Really, what else was she going to do? She was there, Francesca was there, the melted butter and the cranberries and candied lemon were there. It just made sense to pitch right in and get on with it. What’s more, as one hour rolled into the next and she mixed and baked and cooled and sliced and baked and cooled and tasted, she kept drifting away from her unhappiness and confusion to find a smile floating on her face. She didn’t know quite what it was doing there, but it returned again and again and again.
Later in the evening she headed to the Internet café on the piazza grande and sent an e-mail to Heigelmann’s saying she was unavoidably tied up with a family situation in Italy and would not immediately be back. She should have called; e-mailing was not a professional way of broaching her absence. But she just couldn’t imagine explaining to her CEO that she was in Italy baking cookies with her husband’s love child and an ancient extortionate landlady without laughing. It was ridiculous, after all, but an inexplicably good sort of ridiculous.
Because she’d never spent any time in the kitchen, it was a surprise for Lily to discover what comfort could be found there. But the simple process of mixing dull everyday ingredients to create something entirely new and delightful never failed to inspire her. It was so uncomplicated. And Francesca never tired of helping. Together they produced batch after batch of delicious amorucci. They were in a world of their own.
After a couple of days, they had made enough amorucci to fill all the bowls in the pasticceria and so Lily convinced Violetta, with a little help from Luciana, to actually allow customers into the store.
For the first proper open day not many tourists made it past the Borsolinis’ shop. In fact, as far as Lily could make out, the Ferrettis’ store seemed to be populated solely by little old ladies much like the Ferrettis themselves. They didn’t buy anything but seemed very pleased with the free samples that Lily and Francesca set out. And while they may not have put money in the coffers, tourists soon started noticing the crowd in the pasticceria and began to dribble in to buy the amorucci themselves.
‘We have viable prospect,’ Violetta said to Lily, watching Francesca count out change to give to a large foreign woman who had bought six bags, one in each flavour. It had been Francesca’s idea to put the cookies in clear cellophane bags tied with pink ribbons with little red hearts on them. They were quite irresistible.
By the following week, Lily’s smile was in danger of becoming a permanent fixture. The hours spent in the kitchen with the old women and Francesca were among the happiest she could remember. It wasn’t real life, baking cookies in a sweet-smelling Tuscan kitchen with a child who wasn’t hers. But the moments when they stood side by side rolling the cantucci into logs, or when Lily wiped chocolate off the end of Francesca’s nose, or when they tried to teach Violetta to juggle certainly felt real.
In the afternoons Daniel would come to collect his daughter. At first, Lily’s smile faded when he walked in the door and she found it difficult to look at him, let alone speak to him, but after a while it just became part of what her new unexpected routine kicked up.
She even found herself checking her watch if he was running late.
‘Could I buy you a drink?’ he asked her one afternoon. ‘Once I’ve dropped Francesca at Carlotta’s?’
Lily could feel the heat of Violetta’s beady eyes on her neck and saw that Francesca was watching her carefully. She didn’t want a drink, the thought of it made her feel ill, but she did want to find out what was happening with Eugenia, so reluctantly she agreed.
The plan was to meet at a little bar up on the tiny Piazza San Francesca, which looked back out over the top of San Biagio’s copper dome from a diffrent angle.
She spotted him from the street above as she approached and surprised herself by thinking how handsome he was, because she did not expect to still see him that way. Two pretty girls moved past his outside table as she watched him, one making a meal of it in her opinion; she obviously saw Daniel that way too. But he didn’t even seem to notice the pretty girl.
He was clearly a man looking out for someone else. She felt a lurch, the slightest movement of a single pebble.
‘So, what’s happening with Francesca’s mother?’ she asked briskly, nonetheless, as she sat down.
‘She’s in a residential facility in Umbria,’ Daniel said. ‘She’s been there before and she’s in good hands, but we’re not sure how long she’ll be there this time. She needs to get the right medication and keep taking it.’
‘And where does that leave Francesca?’
‘Carlotta is doing her best juggling Ernesto and her job, and I’m doing as much as I can while I try to work, but to be honest, Lily, you and the Ferrettis and the baking…well…you’re a godsend.’ He smiled. ‘My Lily and baking all in the same sentence. I never thought I’d see the day.’
‘I guess we’ve both had days we never thought we’d see,’ Lily said in a brittle tone that reminded her of her mother. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added ambiguously, shaking her head at the waitress after Daniel ordered a glass of red.
‘Lily, I know you haven’t had much time to think,’ he started once they were alone again, ‘but if you could—’
‘Don’t, Daniel,’ she stopped him. ‘Just, please, don’t. I’m here for Francesca because for whatever reason I am in a position to help her and that’s what I want to do, but I can’t do it forever. I have to get back to work; I am running out of paid leave. So don’t get your hopes up.’
‘My hopes are up, I can’t help that. And they will stay up where you are concerned, Lily. Forever.’
‘Well, that’s your problem,’ she snapped.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to upset you,’ he said. ‘That’s the last thing I want to do. I’m just glad you came.’
‘Yes, well, let’s try to keep this about Francesca, shall we? What’s the long-term plan?’
‘I’m trying to sort that out at the moment. We think maybe a nanny would work out until Eugenia is back on her feet, but there’s no telling how long that will take, and I need to get back to New York at some stage to try and sell some wine so I can afford it. Otherwise, there is an aunt near Orvieto, but Francesca would have to change schools and she hasn’t had the easiest time settling into the Montevedova one so…’
They both stared out across the breathtakingly beautiful rolling green hills of the Val D’Orcia. The evening sun fell gently on the landscape. It was impossibly peaceful.
‘Francesca took off her wings,’ Daniel said into the silence. ‘I asked her if I could get them fixed, just like I have done a hundred times over the past year, and she just took them off and handed them to me.’
Lily smiled. ‘Yes, she told me. She said she’d “growed” out of them.’
‘She told you that?’
Lily nodded and bit her lip, praying that he wouldn’t tell her what a great mother she would make. She couldn’t bear it. But he didn’t.
‘Do you think about Grace?’ she asked out of nowhere. ‘When you’re thinking about Francesca or talking about her or looking at her, do you also think about Grace?’
‘Of course I do,’ he said.
‘I can’t help myself from wondering what she’s doing. How she’s getting on at school, how her mom—how Brittany is.’
Daniel was silent for a moment, then turned, his green eyes anxious, to look at her.
‘I don’t know if we have a future together, Lily, of if you’ll give me another chance, but whatever happens, I don’t want there to be any more secrets between us.’
‘There’s more? Please, Daniel, I don’t know if—’
‘Brittany went to college,’ Daniel said. ‘She is a school teacher just like she wanted to be. She got married a couple of years ago to a guy with two younger daughters who Grace seems to get along great with. She is a smart kid, she gets good grades, she likes gym class, she does ballet, she’s allergic to tree nuts, she plays the piano, she wants a pony but she’s only allowed a cat.’
Lil
y began to cry.
‘I should have told you,’ Daniel continued. ‘I’ve had a private detective send me a report every six months since we got back from Tennessee. I shouldn’t have done it. But I wanted to know, to make sure she was happy so that I could tell you and make you happy, but the time was never right. I didn’t tell you. And I didn’t make you happy, but I wanted to.’
‘What else?’ Lily asked. ‘What else about Grace?’
‘She’s small for her age, she has dark hair, she rides a pink bicycle.’
‘Well, I hope she wears a helmet.’
‘She does wear a helmet. It’s pink too, with purple ribbons coming out of it. I have a photo…’
‘Oh, Daniel…’
He pulled his chair closer to hers but knew better than to reach for her, instead handing her a paper napkin so she could dry her eyes. The two girls at the next table looked at her and started whispering but she didn’t care.
‘I can’t believe you did that,’ she said when she had finally composed herself. ‘I can’t believe you put a tail on Baby Grace.’
‘I know and I’m sorry.’
‘No, you shouldn’t be sorry.’ She fought back more tears. ‘You did make me happy, Daniel,’ she said. ‘Once upon a time, you did make me happy.’
‘I think I could again,’ he said desperately. ‘If you’d just give me a chance.’
‘It’s too much to ask. I don’t know how to do it.’
‘I could help you,’ he said.
‘I don’t think forgiveness works that way.’
‘Well, it should.’
‘But it doesn’t. What’s done is done.’ Lily stood up, wiping her face one last time before giving him back the scrunched-up paper napkin.
‘Thank you so much for telling me about Grace,’ she said. ‘I can’t tell you how much that puts my heart at rest.’
‘I’m sorry, Lily,’ he said. ‘I will never stop being sorry.’
‘Don’t, Daniel. I’m tired of hearing it. It doesn’t change anything.’
‘Maybe not, but isn’t it better to have everything out in the open?’ he asked.
‘Maybe for you. You’re the one with all the secrets.’
‘Yes, well, while we’re at it, I have one more,’ he said, but with something of an old familiar twinkle in his eye. ‘I don’t really like polo shirts.’
She laughed and had to stop herself from telling him that it was Pearl who bought them for him, anyway. She didn’t want to hurt him, she thought, as she walked across the piazza grande. She still felt something for him. She wasn’t sure if it was love but she was sure it wasn’t hate. So what was it?
She was distracted then by the sound of an approaching baby crying and saw that it was the same baby she had seen on her first day in Montevedova, only this time the red umbrella was keeping the late sun, not the rain, off the pram.
The same grandfather gave Lily a cheeky wink as he passed her, while she peered in at the fat little cherub who was squawking in her nest, legs waving furiously in the air, fists balled and flailing.
The old man hadn’t noticed that the baby’s headband had fallen down over one eye so Lily put her hand out and gently grabbed his elbow to stop him, then reached in and straightened the headband herself, her fingers brushing the baby’s hot, damp head, caressing just for the briefest moment her soft thatch of almost invisible hair. The baby screwed up one eye and roared even harder.
‘Grazie,’ smiled the old man anyway. ‘Grazie.’ And he pushed the pram across the piazza. Lily stood and watched till they had disappeared over the crest of the hill, but it wasn’t until she was halfway back to the pasticceria that she realised her innards hadn’t shrivelled at the sound of the cries.
Chapter 49
The widows were in their underground HQ a week later, eating amorucci, when the widow Ercolani dropped a bombshell.
‘Who was that old man I saw you with behind the bus station yesterday?’ she asked Fiorella, a mean little glint in her eye. ‘That was quite a conversation you were having by the looks of things.’
Fiorella looked warily at the inquisitive faces around the room. ‘It wasn’t that sort of “behind the bus station”,’ she said. ‘Trust me, he did not lay a finger on me.’
‘Yes, but who was he?’ insisted the widow Ercolani. ‘Or would you like me to tell everyone?’
‘Have you been spying on me?’ Fiorella accused her.
‘Yes, I have,’ the widow Ercolani answered proudly, ‘and it’s just as well, because otherwise how would everyone else in the League know what a phony you are. A phony, a fake, and a fraud.’
‘A phony?’ asked the widow Benedicti. She had grown quite fond of Fiorella. They all had—apart from the widow Ercolani it seemed.
‘A fake?’ repeated the widow Mazzetti.
‘A fraud?’ piped up the widow Ciacci.
Violetta and Luciana just looked at each other and shrugged. They had recently decided that when you were this close to a hundred, nothing was really that surprising.
‘Yes, all of those things,’ the widow Ercolani confirmed. ‘And do you want to know why? She’s not a widow. That was her husband behind the bus station. He’s alive and extremely well by the look of him.’
Half a dozen mouths in various stages of toothlessness fell wide open.
Fiorella looked at Violetta, who just raised what was left of her eyebrows.
‘OK, OK, OK, I confess,’ Fiorella said. ‘I’m not as widowed as I originally made out. But he did run off with my sister and he does live in Naples.’
‘And Eduardo?’
‘And Eduardo! Of course, Eduardo. Always Eduardo!’ She pushed her spectacles up her nose, balled her hands into tight little fists, raised her rounded shoulders, and looked for all the world ready to take on the Italian heavyweight boxing champion, but then Fiorella Fiorucci stunned them all by bursting into noisy uncontrollable tears.
‘I was lonely,’ she cried. ‘I’ve been lonely ever since Eduardo left for the war, but the older I get, the lonelier I am. No one notices me. I wore red stilettos and no one so much as looked at my feet. I was invisible until you let me join the League. You are ornery,’ she said as she pointed to the widow Ercolani, ‘but the rest of you are like sisters. I’ve never been so happy.’ And she cried fit to drown the lot of them in her tears.
‘There, there,’ said the widow Ciacci, moving over to give her a comforting pat.
‘What was your husband doing here?’ asked Luciana.
‘He and my selfish slattern of a sister have run out of money. He came back because he wants to sell my apartment out from under me.’
‘She can’t stay in the League,’ the widow Ercolani said. ‘There are rules, remember?’ She prodded the widow Mazzetti, who looked slightly sheepish.
‘Now, let’s not be too hasty here,’ Violetta said. ‘There are rules and then there are rules.’
‘There are two lots?’ asked the widow Mazzetti, who only had one clipboard.
‘If recent events have taught me anything,’ Violetta said, ‘it’s that times have changed and we must change with them. Fiorella, you have been a welcome addition to our League, and the fact you are not a widow is beside the point. You are right. You are a sister. We are all sisters.’
‘But that’s not what—’ the widow Ercolani started but was interrupted by the widow Pacini, who hated the thought of anyone being lonely.
‘I agree with Violetta,’ she said.
‘Me too,’ said the widow Benedicti.
‘Same here,’ the widow Ciacci concurred.
‘And here,’ added the widow Mazzetti. ‘Although perhaps we should think about redrafting the constitution.’
‘Widow Ercolani, do you care to say something else?’ asked Violetta. But the widow Ercolani knew when she was beat. She just shook her head and looked at her feet.
‘Right, then. It’s decided. Once again, welcome, Fiorella, to the Secret League of Widowed (or Otherwise) Darners. Now, on the subject of d
arning, progress as you have probably seen is slow but steady with Lily and Daniel. We had hoped there might have been more of a breakthrough by now, but they are seeing each other every day and obviously it’s working out very well on the amorucci front.’ There was a chorus of ‘sí, sí, sí.’ They really did like the amorucci.
‘Anyway, it’s clear to us that Daniel is not the problem. He will do anything to win her back, according to a granddaughter of the widow Ciacci, who overheard every word of their conversation at the Bar Francesca the other evening and happened to pass it on. It is Lily who is wary.’
‘That’s not all she is,’ said Fiorella. ‘Three pregnancy tests in one day usually only means one thing.’
Violetta nearly choked on her vin santo as Luciana gave a startled cough. Turned out some things still were surprising.
‘Lily is pregnant?’ Violetta asked.
‘I reckon,’ answered Fiorella.
‘She’s the size of a breadstick,’ pointed out the widow Ercolani. ‘She can’t be that pregnant.’
‘No, she can’t,’ agreed Violetta.
‘In the name of Santa Ana di Chisa,’ cried the widow Benedicti. ‘It must be Alessandro’s! Partial undress must be all you need these days.’
‘Yes, it must,’ agreed Violetta.
‘But this is a catastrophe! She belongs with Daniel but she carries another man’s child?’
Violetta felt a delicious warmth creep over her like a feather duvet. It was her instinct, safe and sound, guiding her toward what was right.
‘Yes, she does and yes, she is,’ she chortled. ‘Ladies, gather round.’
Chapter 50
She should have put two and two together the moment her insides failed to shrink from the cry of that fat baby girl in the piazza.
She was tired, she was pale, her smooth skin was unusually spotty, she had a headache, she had sore breasts. She’d had most of these symptoms before, after all. But she’d expunged the afternoon on Alessandro’s couch from her mind, so it did not occur to Lily until she realised her period was late that she could be pregnant.