Tuscany for Beginners Read online

  Back on the other side of the valley, past the empty Casa Padronale with a chapel, which Belinda has her small blue eye on for future development, is the Monastero di Santa Caterina. A stunning piece of real estate, in a sublime location, with prime views and an old Etruscan road leading right up to it, it was sold to a lesbian cooperative from Sydney two years ago. The sale caused something of a sensation: the idea that the valley would be overrun by leagues of hirsute lesbians going about their Sapphic business made everyone hot under the collar— well, hot, certainly.

  However, when it actually came to any girl action, the lesbians moved in quietly and quickly and seem now to spend little time in the Northern Hemisphere. When they do grace the valley with their presence, they tend to keep themselves very much to themselves. They have only ever appeared once en masse in the trattoria, after a volleyball competition against another lesbian group from within the comune. But that one sighting was enough to keep the valley going for weeks. Truth be known, Belinda is not au fait enough with the comings and goings at Monastero di Santa Caterina. For when she claims she can see the whole valley from the lounger on her terrace, it is, like many of Belinda's claims, not entirely true. Even when she is out standing on the edge of her land, raised high on the balls of her feet, she can see only the front steps of the building through her trained lenses and, rather annoyingly, none of the expansive garden over the monastery wall.

  Now, lounging back on the green-and-white-striped sunbed, sipping her coffee and gently conducting Russell “The Voice” Watson with her right hand, Belinda busies herself by keeping her eyes and her binoculars pointed on the Bianchi farm below. Three Bianchi grandchildren are running around in the garden, chasing what could either be a piglet or a puppy. Belinda can't follow it quickly enough to find out which. At the far end of the kitchen garden, Franco has his shirt off and is chopping wood. The yellow sun plays on his bronzed back, and the sweaty shine of honest labor gleams across his shoulders. Belinda soon loses interest in the children and follows his every manly swing, the tip of her tongue protruding through her dehydrated lips.

  It is only when the strains of Russell Watson's glorious rendition of the Ultravox hit “Vienna” die down that Belinda hears the sound of a car. Such is the isolation of the valley and, indeed, its shape that the sound of a motor car reverberates with every gear change, demanding attention. Normally, due to Casa Mia's proximity to the only road, there is not an arriving or departing vehicle that Belinda Smith does not notice or remark upon. She can also, if she concentrates, tell apart every-one's mode of transport. Derek and Barbara's BMW's shooting brake purrs like a pussycat as it comes up the hill. The lesbian cooperative's people mover rattles like a prescription-pill junkie as it negotiates the white pot-holed road. And while Howard's jaded Renault almost never leaves his drive, all of the Bianchis' Apes, Cinquecentos, tractors, and Pandas cough and break wind like incontinent old men as they come past the corner of the house.

  But this engine sound is different. It is glamorous, chic, expensive, environmentally conscious, and rather well maintained. Belinda searches the curves of the white road to find it. Somehow it eludes her. She follows the twists and turns from just outside her own house and down the hillside across the stream at the valley floor toward Derek and Barbara's and … nothing. Just as she is about to give up, she spots it coming down the drive of the empty Casa Padronale. Belinda pulls the binoculars into focus, her fat hands turn at speed, but the flare of the sun prevents her seeing through the windscreen.

  “Damn it,” she mutters, turning on her lounger as she follows the smart blue four-wheel-drive Jeep down the far side of the hill and up toward her. Twisted onto her side, one thigh over the other, Belinda continues to squint but is unable to pry through the smoked-glass windscreen. “Urgh!” she moans, throwing down the binoculars in disgust. “That's just inconsid-erate.”She heaves herself up and makes her way briskly into the house and to the telephone. She dials a short number with a few clicks of her pink index fingernail, and waits.

  “Hello?” A breathless, northern male voice as if in the first stages of emphysema answers.

  “Pronto,” says Belinda, rolling the r and popping her p in her very best Italian. “It's the Contessa here.”

  “The who?” The sound of head scratching comes down the line.

  “The Contessa,” repeats Belinda, smiling at her Uffizi souvenir calendar hanging on the wall. There's an unpleasantly long pause. “Honestly,”she sighs, her head falling to one side, “Derek, you were the one who christened me.”

  “Oh, Belinda! My Contessa.” He chuckles. “Of course. I beg your pardon. … How are you this fine morning?”

  “Oh … fa caldo, ” she says, fanning herself with her free hand. “Fa molto caldo.”

  “It's always bloody hot here, dear,” says Derek, clearing his throat of thick phlegm. “Barb's already out there getting her cancer. Flat on her back with a thong up her crack, getting an all-over tan for some reason.” He hoots, and his loud, throaty laugh dissolves into a hacking cough, followed by a long, loud theatrical blow into his handkerchief.

  “Yes, well, whatever you say,” says Belinda, holding the receiver away from her ear. “But all I know is that when you have skin as fine as mine, it's not advisable to put it in the sun. Barbara, on the other hand, is such a lucky woman,” continues Belinda, her voice cracking with contentment. “I mean, she's been out here so long she's almost turned native.” She laughs. “She's so brown you can hardly tell her apart from the laborers in the fields.”

  “Well, she's got to be kept busy somehow,” says Derek, and clears his throat again. “Anyway, what can I do for you, Contessa dear?”

  “Just a little questione, Derek,”says Belinda. “The blue car? At the Casa Padronale? Whose is it? And what is it doing here?”

  “What blue car's that, then?”

  “What do you mean ‘what blue car?’ The blue car that's driving up my half of the valley as we speak,” she says, her small eyes narrowing as she checks its progress out of the kitchen window.

  “Oh … the blue Jeep,” says Derek.

  “There is no need to be pedantic, Derek,” Belinda replies brusquely.

  “I'm sorry.”

  “Car, Jeep, car, Jeep, what is that blue vehicle doing in my valley?”

  “I'm not totally sure,” says Derek, “but—”

  “I don't need totally sure, Derek,” interrupts Belinda, who likes to be abreast of things, “just tell me what you've heard.”

  “Well,” says Derek, sounding jolly, “the Casa Padronale is up for sale, that much I do know—”

  “For sale? For sale?” Belinda starts to pace. “What do you mean, for sale?”

  “Well, it's on the market, dear.”

  “I know what ‘for sale’ means, Derek,” snaps Belinda. “I just don't know why you know and I don't. Why didn't anyone tell me? For sale … Honestly. How long have you known it's for sale, Derek? How long?”

  “What? Well …” falters Derek. “Um, a couple of weeks?”

  “A couple of weeks?” Belinda stops in her tracks. “You mean you've known that the Casa Padronale has been on the market for a couple of weeks and you haven't told me?” she asks very slowly indeed.

  “Er—”

  “Who told you?”

  “Giovanna.”

  “Giovanna?”

  “Yes, Giovanna.”

  “Oh,” says Belinda, staring at the Uffizi calendar, one hand on her plump hip. “Oh, God, silly me.”She announces suddenly, flapping her free hand in front of her now pleasantly smiling face, her small blue eyes pointing heavenward. “Of course!” She laughs. “Do you know what? She told me that as well. … Now, that you mention it, I can hear Giovanna's voice telling me … and as I'm so busy these days, I quite clean forgot!”

  “She did?” Derek's sigh of relief down the telephone is both palpable and audible. “I was sure you knew, dear,”he says. “That's why I never bothered to tell you.” He laughs.
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br />   “Yes, quite,” says Belinda. “In fact,” she pauses. “I think I knew first.”

  “Yes, exactly. I was absolutely sure you would.”

  “Y-e-es,” she agrees.

  “Anyway,” continues Derek, sounding increasingly confident and garrulous, now that the first hurdle has been successfully scaled, “apparently someone's interested in buying it—”

  “Oh, I know!” exclaims Belinda.

  “An American.”

  “An American?”

  “Yes, an American,” laughs Derek. “How … brilliant?”

  “Ghastly!”

  “Terrible,” adds Derek, at speed.

  “An American moving into this valley!” proclaims Belinda, her short nose wrinkling. “That is almost as bad as having a whole dictatorship of Germans. In fact,” she adds, “I think it's probably worse.”

  “Well, he may not actually buy the place,” suggests Derek. “All I heard was that an American was interested. That doesn't mean to say—”

  “Yes, yes,‘only interested.’” Belinda nods. “I've heard that as well.”

  “So,” says Derek, after a stiff pause, “do you think that the blue Jeep was his?”

  “Well, most certainly,” asserts Belinda, flicking through the calendar with increasing distraction. “Jeeps are very American cars.”

  “I knew you'd know, Contessa,”says Derek. “I knew you'd be the person to talk to about all of this. How lucky you phoned.”

  “Yes, I know,” agrees Belinda. “Isn't it?” She lets go a long and languid sigh. “Anyway, I can't stand around chatting all day. Things to do.”

  “Right you are, then,” says Derek. “Mustn't hold you up. Busy woman like you.”

  “Yes, absolutely. Arrivadeary! ”trills Belinda.

  “Right you are. Speak to you later. Arrivadeary! ”

  Belinda puts down the receiver and stands stock-still, deep in thought. Her legs hip-width apart, she squeezes together the fleshy corners of her mouth with her right hand. The unpredictable twists and turns of her morning are making her feel out of sorts. It's just one thing after another. Unreliable staff and a demanding daughter would normally be enough to blacken her mood, but couple that with her ignorance of a possible new arrival in the valley and she is really and truly put out.

  “An American,” she mutters. “An American,” she repeats, as a small shudder travels down her spine. “How frightful!”

  Fortunately for Belinda, she has little time to dwell on the wretched possibility of a new arrival in the valley as she has an arrival of her own to collect from the station. She straightens her navy blue short-sleeved shirt in the full-length mirror in the hall, runs a comb through her short brown hair, places a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses on the top of her head, and efficiently locks up the house before she walks out into the sunshine. She removes the various yellowed pages of the Mail on Sunday from the windscreen of her ex-husband's six-year-old silver Renault Mégane, and opens the doors to let out the thick, hot air.

  “Phew!” she pronounces, as she collapses into the black velveteen upholstery. “Fa molto, molto caldo …”

  She reverses slowly out of the drive, careful not to take out the terra-cotta pot of purple pansies and the wooden pergola to the left of the house, which sports one of her many dead vines. She turns right and heads down the valley.

  She drives slowly past Giovanna's and, straining her neck to the left, poised to wave, checks under the Campari-branded umbrellas on the terrace to see if Howard, or any of her conoscenti, is having lunch. Flanked by fat green vines loaded with pubescent grapes, only one of the four tables is occupied—by a couple of wide-thighed tourists sweating in their shorts—and neither Howard nor indeed Giovanna is anywhere to be seen. Belinda continues down across the stream, past the small church, the village green where they hold the Festa di Formaggio, and on toward Derek and Barbara's imposing new row of cypress trees and the Bianchis' farm. She slows down as she reaches the gate. Hoping for a glimpse of Franco's firm flesh, she is instead greeted by a collection of barking hounds and one waving grandchild.

  Up the hill toward the monastery, Belinda notices that the single metal pole barrier that blocks the drive to the Casa Padronale is open and pointing toward the sky. This distracts her to such an extent that she forgets to check for any signs of life at the monastery. She doesn't remember until she hits the open road and it is too late.

  Half an hour later, she swings into the car park of Sant'Anna station, with Russell Watson at grande voce on her car stereo. She spots her twenty-year-old daughter perched on her suitcase, her fellow passengers having long since been meeted, greeted, and conducted away from the provincial station.

  Neat and petite, Mary is strikingly more beautiful than she was last year. Having recently shed almost ten kilos, her features are decidedly sharper and more defined. Her nose is small and straight, her cheekbones are high, her hair is long and dark, and her lashes are so thick that they appear to knot at the corners of her eyes. She sits serenely on the pavement and doesn't seem to hear the chorusing crescendo of her mother's operatic arrival. She remains motionless. Her face is raised, her eyes are closed as she soaks up the unfamiliar sun, toasting her transparent white skin in its warming rays. A mild ecstasy curls her pretty lips.

  Belinda grinds to a halt, silences Russell, gets out of the car, slams the door, and marches up toward her daughter, blocking out the sun. Mary opens her eyes.

  “Hello, Mum,” she says, standing up and smoothing down her denim skirt, a searching smile on her face, apparently trying to gauge her mother's humor.

  “Buongiorno, buongiorno, buongiorno!” exclaims Belinda with suitable dramatis. Lips pursed, arms out like Jesus, she is waiting to be embraced. “Maria, welcome, darling! Welcome back to Toscana!”

  “Hi,” says Mary, leaning forward and kissing her mother on one cheek.

  “Come va?” asks her mother, her eyes closed as she waits for her daughter to kiss the other. “Come va?”

  “Oh, well, you know, fine,” says Mary, with a shrug of her shoulders. “Been a bit depressed since I was fired but—”

  “Yes, well,” says Belinda, opening her eyes, “we'll have no mention of that while you're here.”With a flick of her short brown hair, she turns to walk back to the car. “Hurry up, now. Put your suitcase in the boot, we've got lots to do.”

  “Absolutely, of course,” says Mary, as she trots along behind her mother, her body arching under the weight of her suitcase. “But what exactly is the problem?”

  “Well, Giulia has grappa and is very ill,” explains Belinda, hands on hips, as she watches her daughter heave her suitcase toward the car.

  “Grappa?” grunts Mary. “Don't you mean grippa ? La grippa? Flu. Giulia has the flu?” She turns to her mother. “It's an easy mistake to make.”

  “Have you put on weight?” asks Belinda, covering her mouth with her index finger, as she looks her daughter up and down.

  “No,” says Mary, with a final thrust, pushing her case into the boot. “I've lost over eight kilos since you last saw me.”

  “Really?” says Belinda, raising her plucked eyebrows. “How odd. Maybe it's just because I always forget how short you are.” She smiles. “Just like your father.”

  The two women get into the car in silence. Belinda starts the engine. Russell breaks back into song. Mary rests her chin in her hand and stares out of the window at the boxes of scarlet geraniums lining the car park. “So, how is everything else?” she asks eventually, as her mother turns left at the baker's and down the hill toward the main road and the Santa Caterina valley.

  “Busy, darling, busy, it's very, very busy.”

  “Well, that's good.”

  “Yes,” says Belinda, concentrating very hard on driving. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

  They continue in silence, driving through the gently rolling Chianti countryside, past pointed cypress trees bending in the breeze, past fields of green sunflowers waiting to turn gold, past rows of p
lump young vines and the occasional black prostitute standing, half naked, in a lay-by waiting to ply her trade.

  “I see the girls are still here,” says Mary, staring out of the window.

  “Mmm,” replies Belinda, with a disinterested glance. “The Orvieto–Todi road is much worse, I counted seventeen prostitutes last time I drove that way.”

  “Right,” says Mary. “I always wonder how they get there.”

  “Some man in a van,” says Belinda.

  “Right,” says Mary again, shifting in her seat.

  “I've still never seen a single Italian use them,” observes Belinda. “You would have thought that in all my travels I would have seen at least one man doing up his fly, or a van in the throes of passion, but no. Nothing. Not a single liaison.”

  “Mmm,” says Mary. “So what's the gossip?”

  “Far too much to go into now,” says Belinda. “But Derek and Barbara are thinking about adding a new terrace below their rose lawn.”

  “Oh.”

  “I know, I think it's too much as well, but Derek has got to spend his money somehow, I suppose. Howard, on the other hand, is so impoverished that I don't think he can even afford to go to Giovanna's for lunch anymore. He wasn't there when I drove past this morning.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Can't say I'm shocked,” says Belinda. “He had his old editor out here a while back and all they did was drink bottles and bottles of red wine and they ended up having some row about something. He left on Ryanair the very next day.”