‘Sorry about that, Anna. I was in a bit of hurry.’
I waited for her to apologise for bursting into our home unannounced, but it fast became clear to me that was not how it worked. In fact, by the way her dark eyes were scanning the room, I soon realised this wasn’t a visit to see how I was getting on, but an appraisal of my housekeeping skills. Which weren’t as obvious as, say, my ability to breathe, or to put one foot in front of the other. She looked so disapproving, I nearly got the giggles.
I readjusted my belt. ‘Cup of tea?’
‘I only drink coffee.’
‘Coffee, then?’
‘No, thank you.’
I resisted the temptation to do a comedy sketch of ‘Nettle tea? Spinach smoothie? Hot chocolate with a shot of brandy?’ and put on the kettle anyway. No reason for me to die of thirst. As I picked a mug out of the kitchen cupboard, I chose the ugliest, clumpiest one, the one I was sure Caitlin would never have used. I might start throwing things if she said, ‘That was Caitlin’s favourite mug.’
I dug deep for the charm offensive I had planned. If I didn’t want to keep scurrying out of my own front door like a burglar with a couple of laptops tucked down his trousers, I really needed to get Anna on my side. I’d never be that person gliding about with little trays of almond biscuits and discussions about the best product for dealing with limescale on the taps, but perhaps I could persuade her that I had her son’s best interests at heart rather than a beady eye on his wallet.
It was no wonder that she was a bit suspicious of me. Initially, out of respect for Caitlin, Nico and I had kept it all low-key. Plus I’d been waiting for him to say, ‘Thanks for helping me through the whole dead wife thing, but I’m off to find someone a bit classier/cleverer/thinner,’ so I hadn’t really bothered with the daughter-in-law dance. I’d hardly spent any time in Anna’s company before Nico had presented her with the fait accompli: he was marrying Caitlin’s carer’s daughter. But there was no going back. I’d show her I could be an amazing wife even without the fancy clothes.
I’d love to know what she thought of Lara, her other daughter-in-law. I hadn’t seen much of her yet but she hadn’t bowled me over with her warmth and welcome. She always looked so serious, with her precise blonde hairdo and blouses with fussy little bows. I didn’t have much confidence she’d be an ally against Anna.
And I was really going to need one.
Instead of winning her over with some old shit about the lovely activities we had planned ‘as a family’ and spinning her some yarn about the progress I was making with Francesca, panic made me trot out the one topic Nico and I had agreed he would handle when the time was right. It was the big no-no, the subject that must be rehearsed and approached with the same amount of tact as discussing cardboard coffins with an elderly parent.
As I made a rebellious mug of soupy tea complete with teabag bobbing about – I burst out with, ‘Nico and I were talking the other night about moving to another house. We thought it might be good to have a fresh start for us all.’ I plunged on into the silence with an increasingly desperate monologue about how it might be healthy for us to choose somewhere Francesca didn’t associate so strongly with her mother. Still in Brighton, of course, still near the sea, still close to Francesca’s school…
With every word I spoke, Anna seemed to become more sucked in until it was like being in the worst job interview ever, when you realise that you’ve actually said the opposite to what they were looking for but don’t have the sense to stop and say, ‘I might have got off on the wrong foot here.’
As Anna’s fine-boned features melted from an expression of surprise to one of outrage, I stammered to a halt. She propped her elbow onto the table and lowered her chin onto her hand in theatrical slow motion.
‘Nico cannot move somewhere else. The Farinellis have lived here for nearly fifty years. My husband bought our sons the houses – one each – so Nico and Massimo could live next to each other, opposite us, for the rest of their lives. Nico will not be moving. This is his home. There have been Farinellis in Siena Avenue since 1970, when we moved to England. We chose it because we are from Siena and the name felt like a good omen.’
Before I could respond, she leapt to her feet. ‘This is the problem when people do not treat family as important.’
I tried to backtrack. ‘Anna, sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. Of course, it’s a lovely house and road, but I was just thinking about Francesca and how it might be easier for her to accept me if we moved somewhere that was new for all of us. That perhaps didn’t contain so many memories of Caitlin. I didn’t mean we’d do it tomorrow, or even next year.’
‘If you were thinking about Francesca at all, you would never have forced Nico to marry you.’
The last sentence was ejected with a rush of rolled ‘r’s, as though she had a toffee stuck behind her front teeth. The unexpected animosity made tears spring to my eyes. I’d known of course that Anna wasn’t exactly rushing to welcome me. I’d accepted it might take time and that perhaps I didn’t look the part – a little dumpy, my hair on the unruly side of messy and, however hard I tried, a natural predilection towards tie-dye, tassels and ruffles. But I hadn’t expected her to hate me. I felt the breath return to my lungs. ‘I didn’t force him to marry me.’
Anna emitted a fabulous snort. ‘Of course you did. Maybe not with a gun to his head, but Nico was always easily influenced. Far too soft. His brother has far more sense. Got rid of that silly first wife who didn’t want children and found someone who understood what it takes to be a Farinelli.’
Any vain hope that Lara might be an ally seemed as misguided as my brilliant idea of selling up and finding somewhere new for our funny little mismatched family. There I had it: the whole deck of cards spread on the table curling at the edges under the brutal spotlight of the truth. Anna didn’t approve of me. Thought Nico was weak and I had forced him into marriage, charging in as soon as Caitlin had deigned to die. Never had I missed a shared sofa bed and my mum singing into a sauce bottle more.
4
LARA
After nearly a month of searching for our cat, I still couldn’t accept that she might have simply found another home with a more plentiful supply of mackerel, or worse, that she was dead in a hedge somewhere. I tried to be brave for Sandro, but I’d had to put Misty’s bowls in the cupboard to stop myself bursting into tears every time I walked past them.