I hoped that today’s clashes would be forgotten as we headed out to the cars after dinner, but Massimo made a point of telling me to go in the one Anna was driving ‘as she hasn’t had anything to drink’, trapping me between wishing I’d never commented and treating him to a salute with my middle finger.
As soon as we arrived in San Gimignano though, I forgot about Massimo. It was like walking onto a movie set. Fourteen towers rose up into the starry sky. I fully expected to see Spiderman swinging from the crenellated tops.
Mum grasped my arm. ‘Lordy, it’s like being in Hollywood. It don’t look real.’
Just behind us, I heard Francesca say, ‘Doesn’t’ under her breath.
I hoped Mum hadn’t heard but she turned round and said, ‘My grammar’s a shocker, isn’t it? You are so lucky to speak lovely. It’s too late for me, but you make sure you get Sam speaking nice like you.’
Francesca had the good grace to mumble, ‘Sorry,’ and yet again, I felt a rush of affection towards Mum. I saw Anna roll her eyes when Mum said, ‘Pacific’ when she meant ‘specific’, but as far as I was concerned, her generous heart trumped all of Anna’s pontificating about grammar as though she needed to prove her intellect was so dazzling that her grasp of English was better than any native speaker. Even though a missing ‘s’, dropped ‘h’ or swallowed ‘t’ was clearly on Anna’s list of top ten first-world worries, it would only ever make number twelve thousand and seventy-two on mine, way below my fear of a moth flying into my ear and dying there.
The squares thronged with kids dashing about, splashing in the fountain, grandfathers sitting on the benches in their smart trousers and white shirts, portly grandmothers waving their arms about in animated conversations that looked for all the world as though the topic in hand was a life or death scenario.
I walked down the cobbled street with Nico, his hand in mine and allowed myself to think our funny little family would be okay in the end.
We stopped at an ice cream parlour with about a hundred different flavours. Francesca explained to Mum and Sam what all the names were.
‘That one, bacio, that means “kiss”, it’s sort of hazelnut, then that one zuppa inglese is “English soup”, a bit like custard…’
As we wandered through the square, Nico and I swapping ice creams – liquorice – yuk – tiramisu – yum – I felt a surge of happiness I hadn’t felt since before ‘Boxgate’. Sam and Francesca kept scooting off to look in clothes shops, trying to give Anna, who thought she was the last word on style, the slip. Mum was walking on ahead with Sandro, arm-in-arm. Every now and then he’d stop to look in a window of a ceramic shop with all the mini reproductions of San Gimignano. I looked forward to seeing his drawings later on in the week.
I’d deliberately walked off ahead of Massimo so that he couldn’t spoil my evening. He was following behind with Lara, though judging by the way they were scuffing along in silence, she hadn’t yet decided to forgive him. But Massimo wasn’t going to let anything blight our opera experience, trotting up and chivvying us along, determined to make sure we didn’t miss the start. ‘Honestly, nothing beats sitting under the stars with fabulous singing, surrounded by the towers. It’s just magical.’
I decided to offer an olive branch by showing some enthusiasm, despite wishing we could just sit and have a drink in one of the little squares.
‘Remind me which one we’re seeing again?’
‘Debussy’s Pelléas and Mélisande. It’s about a woman married to the wrong brother.’ He nudged me. ‘You never know, you might realise that you made a duff choice.’
‘Oy! Cheeky sod,’ Nico said, pretending to throw a punch at Massimo.
Massimo ran his fingers through his hair and turned up the collar on his jacket. ‘Who would turn me down, suave, sporty, sophisticated?’
Nico countered with, ‘Yes, but I’m much kinder than you, more sensitive, more in tune with what women want.’
‘I’m much more manly.’ Massimo did a Popeye pose. ‘Aren’t I, Lara?’
She didn’t reply. I looked at her, struck by the expression on her face, as though she was about to cry or perhaps throw a tantrum. I barely heard the rest of Nico and Massimo’s silly banter. I tried to work out if she was jealous: I didn’t have her down as one of those women who thought everyone was after her husband. Although, to be fair, lots of women probably were floating about with their fishing rods hoping to reel Massimo in.
Nico carried on, oblivious. ‘But I listen, that’s what a girl wants.’
‘I’m a sex-god though. When it comes down to it, a woman will choose a good time between the sheets over you and your cup of tea and biscuit any day. Isn’t that right, Maggie?’
I tried and failed to find a way to steer the conversation in a different direction and did a non-committal grunt.
Massimo threw his arm round Lara’s shoulder, which looked about as welcoming as a strip of barbed wire. ‘Come on, La-La. Tell them how important it is for a man to be good at sex.’
Silence.
He peered round at her. ‘So, what’s the answer? Perhaps I’ve been doing it wrong all these years. We don’t seem to be able to make another baby. Perhaps you need me to listen more. Maybe I’ll sit opposite you while you tell me all the exciting things you’ve done in your day. Maybe that’s the secret to getting pregnant, because nothing else has worked.’
And with that, the temperature of the evening changed, catapulting us from light-hearted teasing into one of the tangled issues that creep like knotweed through the heart of any relationship, as likely to divide as bind.
Lara turned to face us, her eyes darting about, as though we’d all been whispering about her failure to provide baby number two. I’d assumed that they hadn’t wanted any more children and Nico had never suggested otherwise.
Lara shrugged. ‘Who knows what the problem is? Just the way things are.’ Her voice was trembling, as though an earthquake was sending out an advance warning. She probably didn’t like their personal problems being aired which, added to her fury about Massimo throwing Sandro in the pool, had combined into a cocktail of unfortunate ingredients that could only result in a bust-up.
But interesting as it would be to see what Lara was like when she lost it, I knew she’d hate a public fracas.
So I walked along wondering whether to keep quiet rather than risk making it worse. In the end, the Parker horror of silence won the day. The awkward pause while we adjusted to something private being broadcast in the middle of a bit of fun was killing me. I gave it a go. ‘Who wants to go back to nappies and sleepless nights and all that making up bloody bottles anyway?’
Massimo responded straightaway. ‘Lara breastfed for ages and loved it,’ which just made me feel as though somehow I’d not only insulted her, but had yet another judgement go against me for daring to suggest a baby might be bottle-fed – and survive.