Sometimes, when my parents were arguing or my sisters were being less than sisterly, I would go to the bottom of our garden and climb over my dad’s wheelbarrow and the old pots of paint he still hadn’t taken to the tip, and pretend that the little square of scrub between the shed and the hedge was my very own secret garden. It was a perfect plan until our neighbour busted me ‘borrowing’ a couple of pansies from his back garden and grassed me up to my mum. But now my mum was far away and there was no one to drag me inside and make me scrub my hands until the dirt had washed away from under my fingernails and the skin was red and raw. I snapped away, working out the setting on my new camera, fiddling with the flash, the exposure, trying to get used to the bright summer light. Even though Hawaii had its share of sunshine, it hadn’t seemed as harsh as it did here in Milan. At least here in my garden, there was enough shade to stop me from burning off every layer of skin. Note to self: buy sunscreen. Along with sunglasses and an entirely new wardrobe.
Glancing upwards, I noticed a balcony at the end of the building on the third floor. My room was at the end of the building on the third floor. With all the nonsense over my case, I hadn’t even looked out of my own window. Retracing my steps through the courtyards, I finally found my way back to the main entrance of the house and bolted back up the stairs and down the hallway to my suite. Panting more than I would have liked, I ran over to my window and pulled aside the curtains, blinking down into the sunshine. There it was, my secret garden, right outside my bedroom. Only it seemed it wasn’t just my secret any more. There was a man sitting at the small, wrought-iron table in the corner, flicking his cigarette into the ashtray I had found.
I slipped back behind my curtains, not hiding but not wanting to be seen. Had he been outside my garden the whole time? Had he heard me singing ‘A Whole New World’ considerably louder than I would have if I’d known there was another human within fifty feet? Something in my stomach tightened as he rested his cigarette in the ashtray and stretched his arms up high, linking his hands behind his ashy blond head.
It couldn’t be.
‘Get your shit together, Tess,’ I told myself, forcing my shaking hands to steady themselves, and held my camera up to my face. ‘And now open your eyes, you daft cow.’
I prised my left eye open and forced myself to look through the viewfinder, trembling as I zoomed in. The focus blurred in and out, settling into sharp reality just as the man in the garden looked up towards my window. Pressing my back against my bedroom wall, I breathed in and closed my eyes. That was how you made yourself invisible, wasn’t it? I heard my pulse pounding in my ears, the blood rushing around my body so fast and making me so dizzy that I couldn’t trust my legs. I grabbed at the camera strap around my neck, pawing desperately. I threw it onto the bed and bolted into the bathroom just in time. My knees gave way and I fell in front of the toilet, just in time to be so incredibly sick.
Panting heavily and wiping my clammy forehead with the back of my hand, I tried to turn and wedge myself in between the toilet and the corner bath. Well, I thought, still shaking and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Surely it couldn’t be the first time a girl had thrown up at the mere sight of Nick Miller?
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Hello, my girl.’
I heard a warm, deep voice speak from the end of the table before I saw him. It was Al, my fairy godfather, resplendent in a dark three-piece suit and white shirt. Beside him sat Kekipi, similarly suited and booted but opting for a more Kekipi-ish cream-coloured fabric that set off his tan a treat. Apparently we were dressing for dinner.
And when I said we, I did not mean me.
I was wearing my jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt with a low back and, formerly, a sequin trim on the sleeves that had been relatively easily hacked off with a pair of nails scissors. It was the only half-decent option I had found in Amy’s suitcase of horrors and incredibly upset about it I was too. This was not the outfit I would have chosen to be wearing when I went one-on-one with Nick Miller. Obviously, the outfit I would have chosen would be the dress I had worn at my recent wedding to Ryan Gosling. Sadly, I was stuck in baggy old jeans and Amy’s T-shirt. Score.
‘Hello!’ I opened up my arms to Al for one of the best hugs in the business, keeping one eye open to scan the rest of the room over his shoulder but there was no one lurking in the shadows, no one waiting with a snarky comment, just Kekipi, tipping me the wink.
Nick wasn’t there.
I breathed out for what felt like the first time in hours, relieved, disappointed, sick to my stomach. I wanted to see him so badly, I could taste it; I wanted to take my eyeballs out and rub them all over him so I would never forget exactly how he looked, sitting in the garden, smoking that cigarette.
‘I am very glad to see you here.’ Al pulled out the chair beside him and waited for me to sit down, his eyes twinkling in the candlelight and late evening sun. ‘And how lovely you look.’
‘I didn’t know we were dressing up,’ I replied, taking my seat as a waiter appeared to pour my water before disappearing just as quickly. There seemed to be an awful lot of cutlery surrounding my eighteen million plates and four glasses. What was I going to do with four glasses?
‘I had a bit of a luggage malfunction.’ I gestured down at my jeans and pulled a face. ‘Fingers crossed I can do better tomorrow.’
‘Luggage malfunction?’ Kekipi asked, slapping another waiter’s hand away to pour my glass of prosecco himself. ‘Sounds scandalous.’
As with the rest of the house, the dining room was predictably beautiful, but instead of the high ceilings everywhere else in the palazzo, I looked up to see the sky. The dining room was outside. Even though it was inside. Mind. Blown. The dining table was right in the middle of the room, covered in more white and peach flowers, roses this time, and the whole space was lit with candles.
‘Amy decided to pack for me,’ I said. ‘So I need to go shopping. Without her.’
‘Milan’s best boutiques are right on our doorstep,’ he said. ‘We’ll go in the morning.’
I nodded, deciding now wasn’t the time to get into the difference between Milan’s best boutiques and the nearest H&M. Sipping my water, rather than the prosecco, I tried to peep around the room as subtly as possible. Definitely just us. And the invisible waiters.
‘Are you looking for someone in particular?’ Kekipi asked.
I looked at him sharply.
‘Should I be?’ I asked, combing my hair behind my ear and lowering my voice into a hiss. I’d been calling his extension for hours and he hadn’t replied once. It was hard to concentrate on half an Italian episode of Game of Thrones when you were as pissed off as I was. I had not had a restful afternoon.
Kekipi shrugged and I dug my fingernails into my palms so sharply, I was worried I had magically developed Wolverine powers.
The double doors opened once more to reveal Amy, wearing the leftovers from Molly Ringwald’s prom dress in Pretty in Pink. Her polka-dot skirt entered a full three seconds before she did, clashing impressively with the peachy tones of the dinner table.
‘Hi!’ She tiptoed over to the table in matching pink Mary Janes and white ankle socks. ‘I’m not late, am I?’
‘Not at all.’ Al rounded the table to kiss the back of Amy’s hand and pull out her chair. ‘I apologize for not being here to meet you earlier; I am Albert Bennett, and please call me Al. So happy that you were able to come along on the adventure.’
‘How could I not?’ she said, settling into her chair with a prolonged rustle. ‘Tess had such amazing stories about her visit to Hawaii that I wouldn’t have missed this for anything. And you know, she needs a chaperone.’
‘So this is Amy.’ I glanced over at Kekipi who was clearly already utterly in love. He was so fickle.
‘What are you wearing?’ she whispered as the main doors opened again to allow four waiters carrying elaborate platters to the table. ‘That’s supposed to be a dress.’
‘Maybe on you,??
? I hissed back. ‘But unless everyone at the table wants to see my womb, it’s a shirt on me.’
‘Still, you could have dressed up a bit,’ she muttered. ‘I love Al’s beard.’
‘It’s a brilliant beard and don’t you start,’ I warned her as the platters were placed on the table, full of cold meats and cheese and God knows what else. ‘Are we waiting for anyone else?’
‘Artie can’t join us this evening,’ Al replied with a barely detectable edge to his voice. I couldn’t work out if he was annoyed or relieved. ‘So I believe I have you two ladies all to myself. So, Tess, remind me exactly where we left things in Hawaii? What’s been happening with you?’
‘I’m sure no one wants to hear about that.’ I waved my hand, waiting for someone else to start eating so I could stuff my face with prosciutto. The service might be super formal but I was happy to see the actual meal was going to be suitably casual.
‘She came home, she made up with Paige, called Nick like a million times but he hasn’t called her back, so now she’s sort of going out with her mate, Charlie, and he wants to start an advertising agency but I think she’s mental to do that when she could be doing this. Oh, and Charlie told her he loved her and she gave him a double thumbs up.’ Amy paused to take a breath. Just one. ‘And, oh, she got kicked out of her flat and then arrested for breaking and entering and fell out of a window, which sounds worse than it is because it’s actually quite a funny story. I swear to God.’
The entire table stared at her in silence.
She raised her glass to her lips, peering at me over the edge. ‘What?’
‘Thanks,’ I said with a bright smile. ‘That was concise.’
‘What?’ she reached over and grabbed a piece of bread, much to Kekipi’s delight. ‘You didn’t break your neck or anything. They didn’t put you in prison; you’re not in Holloway. Or Rampton.’
‘What’s a Rampton?’ Kekipi asked, nothing on his plate and rapture in his eyes.
‘Prison for mentals,’ Amy answered.
‘It’s a maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane,’ I said, piling my plate high with meat. ‘So yeah, we’re all relieved I’m not there.’
‘Yet,’ Amy added.
‘It sounds as though you’ve done a fine job of keeping yourself busy,’ Al said, spooning some olives onto his plate. ‘I’m glad you could fit me in.’
‘It wasn’t a difficult decision,’ I lied, not wanting Al to think I didn’t want to be there. ‘There’s a lot of stuff going on but I’m really excited to be here. Super excited about your project.’
‘As am I,’ he replied. ‘It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time but I needed someone to give me a kick up the backside to get it started.’
‘Kekipi?’ I said.
Al smiled as he swallowed an olive. ‘Of course not, it was you.’
It was me?
‘It was me?’
‘Of course you.’ Al set down his knife and fork while Amy and I ploughed through the cheese platter. ‘All those talks we had, you really made me think, Miss Brookes. Life is too short not to take chances when you get to my age and so I’ve decided to go for it.’
‘Go for what, exactly?’ asked Amy, through a mouthful of burrata. ‘If you don’t mind me asking.’
‘Originally, when I asked you to come here, it was to shoot a retrospective of sorts,’ Al explained. ‘Taking those photos of Jane’s clothes, it was wonderful. Really, it was the first time I’ve been able to take pleasure in fashion since I lost her.’
Amy sniffed loudly, pulled a very sad face and then shovelled another forkful of cheese into her gob.
‘I thought what a glorious idea,’ he went on, after offering Amy a consoling pat on the wrist. ‘A beautiful book to catalogue all of my Janey’s glorious clothes, all the fashions she chose for the store, all of the outfits that were important to us. Janey always said that clothes tell a story and what better story to tell?’
‘I think that’s a brilliant idea,’ I said. He was right, I’d never been much of a clotheshorse but I remembered every last detail of every important outfit I had ever worn, good or bad. ‘But, what are you thinking now?’
‘I still want to do the book one day, a full retrospective, the history of it all,’ he replied as the servers reappeared to take away the food, much to my dismay. ‘But looking back made me look forward. I might have seen my best years but I’m not for the knackers’ yard just yet. I’m not quite ready to go gentle into that good night.’
‘What he’s trying to say is, you created a monster,’ Kekipi interrupted. ‘I find him huddled over his desk at two, three in the morning. He won’t go to sleep, he won’t rest in the day, it’s all quite frustrating.’
‘He’s worse than having a wife,’ Al said, scratching his beard and shaking his head. ‘As you know, my son Artie is set on taking over the Bennett’s retail business.’
‘I do know that,’ I confirmed. Artie had been quite clear about his ambitions the last time we had met. He had also been an obnoxious wanker, a trait he did not inherit from his father. ‘So what does that mean for you?’
‘It means starting again,’ he said, the twinkle in his eyes turning into a burn. ‘AJB.’
Amy looked at me, concerned. ‘Isn’t that something you can catch?’
‘The initials stand for Albert and Jane Bennett.’ Al sat back in his chair and unfastened the bottom two buttons on his waistcoat. ‘My new fashion line.’
‘That’s amazing.’ I said, both to Al and the servers who had reappeared carrying lots more food. ‘You’re really going to do it?’
‘Janey always wanted to start her own line but we got so caught up running the shops and then Artie came along and before we knew what was happening, we were old and she got so poorly.’ He nodded to a tall, dark-haired waiter to fill one of the glasses beside his plate with red wine. I wondered how many members of staff were rattling around the place; I had yet to see the same person twice.
‘I was game at the time but once things had moved on,’ Al said, swirling the wine around in his glass, ‘I felt out of step with things. And Artie was quick to confirm that for me, as you can imagine.’
I smiled politely as the waiter filled another of my glasses with red wine and then drained my prosecco, so that I wouldn’t have two full glasses of booze in front of me. Two glasses of wine would be fine. I couldn’t possibly get throw-up drunk when I’d eaten a bakery’s worth of bread and was about to go to town on what looked like the most delicious pasta I’d ever seen. My biggest worry was that my jeans wouldn’t fit in the morning and then I really would have to wear the stretchy green and blue paisley mini skirt I’d found in my suitcase.
‘But looking at Jane’s clothes for the first time in so long, it occurred to me that maybe fashion hasn’t changed that much. Or maybe I’m so old that my eye has come back in style, I’m not sure.’ He spun a forkful of tagliatelle into his mouth, miraculously missing his beard. ‘The idea of putting together a history of Bennett’s made me think that we should be documenting this new venture from the very beginning. And that’s why I need you.’
I felt myself flush a little, whether it was from the wine, the compliment, or the fact that it was still almost thirty degrees out and I was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, I wasn’t sure.
‘Not that I’m trying to talk myself out of the job,’ I said pushing my pasta around the plate. ‘But you do know I’m not a real photographer, don’t you? You could get anyone for this. Like – like a proper one.’
The fact that I could not actually name any proper photographers only confirmed to me that I was not one.
‘I know you may not be as experienced as some photographers,’ he corrected me, ‘but I’ve seen your work and, more importantly, I’ve seen your passion. Do you remember that first day we met on the beach?’
I thought back. ‘The day I wasn’t watching where I was going and fell flat on my arse?’
‘The day you
were so engrossed in your pictures that you didn’t even see me sat right in front of you,’ Al said. ‘You have a talent, Tess. And what’s more, you bloody well make me laugh. I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have poking around in my business with a camera. I don’t want a gang of strangers documenting my every move. I’ve thought about this. I only want people I trust in on this, people I like.’
‘And there’s nothing I would love more,’ I said, meaning every word. ‘But I don’t want to let you down. I love taking pictures, I just don’t know if I’m experienced enough to do you justice.’
Al reached across the table to take my hand. ‘You are so determined to deny your passion. Why would you wish your life away on anything other than the thing you love?’
‘Good question.’ Amy spoke from behind her wine glass, her eyes rolling skyward.
‘Amy hates my job,’ I explained. ‘In case you were wondering.’
‘I don’t hate her job,’ she said, turning to address the gents. ‘I hate that she has no life. I hate that I’ll call her on a Saturday morning to go to the pictures that night and she’s in the office and I hate that I call her on Sunday to see if she wants to go for lunch and she’s in the office. Do you know she missed her own surprise birthday party two years ago? Tell them why.’
‘They don’t want to know why,’ I said.
‘Tell us why immediately,’ Kekipi countered.
‘My boss asked me to work on a special project,’ I said, flashing Amy a warning which she duly ignored. ‘That’s all.’
‘She cat-sat his incontinent Persian for three bloody days,’ she shouted, slapping the table. ‘Over her own birthday.’
I rubbed a hand over my face, only to get a palmful of smudged mascara. Brilliant.
‘Professionalism and self-sacrifice are great strengths,’ Al said, taking my panda hand in his. ‘But perhaps it wouldn’t hurt for you to take a little bit more time to see what makes you really happy, work out what lights the fire.’
He let go of my hand and patted it lightly, before turning his attention to the rest of the table.