Tuscany for Beginners Read online

  “Oh dear.”

  “Yes, well … Franco has a new girlfriend, I think.”

  “Really?”

  “See? I knew you'd be interested in that!”

  “Mu-u-m, don't be insane. I'm not old enough or rich enough for Franco.”

  “Well, I've heard he's been doing some work for that sculpture woman in the valley on the way to Serrana.”

  “That doesn't necessarily—”

  “I know … but he's looking unreasonably cheerful these days.”

  “Oh.”

  “And we haven't had any lesbians out here for ages.”

  “Really? That's a shame.”

  “Isn't it? I really thought they'd be here much more. Particularly after they spent so much money on the house.”

  “Did they?”

  “Oh, yes.” Belinda nods. “Franco told me they had marble sent from Carrara, you know, where Michelangelo got his from.”

  “Right.”

  “Although I can't see where it all went.”

  “Right.”

  “Oh, and apparently there's some American sniffing around the Casa Padronale,” says Belinda, as she pauses at the junction in the road.

  “Really?” says Mary.

  “Mmm,” says her mother, as she looks left, then right.

  “That should spice things up a bit.”

  “D'you think so?” “Oh, yes,” replies Mary, with a smile.

  “Really?” says Belinda sounding surprised. “I wouldn't have thought it would make any difference at all.”

  Venerdi Friday

  Climafa caldo (Hot! Hot! Hot!)

  Tuscan life is always full of the most glorious surprises. The way the sunflowers slowly turn during the heat of the day to keep their faces pointing toward the sun. The way the simplest of bread and olive-oil dishes can taste like heaven on earth. The way even the smallest and ugliest peasant farmers break into a beautiful smile when I greet them.

  But there are also plenty of little shocks. The way lizards shoot out of crevices in the walls. The way scorpions hide under stones. Yesterday, for example, I found out that an American has been looking around the Casa Padronale, the house on the distinctly less sunny side of the valley from Casa Mia!

  It's not the interest in the Casa Padronale that is the surprise (despite its run-down state, rather poor size, and terribly poor modern frescos in the small side chapel)—there are always plenty of comings and goings in my corner of Paradiso —but that it is an American who is looking around! You see, we fortunately don't get many Americans in Toscana. I don't want to be rude, but I think they must find it too difficult. Far from the comfort and convenience of McDonald's, there are probably too many hills and green vegetables for them. Instead, they tend to herd together in the cities, like Florence. So it's a little bit of a shock to hear that one has ventured so far from the town! Derek was astonished when I rang to tell him. But I was pleased to inform him that the American was merely looking and that I shouldn't think he'd hang around for long once he realizes the amount of hard work and effort it takes to do up a house to the standard of something like mine. He'll be straight back to New York, or wherever he came from!

  Anyway, on a lighter note, my daughter has finally arrived from England. She has managed to take a break from her busy work schedule and her career in communications to come and help me here for the summer, or even, perhaps, a little longer. She is looking well, if a little white! I suppose I am so used to looking at healthy people all the time, not pasty city dwellers from London, so it is hardly surprising! But it's always a joy to see someone from the mother country, so to speak. Such fun to hear the gossip and catch up on important news.

  Maria tells me it has been the wettest April on record! What a shame. There have been terrible floods and all sorts. We, on the other hand, have had nothing but bright sunshine here for the last month. In fact, I can't remember the last time it rained, and I mean rained properly, as we don't do drizzle here. Italian rain is so much better than the English variety. It is so much more nourishing, so much more needed. It turns parched hillsides into rolling pastures over night. It is so natural.

  Maria also tells me that people are still talking about the euro in the U.K. I can't believe it! What a bad case of piccolo Englanders! It seems so strange to me. As a European I find it extraordinary that silly little things like currency and sovereignty are still an issue. Oh, well, it is so good, sometimes, to be reminded of the reasons why one left!

  But Maria's presence has been invaluable since she arrived yesterday. As Giulia, my cleaner, has had a touch of the Italians and not turned up for work (she says she's ill, but in this country one can never tell), Maria has been a great help sorting out the house before Casa Mia opens its doors at the weekend for the beginning of the season. This is her fourth year of helping out and, with her threeweek course at Swindon catering college, not only is she useful around the house but she can hold her own in the kitchen, too! And following my usual large response from the discreet adverts I placed in the upmarket Spectator, Sunday Times, and Sunday Telegraph, we are almost totally booked right through until the autumn!

  CHAPTER TWO

  elinda is preparing for her morning trawl through her e-mails. Sitting at her computer, cup of coffee at the ready, she is steeling herself for this exhausting process, which requires all of her critical antennae to be on full alert.

  The e-mail booking process, as Belinda says, is the “first filter”—the first opportunity she has to turn away people she doesn't like the look, sound, or indeed e-mail of. Hotmail accounts are automatically out, as Belinda likes people to have a proper job with a proper e-mail address. Those with what Belinda considers “low rent” or “unfortunate” names are also given a wide berth and short e-mail shrift. Then, the questions her potential guests ask come under scrutiny. Anyone who asks to smoke or bring children is immediately banned: there is nothing Belinda dislikes more than smokers or children. Other inquiries are dealt with according to her whim on that day. Vegetarians, vegans, asthmatics, arthritics, those with a single special need are normally vetoed, as is anyone who asks after the plebeian pastime of golf. In fact, anyone whom she thinks might irritate her in some way, shape, or form is rejected before they get a chance to cross her upmarket threshold.

  Today there is only one inquiry, from a young Danish couple who want to bring their baby. Belinda e-mails back a simple “No, we are full.” Babies are even more unattractive than children.

  She then lets out a long sigh, and goes into the hall to ready herself for market.

  “Maria! Maria! For God sake, Maria,” she yells up the stairs. “What are you doing up there? I've got my mercato hat on and I'm waiting.” She turns to her reflection in the mirror and straightens the wide-brimmed straw hat she keeps for languid summer lunches and trips to market. “Honestly,” she adds, cupping her mouth to assist her voice up the stairs, “only tourists, and Derek and Barbara arrive at Serrana market this late in the day. What are you doing?”

  “Coming,” says Mary, bounding down the stone staircase with optimistic energy. Her swinging dark hair shines in the sun.

  “Is that what you're wearing?” asks Belinda, looking her annoyingly attractive daughter up and down, taking in the pale blue T-shirt and the dark blue shorts. “Honestly, darling, you're just like your father. You simply don't have the knees for shorts,” she adds, with a small shrug, as she turns toward the door.

  Mary makes to walk back upstairs.

  “And we really don't have time for you to change either,” says her mother. “You'll have to come as you are.”

  “I could stay behind if I'm going to embarrass you that much,” mutters Mary, rather quietly.

  “What?” Belinda frowns, adjusting her hat once more. “Don't be so ridiculous. I haven't got time for this. We've got lots to do. I want to pop into Giovanna's for a po' di caffè on the way, so we really should get our skates on.”

  Amid a cloud of dust and a loud crunch of stone, Bel
inda pulls up her car, turning it dramatically outside Giovanna's. The car park is a small rustic facility to the right of the terrace and to the left of the tobacco-drying tower, and can barely accommodate the permanent members of the valley, let alone passing tourist traffic. Belinda slams the car door and raises her jaw in the air so she can see beyond the confines of her hat, she then walks onto the vine-lined terrace, looking for her usual seat. Finding it fortunately unoccupied, she places herself in the valley-view-with-roadside-vista position and coughs loudly. Mary follows along behind, assiduously avoiding all eye contact with the brace of blond hiking blokes, who try to engage her with a smile. Belinda coughs again, and Giovanna's enormous husband, Roberto, appears to the tinkling accompaniment of the beaded curtain. Short and bald, save for a sprig of dark hair that he smooths across his otherwise naked scalp, Roberto is bloated and coated in fat. He has arms like legs, and plump hands like a fist of sausages; he looks like a man who enjoys carafes of sweet Vin Santo wine and plenty of biscotti. But despite the Lord's generousness when it came to Roberto's proportions, such is the man's charm and charisma that he is known valley-wide for his way with the ladies. And Belinda is no exception.

  “Oh, Roberto,” she pronounces, getting up and removing her mercato hat. Her shoulders shiver with delight as she puckers her lips, like a cat's rectum, and places her cheek near Roberto's left ear. “Buongiorno. Buongiorno, Roberto. Come va? ” she smiles. “Co-me va?”

  “Bene, bene,” he replies, with an ebullient laugh. “Molto bene!” He smiles, his heavy arms shooting into the air with ostentatious enthusiasm. “E … la bella Maria!” he exclaims, and wraps the grinning Mary in a duvetlike embrace.

  “Ye-e-s,” says Belinda, sitting down. “Mary's back.”

  “Che bella!” repeats Roberto to Belinda, his arms apart as he reintroduces her to her own daughter.

  “Yes,” says Belinda, with a small smile. “Very bella. For God sake, Mary, do sit down.”

  “Che bella!” says Roberto, again, as he pulls out the chair from under the table for Mary to sit in.

  “Yes, yes.” Belinda nods efficiently. “Lovely …” She smiles. “So, tutta bene, then, Roberto?”

  “Oh, tutto bene. ” He grins back.

  “Good,” says Belinda, with a little scratch of her neck. “Well … that's good …”

  “Sì, bene,” says Roberto, with a wide smile.

  “Bene,” says Belinda.

  “Sì molto bene.” Roberto's grin continues.

  “Bene.” Belinda nods. The left corner of her mouth begins to twitch under the strain of pleasantries. “Um … Due caffè, Roberto, when you're ready.”

  “Bene,” says Roberto, flicking his tea towel over his shoulder as he disappears behind the beaded curtain to charge up the coffee machine.

  “Good,” says Belinda, inhaling through her teeth. “So …”

  “So …” says Mary, turning to look at the view of the valley as it unfolds below. The sun is warming the Bianchis' fields of sunflowers and maize, the wind is making the cypress trees that line the road sway back and forth like fans at a rock concert. “It's great to be back. I always forget quite how beautiful it is here,” she says.

  “Yes,”says Belinda, with one of her more sensitive smiles. “It's certainly more attractive than the wretched little love nest your father shares with that wretched little woman near Slough.”

  “It's not near Slough,” says Mary, leaning forward, putting her head in her hands and her elbows on the table. “It's in Surrey.”

  “Don't put your elbows on the table, dear,”says Belinda, flaring her nostrils as she looks over her daughter's shoulder and inhales the view.

  “Which house did you say the American man's buying?” asks Mary, following her mother's gaze.

  “It's not definite, of course,” corrects Belinda. “But the Casa Padronale, over there.” She points to the terra-cotta roof just visible through the trees.

  “I thought you had your eye on that,” says Mary.

  “I did,” says Belinda, “but the position isn't that good.”

  “Oh? I thought it got the most sun in the valley.”

  “It gets some sun. It's just that Casa Mia has by far the best views. I can see the whole valley from my terrace, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “There's nothing that happens here that I don't know about.”

  “I know.”

  “And I think that's preferable to a couple of extra hours of sunshine a day, don't you?”

  “Of course,” says Mary.

  “Anyway,” she continues, nodding in the direction of the beaded curtain, “here comes Roberto with our caffè. Ask him what he knows about the Casa Padronale, would you, darling?”

  “Don't you want to?” asks Mary.

  “Not really, darling. I'm a little tired,” smiles Belinda, looking down the valley with a sudden air of all-enveloping ex-haustion. “And it's very good for you to practice your Italian. I get to speak it all the time out here. In fact, I rarely speak anything else. Whereas you—with your little English life—only get to speak boring old English all the time.”

  “Oh, okay,” says Mary. “But only if you're sure.”

  “No, no, really.” Belinda waves her pink-tipped hand. “I know what a treat it is for you … Oh, grazie, Roberto,” she says, accepting a small cup of strong coffee. “Maria has a little questione for you, don't you, Maria?”

  “Sì,” says Mary. “Vorrei sapere …”

  And while Belinda smiles, and nods, and laughs at various appropriate, and inappropriate, intervals, her daughter learns, through a long and animated discussion with Roberto, that the Casa Padronale is indeed on the verge of being sold to an American and, as far as he knows, they will be moving in almost immediately. Or, at least, building work will be starting almost immediately, but exactly when the American will move in himself is anyone's guess.

  o it's definite, then?” asks Belinda, her face furrowed under the strain of parking the car as she successfully reverses into a space at the fourth attempt.

  “Well, as far as Roberto knows, and he's friends with the geometra who is selling the property,” says Mary, opening her door.

  “The geometra ?”

  “You know, like that sort of real estate man, Alfredo, you used to shout at all the time.”

  “I didn't shout at him all the time.”

  “Well …”

  “I merely raised my voice when he didn't understand me.”

  “Well, like him anyway.”

  “Interesting,” says Belinda, arranging her hat in the reflection of the car door. “That's very interesting. Now, I rather hope we aren't going to bump into Derek and Barbara, but it is market day, and I did see their car leave in this direction earlier this morning, so they may well be here. If we do, just leave the talking to me, all right?”

  “Fine,” says Mary.

  “Come along, then,” says Belinda, turning toward an Etruscan archway. High and narrow, it leads through the thick town walls to the paved streets and honey-colored buildings beyond.

  On market day, the medieval town of Serrana is packed. Most of the inhabitants of the nearby villages and the surrounding countryside empty into the main square to either buy or sell their wares. The crowds are dense, the noise level is high, and the air smells of hot pavements and ripe fruit. All down one side of the square, under the shaded arches of the ancient stone colonnade, are the vegetable sellers. Behind row upon row and box upon box of fennel and aubergines, chicory and carrots, rocket and radishes stand families of all generations, from weathered, leathered grandparents to young, hopeful teenagers, shouting and shifting as much produce as quickly and charmingly as possible.

  Down the other side of the square and under a small Romeo and Juliet balcony are the dairy vans. Rammed and crammed with butter and cheese, they are parked at odd intervals and populated by white-coated salesmen in paper hats. Nearby are the smaller home-produce stalls, loaded with olives, fresh garlic,
and paprika-covered crisps. Alongside is the young man who sells slithers of whole roasted pig, and the salon-perfect woman who specializes in virulent pink underwear. A pair of her racy, lacy panties swings in the breeze, like some terribly modern serving suggestion.

  Despite the melee of locals and tourists, Belinda still manages to stand out in her broad-brimmed mercato hat, with a navy head scarf knotted loosely at the back of her neck. At one of the many vegetable stalls, she is contemplating tomatoes. “Plum or cherry, darling?” she asks Mary, keeping a small blue eye on the crowd as she looks down the length of her short nose at her daughter. “What do you think, Maria? For a little insalata later?”

  Mary stands next to her mother and runs a hand through her long dark hair. “Um,” she says, leaning in for a closer look. “I'm not really—”

  “Questo! Questo! E questo!” announces Belinda suddenly, in a very loud, very Italian voice, as she points to random trays of vegetables in an assured manner. “Perfecto, perfecto!” She clasps her hands in delightful appreciation, before turning with a swing of her silk scarf. “Oh, Derek! Barbara!” she continues, without inhaling, “I was so busy chatting away in fluent Italian, I simply didn't see you there at all!” She gives a wide, ever so generous smile. “How are you?”

  Side by side in the shining sun, Derek and Barbara make quite a pair. They are almost exactly the same height, but Der-ek's lack of elevation is more than made up for by his girth. While the rest of his body maintains a certain svelteness, particularly his arms and legs, his stomach is of pregnancy proportions. In a pair of light gray ankle socks and open-toed sandals, a pair of gray shorts and a gray short-sleeved, open-neck shirt that exposes a small isosceles triangle of chest hair just below the chin, Derek has the silhouette of a skittle at a bowling alley. Yet his face is relatively handsome: he has large brown enthusiastic eyes, a jovial curve to his lips, and his sandy hair is still quite luxuriant in most places. Thinning gently on top, it salt-and-peppers only around the temples.