In Italy for Love

Chapter 22

22

Alex wasn’t sure how much Berengario knew, but whatever he’d seen that morning had been enough for him to step up his interference to excruciating levels. Maddalena was at the mill supervising the pressing, leaving Berengario to throw them together at every chance.

He shooed Davide away whenever he came near Jules – not that it stopped Alex asking her if she’d told his cousin-in-law to call her Jules as well. The twinkle in her eyes when she’d realised he was still jealous had been worth it, especially since it temporarily banished the shadow of caution she’d been wearing in her expression since they were nearly caught holding hands.

Berengario sent them alone to the farthest tree and instructed Alex to hold the ladder for her as she stretched for the high berries. Alex couldn’t quite resist a crooked smile at the view from below.

After pausing at lunchtime for blecs – rustic buckwheat pasta with butter and cheese – they were headed into town to the mill – together, at Berengario’s instruction – with the next load of berries and firm instructions to give Jules a taste of the new oil. Arco was frolicking with Chanel, so Marisa promised to keep an eye on him.

‘I’m not the best tour guide,’ Alex pointed out to Berengario as they closed the tray on the truck in preparation for the drive back to Cividale.

‘That’s certainly true,’ his friend muttered. ‘But for God’s sake you can be a bit more hospitable? She likes you,’ he added out of the side of his mouth.

‘We’re not primary school children,’ Alex responded, annoyed by the complex subtext of truth and obfuscation in the conversation.

‘No?’ Giving Alex another slap on the back of the head, Berengario stomped off.

‘I still like him better than Luca’s mother,’ Jules commented as she fastened her seat belt.

‘Mothers-in-law are always problematic – Italian ones doubly so,’ he said lightly, starting the engine of the old pickup.

‘You know, for all the stupid mistakes I made, there’s one thing I did right: choosing Italian bureaucracy over marriage.’

‘That’s an interesting way to express it.’ Questions flooded his mind, now his self-preservation instincts were in retreat and his curiosity could come to the fore.

‘It seemed the sensible thing at the time – which makes me laugh because moving to another country for a two-month relationship is not sensible, no matter how you look at it. But anyway, I knew I was theoretically eligible for Italian citizenship, so I applied for that instead of getting married like we’d discussed.’

He tried to respond, but choking out ‘ You nearly got married after two months?! ’ didn’t feel like the right thing to say.

‘Urgh, imagine going through a divorce on top of everything right now – it was definitely a close call. I was way too young to get married anyway, regardless of how long we’d been together.’ She glanced at him suddenly. ‘Uh, I don’t mean to imply anything if you got married young.’

He gave an awkward shrug. ‘We were young. Twenty-four.’

‘Bloody hell!’

He didn’t always notice her accent, but in that expression he picked up on the broader vowels than he’d been used to in British English – and her emphatic tone made him smile.

‘But we met when we were teenagers and got together when we were nineteen.’

‘Wow, really? At nineteen I was still getting drunk on pre-mixed vodka drinks.’

He shuddered involuntarily.

‘Yeah, I know. I was not classy at nineteen. I bet you started drinking wine at the table with your parents in a civilised, Italian manner.’

‘We joke that Furlans are alcoholics who started drinking wine at six years old, but at least as teenagers we mix our own rum and coke.’ He glanced sideways to find her gawping at him and gave her a wink.

‘How old are you? With the tired eyes, it’s hard to tell.’ Tired eyes . Strangely, he didn’t mind the observation, especially not in her matter-of-fact tone.

‘Younger than I look. I’m thirty-one.’

‘You lost her before you were even thirty?’

He nodded, checking his blind spot before overtaking a puttering tractor. ‘And you avoided being married and divorced by thirty.’

‘I’m sorry if I’m talking about her too much – if that’s weird.’

He shook his head. ‘As long as you don’t ask how it felt the moment she took her last breath, I’ll manage.’ When he glanced at her this time, it was to find her expression unexpectedly warm.

‘I’m glad there are Italian husbands out there like you,’ she said quietly, playfully, but it still caught him in the chest. ‘I can’t imagine your mother-in-law disapproved of you.’

‘She got used to me after the first couple of years.’

‘So let me get this straight finally: Maddalena is Laura’s aunt,’ she said, ‘and Berengario is her grandfather?’

Alex nodded. ‘Berengario is how Laura and I met. He was my accordion teacher.’

‘Is it difficult now, seeing them so often?’

‘That problem has got better with time,’ he admitted. ‘Laura’s parents moved away after it happened – left everything behind, especially me. I understand that.’

‘That explains why Maddalena made that comment about her sister not coming back for Laura’s jacket. You weren’t tempted to do the same? Run away?’

‘A few times, but I needed home. If I’d left, I would have been pretending it hadn’t happened and I couldn’t allow that either.’

‘I have seen how grumpy you get when you’re pretending.’

‘I’m honestly amazed that you’re still putting up with me.’ She didn’t respond immediately, so he groped for her hand, missed, and ended up squeezing her forearm because that’s all he could reach while concentrating on the road.

‘To be honest,’ she said, her voice husky, ‘I’m kind of hoping to sleep with you again.’

Of the gamut of responses he felt to that statement, the one that won was a deep laugh. ‘That can be arranged.’

‘I like you for your body as well as those sad blue eyes.’

‘What do I say to that? I like you for your body as well? You already know what I think about your eyes.’

He gave her a smile over the centre console and she smiled back and he nearly missed the turning for the olive mill.

‘But I haven’t finished unpacking the truck!’ Jules protested weakly, when Maddalena took her arm in a firm grip and dragged her past the thrumming, chugging machinery to a stainless steel vat. Her host-slash-employer was brimming with energy today, wearing trousers for once, although her habitual apron was still in place.

‘Alex will finish. You need to taste the oil, learn why you have been working hard!’

‘I know why I’ve been working hard: to help you ,’ Jules insisted. ‘It’s not fair to make Alex do all the work.’ He was hefting the crates of green-to-purple olives, with a scattering of leaves, into the sorting machine.

Maddalena raised her voice. ‘Alex will agree with me!’

He glanced up, still with a small smile on his lips. Jules wondered if there was any chance Maddalena hadn’t noticed that something had changed between them. ‘I agree with Madda! This weekend is the most important date on her calendar and you need to understand why.’

She frowned, puzzled. ‘I have tasted olive oil before – almost every day since I’ve lived in Italy. I’ve even tasted your olive oil,’ she pointed out to Maddalena.

Waving a hand dismissively, she said, ‘You’ve tasted last year’s. It’s too old now. You need the bite of the young oil.’

‘I’m really not sure I’ll be able to tell the difference,’ Jules said apologetically, trying not to think of the horribly bitter fresh olive she’d tried. ‘I’m not a connoisseur.’

Maddalena stilled, studying her, and Jules wondered what she saw that was so interesting. ‘Do you think I am? A connoisseur?’

Jules thought of Due Pini, the rusty equipment pushed to one side – and not in a decorative way – the wandering animals and the wild olives that grew whichever way they wanted. The lunches were rustic and hearty and presented with care, but the ingredients were simple and local, not numerous and not, she guessed, very expensive.

The Agriturismo Azienda Agricola Biologica Due Pini was not a place that aimed for exclusive quality. This was Friuli after all, where bitterness was honoured, hard work was prized and there were cold winds and scars of history and self-deprecating jokes. Friulian and epicurean were two words that rarely went together.

‘I suppose not,’ Jules admitted. ‘But why is the finest oil so important to you then?’

‘The taste is an expression of the land. Young oil is unique. I would almost say it’s a different substance to oil that has been bottled one month or more ago. Because of that, it is only in autumn, only in the countryside that you find this taste. If I could preserve it, I would be rich – that’s for certain. But sometimes the best things in life no money can buy – like oil straight from the mill.’

Jules was speechless as she studied her hard-working host. The simple wisdom of Maddalena’s words touched her deeply. The tasting was offered not out of a sense of superiority – as Luca’s mother had tried to educate her palate – but as a gesture of gratefulness and pride in the land, land she had worked too.

‘Here, you need to taste,’ Maddalena said with an approving smile, fetching two small glasses from a shelf.

Hanging over the vat was a steel tube, dribbling thick, green liquid. It was slightly cloudy and looked nothing like the product on the supermarket shelves.

‘You can taste oil like wine, with the nose and eyes first, but our oil is special enough that you can just sip it and you’ll understand.’ She held the squat, bulbous glasses briefly under the flow of oil and handed one to Jules.

‘Will I turn into some kind of superhero if I drink this?’ she joked, but she did rather have the impression that being here had already done her good – even when she tried to take Alex out of the equation.

‘Or a zombie,’ Alex called out with a wink.

She gave him a dry look. ‘I could be even more help on the farm with superhuman strength.’

‘You’ve been super as a human anyway. Now taste the fruits of our hard work,’ Maddalena said, giving her a nudge.

‘All right, all right!’

Maddalena observed her intently and Jules felt Alex’s gaze on her as well, where he’d paused his work to watch. What did they expect to happen? She wasn’t the biggest fan of olive oil, even – or especially – after spending two days with the things falling on her head. She only hoped she didn’t gag after sipping the stuff neat.

She lifted the glass to her lips. As soon as the scent touched her nose, the zesty scent of tomato plants and grass with a nutty, bitter tang, she had the first inkling of what Maddalena had been talking about. She took a big sip.