I wished I’d gone with Nico now. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be thrilled to hear the news.
I pretended I needed to cool down to escape the conversation and swam over to Mum. Massimo had managed to persuade her into the pool despite the fact that she’d never learnt to swim. She sat on the steps in the shallow end, a little Buddha in blue, holding her head out of the water like a nosy ostrich. I’d let Massimo break the news of this evening’s entertainment to her.
Mum kept trying to encourage Sandro in. ‘Aren’t you hot? Why don’t you put your armbands on and come and sit in here with me? I can’t swim either but it’s lovely here on the steps. You’ll be quite safe because I’ll murder anyone who gets my hair wet.’
God bless Mum passing her pacifist tendencies onto the next generation. Thank God Anna wasn’t there to rev up her scissors for snipping a piece out of the paper about the effect of aggressive language on children.
Sandro shook his head. He was arranging pebbles into a shape on the paving stones, sitting by Lara’s sun lounger. I wondered if he minded his dad spending all of his time with Sam and Francesca.
I got out of the pool and dried myself off, intending to redress the balance a bit and see if Sandro wanted to come up onto the ramparts with me to do some drawing, while I took a few photos. The colours of the countryside, the sunflowers and poppies, had given me an idea for a floral patchwork design.
But before I could walk over there, a little altercation broke out, with Lara and Massimo talking to each other in hissy voices, the sort I used on Sam when I didn’t want everyone to know I was telling him off for picking his nose. Massimo had his hands on hips, jerking his head to the pool, then to Sandro. Not for the first time I was grateful I’d been able to bring up Sam on my own during those crucial first years. The pitying looks that I was ‘doing it all myself’ were nothing compared to the freedom of not having to take into account someone else’s views on what was good for Sam.
Lara and Sandro had exactly the same ‘waiting for this to be over’ expressions on their faces. For someone who was so open, so out there with his thoughts and ideas, I could see why Massimo got frustrated with Lara. As much as I enjoyed her company, trying to resolve problems with her must be like shouting over a six-foot high garden wall when you couldn’t see whether the person was still listening on the other side or long gone, sipping coffee at their kitchen table while you bellowed your suggestions and solutions into oblivion. Sandro had inherited the same trait of stonewalling. I only knew he was taking in my suggestions for his art when I saw his drawings.
Sandro pushed himself slowly to his feet. Lara fussed about, putting extra air into his armbands, wetting them in the pool and forcing them up over Sandro’s skinny little arms. He flinched as Sam splashed him when he was trying to tip Francesca off her lilo. I went over to ask them to calm it down.
Sam looked up, ‘Sandro’s such a loser. Why does he make such a fuss about everything?’
Mum’s foghorn had passed down the Parker genes to Sam.
I tried to sshh him but it was too late. Massimo suddenly became much more assertive, a little edge creeping into his voice.
‘Right, Sandro, what we’re going to do is walk down the steps in the shallow end and see if you can put your face under water.’
Lara’s face was a mask of worry. I couldn’t help feeling that having someone sitting on the side looking as though you were off to the electric chair wasn’t quite the boost of confidence you needed when you were shitting yourself in the first place. Especially when it was a little dip in a warm pool on a sunny Tuscan day rather than an open-water swim in alligator country.
Sandro started to baulk the closer to the steps he got. He hated being centre stage at the best of times, but with Lara sitting there chewing on a thumbnail, Mum making well-intentioned but completely unhelpful ‘You don’t want to be my age and still wear a rubber ring’ comments, Sam and Francesca whispering and laughing together, I could see the circumstances for attempting doggy-paddle weren’t aligning.
Then suddenly Massimo swept Sandro up into his arms, ran to the side and jumped in with him. Lara leapt to her feet. My brain hovered between ‘That’s one way of doing it’ and ‘Christ, he’ll never even get in a bath again.’
Sandro bobbed to the surface, with Massimo booming, ‘Right, now kick to the side!’ But panic had overwhelmed him. He flailed about, gulping in water, sinking and surfacing, choking and coughing, until I thought Lara was going to leap in, sunglasses, sunhat and all.
I waited for Massimo to scoop him up and comfort him. I’d never known Lara raise her voice before but in a tone that was somewhere between a scream and a bellow she was shouting: ‘Get him out now!’
But Massimo stood back, watching Sandro flounder about, oblivious to Lara’s distress. ‘Go on! Kick your feet!’
It was like watching a scene from a 1960s orphanage where there was no warmth, no empathy, just a method – and a madness – applied to all children regardless of needs or personality. I kept waiting for Lara to shout at Massimo again or failing that, chuck her sunhat on the floor, dive in and intervene. Instead she seemed to go into a panic, flapping her hands about and looking like she was going to burst into tears.
In the end, I couldn’t bear the squelching, rasping sounds any more. In a minute, Sandro was going to throw up. I jumped in. I didn’t look at Massimo, didn’t ask his permission. I grabbed Sandro, who flung his arms round my neck, coughing water and crying.
I was about to apologise to Massimo for butting in when he said, ‘Maggie? What do you think you’re doing?’ No smile, no gentle embarrassment of ‘That particular teaching technique went well.’
I could barely speak through the stranglehold Sandro had round my neck. ‘Sorry but he was half-choking to death.’
Massimo frowned. ‘I had it under control. You women get so hysterical about nothing. That’s half his problem. He’s got no backbone.’
Sandro’s little chest was shuddering against my shoulder. For all Massimo’s intelligence, he was pretty thick about how to get the best out of his son. And I wasn’t bowled over by his view of women either: if there was one word guaranteed to make me search for a scythe with a particularly sharp blade and get hacking, ‘hysterical’ was it.
Instead of bursting in with my own insults, I tapped into my newfound maturity. If nothing else, married life had taught me to bite my tongue so often it was a wonder it wasn’t frilly. I tried to take the heat out of the situation. Not, however, without a desire to look over my shoulder and wonder where the hot-headed mamma of my twenties had disappeared to. ‘You’re brilliant with all kids, not just Sandro, but I don’t think this is doing his confidence any good. Would you let me try with him?’
I bent my head to whisper in Sandro’s ear. ‘Would you have a little go at swimming with me?’