In Italy for Love

Chapter 14

14

Jules only worked half a day the following Saturday. Maddalena sent her home early, which Jules appreciated. The restaurant was open Thursday to Saturday for lunch and after helping out two days in a row, she decided she preferred the place without the pressure of impatient customers who didn’t appreciate the effort that went into growing and preparing their food.

The hard work usually kept her mind off the limbo she’d found herself in, but that day her insufficient Italian had made it difficult to help the waitress, and the huffing of the customers as she painstakingly tried to communicate only reminded her again of Luca’s lack of patience with her.

The waitress, Alina – a teen with dyed black hair and a ring in her lip – offered Jules and Arco a lift back into Cividale in her old Fiat Panda. The girl seemed to be in a hurry, so Jules told her to drop her off on the main road and she dawdled along the footpath towards home, thinking guiltily that Arco hadn’t had a proper walk that day, since she’d been busy indoors.

It had been a week full of blue skies over the Friulian plain, leading to frosty mornings and bright afternoons. The yellows in the hills seemed to shimmer with a hint of red. Something about the gentle slopes and thick woods called to her, as though from another life.

As she always did when she crossed the bridge, she stopped to gaze at the river and the grey stone peaks in the distance. In the lovely weather, she almost felt like lazing on the white stones down in the ravine as the emerald water rushed past. She had a whole camera roll of photos of this one spot, but every time, she wanted to take another, to capture something she might have missed.

The view also reminded her she hadn’t called her family since that first day in Cividale, so she paused to chat briefly to her mum, who was about to go to sleep.

Just after she crossed the bridge, the sound of a deep voice, speaking with rare animation, made her freeze, pulling Arco’s lead short. Down a side street was a shop with a row of bikes lined up outside – where Alex was talking to a customer, a smile on his face.

Dropping into a crouch, he inspected the bike the customer held steady, producing a tool and making some kind of adjustment as he continued to converse. She didn’t understand much of the clipped dialect, but that smile took her right back to the first night, when he’d barely been able to stop talking.

After spending a week excusing his grumpiness, she was miffed to see him smiling naturally. Maybe she’d been wrong about him, as she’d been wrong about Luca, and he’d just spared her feelings when he’d told her she wasn’t a burden.

Even more discouraging was the prick of longing she felt as she watched his blue eyes light up and his soft lips, framed by his trimmed beard, curving for the customer. Turning away with a huff, she marched blindly down the opposite side street, the poke of the cobbles into the soles of her feet now familiar.

Past the gates of the old monastery and under ancient stone archways, she reached the road along the river – the place where she’d stupidly asked for a goodbye kiss – and continued furiously, without even stopping to admire the water. She didn’t pause until she reached a narrow street of tiny, well-kept terraces with stone windowsills and brown shutters. Some had small gardens perched on the rocks over the river, many with the now-familiar silver leaves of an olive tree or two.

She began to calm down just as Arco grew suddenly boisterous. He barked and pulled and a moment later, a woman appeared, walking an impossibly white poodle – a series of fluffy clouds joined together, with a dog under all that fur somewhere.

Jules stammered some poor Italian, asking permission for Arco to approach the other dog several moments too late. Her cheeky pet had already stuck his nose under the poodle and was sniffing rudely. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled in English.

But the other woman smiled. ‘It’s okay. Is that… Arco? And are you Julia?’

Her gaze snapped up, taking in the woman for the first time. She was slim and slight, with curly brown hair that looked effortlessly stylish – but probably required about as much grooming as the dog – and a cropped jacket. She had a belt around her waist with a pouch of dog treats and a loop to attach a lead, which Jules noted as something useful for farm work when she couldn’t let Arco run free.

‘How do you know who I am?’ Jules asked.

‘It’s a small town. I’m Marisa. I own the dog salon near Alex’s house.’

‘Ohhh,’ she said, unable to stifle a smile. ‘Your dog is a wonderful advertisement for your business.’

‘I watch a lot of TV while I groom Chanel,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘Arco is a Lagotto? Or a mix?’

‘He’s a Lagotto. I might need to make an appointment with you in a few weeks—’ If I’m still here . ‘He’ll need a trim.’

‘I’ll give you my card and in the meantime, if you need anything, give me a call. Or if you want to go for a walk – or a drink.’

‘A tajùt?’ Jules suggested with a smile, before remembering where she’d learned that word and heat pooled in her cheeks. She wasn’t sure she’d take the stylish woman up on her offer, not when she spent her days getting dirty on an organic farm and she’d never understood much about fashion – at least that’s what Luca had said and her threadbare wardrobe certainly suggested he was right.

‘Esatto,’ Marisa said with an approving nod. ‘Give me a call.’

As Marisa was about to continue on her way, Jules asked, ‘I was thinking of walking in the forest, but there are no trails marked on the map on my phone. Do you know a route I can take?’

‘There are lots of paths in the hills. Maybe you need an app for hiking?’

When Jules downloaded a different app, the blank space on the map suddenly became criss-crossing trails – and the promise of a long walk to clear her head.

‘These ways are also used by mountain bikers, so keep Arco on the leash.’

After saying goodbye to Marisa, Jules took a deep breath and headed out of town. The path was steeper than she’d expected and she was puffing and almost regretted her decision, but a sudden glimpse of the plain and the distant, sparkling sea caught her interest and she kept climbing in earnest.

The speckled sunlight under the yellow leaves glowed warm, like breathing out before the cold of night, and she was struck by the notion that these few weeks of spectacular autumn were a gift, a cosy period of rest and plenty before the onset of winter.

In that reflective state, she stepped on something small and hard that made her thankful again for Davide’s sturdy boots. Peering down, she found a spiky case, split open to reveal the polished curve of a rich, brown chestnut.

She couldn’t help thinking it was very close to the colour of her eyes.

Reaching for it, she discovered the spikes were not joking and gasped at the painful prick, grimacing when she saw she’d drawn blood. But her curiosity was stronger and she tried again more carefully, tugging the sides of the case apart to reveal two shiny little nuts. They felt so smooth and gratifying in her hand that she kept them, twirling them along her palm like stress balls, as she wandered behind Arco under the canopy of trees.

It wasn’t long until she saw another little pouch. Tucking the first nuts into her pocket, she opened the next one, still pricking her finger, but not as badly as the first time. The next one she found was rotten, but around a corner, the path was suddenly strewn with cases – hundreds of them.

Remembering Alex’s comment about being able to live on them for two months of the year, she set to work. Within twenty minutes, her pockets were sagging, her fingertips were raw and she’d trained her eyes to seek out the freshest-looking cases.

Straightening, she had to press a hand to her aching back and she realised she’d been doggedly collecting on her haunches for a few minutes too long. Even after she told herself to stop, she looked longingly at each spiky little package she passed and she couldn’t resist opening a few that looked particularly plump. But she kept walking, only pausing occasionally to forage a few more.

By the time she emerged from the forest into golden vineyards and sweeping views of the plain before her, a looming chain of mountains to the west, the sun cast low rays over the landscape and her stomach was rumbling, despite the hearty meal at the restaurant at lunchtime. Even Arco seemed worn out.

But the walk had done her good. The forest had shared its bounty with her – and its autumn beauty – and it didn’t matter so much any more what Luca had thought of her, or how bad her Italian was, and what she was going to do with her life when she left this place.

She felt silly when she arrived back at the door of Alex’s house with pockets like a squirrel’s cheeks. She didn’t even know what to do with the chestnuts, since she did at least know they had to be cooked before eating them. Did people even collect the wild ones, or were they too dirty or poor quality?

Foraging was not something she’d ever done. She’d never known the right places in Parma and she’d only ever learned in Australia that anything she collected might be poisonous. Oh well, there was no way she’d just bin her forest treasure, even if she had to work out how to make a fire and roast them herself.

With that conviction, she turned the key in the lock and stomped through the door. Alex emerged from the kitchen immediately, his brow furrowed.

‘Where have you been?’

‘Hello to you too.’

Alex slowly blew out the breath he’d been holding and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He’d been worried sick and she looked bright and fresh and rosy with her hair coming out of its short ponytail and her eyes… It was best not to look at her eyes right now.

‘Sorry, I was cooking and then I didn’t know when you’d get back.’ He scratched the back of his neck. ‘I called Maddalena and she said you left after lunch.’ He’d started worrying in earnest when the first hints of dusk tinged the sky outside the window.

He’d pictured Alina’s car flipped and twisted, ambulances, police and… hospital beds.

‘I didn’t realise I needed to tell you when I’d be home.’

‘You don’t,’ he snapped, trying to clear his head now he could see she was clearly fine. ‘I hope you weren’t staying out because of me.’

‘I hope you weren’t staying out in the evenings all last week because of me ,’ she responded.

‘Of course not,’ he said gruffly as she shrugged out of the jacket and placed it on the hook.

‘It wasn’t anything to do with you. I was exploring the forest.’

He hadn’t expected that. ‘The… Did you get lost?’

‘I am capable of reading a map,’ she grumbled.

‘I wasn’t suggesting you can’t,’ he said with a tight sigh.

‘It was just a long walk.’

There was something she wasn’t saying and the strain between them frustrated him. It was growing unbearable, this housemate arrangement where so many topics were off limits – and so many feelings.

‘Come and eat, then.’

She looked about to protest – as usual – but her gaze slid to the jacket and a small smile touched her lips. ‘I actually brought something home to contribute to the household.’ The smile grew wider, her lips pressed together and he was charmed all over again, flummoxed by how easily he fell under a spell she didn’t know she was casting.

Rubbing his chin in chagrin, he asked, ‘Contribute? Did you go to the greengrocer? The market! Did you go to the market this morning?’

‘I should do that one time, but no. I, uh…’ Biting her lip, she dug into one of the pockets and produced a handful of chestnuts. Colour spotted her cheeks. ‘There are quite a lot of them. I don’t really know what to do with them.’

Struggling against an amused smile, he said, ‘You’d better bring them into the kitchen then.’

There were indeed a lot of nuts. ‘This must have taken you a while,’ he commented mildly, running a few under the tap and then fetching the paring knife to score them.

‘Once I started, I couldn’t stop,’ she explained, watching him cut a cross into the skins with interest.

‘I know the feeling.’

She turned to him in surprise. ‘You do?’

‘It’s an instinct perhaps. And chestnuts are soul food.’

‘Soul food,’ she repeated softly. ‘Definitely.’ He got the impression she’d been thinking about her ex again. He would never actually punch someone, but joking about it was certainly one way to release the frustration he felt when she beat herself up about the relationship.

She turned on the tap to wash her hands and he frowned, grasping her wrist. ‘You didn’t wear gloves!’ He inspected the raw skin of her fingertips, dotted with tiny puncture marks. ‘Let me check that none of the spines broke off. It can get infected if you’re unlucky.’

Her gulp was audible as he swept his thumb carefully over each finger, wishing there was more he could do to ease the discomfort she must be feeling.

‘I’ll get you some salve after dinner, although it will be difficult on your fingertips.’ He glanced up to find her watching him, her eyes wide and wary. He blinked and then looked away in a hurry, placing her hand gently on the table.

In the silence that followed, where he wondered whether he should apologise for being short with her when she got home, her stomach rumbled loudly enough for Arco to lift his tired head where he was stretched out in front of the stove.

‘Thank you for cooking,’ she said softly.

‘Thank you for eating,’ he said in reply, his expression slipping when he realised how strange that sounded. ‘I mean, let’s eat. I’ll put a few of these in water and we can roast them after dinner.’

‘Really?’

He eyed her as he fetched a jug and filled it with water. ‘Yes. Did you want to hang them on the wall like a trophy?’

‘No, of course not!’ She gave him a chiding nudge. ‘But I didn’t expect I’d actually done something right in Italy.’

He dropped the handful of nuts into the water with a loud plop and leaned heavily on the bench, pausing before turning to her forcefully. ‘ What? ’