Page 15 of Far from Home
‘The best plumber by a long way is Angelo Rossi. The trouble is that he’s always so terribly busy. I’ll give you his number anyway, but don’t be surprised if he can’t fit you in for months.’
They set off back down the hill together and Mr Slater was no longer discussed. Instead, they talked about tradesmen. Rosa had had a lot of work done on her house and she was able to rattle off quite a few names of people to use and those to avoid. Unfortunately, she also added a codicil to her endorsement of Signor Rossi the plumber. Apparently he had a reputation for not turning up when he said he would.
‘If you can get Angelo Rossi into your house, lock the doors and take his mobile phone away. It’s the only way.’
Amy gave her a smile. ‘I look forward to meeting him. Can you recommend a builder as well? I have a feeling I’m going to need one.’
‘The best in the area by far is Lorenzo Pozzovivo. He’s an absolute sweetheart. If you can get him, he’ll do everything to perfection.’ Rosa produced a remarkably cheeky grin. ‘He’s absolutely gorgeous: intelligent, but muscular with it.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, to be thirty, or even forty again. As for Angelo, the plumber, he’s very good at his job, but let’s just say he’s not quite in the same league when it comes to physique and looks.’
‘I look forward to meeting them all – especially the handsome builder.’
Chapter 8
Amy called the plumber – once she had found a spot just up the hill from the house where there was a phone signal – and, to her surprise, when she told him the address of the property, he promised to be there first thing on Monday morning to take a look at what needed doing. Remembering what Rosa had told her, she decided to suspend her disbelief for now. If he didn’t show up, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Her new friend had given her another two names to try.
She spent the rest of the morning poking about in the house before deciding to make a start on cleaning up the worst of the dust and dirt. The first thing she discovered was that there appeared to be no hoover, no mop, no disinfectant, and the only bucket looked as though somebody had used it for mixing concrete. She went across the road to speak to Signora Grande again, who endorsed Rosa’s choice of plumber – with the same caveats about how busy he was – and offered Amy a coffee. They sat in the old lady’s spotless front room and Amy wondered how long it would be before the floors of l’Ospedaletto would shine like these. Max came over and stationed himself at her side, his nose on her thigh, staring up at her adoringly, and Signora Grande smiled.
‘I think you’ve got a friend for life there. Thank you so much for taking him out.’
‘I should thank you. He’s super company and very well trained.’
They chatted and Amy learned a lot about the town and its customs, but little or nothing more about Martin Slater. All she got from Signora Grande was confirmation of what Rosa had told her about the man having led a very solitary life: few friends and no women in his life. The only other piece of information was that he had spent a lot of his time writing, but the old lady had no idea what he might have been writing. Amy remembered all the history books in his study and it occurred to her that he had maybe been an academic.
She left them and went back to the piazza and turned down the main street to the ironmongers she had spotted the previous day on the way into town. When she got there she found herself inside an Aladdin’s cave packed with everything from nappies to chainsaws and she emerged laden down with cleaning products, a mop, bucket and an electric kettle, although the storekeeper told her she would have to look further afield for a vacuum cleaner. She went into a little supermarket and bought tea bags and milk, as well as a couple of packets of biscuits, and managed to cart everything back to l’Ospedaletto, although it was a struggle.
Back at the house, she made herself a cup of tea after locating and scrupulously disinfecting an old mug celebrating the marriage of Charles and Diana in July 1981. When she switched on the kettle, the light over the sink dipped in sinister fashion and she hoped she wouldn’t fuse the whole place. She stood and looked on anxiously but the water heated rapidly and when it came to the boil and clicked off, the light immediately returned to normal brightness. The resulting tea was okay, although the long conservation milk gave it a funny taste. Still, it allowed her to feel more at home.
She spent most of the rest of the day cleaning the house and turfing out all manner of junk. This ranged from a worm-eaten bench that almost crumbled in her hands, to a tin basin that looked as though it had been part of the house’s original fittings way back in the Middle Ages. One positive thing to emerge as a result of her efforts was the fact that the bathroom, while far from attractive, was still functioning and hot water soon began to emerge from the hot tap and the shower, albeit an unappealing brown colour for the first few minutes until the pipes cleared.
She managed to scrape away most of the dust and dirt from the kitchen worktop and in so doing discovered that underneath all the dust and grime was actually a rather nice piece of marble. The sink cleaned up reasonably and both taps worked, but she avoided drinking the water without boiling it until she had checked with Signora Grande. She had already mentally condemned the fridge so she unplugged it but found it too heavy to cart outside. The same applied to the cooker, which she had no intention of touching for fear of blowing herself to smithereens. Still, she told herself, as she stopped for more tea and a couple of biscuits at lunchtime, if she was careful with what she bought and if she could make do with cold food, and an occasional meal at the restaurant, she could actually squat here relatively comfortably if she wanted. The unused holiday entitlement Scott had told her to take amounted to twenty-five working days, and although she now had ample money if she chose to stay in the hotel for five weeks, the natural frugality instilled in her by her mum made her seriously consider moving in here. First, though, she needed to see when the plumber might be able to start work. There would be no point moving into the middle of a building site.
At four o’clock she decided that enough was enough and headed back to the hotel for a glass of lemonade followed by a snooze. It had been a long, but satisfying, day and she realised that she hadn’t thought about foreign exchange transactions even once. She had dinner in the restaurant again and saw that the table where the man with the long hair had been sitting was now occupied by an elderly couple. There was no sign of him, but she gave herself a strict talking-to. Apart from anything else, there was the not-so-small matter of her boyfriend. She had never been the sort of girl to cheat and she had no time for people who did. Certainly, she wasn’t going to start now, but she couldn’t help questioning, once again, how long the relationship with Gavin would last. She had asked him to text her when he arrived home safely, but she had heard nothing. She didn’t even bother checking the news for possible plane crashes because she knew this was just typical Gavin. He was probably concentrating on his Taiwanese property deal and had relegated her to the back of his mind.
After a seafood risotto followed by a glorious mixture of peach, lemon and raspberry ice cream, she was in bed by ten o’clock and sleeping like a log.
Amy woke up on Sunday morning to the sound of church bells pealing out, summoning the faithful to early morning mass. She went to Signora Grande’s house at nine and took the bouncy Labrador for another long walk. After delivering him back to the old lady, she spent most of the day in the house, continuing her herculean cleaning efforts, before returning to the hotel in the late afternoon for more cold lemonade and to use their Wi-Fi to catch up on her messages and emails. She was touched to see that she had received half a dozen messages from friends at work wishing her well but, needless to say, there was nothing from Gavin. She was just sighing to herself when a shadow fell across her and she glanced up and found herself looking straight into the eyes of none other than the man with the long dark hair and the diamond ear stud. Today he was wearing what looked like a fisherman’s smock, splattered all over with paint or mud. There were even a few brown specks on his cheeks and she had to restrain the urge to reach up and wipe them off. He gave her a little smile.
‘Hi… um, my name’s Danny.’ He sounded unexpectedly hesitant. ‘Am I right in thinking that you now own Martin’s place? Signora Grande told me I’d find you here. I remember you from the other night, but I didn’t know who you were then or I would have said something.’ The last sentence came tumbling out in a jumbled rush that Amy only just understood.
She blinked a couple of times as she digested the fact that he was speaking to her not in Italian but in English. From his soft accent she thought he might be from the West Coast but she wasn’t too good at identifying American accents. She smiled up at him. ‘That’s right, my name’s Amy, Amy Sherwood.’
He nodded his head a few times and as he did so, she felt a mix of feelings sweep through her. On the one hand, she was happy to see him again, but at the same time there was relief that, close up, he didn’t inspire a sense of physical attraction in her, after all. Attraction, in the sense that he looked like a nice guy, but not a physical one, which removed the nagging feeling of guilt that she might somehow risk being unfaithful to Gavin by associating with him. This instantly made it all the easier for her to respond in a relaxed way. ‘Can I help you?’
He nodded again, a curious, almost birdlike bobbing up-and-down movement, and she could see that he was struggling to find the right words. It was strange to see such a good-looking man appear so reticent and, yes, shy. ‘Yes, um, right, you see, Amy… um, Ms Sherwood, I’m the potter.’
‘Call me Amy.’ She answered automatically while trying to make sense of what he had just told her. She pointed to the empty chair on the opposite side of the table. ‘Would you like to sit down?’
‘Um, yes, thanks.’ With another birdlike nod, he pulled out the chair and sat down. ‘You see, it’s like I said, I’m the potter…’
His voice tailed off helplessly and she stepped in to help him out. ‘You’re a potter; you make pottery, is that right?’ The head bobbed up and down again. ‘That’s interesting. And where do you work?’
‘Here in Sant’Antonio. I live out on the Volterra road. It’s only a ten-minute walk.’ He waved vaguely up the road and a young waitress, interpreting it as a call for service, came over and gave him a smile and a friendly wave.
‘Ciao, Danny. Vuoi un caffé?’
He gave her a big smile and answered in reasonable Italian. ‘Un caffé latte, per favore, Virginia.’ As the girl went off, he looked across at Amy. ‘My Italian’s nothing like as good as yours. I heard you talking to that lady the other night and I thought youwereItalian.’ Heartened by her answering smile, he finally got to what he was trying to say. ‘You see, Martin let me help myself to clay from the old quarry and I was hoping you’d let me carry on. It’s really high quality, you see.’
The penny dropped and Amy realised that she was in the presence of the person who had been digging at the top of the field. She gave him a big smile. ‘Of course you can, Danny. Tell me, what kind of stuff do you make?’
