‘You don’t have toknowabout it. You just have to taste it – at least, that’s the way it works around here. And Siore Cudrig across the courtyard hangs her washing in her dressing gown with curlers in.’
‘While you kiss strange half-naked women in your kitchen with the neighbours catching glimpses,’ she teased. But she continued before he could blush. ‘I didn’t even think to wait until I had gloves to collect chestnuts.’
‘You didn’t have any with you. I’m impressed you managed to bring so many. You went into the forest and you came back with food. You’re turning into a real Furlane.’
As he’d hoped, she snorted a laugh at that. ‘I spend enough time with my hands in the Friulian soil. Maybe some of it is rubbing off on me. But it’s Furlan-enot Furlan-a? The female form of Friulian, right?’
He nodded. ‘Furlane. It’s different from Italian.’
‘You’ve made that abundantly clear,’ she said with a dry smile.
‘Berengario thinks you can do no wrong and Maddalena might actually have time to sit down for once because of you.’
‘Yes, well, I didn’t do very well helping out at the restaurant today. The farm work is better. I don’t know whether things arereally different here in Friuli or whether the expectations are just different. I suppose it’s not very challenging work.’
‘What do you mean? I’ve seen you this week. You’ve been ready to drop dead every evening. How is that not challenging?’
‘You barely saw me all week! The instant I came home, you had to rush off somewhere – which was very suspicious! But you know what I mean. I’d hate for my ex to see me, now, confirming all his thoughts about how incompetent I am. He probably wishes he’d given our relationship a merciful death sooner.’
Alex choked, the shot of panic at her choice of words taking him by surprise. He set his fork down with a shaking hand and gripped the edge of the table.
‘Are you okay?’
He nodded, willing that to be the case before she asked more questions. Damn it! He’d been enjoying the conversation and lulled himself into a false sense of security, but he didn’t have emotional security – not any more.
She sighed deeply, making him look up and distracting him from the ache. ‘Do you have an accordion to urgently tune?’
‘Hmm?’
‘You rarely last this long in a conversation with me.’
He stood suddenly, feeling trapped. ‘I’ll put the chestnuts in the fire.’ Telling himself firmly to pull himself together before he made her feel even worse, he fetched the wine out of the fridge to refill her glass. But when he turned back, he found her halfway to the sink, dinner plate in hand. ‘Sit down!’ he said – again, too harshly. ‘I mean, wait for the chestnuts. And have some more wine if you want.’
‘I should be contributing to the wine budget, if we’re real housemates.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘I don’t want to rely on you.’
He looked up from pouring wine to find her stubborn jaw set. He really liked that jaw. ‘You’re not relying on me,’ he insisted. ‘Or rather, we all rely on one another.’
‘I didn’t mean to suggest that Maddalena and Berengario did basic work, by the way. I can see how complicated it is to run that place. I was only talking about myself. I studied International Relations at university – feels like a long time ago, now. I was just going travelling for a few years and then I was going to go back and do a Master’s or join a graduate programme or something, but…’ Her sentence trailed off.
‘How old were you when you left Australia?’ He busied himself arranging the wet chestnuts in a cast-iron pan and placing it carefully on the coals of the little fire in the stove.
‘I was twenty-four,’ she answered. ‘I’d just turned twenty-five when I moved here. At first, I was certain I’d perfect my Italian in six months and apply to the University of Parma, and in five years I’d work for the European Commission or something.’ Her laugh was bleak.
‘Why didn’t it work out like that?’ he asked carefully.
‘It was never going to work out like that. I was an idiot for thinking it would. I never perfected my Italian, even in three years.’
‘Did he help you?’
Her hesitation vexed him even further. ‘Yes, he did,’ she began, but she didn’t sound convinced. ‘He had to. You don’t understand what it’s like to be completely dependent on someone else. He had to come with me to every official appointment, all the bureaucracy, the tax, healthcare, business permits – everything. I didn’t understand enough Italian and when some words started making sense, I didn’t know how “things worked”. Every time I filled out a form, I did it wrong somehow. I was different and I couldn’t communicate with his friends. It wasn’t at all like either of us had pictured.’
‘Life rarely is.’
She’d taken a breath to continue but paused, slowly deflating as she released the breath. ‘I suppose you’re right.’