‘Oh my god! That’s brilliant! We’d better get you behind the wheel straight away.’ Even if I had to sew every evening until holiday, I needed to get her in that car before she got cold feet.
Lara was grinning like a kid on Christmas Eve, as though it was something she’d been planning and plotting for ages, just when I’d decided she’d lost interest. She really was a woman of surprises. I’d always yearned to be like that, dark and mysterious, a woman who men tried to read, to get a handle on. Instead I was the straightforward backdrop to everyone else’s complex and cunning ways. Maybe I just wasn’t bright enough to pull off that ‘now you see me, now you don’t’, second-guess me stuff.
Whenever I told Nico my worries that he would find me boring once he’d heard all my stories, he just laughed and said, ‘I don’t want to play games, Maggie. I love the fact that what you see is what you get. Stop doubting yourself. And me.’ And I’d feel a big buzz of contentment and resolve to stop expecting everything to go tits up. That usually lasted for a glorious half an hour before Anna came bowling in with a mention of Caitlin’s brilliant intellect or Francesca rushed to play on her phone when I was trying to empathise, telling her a story about when I was a teenager myself.
So the idea of taking Lara on secret little sorties in the car gave me a ridiculous amount of satisfaction as though somehow I wasn’t quite the predictable ‘good egg’ they all thought I was.
And that was the start of our cunning plan. For the last two weeks of July, we got into a routine of Lara slipping out of her back gate every morning after school drop off. I’d pick her up from the corner of the alley and like two runaways on a road trip, we’d drive out into the countryside with the radio blaring. As soon as we reached a bit of quiet open space, we’d swap seats. And yet again, Lara surprised me. I’d expected her to be easily discouraged, to display her defeatist attitude of ‘I knew I’d be rubbish, I told you I wouldn’t be any good.’ But in fact, she was a powerhouse of determination. Even when she hit the wrong pedal and almost shot into a ditch while I did my best not to scream, she didn’t panic. She simply switched off the ignition and worked through every step in a logical manner before having another go. Other people’s beeping and rude gestures didn’t even worry her. She just laughed and sometimes said the odd ‘sod off’ herself. It was a revelation to me that she wasn’t as strait-laced as she seemed. Her occasional bad language opened the floodgates on my own swearing, which I would then sweat and fret about later on, wondering how many times I had stuck my middle finger up at the various people who tooted at us. Lara didn’t seem to mind though. There was something carefree about her, as though our joint secret liberated her from something I couldn’t quite pinpoint.
29
LARA
We were flying to Italy on the first day of August. I’d left it to the last afternoon to pack, sitting on the carpet, scratching at the pile, willing myself to open the door to our walk-in attic and find the suitcases. A single click of a buckle would release a cloud of memories from previous holidays, a rush of na?ve expectations transformed into toxic accusations.
What would definitely get the holiday off to a bad start would be Massimo coming home and discovering that I was nowhere near ready, leading to one of his ‘Have you any idea how hard I work to keep your lazy arse in luxury?’ rants. He’d already flung down Sandro’s passport and said, ‘Don’t get any ideas.’
But now, with my mind scattering like a pack of rabbits hearing gunfire, it was difficult not to. So hard not to wonder what life could be like without Massimo and his moods, as variable as an unreliable thermostat. Instead, just like hundreds of times before, I squashed that train of thought and focused on anticipating every holiday need. I knew any oversight, any forgotten sunblock, hat or adapter would simply be further evidence of my ‘inherent stupidity’.
With a sigh, I forced myself to go into our dusty attic. As soon as I put my hands on those innocuous blue wheelie cases, a film of past holiday horrors flickered through my mind. Mosquitoes feasting on Sandro, which turned out to be my fault for contaminating the Farinelli Italian genes with my English skin. Making excuses to keep my clothes on after Massimo sneered at me in a swimming costume. Anna doing a complete about-turn on the seven o’clock bedtime, insisting on Sandro staying up till midnight – ‘We’re in Italy now’ – then leaving me to deal with the fallout the following day. Massimo losing his temper because Sandro was too shy to ask for a strawberry ice cream in Italian. Caitlin playing Scrabble, her wet hair swept up in a glamorous clasp, her skin a golden brown, while my nose peeled and my hair frizzed. Francesca butterflying up and down the pool as Sandro screamed to get out of the shallow end. Massimo refusing to eat a single forkful of pasta when it was my turn to cook, telling everyone he was feeling off colour, then hissing at me afterwards for my ‘disgusting English slop with no salt’.
Scattered through the memories were little crumbs of affection, tiny grains of approval that I’d clung onto. Massimo lifting my chin, staring into my eyes and pronouncing me, ‘Bellissima’. Pointing out the stars to me under the Tuscan sky. Gently rubbing sun cream into my shoulders, finishing with a flourish and a kiss. Picking some bougainvillea and tucking it behind my ear. But these little pinpricks of happiness were swallowed up, washed away by the unpredictable tides of Massimo’s temper.
I’d just heaved everything out of the attic when Maggie knocked on the door. She wasn’t as smiley as usual, definitely stressed around the edges. I felt a stab of surprise she wasn’t sashaying up to the holiday with nothing more pressing to think about than choosing a tie-dye wrap.
‘Can I come in for a minute?’
I stood back and waved her in, though really I wanted to block her path and crack on with packing before Massimo got home.