In Italy for Love

Chapter 23

23

Jules coughed and spluttered and her hand flew to her chest as peppery spice hit the back of her throat. ‘Phew! Holy hell!’ she muttered, peering into the glass. The smooth, elastic texture of the oil lingered in her mouth with an aftertaste that was almost like… sour apples?

Alex appeared at her side to give her a hearty thump on her back, his deep laughter ringing in her ears.

‘Hey! Careful! I’ll spill it!’ She brandished her glass at him, still licking her lips as the fruity finish and the spice mixed on her tongue. Peering at the innocuous-looking liquid, she marvelled that Maddalena had not been exaggerating. The fresh oil was like nothing she’d ever tasted.

‘Well?’ her host prompted.

Before she answered, she took another sip. Prepared for the flames and the bitterness this time, she picked up the intensely savoury flavour on the front of her tongue – as comforting as a fire in the kitchen stove.

‘I could almost drink this.’ She eyed Maddalena and Alex. ‘But you could have warned me about the spice.’

‘I think we did,’ Alex pointed out.

‘It packs a punch,’ she said emphatically.

‘But you have a taste for it,’ Maddalena pointed out.

Taking another sip, letting the kick of spice warm her from the inside, she had to agree. ‘It appears I do.’

That evening as the sun set behind the hills terraced with vineyards, the tired, dusty group of olive pickers brushed the leaves out of their hair and gathered in front of the farmhouse to grill steak and fish and drink the dry white Friulano wine that the locals still called tocai.

Jules and Alex had brought a metal flask of fresh oil back from the mill that afternoon, which was drizzled liberally on bread toasted on the grill.

‘To your first harvest,’ Alex said, tapping his tumbler of wine against hers as they perched on the wooden rails of a broken fence.

She sipped the wine, watching the distant horizon flare with colour, as pink as the farmhouse. ‘My first? How many more will there be?’

He followed her gaze, his smile slipping. ‘The wrong words, I suppose. For me, it’s something to look forward to every year, a ritual. Something that keeps you going when you’re not sure how.’

Jules didn’t know what to say, but she was beginning to understand how deeply – how completely – the loss of Laura had reshaped his life. She was glad he’d had Berengario and Maddalena, even if the old man was nosy and interfering – and a menace with the wine, constantly refilling their glasses.

Maddalena returned from the mill after dark and the helpers who didn’t trudge home in exhaustion moved inside to the fire. She was efficient and down-to-earth as always, but Jules imagined she must be ready to drop after the weeks of preparations.

Alex had found himself drawn into a conversation about music, so Jules drifted to where Maddalena was stoking the fire on the big hearth.

‘Can I help with anything?’

‘Ah, bless you, dear,’ her host said with a warm smile. ‘But you go enjoy yourself.’

‘I don’t know anyone and I don’t speak Italian well enough to hold a long conversation – and certainly not in Furlan.’ She didn’t want any more flashbacks to the awkward meals with Luca and his friends when the conversation had swirled around her until she’d felt slow and stupid.

‘Go and talk to Alex, then. He smiles more with you.’

Jules swallowed, trying to keep her game face on. She wouldn’t cause any trouble for Alex. ‘He seems happy right now,’ she pointed out.

As if on cue, the group of men he was sitting with broke into laughter and raised their glasses. Alex was the only one without any grey hair. The barman from their first date was in the group and Jules was forced to think of Alex’s nervousness that night in a different light. Everyone was a friend and a neighbour and they all knew he’d lost his wife in tragic circumstances and struggled to get past it.

Berengario declared something with a slap on the table and then started singing in a rowdy voice. The other men joined in with the jaunty song that seemed to match the felt hats that some of them wore.

Jules expected a kind of landlubbing sea shanty, but the song soon became an a cappella masterpiece in four-part harmony and she stared, her jaw dropping when Alex joined in with a sturdy bass part. They knew all the words by heart; their voices blended until the room seemed to be transported back in time.

After holding the last note, a nod from Berengario was enough for the song to dissolve into cheering and lifted hats – and more wine sloshed into tumblers. The rest of the pickers applauded and raised their glasses.

Maddalena smiled indulgently. ‘Papà was only in the army for two years, but he’s stayed an Alpino at heart all his life.’

‘That was an old army song?’

She nodded. ‘He directs the local Coro Alpino, the charity choir for veterans and supporters – and he’s made Alex come along since he was a teenager, the poor boy.’

‘It’s good that he’s had you two. Where are his own parents?’

‘It was always just his mum when he was growing up and she moved to Verona when he and Laura got married. She has a new partner. Alex would never let her come back and look after him, but I keep her updated.’ Maddalena gave Jules a conspiratorial smile.

Jules was faintly disturbed that those updates might have included her. Surely not. She hadn’t been here long and would be gone again soon – not worth a news report in Alex’s life.

‘I think,’ Maddalena began again, studying the table of old men – and Alex, ‘he might have had a little too much to drink.’

He blinked lazily and leaned on his hand, his cheek bunched and his lips pouting. When the older men broke out in laughter again, he grinned sluggishly, but he looked ready to melt into the floor.

‘He must have been so tired,’ Jules commented.

‘He still sleeps badly?’ Maddalena asked, her eyes suddenly as haunted as Alex’s. ‘I thought that had improved. It hasn’t improved since you moved in?’

Jules flushed and dropped her gaze, her stomach swimming. ‘We’re not… Really, it’s not helpful for anyone to think I’m going to make his life better or make up for the loss of Laura. I’m here to work for a couple of weeks, not to cure his insomnia.’

Maddalena squeezed her arm and when Jules looked up, the older woman’s expression was grave and contrite. ‘You’re right, of course. You need to follow your own path and he believes his is set. But I can see he enjoys your company and, well, I can’t stop that small sign from giving me hope.’

‘I don’t want to disappoint you, if you get your hopes up on my account. To be honest, I don’t think he wants to improve and there’s nothing I can do about that.’

‘It’s okay,’ Maddalena assured Jules with a firm nod. ‘And don’t worry about disappointing me. I’m lucky you’re here! I don’t know what I would have done without you.’

Jules quietly fell apart at those words, holding her head up only out of stubbornness. Despite her poor Italian, her tired emotions and her plans to leave in a hurry, she felt lucky to be where she was too.

At the table on the far side of the room, Alex’s eyes drooped and he pitched forward, before catching himself and propping himself up on the table with one big hand that was covered in scratches from the harvest. Berengario slung an arm around him, disguising what was obvious to Jules as concern in boisterous affection. He said something gruff that made the others laugh and squeezed Alex to him.

Jules turned briefly to Maddalena. ‘I’d better take him home. I managed to avoid the worst of Berengario’s refills, so I’m okay to drive.’

Alex managed to stand and trail Jules to the door without stumbling, but she snaked an arm around him as soon as they were out of sight of the others, glad Arco bounded straight for the car rather than tearing off into the darkness. Alex swayed a little, but thankfully remained upright as far as the Fiat, since there was no way Jules could support his weight.

‘In you go,’ she said with a faint smile after opening the passenger door. Steadying him with both arms around his waist, she helped him drop into the seat, chuckling when she nearly tumbled into his lap in the process. ‘This car is not big enough for this,’ she mumbled.

His hand came up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and settling on her cheek. Jules froze, her face inches from his. ‘The car is big enough for this ,’ he said with a sigh, resting his forehead against her jaw. ‘Jules,’ he murmured, his voice rumbly. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Shh,’ she said, trying to give him a soothing stroke that wasn’t too intimate. But the instant her fingertips found his rough cheek, she was thinking of the kisses in the car last night – the kisses by the city wall. ‘You don’t have to apologise.’

‘I wanted to spend time with you tonight. But I had too much wine,’ he said, blinking as he made an attempt to speak seriously, only to be undermined by his slurred speech.

‘It’s okay,’ she assured him. She drew back slowly, patting his cheek as she straightened and then closed the passenger door. Arco jumped into his spot in the footwell in the back.

When she came around to the driver’s side and plonked herself into the seat, Alex said, ‘It’s not okay.’ This time his voice was steady. ‘I’m scared of… anything with you. Maybe I got drunk on purpose.’

Her chest tightened and she ignored everything – his words, her emotions – while she fastened her seat belt and started the car. ‘At least you’re honest,’ she muttered.

‘I haven’t slept with anyone twice since Laura. I haven’t wanted to.’

‘I get it,’ she said softly as she started the engine and eased the car out of its spot.

‘No,’ he said, shaking his head floppily against the seat. ‘I haven’t wanted anyone except her. But I want you.’

Goosebumps whooshed up her chest and her foot on the accelerator faltered. Gulping, she kept her gaze firmly on the road ahead. ‘It’s nice to know we were that good together,’ she joked.

His deep sigh suggested he hadn’t been fooled by her tone. ‘If you weren’t leaving…’

Her heart seized up again. ‘Don’t even go there,’ she ordered in a panic. ‘I don’t live here and I can’t live here, especially not with you.’

He was silent and she glanced over to find his eyes closed, but his jaw moved and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. ‘Because Luca made you feel inadequate.’

‘Don’t make it sound so trivial. I literally have nothing because of him and the choices I made in that relationship. It’s a risk I can’t take again.’

‘Especially not for me,’ he mumbled with a shaky nod.

She opened her mouth to correct his misconception, to tell him she was worried he was the only one who could make her doubt her convictions, even a little, but then she realised he was probably talking about Laura and how much he still longed for her.

In that regard, he was right. She couldn’t take a risk with her life – again – for someone who wasn’t ready to commit to someone new.

Reaching the outskirts of Cividale, she slowed the car, pulling to a stop at the lights before the Ponte del Diavolo to allow the oncoming traffic over the narrow bridge first. The bell-tower of the cathedral was illuminated gold against the navy sky. The view of buildings clinging to the edge of the ravine was a sight that struck her with familiarity – and the little square where she’d first met Alex seemed to call to her gaze as the car idled and she waited for her turn to cross.

After a few tight corners in the narrow streets of the old town, she was peering up at the low archway and pulling the car carefully into its parking space by the unkempt gardens at the back of the Alex’s building. The spindly plants were browning off and wilting as the nights grew colder, the last few green tomatoes never to ripen.

Alex wasn’t quite asleep when she opened the passenger door. Gripping the roof of the Fiat, he hauled himself upright with a groan. Letting Arco out and locking the car, she wrapped her arm around Alex’s waist once more to shepherd him to the apartment door.

‘What I meant before…’

She wanted to stop him talking, but she didn’t have the heart to. Instead, she just cocked her head and waited.

‘…about you leaving. I would feel worse if you weren’t leaving. I’d be upset with myself for getting involved with you when Laura came first. At least this way, you’ll walk away from me. You deserve first love with a whole heart. But I just think sometimes that even I could love you better than Luca did. It’s not fair.’

‘Oh shit,’ she whispered to herself as her eyes stung with tears. Pressing the ball of her hand to her forehead to stem the urge to cry, her mind raced. ‘Of course you could,’ she said tightly. ‘But you won’t. You’re too stubborn for that.’

‘And you’re too stubborn to let me.’ He pressed a kiss to her hair and she was worried about her own balance.

‘And so, here we are,’ she said softly. ‘Not lovers, not friends – not anything. Future memories.’

‘Good ones?’ he asked, peering at her from under raised eyebrows.

She gave him a teasing shove. ‘Yes, good ones.’ The best ones from all of Italy .

As she dropped him off at his bedroom door, ignoring the lingering look he gave her as he propped himself against the doorframe, she knew she was just as afraid as he was.

Alessandro Mattelig, you would break my heart if I gave you the chance.