorset for a couple of days a week. I have some stuff to do in Cornwall, too. But then I’m going to Scotland.’

‘What will you do in Scotland?’

‘I’ll be working on a very grand Victorian castle thirty miles from Aberdeen. Or rather it was grand a hundred years or more ago, but now it’s falling down. A businessman from Surrey saw it while he was on holiday up there. Now he’s decided he wants to be a laird.’

Adam glanced at Cat and made a face. ‘Mr Portland and his wife are loaded. I think he made his money in casinos and now he has a chain of betting shops. They live in a modern house near Guildford which was built for them. They showed me round. They’ve got a billiard room, a gym, a cinema, a Hawaiian cocktail lounge, an indoor swimming pool shaped like the ace of clubs, chandeliers in almost all the rooms, gold plating everywhere.’

‘Ooh, it sounds divine.’

‘I know it’s going to be difficult to get them to agree to sympathetic restoration of a crumbling Scottish castle. The last time I spoke to Mr Portland, he told me Mrs Portland wants a luxury Jacuzzi on the roof and she’d like a swimming pool with underwater lighting and mosaics of their children and their dogs. She’s insisting all replacement window frames are made of PVC, because her brother’s in the trade and he can do a special deal for them. She’s ordered double glazing made to look like Tudor latticing.’

‘I’m sure you’ll be able to talk them out of stupid stuff like that.’

‘Maybe, Cat – I hope so, anyway. But Mrs Portland’s clearly used to having her own way, and Mr Portland listens to his wife.’

‘If the castle’s listed, she can’t have PVC. Adam, you don’t sound very keen on them.’

‘I’m keen to do this job.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘It’s a long term project. I’ll be paid a lot of money. So, after I’ve finished with the Portlands and their castle, I should have the capital to rent some premises, an office, yard and stuff. I’ll start employing other people and building up my business.’

‘You’ll be the king of project managers.’

‘Yeah, that’s the plan.’

‘I hope it all works out, then.’

‘I do, too,’ said Adam. ‘Cat, look over there – do you see that hilltop village, with the tower and houses clustered round it?’

‘Yes,’ said Cat.

‘What about us stopping there for coffee?’

‘Do we get to climb the tower?’

‘If you like,’ said Adam.

‘Lovely,’ Cat replied, as she told her knees to stop complaining and assured them they were up to it.

After they had climbed the tower, they found a café shaded with a trellis of white roses which dropped their scented petals on the tables, in their coffee, in their hair.

But Cat found this romantic rather than annoying, and so – apparently – did all the other tourists in the place. The café seemed to cast a spell on them.

The chinkle of the crockery, the muted buzz of genial conversation between friends and lovers, the fragrant fumes of always-excellent Italian coffee, the feeling that she didn’t want for anything, that she had all she needed and would ever need – surely this was happiness distilled?

She wished she had a magic flask so she could bottle this, what was it, atmosphere? Then she would be able to sip it or inhale it whenever times got hard, and she’d be comforted.

‘Stop here a moment, Cat,’ said Adam, after he had paid the bill and they were walking through the narrow streets back to the Fiat which was parked outside the walls. ‘Stand still – don’t smile – don’t giggle – try not to move at all.’

‘Why?’ asked Cat, intrigued.

‘I want to take your photograph against that arch with sunlight filtering down on you, with petals of white roses in your hair.’

‘God, I must look a right old mess,’ said Cat, and now she ran her fingers through her tangled curls, trying to dislodge the petals, shaking half a dozen of them free.

‘Stop,’ said Adam, catching at her wrist. ‘You look like an angel, like a spirit, with those petals in your hair.’ Then he took his photograph and slipped his camera back into his pocket.

‘Let me see?’ demanded Cat.

‘No,’ said Adam firmly. ‘If I let you see it you’ll say you look a mess and you’ll delete it, and I want to keep it.’

Fiesole was magical and lovely, as beautiful as Lucca, but a very different place.

Lucca was an ancient Roman city with mediaeval walls, built on a plain. Bicycles went hurtling along the narrow streets, and the smaller Fiats could squeeze along its slightly broader thoroughfares, but a BMW would have almost no chance. Lucca was enclosed and secret, hiding many things.

Fiesole had wider streets and open spaces but was even older, built by the Etruscans in the hills. So many of its houses clung precipitously to slopes, and from its high vantage points there were quite amazing views of the valley and the River Arno far below.

‘How are your knees?’ asked Adam as they walked along a switchback road, doing a circumnavigation of the town.

‘They’re fine,’ said Cat and told them to shut up, promising them she’d join a gym when she got back to London. ‘Adam, this is wonderful! We can see for miles and miles and miles!’

‘Do you want to see a theatre built into a hillside?’

‘Yes,’ said Cat. ‘Well, provided you’ll agree to do a song and dance routine and I can take a photograph of you looking ridiculous as well.’

‘It’s a deal,’ said Adam as he took her hand.

As they sat in a restaurant in Fiesole’s town square, eating perfect pasta and drinking Pinot Grigio – Cat was drinking most of it, she realised, for Adam had drunk one glass of wine and then he’d stuck to water – Cat realised she was happy still.

Yes, Italy itself was quite amazing.

But as for feeling happy – she knew that this was mostly down to Adam.

He was the sort of man who could make any woman happy.

Some men could put up shelves. Others knew how to fix a dripping tap or build a garden wall. Adam could no doubt do all that, she thought, but his special superpower was making women happy.

So maybe it was right, and maybe it was only fair, that he didn’t tie himself to any single woman, but spread himself around? When they had a drink that time, didn’t he say he’d had a lot of girlfriends?

Yes, she thought he did.

She couldn’t believe how wrong she’d been about him the first time they had met. She’d thought he was a grumpy, surly bastard who had never learned to smile. She reflected now that if she had been soaking wet herself – and tired and overworked – she probably wouldn’t have been a little ray of sunshine, either.

She couldn’t help comparing him with Jack.

Whenever she had been in bed with Jack, he’d always needed pleasing and he’d always had demands.

After these demands had all been met, he’d fall asleep, while she’d lie in the darkness feeling thwarted, cheated, more alone than if she had been by herself.

She’d always thought she was to blame, had told herself she shouldn’t have so many unrealistic expectations – that she was very lucky to be with a man who looked like Jack.

But maybe Jack was lucky to have been with Cat?

Why hadn’t she ever thought of that before?

Adam didn’t have demands. Adam didn’t need pleasing. Adam liked to please, to make a woman feel that she was special, that she was beautiful, that she was the only woman in the world for him.

Ladies first – his mother must have drummed it into him while he was still a toddler, she decided, as she drank more wine, for which she knew she wouldn’t have to pay.

Jack was always scrounging fivers, tenners, borrowing and never paying back. But Adam wouldn’t let her put her hand into her pocket for anything at all.

He doesn’t do relationships – she kept repeating it. She kept insisting to herself that this was it, that this was all she would be getting, just one lovely, beautiful weekend.

All he had wanted was to make her smile. He’d told her so himself, and now he’d done it – God in heaven, how brilliantly he’d done it, he’d won Olympic gold – he would be moving on.

‘You’re very thoughtful, Cat,’ he said, forking up the last of his tomato pappardelle.

‘On the contrary, my mind’s a blank.’ Cat knew she was blushing like a poppy and hoped he wouldn’t notice. ‘I’m just sitting here and chilling out.’

‘You’re all right, though?’

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said, and smiled at him. ‘I’m full of perfect pasta. I’m sitting in a lovely restaurant with a lovely man.’ Oh God, she thought, a lovely man, that’s the Pinot Grigio talking now. I mustn’t rabbit on like this – he’ll think I’m such a fool. ‘The sun is shining, so I’m warm and comfortable and happy.’

‘Good,’ said Adam. ‘Go on being happy while you can, because it never lasts.’

She realised she was being warned.

So she was surprised when later, after they had spent a lovely afternoon in Florence, after they’d had dinner in Lucca, after they’d made love – she couldn’t bring herself to say had sex, she would never demean what they’d just done by saying they’d had sex – instead of rolling over on his side and going straight to sleep, as Jack would certainly have done, Adam sat up and said they had to talk.

‘What about?’ asked Cat.

‘You and me, of course,’ said Adam.

‘What is there to say?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Cat!’ Adam’s dark eyes narrowed as he frowned. He gave Cat a gentle but insistent little shake. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘You mean tomorrow?’

‘Of course I mean tomorrow, and the next day, and—’

‘Do we have to talk about it now?’ Cat was feeling all blissed out and drowsy. What she really wanted was to curl up next to Adam for their last night together and then to fall asleep.

‘You probably won’t believe this,’ she continued, smothering a yawn, ‘but I’m not a clinger. I’m not a needy person. So you mustn’t worry I’m expecting this weekend to be the start of something. I remember what you said.’

‘What did I say?’

‘How you don’t like doing couples stuff, how you hate going shopping, how your relationships with girls don’t last.’