‘Grazie,’ she says. ‘A bit too much.’ She turns to Stuart. ‘Come on, let’s go.’
‘No,’ he says stubbornly, and marches back to the counter. ‘Bongiorno? How much for the bowls?’
The shopkeeper smiles and points to the price. ‘Five hundred euros.’
‘No, really, mate,’ says Stuart, with an answering smile. ‘How much?’
Gina feels awkward. She knows you’re meant to haggle in markets but there’s a way of doing it. A way of making it a respectful ritual, not a dismissive stand-off.
‘I don’t think you’re meant to haggle in a shop, Stuart,’ she mutters.
‘You are,’ he hisses back. ‘I read it in one of your guidebooks. They expect it.’ He turns back to the shopkeeper. ‘A hundred for the four.’
The shopkeeper looks stunned, then amused. He spreads his palm and says, slowly, ‘Five. Five hundred euros.’
Gina tugs his sleeve. This feels wrong. It’s spoiling the bowls. ‘Stuart, please. I don’t want them that much. Let’s get some supper.’
He gestures to her. ‘See? She’s leaving.’
‘OK. Four hundred,’ says the shopkeeper at once.
Stuart gives her a quick, triumphant smile, and Gina feels foolish. ‘A hundred and twenty.’
The shopkeeper laughs, but he’s less confident now. There’s something terrier-like about Stuart. She’s seen it on the pitch: he never stops till he’s got the ball, working harder than most players of his height and position would bother to.
‘I do three fifty and that is my final offer,’ says the shopkeeper.
‘A hundred and twenty,’ Stuart repeats. ‘Come on. We’ve got the cash here.’
Gina can’t watch. The fact that Stuart can’t speak Italian and is making no effort to do so doesn’t seem to matter to the shopkeeper, although for some reason it does to her. She hates looking like a crass tourist when this city makes her feel like a masked princess. Or it did. For a bit.
Why? she asks herself. Why does it matter? Stuart’s getting her the bowls, like she wants.
He’s not listening to her, that’s the problem. He’s doing what he thinks she wants, but he hasn’t actually listened to why she wants it.
Stuart wasn’t listening on the Murano glass-factory trip because he’d already decided it was just an extended sales pitch designed to part them from their cash. Which, Gina concedes, it partly was, but there was also something mesmerising about the ancient skill, the liquid glass, the colours. The idea of something fragile also being heavy and strong. Like love, she wanted to tell him, but she’s getting the sinking feeling that it might be a metaphor too far.
‘There!’ Stuart turns round, triumphant. She sees the shopkeeper wrapping up four identical bowls, Stuart counting out a hundred and eighty euros and the shopkeeper theatrically counting it back. Then he hands the bag to her.
‘Happy anniversary,’ says Stuart, with a smile that Gina thinks means he’s enjoyed getting some sport out of the weekend.
‘Happy anniversary!’ cries the shopkeeper. ‘How long you married?’
‘Oh, not married yet.’ Gina shakes her head, and the shopkeeper wags his finger.
‘You should! Both of you! Belli, belli!’
They are quite belli. They look like two honeymooners, Gina thinks, as they make their way across the square, lit up now with tiny lights strung between the street lamps like low stars. He’s handsome, she’s glowing. She could do a lot worse.
Her mother certainly thinks so. Naomi likes him. Everyone likes him.
I like him, Gina reminds herself.
Stuart puts his arm around her waist and she concentrates on how lovely Venice is. How lovely the hotel is, how romantic the four-poster bed will be. Gina leans her head on Stuart’s shoulder, and they walk in silence in the warm Italian night air.
‘I got you what you wanted,’ he says, and if it hadn’t sounded like a prompt Gina would have agreed.
‘You did,’ says Gina. ‘But—’ She stops herself.
‘But what?’
They come to a halt, under a street lamp near the hotel, and Gina hears her voice carrying on: ‘But do you have any idea what I love about them?’
‘What do you mean by that?’ The moment is teetering on the edge of something now. The canal water beneath the bridge glitters blackly with the reflected lights.
‘I don’t know. I just feel like . . . like you don’t . . .’ Gina can’t find the right words and they’re staring into each other’s faces, the atmosphere thickening between them.
Gina suddenly has a very sharp thought: His face is so familiar, but I don’t know him at all. What he loves, what inspires him, what scares him. If anything really does. It’s fine, this relationship, but she can’t see where it ends. Not in a ‘we’ll be together for ever’ way, but because it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. They’re getting used to each other, not sharing an adventure. This isn’t what she wants for the rest of her life. And she’s twenty-six. Her and Stuart – they’re seventeen in pontoon, a nearly full-stacked Buckaroo. Not perfect, but then what is? The trouble is, Gina knows what is.
End it, says a clear voice in her head, and she has no idea where it’s come from. End it now, before . . .
‘I do,’ says Stuart, his face confused with emotion. ‘Whatever it is you think I don’t do, I really do. I just . . . can’t express it as well as you.’
Then before Gina can reply, he leans forward and kisses her, and the kiss goes on for such a long time, Gina’s back pressed against the cool stone wall of the hotel, that it pushes all the voices away.
Maybe we’re eighteen, she thinks. Eighteen’s worth sticking.
Stuart’s I love you danced in front of Gina’s eyes when she shut them, stark white, not black.
A mortified relief followed the pain. It was definitely over now – for both of them.
When she opened her eyes again, Nick was staring at her, his own embarrassment forgotten in his concern for her.
‘Are you all right?’ He looked so genuinely worried that she nearly told him, but her self-respect kicked in, just in time. You’re at work, she reminded herself. He is a client, one whose wife thinks I’m provincial. Gina tried to distract herself with the rudeness of that and failed.
‘I’m fine,’ she croaked, but the sobs had turned into involuntary hiccups. ‘Fine,’ she repeated, frowning, only to hiccup again.
‘You don’t sound fine.’
Gina screwed up her face and flapped her hands at herself, willing it to stop. Stop it. Stop it. Naturally, that only made her sob-hiccup more. ‘I am, it’s just shock . . . Sorry, this is really embarrassing.’
Why do I even care? She thought, as her brain mercilessly flashed the words up again. I don’t love him.
They stood without speaking for a moment or two, until Nick cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘Um, Gina?’
She opened an eye. Nick was rubbing his chin. He winced, and ran the hand through his hair, damp with sweat from his run. ‘You overheard what I was saying to Amanda,’ he said.
Gina pulled herself together. ‘For the record, I’m not provincial.’
‘Of course you’re not.’ Nick looked sheepish. ‘We hired you because you know this area. We don’t want this house to look like something we could have bought in Fulham. Look, I’m sorry. I hope you don’t feel . . .’
She blinked. Did he think she was crying because of what she’d heard?
‘I’m not crying about that!’ Gina blurted out. ‘Not that I don’t think it’s bloody . . .’ The hiccups overtook her again and she turned away with a groan.
His phone rang, and he grimaced apologetically while he answered it. ‘Hello? Hey, Charlie, yes, I’m working on it right now. Yup, I’m at my desk doing it . . .’
Gina stared at Nick’s running gear, trying to get her breathing under control. Her attention was drawn to the T-shirt: it looked like an old favourite, one that had been washed so often the faded cotton was paper-soft. His trainers w
ere pretty battered, too. Part of the architect’s plans included a high-spec yoga/Pilates studio for Amanda with special lighting and floor-to-ceiling mirrors, but Nick was clearly more of an old-school baggy-shorts-and-trainers runner.
Casual Nick and focused Amanda weren’t the most likely pair, she thought, but she could picture them in the Style section of a Sunday paper, him in bare feet, her in oatmeal loungewear, drinking aeropress coffee in their architectural kitchen, and talking about their unorthodox transatlantic lifestyle. Amanda, particularly, had that polish that made everything Gina said feel gauche.
‘. . . by this afternoon? I can email you the jpegs and you can choose which ones you want me to retouch . . .’
Whatever it was, Nick and Amanda were together. She and Stuart were not. And now Stuart was rebuilding a life with someone else, starting again in that exciting romantic-text phase. Thrilling every time the phone bleeped. Gina turned the knife, tormenting herself to get the feelings out of her system faster.
When she looked up, Nick had finished his call.
‘I’ve been at my desk all morning, honest,’ he said. ‘Were you waiting long?’
‘I’d just arrived,’ she said brightly. Pretend this never happened. ‘So! Let’s talk about your cellars!’ Then she hiccuped, and groaned.
‘Come inside,’ he said, and jerked his head towards the house.
Nick left her at the kitchen table with a glass of water, and went off to shower. ‘Back in a sec,’ he said, without turning, and Gina was grateful. She sipped the water and the hiccups began to recede.
Upstairs, the hot-water pipes clanked as Nick ran the shower, and Gina could hear the distant sound of the builders’ radio, some intermittent banging. Sunlight fell on the pitted kitchen table, a brief spot of warmth directly on her arm. She pressed her thumbs into the hollows at the side of her skull, and let the old smell of wood and damp and bare stone flood her senses until she wasn’t thinking about Stuart at all, but about the house.
She didn’t hear Nick padding back into the kitchen until he was right behind her.
‘Can you do me a favour? It’ll only take a minute.’ Without waiting for a response, he held out three eggs, two pale blue, one opaque white. ‘Can you hold these eggs for me? Cup your hands . . . No, like this.’ Nick positioned her hands, curving one on top of the other until they made a nest. Gina watched, as if the hands weren’t her own, as he carefully laid the eggs in the hollow.
She looked down at them, since she didn’t know where else to look. They were perfect. The smooth satin curve of the shells made her own hands seem like a relief map of lines and cracks.
‘There.’ He straightened up, holding his hands over hers as if to set them in place. ‘Careful. They’re my last ones, so don’t break them.’
Nick leaned back and, without looking, picked up an old-fashioned Polaroid camera that lay on a chair, its squat lens facing upwards. ‘Already had a couple of incidents this morning. Turns out you can’t hold fresh eggs and photograph them at the same time.’ He paused, and took a quick snap. ‘Is that a country saying? Don’t answer that. Just keep very still. Brilliant.’
Gina breathed in and out, big, slow breaths that filled her lungs with the cool air. The tension in her chest was slackening. All her concentration was fixed on the three eggs filling her hands. She had the weird sensation of everything else outside her peripheral vision blurring backwards into nothing.
Nick ripped the photo from the camera, and stuck it under his armpit.
‘Are these duck eggs?’ she asked.
‘Yup, from the farm over that hill,’ said Nick. He peeled back the paper, frowned, then took another. This time the photo seemed to be right, because he put the Polaroid down and picked up his modern digital camera. ‘Lovely, aren’t they?’
He was standing directly above her, leaning round to get the light right; she could smell his freshly washed hair and the fabric softener on the clean white shirt. Her other senses seemed sharper now she couldn’t move. ‘One more. Lift your hand a little? Left hand? Perfect. OK. Perfect.’
The steady click and whirr of his camera. The distant sound of birdsong. The soothing, encouraging murmur of his voice. Gina’s concentration focused on her hands until her whole body felt centred on the eggs, and an unexpected serenity settled over her shoulders, as if something was pressing down on her, very gently.
It went on for several minutes, the clicking and adjusting.
‘Why am I doing this, please?’ Gina asked, feeling she ought to say something. Her voice sounded loud in her head.
Nick answered without taking his eye from the camera: ‘It’s for a friend’s website. She makes silver jewellery but the site’s called Duck Egg Blue and she wants some photos. I don’t know if she’s ever seen a duck egg. I could probably have used three eggs from the fridge, come to think of it. Photoshopped them. Dur.’
Click. Pause. Adjustment.
Gina had never really looked at a duck egg before. Lots of her clients wanted duck egg blue kitchens, but this was prettier than any paint colour she’d sourced. Elegant, almost green. Too nice to eat.
‘You should have got Lorcan to hold them for you. The contrast would have been better.’
‘Ah, great minds. No, I tried it with Lorcan’s hands, but apparently there was a bit too much contrast there. It looked like the eggs were in a chain mail glove. His words, not mine, I should add. It’s my fault for leaving it so late. It’s a good thing that you came over, actually – I used Amanda’s hands for the test shoot but she’s not coming back until next week.’
Click. Pause.
‘Although you probably heard all about Amanda’s itinerary,’ he added. ‘Out there.’
‘I wasn’t listening.’ Gina kept her eyes fixed on the eggs. She had a strong mental image of Nick’s face: wry, apologetic.
‘Sure you weren’t listening.’
‘I wasn’t. What does she do?’ Gina asked, to change the subject. ‘I don’t think I asked before.’
‘Amanda’s a Mergers and Acquisitions partner in an American law firm. They fly her all over the place to hammer out deals. Her airmiles are insane, but she gets things sorted out in half the time anyone else can. Sorry, can I . . .?’ A slight twist of the finger, a gesture that managed to be very intimate but detached at the same time. ‘I’m sorry she’s not around this week. I’m sure you’ve got questions for her. But if you write them down for me I can discuss them with her tonight.’
There was a pause, in which the other, unheard half of Nick’s phone conversation hovered between them.
‘Just so you know, it’s completely normal to have massive rows when you’re renovating a house,’ said Gina, since she didn’t have to look at him. ‘Anyone who tells you different is either lying or they’ve forgotten. It’s very stressful, finding out that someone you thought you knew has very strong views about, say, which way round a bath goes.’
‘Oh, we know.’ Nick gave a mirthless laugh. ‘That’s why I insisted we got a third party in to manage things. When we were doing up our last house, a vase ended up going out of a window during a discussion about dimmer switches. I was about ten seconds away from following it. I can’t actually remember why we thought it would be a good idea to do up another wreck but there you go. I guess it’s like childbirth. You forget.’
‘Where was your last house?’
‘East London. We bought a semi-derelict Georgian place in Clerkenwell that had been split into flats and got an architect to put them all back together again. Lots of glass and interior staircases, very stylish. Hot-tub-on-the-roof type of thing. Sold that last year and bought a flat in the Barbican, and started looking for somewhere more rural.’
That was exactly the house Gina had imagined the Rowntrees in. She could see the kitchen now: four shades of white, lots of glass and no handles.
‘Wow,’ she said. ‘So how did you go from there to here?’
‘Well, it’s got serious cellars for the bad home-brewing hobby I
fully intend to take up, and I wanted a barn to make into a studio.’
‘No, I mean, why would you choose Longhampton? Do you have family connections? Did you holiday here?’ Gina was genuinely curious. ‘It’s not somewhere people often choose of their own accord.’
Nick looked up from his camera. His eyes were unusual: pale grey, like a wintry sky, and they seemed to look right into her. He wasn’t scared of eye contact, but then, Gina reasoned, he was used to looking at people all day. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I grew up in Hartley. Have you been to Hartley yet? It has a garden centre.’
‘You don’t have a local accent, though. So you must have moved out and come back at some point.’
Gina hadn’t realised it was so obvious. She wondered what else Nick Rowntree had noticed about her, and looked down at the eggs again. ‘Sort of,’ she said, as Nick gently moved her hands into a new position. ‘It’s not a bad place to live. But people don’t tend to move into Longhampton unless they . . . well, unless they have to. For work. Or . . . family.’
‘That’s kind of the point. We wanted . . .’ He stopped, reconsidered, then started clicking again. ‘I wanted to buy a house somewhere secret, where you can just step out of the world for a bit, not one of those Cotswolds villages that fills up on the weekend with all the people you’re getting out of London to avoid. Somewhere with seasons, and proper weather. A house that hasn’t had all the history modernised out of it. I’ve always wanted a house with a few ghosts.’
‘Lorcan was joking the other day, you know. This house isn’t haunted – if anything, I get a very happy feeling from it.’
‘Do you? Is that your professional opinion?’
‘Yes,’ said Gina honestly. ‘Most houses have one room that’s the obvious heart, usually a big kitchen, but this has several – the kitchen’s going to be amazing, the panelled sitting room’s got that fabulous view of the lawns, that dining room is a fantastic entertaining space, the gardens are begging to be enjoyed . . . It’s a house designed for people to live in. It feels lived in. In a good way. Don’t you think?’