Tuscany for Beginners Read online

  To Scazza and the Colonel

  With Love

  “Poggibonsi, fatti in la,

  che Monteriano si fa città!”

  Poggibonsi was revealed to her as

  they sang—a joyless struggling place,

  full of people who pretend.

  —Where Angels Fear to Tread,

  E. M. Forster

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I'd like to thank my husband, Kenton Allen, for his help, his humor and his love while writing this. I'd like to thank my sister, Leonie, my brother, Marcus, and my father for their support and well-feigned interest. I would also particularly like to thank my mother and stepfather, Colin Campbell, for all their help, their ideas, their comments, their corrections and their contributions—I hope they know how grateful I am.

  I am also totally indebted to my old friend Ben Faccini for the hours he spent eating “prawn gunk” discussing this idea and for his brilliant, novel-saving suggestions. I'd also like to thank Daisy Waugh for her life-enhancing phone calls, Candace Bushnell for her advice and acerbic wit, Claudia Winkleman, Kris Thykier, Sebastian Scott, and Peter Mikic for their delightfulness, Ciara Parkes for her vodka, Antonia Camilleri for her cigarettes, Katya Galitzine for being Russian, Jessica Adams for her spiritual guidance, Caroline Coogan, Gay Longworth, Xander Armstrong, Tom Hollander, Jamie Theakston, Alek Keshishan, Beatie Edney, Laurie Taylor, Cathie Mahoney, and Sarah Vine for their conversations, their cocktails and their invaluable friendship. And lastly I'd like to thank the voyaging Sean Langan for never being here, so I could actually get on and do some work.

  And on the work front, I would like to thank James Herring and Sam Mortner at Taylor Herring for all their genius help with my last novel, The Wendy House. You were amazing. I would also like to thank Philippa Pride, sadly leaving Hodder, for her fine editing and publishing skills. And finally, I would like to give thanks for special agent Stephanie Cabot, a living goddess if ever there was one. Thank you all.

  PROLOGUE

  Belinda Smith moved to Tuscany five years ago, after she found her husband in bed with another woman. Returning home early one afternoon, she was halfway up the stairs when she heard the unfamiliar sound of sex. She squeezed off her slip-on heels, tiptoed toward the door and poked her head around it, to be greeted by the sight that changed her life.

  The image of her husband's pink, dimpled, crinkled behind pounding up and down was shocking. But the sight of Mar-jorie's spread thighs and raised hooked knees as she panted away like a begging dog was enough to give the poor woman nightmares. Which indeed she'd had. For two whole weeks. Until her friend Fiona introduced her to the joys of Valium, and the candy-coated musings of Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes.

  In the months that followed Belinda's divorce, and the unequal division of the marital assets, her destiny became clear. She would leave behind the dull dormitory town of Tilling, where nothing ever happened. She would start her life again. On her own. In Tuscany. She would run a B&B and keep a diary. She would jot down her thoughts, share her ideas and aperçus. She would pass on her delicious recipes to the next generation. She might even one day have them read by the general public. But, most important of all, Casa Mia would be her business, run by her rules, and she would never ever be humiliated again.…

  ITALY—TUSCANY

  Giovedì Thursday

  Climafa caldo (Hot! Hot! Hot!)

  This is the beginning of my fifth season in questo bellissimo valley— Val di Santa Caterina, Toscana—and although I have been here for quite a while, it is only now that I'm feeling quite pronto to write a diary and share my thoughts, and my ideas, and the little life lessons that I have gleaned from my very own corner of Paradiso.

  And what a corner of Paradiso it is! Val di Santa Caterina is one of those terribly beautiful unspoiled valleys in Toscana where the locals still farm, the land is still worked, and the Italians continue to live a simple peasant existence like they have done for hundreds of years. It is just too, too divine!

  We are also lucky enough to have a small, yet vibrant, expat community in the area, which—thankfully—consists mainly of us English, although there are a few Australians, some Belgians (who keep very much to themselves), and the odd German (whom everyone tries to avoid at all costs!). But the social life is mainly made up of us Brits, who are nearly all writers and painters or just artists in general.

  My little spot, Casa Mia, is a very large, converted gentleman's country villa and has to be one of the most fortunato finds of one's lifetime! Perched on top of the hill, handily near the road, it has been sensitively restored by an English developer, who has been living near Florence for seven years and very much knew what he was doing. With new terraces and a new sun-soaked terra-cotta roof, Casa Mia has vistas galore and none of the drawbacks of any of those very old properties. Also, because I used a developer, I was lucky enough to avoid all that well-known Italian inefficiency when it comes to doing up a house. I mean, why put oneself through the terrible hell of carpenters not arriving, plumbers overcharging, and all that, when you can get a place, move in more or less immediately, and set about putting in those little touches that make a villa a home?

  And so, for the past few years I have enjoyed welcoming guests into my lovely casa. It gives me great joy to share my little corner of Paradiso with visitors from all over the world. I enjoy being generous with my views, my villa, my little bit of heaven on earth where the birds sing and the sunflowers grow.

  As I said, this is my fifth season, and I must confess that I feel ever so much at home here. It is lovely, really, how much the people have taken me to their hearts. I am very much part of the comunità. Some would say an essential part of it! At the risk of blowing my own trumpet (which would be very unattractive), I can safely say that nothing really happens here without me or my highly motivational involvement! Quite what everyone did before I arrived, I shall never know!

  Only last night at supper at Giovanna's (our local ristorante), Derek took my hand and announced to the table that from now on everyone should call me “La Contessa of the Valley.” It was terribly sweet of him, but after the way I ran last year's panto, I did rather reluctantly have to agree. In fact, the more we discussed my achievements in the valley, the more we all agreed that it was such a terribly good name. So “La Contessa di Val di Santa Caterina” it is, then! What a mouthful! I wonder if it will ever catch on?

  But there are more pressing matters at hand. My daughter is arriving this afternoon. There is much to do. Casa Mia is in need of a good spring cleaning before my summer visitors arrive. I am so used to all of this now—being a hostess is more or less second nature to me. Making the beds, scrubbing the floors, clearing the terraces, and tidying the drive are all taken care of by my local help—which, of course, frees me to make things look authentically Italian, placing a bowl of lemons here, a bunch of wild flowers gleaned from the roadside there. Perfecto! Quite frankly, I'm so settled here I find it quite hard to think of my life before I left the U.K. behind, and made the heavenly move to Toscana. Home of olives, sunflowers, and tobacco. Plus, let's not forget, buonissimo cooking!

  CHAPTER ONE

  elinda Smith is sweating profusely. Her face is contorted with the strain of pretending to understand Italian. She is enunciating slowly, and loudly, down the telephone, while her short fingers tear frantically through the mini-Italian dictionary. “La grippa?” she repeats. “You have la grippa ?” she says again. Tucking the receiver under her chin, she licks the tips of her fingers and flicks through the tissue-thin pages, trying to understand exactly what has so incapacitated Giulia.

  “Oh,” she says suddenly, straightening up. “You've got the flu, you say.”A gentle feverish moan
comes back down the receiver. “What a shame—che pecorino !” she exclaims. “Che pecorino!” she nods, vigorously, yet unconsciously complimenting Giulia on the excellence of her sheep's cheese. “Well … you … stay where you are, then. No vieni Casa Mia, I'll see you when you tutto va bene, ” she shouts, smiling at her own generosity. “Um … ciao, ” she adds, her head cocked to one side as she slams down the phone.

  “Well, that's just bloody perfecto, ” she mutters. Sighing, she runs a hand over her brow, wiping off the efforts of communi-cation. “The flu, the flu, the bloody flu. I can't understand why the stupid woman can't work with the flu. Starve a cold, feed a fever, work the flu. It's famous,” she says, her small blue eyes shooting heavenward. “Everyone knows that … everyone …”

  Exhausted, Belinda flops into her ex-husband's favorite armchair and, stretching out her plump forearms, starts to knead the upholstery with her pink painted nails.

  Although certainly rounder since the day she discovered her other half at it like a terrier with her dear friend-and-next-door-neighbor, Belinda looks quite a lot younger than she used to. Gone is the demi-wave in favor of a more Bohemian brown, ear-length bob, which only tends toward the Einstein on washdays. Gone also are the stiff skirts and high-buttoned shirts that used to frot with efficiency around Safeway on Friday afternoons. They have been replaced by more Italia-friendly floaty skirts and floral-print frocks. Gone also are the navy slipons: Belinda's collection of jazzy flip-flops, fun sandals, and jaunty town heels just keeps on growing. In fact, if you didn't know any better, Belinda Smith looks like she's been going to art galleries and eating garlic all her life, instead of just the last five years.

  Hitching up her navy, red, and white flowered skirt, Belinda points her dry shins toward the open terrace door and warms them in the sun. Eyes half closed, a furious frown on her not unattractive face, she runs through the Rolodex of chores that Giulia should be doing, if she weren't so Italian and unreliable. The sweeping, the scrubbing, the dusting, the eviction of spiders from their winter homes, the clearing up of dead scorpions, the ushering outside of the occasional disoriented lizard, all are jobs that are seasonally assigned to Giulia. But this year, with a brace of Belgians arriving at the weekend, these tasks have obviously fallen to Belinda's remit. Yet Belinda is not overly fond of wildlife. In fact, she can't stand any of the beasts or bugs that populate her house. However, she is not one to let standards slip. With little choice than to don a pair of industrial-strength rubber gloves, she slaps the arm of the chair and stands up, resolved in the spirit of stiff upper lips to get on with it. Walking toward the kitchen, her steely determination is, rather fortunately, interrupted by the telephone. Its foreign sound—one long ring, plus a short intermission—always takes her by surprise.

  “Pronto,” she says, after a suitably relaxed six rings. “Pronto?” she repeats, pursing her lips, placing her head to one side, assuming the pose of an elegant hostess. “Casa Mia?” she says, her voice rising optimistically at the end of the sentence.

  “Mum?” comes a muffled and distant reply, as though through a decade of dust down a receiver in Florence railway station.

  “Pronto?” says Belinda again, frowning with practiced confusion.

  “Mum? It's me—Mary. Can you hear me? I'm at Florence station,” shouts Mary, above the noise of a departing diesel.

  “Oh, Maria, darling,” says Belinda eventually, after a tricky pause. “Darling,” she says again. “I'm so sorry I almost didn't understand you.” She laughs. “You're speaking English!”

  “Oh, right, sorry.”

  “Yes, well,” says Belinda, allowing a sliver of irritation to slip into her voice. “When will you be arriving? What time is your train?”

  “Umm,” says Mary, accompanied by the distant crackle of paper.

  “Because I do hope it's at a convenient time. We have a huge … come si dice … crisis going on here. Giulia has grappa and I have no one to clean the house.”

  “What? She's been drinking?” asks Mary, sounding confused.

  “No. What are you talking about?” says Belinda, frowning with annoyance. “Don't be ridiculous, she's terribly ill, so you must come here as soon as you can. There are beds to be made and rooms to clean.”

  “I won't go shopping, then,” suggests Mary, “and I'll take the earlier train.”

  “Oh, grazie, Maria darling, would you?” says Belinda, smiling tightly down the telephone.

  “It'll mean waiting an hour at the station as a train has just gone.”

  “Oh, would it? Well …”Belinda pauses. “See you at just after two p.m. Arrivadeary !”

  “Arrivadeary?” repeats Mary, quite slowly.

  “Arrivederci, arrivadeary,” giggles Belinda. “It's our new little joke.”

  “Oh,” says Mary.

  “Arrivadeary!” replies her mother with a little laugh, and replaces the telephone.

  There is a renewed spring in Belinda's stride as she wanders toward the kettle next to the dusty Gaggia coffee machine. The arrival of her daughter, her only child, could not have happened at a more opportune moment. Belinda allows herself a special satisfied smile as she flicks the switch, her face assuming the expression usually reserved for minor victories over Derek's wife, Barbara. For not only does this mean that Mary will be able to assist in the catering right from the start of the season, which she has not managed before due to pressure of work, but she will be able to fill in for Giulia while the woman is unwell. Thus Mary's arrival has saved Belinda the unpleasantness of making beds, cleaning floors, and tidying spiders. It's perfect. She decides to treat herself to a cup of Nescafé on the terrace and a po' di her favorite Russell “The Voice” Watson CD to celebrate.

  While Watson's soaring renditions of “Bridge over Troubled Water” and “Nessun Dorma!” roll down the valley, pouring through the open windows of Giovanna's trattoria, Belinda relaxes over a thirteen-month-old British Vogue left by one of her previous guests and a cup of coffee with Hermesetas. This is her idea of a perfectly perfect morning: sitting on her terrace, surrounded by her large terra-cotta pots of candy-pink geraniums and urns of turquoise hydrangeas, browning herself in the midmorning sun and—with the help of her trusty binoculars— spying on or, as she would put it, keeping herself acquainted with, exactly what is going on in the valley.

  As Tuscan valleys go, the Val di Santa Caterina is relatively small. About five miles long and a mile wide, it descends gently toward a small, often dry stream at its floor. The single white dirt road that winds past Belinda's house and through the valley is lined, in part, by cypress trees that stand to attention like bright green feathers. The poor rocky land on the crest of the surrounding hills supports only the occasional bush or tree, but it gives way to fertile pasture below, green and lush in the soft light of early summer. Neatly terraced with stone walls, the intensely cultivated lowlands of Val di Santa Caterina certainly sing for their supper. Fields of sunflowers, maize, wheat, tobacco, vines, and olive trees jostle for hillside space, like some sort of fecund patchwork quilt. The overall impression is of an authentic, fully functioning agricultural valley that, although most definitely beguiling, would not, by Tuscan standards, win any beauty competition. This, coupled with its proximity to the singularly unattractive, war-damaged town of Poggibonsi, makes the houses in the valley slightly more affordable than others in the glamorous Chianti area.

  Directly opposite Belinda, and on the east side of the valley, live Derek and Barbara, one of the first expat couples to grace the valley. They have been doing up their not insubstantial tobacco farmhouse for the past ten years. Brash and flash with his cash, Derek made a lot of money in ladies' underwear in the early nineties. Having started out in “large nylon panties with a breathable gusset” in the eighties, he was one of the first Manchester clothing manufacturers to make the move into underwired bras and thongs. So having made enough money from lifting and separating the nation, he and Barbara took early retirement and moved into what had been t
heir holiday home on a permanent basis. And they have been doing it up ever since: expanding it, altering it, refurbishing it, adding a pool to it, extending the drive, replanting the olive groves, laying out rows of new cypress trees, seeding the lawn. Derek is one of those men who finds it difficult to sit still and, since his arrival in Val di Santa Caterina, he has been instrumental in both the setting up and running of the local Christmas panto, as well as increasing the Brit involvement in the Festa di Formaggio. Belinda's arrival relieved him of both these responsibilities. So now he spends his time thinking up other plans and diversions.

  Farther along the valley, and still on the lower east side, is the local farmer's large villa, with its collection of outhouses, cottages and barns, which house not only Signor and Signora Bianchi, but also his mother, their three sons, two of whom have wives and another three small children. One son, Gianfranco Bianchi—more informally known as Franco—is the handsome handyman who helps the ladies of the valley with their tricky maintenance and DIY problems. A source of great comfort to them in their time of need, he seems to do rather well in the bargain, particularly around Christmas and his birthday, when he is showered with expensive trinkets from all corners of the valley.

  Almost directly opposite the Bianchis and down the valley from Casa Mia is La Trattoria di Giovanna. The hub of all action, the scene of all gossip, the epicenter of all that goes on in the Val di Santa Caterina, it is open all day, every day, except Sunday nights and Thursdays, and sells, among other things, panini, rolls with slivers of prosciutto and shots of kidney-killer coffee for lunch, then yards of shiny homemade pasta and cartwheels of stringy cheese pizza for dinner, plus an amazing assortment of home-cured hams and seasonal dishes like stuffed zucchini flowers. Its long bar is piled high with bottles of Montepulciano, Orvieto, locally produced Chianti, and packets of cigarettes; it is the second home of Howard, the alcohol-fueled author, who lives farther along the hill from Belinda. As thin as a stick, with a Brillo pad of blond hair and a face as red as the wine he drinks, Howard Oxford is forty-four and had a literary hit called The Sun Shone on Her Face, back in the eighties. A romantic love story set in turn-of-the-century mid-Wales, it was made into a two-hour special by the BBC. Howard became famous. He drank and fucked most of London, and went on to develop chlamydia and writer's block. Although now fortunately fertile, he is still unfortunately blocked—so blocked, in fact, that the only thing he has written since his arrival in the valley three years ago is a PR piece for the Spectator about the Gordon's gin juniper-berry harvest, plus a version of Puss in Boots for the Christmas panto.