In Italy for Love

Chapter 33

33

Julia’s last week in Cividale seemed to progress at double speed. Her mum managed to transfer enough money for a flight the following Monday. It didn’t feel right, leaving without Arco, but nothing felt right anyway. Dr Orsino assured her he understood the procedure and would make sure the blood samples and immunisations were sent to the right place at the right time. At least the six-month delay in transporting the dog would give her time to save up for the quarantine and flight costs so she wouldn’t have to borrow anything more from her parents.

After a boisterous discussion over lunch at Due Pini, where Berengario had so thoroughly bad-mouthed Luca that Jules had been tempted to laugh, he’d offered to take on the power of attorney for her and travel to Parma for the sale on her behalf. When she’d hinted that she might ask Alex, the old man had been surprisingly firm, suggesting Alex might not be able to take on the responsibility if the sale took too long.

She was uneasy for a moment, but Berengario smiled and joked that he could see the future – at least as he wanted it to be – and made a throwaway comment about the possibility of Alex going back to his real profession as a draughtsman that made little sense to Jules and even less to Alex, when she told him. But after an appointment with a notary, she was one step closer to tying up all her Italian loose ends.

Aside from practicalities, Jules and Alex avoided speaking about her departure, although she’d come to recognise the sheen in his eye when he was thinking about it. She didn’t want to go over the heartache again and again, but having the important topic completely off limits was a first taste of the complete withdrawal she’d experience when she left.

She wondered if he’d prefer sleeping in separate beds again, but every time she was about to offer, he grabbed her and held on.

The weekend was the Fiera di San Martino, the Saint Martin’s Day fair. All of the local farms and businesses set up stalls in the town during the day and the vineyards were open to visitors into the evening. Jules and Davide ran Maddalena’s stall, selling wine and olive oil and jars of preserves.

Arco was with Alex at the bike shop to get used to his new routine and Jules missed him already, although she had Fritz to contend with. The big black dog was tied up behind the stall, occasionally pulling at his lead and startling customers.

‘You’re really going home then?’ Davide asked during a lull on Saturday morning. ‘Nonno was convinced you were the one to drag Alex back to life.’

‘Not everything Berengario sees actually comes to pass,’ she answered carefully.

Davide’s smile slipped and she waited for him to say whatever was on the tip of his tongue. ‘Is he okay? Alex?’

‘Yes,’ she replied immediately. ‘You don’t need to worry – none of you do. He doesn’t need to be dragged. He’s muddling through himself. Maybe all he needs is a friend.’

‘I haven’t always been the greatest friend to him. Laura was the favoured cousin – always so successful, married and settled young with a person everyone loved. Sometimes I think he’s a better son to Mamma than I am – and Laura was a better daughter.’

Jules couldn’t help it. She knew it was insensitive, but she laughed at him, pressing the backs of her fingers to her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle it. ‘I’m sorry, Davide, but that’s not how family works – especially not your family. Alex just needs them more than you do.’

He gave her a perplexed look, but Jules turned away, her own observation echoing in her mind.

‘You know Berengario and Maddalena would do anything for you,’ she continued. ‘Even Alex’s gruff neighbours who never even asked my name have offered help when needed.’

Davide smiled. ‘And watched your every move, frowning and judging, no?’

‘That too.’ At least she was leaving Italy with a better understanding of the trade-offs of community. It had taken the lowest moment of her life to discover that she’d never be alone if she had work to do.

On Saturday night, the restaurant at Due Pini was packed with locals and visitors for the open vineyard event. Jules waited tables with Alina, getting by with her broken Italian and the goodwill of the customers.

A fire roared and Alex sat squashed in a far corner playing the shiny red Fantini accordion which he’d managed to fix – moving the bellows gently, so the diners could still hear each other speak. As the evening wore on, a small group of guests gathered around him to sing old songs in tipsy voices.

When the last guests finally trudged off in the early hours of the morning, Jules pulled up a chair with the others around the fogolar and accepted the little glass of grappa that Maddalena poured for her.

‘I believe congratulations are in order,’ Maddalena said quietly, once they were all seated by the fire: Maddalena and Berengario, Alex, Elena, Davide and the two dogs.

Jules glanced up in confusion. ‘Congratulations?’ On leaving? Or on cracking open Alex’s shell a little for a few weeks?

‘It’s past midnight. Happy birthday!’

‘Ohhhh, thanks,’ she said, accepting kisses on the cheek. ‘How did you know?’

‘Alex told us,’ she explained.

Jules looked across the fire to see Alex’s eyes on her, but he glanced away after giving her a brief smile.

‘Here.’ Maddalena handed over a small parcel wrapped in butcher’s paper. ‘I hope you can fit it in your luggage.’

Inside, she found a ceramic vase painted with swirling flowers in yellows, reds and purples. The words ‘Un sal?t dal Fri?l’ were painted below the neck in sharp lettering. Greetings from Friuli . It was a kind gift, but tears pricked her eyes. All she’d have when she went home was this souvenir vase.

‘Jules, dear!’ Maddalena said in alarm.

‘Sorry, I—’ She waved at her face to stem the tears. ‘Thank you. It’s so thoughtful.’

As the conversation moved on around them, Maddalena drew closer and clutched her hand. All the quiet hours Jules had spent with this woman seemed suddenly precious. There was no effusive emotion, only steady friendship.

‘I’m going to miss this place,’ she said – entirely inadequately.

‘This place will miss you,’ Maddalena replied. ‘I’m only sorry – about Alex.’

Jules shook her head. ‘You don’t have to be sorry about Alex.’ Maddalena’s eyes clouded in an expression Jules now recognised. ‘I have no regrets.’

‘But he will – one day.’

Jules choked. ‘Well that’s his — I can’t?—’

Maddalena sighed. ‘I know. As much as I’d like to, I can’t lock you both in a room until you find a way to be together.’

Jules tried not to let those words soak through her skin: find a way to be together . ‘Or force him to share his house with me, push us together during the harvest and then strand us in an isolated village,’ she joked, laughing to cover the fresh urge to cry. ‘Berengario did his best and it wasn’t enough. I can’t change Alex’s mind and if I could, it wouldn’t be right. I respect him too much.’

Silence stretched between them for so long that Jules glanced warily at her host.

‘But if he did change his mind?’

Jules shook her head vehemently. ‘Maddalena,’ she warned, ‘it’s no good even thinking about that, no matter what I feel—’ She cut herself off before she said too much, although the look in her friend’s eye suggested it was too late.

‘What you feel,’ Maddalena repeated softly.

Jules squeezed her eyes shut. ‘It’ll pass,’ she insisted. It had to.

As soon as Alex led Jules into the bar by the old Roman baths on Sunday night, he knew it had been a bad idea. If the curious looks from Salvino from the first night had made him uncomfortable, he discovered how much worse it was to have Berengario’s friend watching him with wary disapproval, as though it were his fault that she was leaving.

‘How was your birthday?’ he asked after they’d ordered their drinks – beer for him and a glass of lightly sparkling Ribolla Gialla for Jules, accompanied by a tight smile at the bittersweet reminder.

‘Busy,’ she said, smoothing her hair back self-consciously. ‘But that’s good. I wouldn’t have wanted to be lying around moping at h—’ She swallowed. ‘At your place,’ she finished, her expression wobbly. ‘I still have to pack.’

He felt the usual twinge at the return of their conversation to superficial topics, like turning back the clock to the time he’d fought this intimacy with everything inside him. Perplexed, he realised that in this case, he didn’t want to turn back the clock – stop it, perhaps, but not turn it back.

‘We don’t have to stay long. I just wanted to take you out for your birthday.’

‘I appreciate it.’

He couldn’t think of a thing to say. His chest was too heavy for banter and his mind was suffering under the weight of so many things he couldn’t express.

‘I still can’t believe your nearest major airport is Munich, not Rome,’ she said stiltedly. ‘Although, you know, I came here because it was as far from Italy as I could get without leaving Italy.’ Her laugh was strained. ‘But it is beautiful here. I’m glad I’m not leaving just with memories of Luca and how everything went wrong.’

‘You found your own way through and it worked out well for us, anyway – Berengario and Maddalena and… me.’ When he met her gaze, her eyes were dark and wary and he had to look away again. He felt, rather than understood, that he was on the very edge of hurting her and he wasn’t sure how to stop himself going over. She wasn’t supposed to get hurt.

But as the stiff conversation progressed, he became increasingly panicked that there was still time for their relationship to go wrong, even as his thoughts scrambled trying to avoid it.

‘I, ehm, I got you a birthday present, but it’s not much – sorry. I tried to think of something you’d like. And don’t take it as a suggestion that you can’t cook, it’s just something that reminded me of all the time we spent in the kitchen together and maybe you…’ He realised he was babbling.

‘If it’s a cookbook, I’ll love it,’ she said softly. ‘For the reminder, and not because I’ll ever manage to cook any of the dishes properly. You never really taught me anything…’

‘I enjoyed cooking for you.’

He could only say the wrong thing, it seemed, as her eyes were shining and she frowned deeply. ‘Are you going to give it to me?’

‘Ah.’ He rummaged belatedly in his rucksack and handed her the poorly wrapped book, feeling the inadequacy keenly.

She ripped the paper off to reveal the beautifully bound hardback from the antiques market, smoothing her palm over the jacket with its dated photos of gubana and sweet gnocchi stuffed with plums.

‘It’s great.’

He could tell it wasn’t – or that something was wrong, anyway.

‘Alex,’ she began, her expression pained, ‘can we go? I don’t think I want an… audience tonight.’

‘Of course.’ He shot to his feet, hastily thrusting some money at Salvino on their way out.

She was silent as they walked the narrow lanes under the wooden eaves of the old town. His thoughts returned to the first night they’d walked like this together. After the five weeks that had passed and everything they’d shared, he felt as though they were back at the beginning.

But this was supposed to be the end.

Passing under a wrought-iron street lamp attached to the crooked wall of a house, he noticed her cheeks sparkling with tears and panic shot through him again. When they passed the persimmon tree – now completely bare – and finally closed the door behind them, she sank into him, bowing her head and pressing her face into his chest.

Wrapping his arms around her, he kissed her hair, her forehead, her cheek – and then, when she lifted her head, her mouth. This much still made sense.

It took him a long time to fall asleep that night, startling awake again every time he began to drop off, his hand fumbling for her, as though she’d just dissolve without saying goodbye. He heard his own heartbeat loudly in his ears and the old panic seized him.

He felt adrift – again – examining his choices obsessively and cursing that life didn’t come with an instruction book. For a moment, he was gripped with fear that he’d spiral, he might find himself back in the dark places he’d been. But as he waited, forcing himself to breathe – in and out, as slowly as he could – there was no pull down into despair. Jules snuffled softly next to him, the faint scent of her herbal shampoo reaching his nostrils.

She was very much alive. She was just leaving. His heart rate sped up suddenly and he grew restless. Trying not to disturb her, he held himself rigid on his side of the bed, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the blurry silhouette an arm’s length away and she stirred enough that he worried she could sense his gaze.

After a frustrated hour of shifting under the covers as gently as he could, he sighed, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling as he accepted what he was going to do. He rolled over and slung an arm heavily over her, tucking himself tightly against her. He shouldn’t use her as a teddy bear, but she could catch up on sleep another night.

He swept her hair aside so it wasn’t in his face and nuzzled her gently, pressing a kiss beneath her ear. She sucked in a sleepy breath and stretched, tipping her head forward as though inviting another kiss. He couldn’t resist giving it to her and she snuggled back against him.

Then she opened her mouth and, in a tone that was all drowsiness, more asleep than awake, she murmured words that most definitely sounded like ‘Love you.’

He froze, his blood rushing as he waited for her to roll over and look at him, expecting a reaction – waited to see what his reaction would be. But with a soft exhale, her breathing returned to normal and she slept on. Alex slowly relaxed his body, his heart still beating an absurd rhythm.

Was that what she really felt? Was that even possible, when he was half a ghost and she was so alive it hurt? But it would hurt just as much – more – when she was gone, even though she wouldn’t be as gone as Laura was. Resting his forehead against the back of her head, he held on tight, confused but knowing he had to let her go and make her own life instead of trapping her in his.

Even if this was love, she wouldn’t stay for him and he couldn’t let her.