One Night in Italy (41 page)

From: Anna

Just heard on local news there’s been a massive donation to the Children’s Hospital fund – like, really massive. Mysterious donor, they said. Don’t suppose this has got anything to do with you, has it?! A xx

Catherine gave a small smile. So Mike had actually done it – given away the money, wiped the slate clean. This was really good news. Mind you, it also meant that her phone was still working perfectly well.
Come on, George, talk to me.

She tried to get into the film but her mind kept drifting elsewhere, wondering what might have happened in a parallel universe where she had put on some perfume and a nice dress and then, knees knocking with nerves, gone to meet him. Now she might never know.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Il spettacolo
– The performance

‘Well, I’ll be buggered.’

‘Jim! Language!’ Trish tutted as she stacked dirty coffee mugs into the dishwasher.

‘I can’t buggering well believe it.’

‘JIM!’

‘It’s not April Fool’s yet, is it? What the devil . . . ?’

Sophie looked up from her breakfast to see him staring down at a bank statement, his blue eyes boggling in their sockets. ‘What is it, Dad?’

Jim passed a hand over his brow and shook his head. ‘It must be a mistake,’ he said hoarsely, shaking his head. ‘Must be. Because how else has ten thousand flipping quid ended up in our bank account?’

‘What? Let me see.’ Sophie had never seen her mum move so quickly. ‘Oh my God, Jim. Look at that. Ten thousand pounds!’ Trish sank into a chair as if the shock was too much for her. ‘How on earth did that get in there?’

‘No idea,’ Jim said. ‘Funds transfer – that’s all it says. The bank will have cocked up, you wait. Someone with fat fingers pressed a wrong number is my guess. I suppose I’d better give them a ring and fess up.’ He held the statement up in the air. ‘Take a good look at it, girls. Chances are that ten grand will be whisked away again quicker than you can say “spending spree”.’

During a lull that morning at the café, Sophie nipped out to the back yard on the pretext of putting the bins out, and phoned Catherine. ‘It’s gone in,’ she said. ‘The money. Thank you.’

‘Oh good. I’m really glad. Thanks for getting me the account details. I wasn’t sure if Mike would actually go through with it. His conscience must have been giving him hell, though.’

‘Ten thousand pounds he paid,’ Sophie said, with a flicker of glee as she remembered the shocked delight of her parents. ‘It was so hard to keep a straight face this morning. My mum and dad think it’s some kind of a mistake; they haven’t realized that it’s actually theirs yet.’

‘Well, I hope they enjoy spending it. And I’m sorry to put you in the position of having to keep a secret from them, but . . .’

‘It’s fine. I understand.’ Sophie knew that was the condition Mike had imposed on Catherine, scared that if his cover was blown, it would be the end of his career.

‘Thanks. Well, I’m glad it all worked out in the end anyway. Hey, any word from Dan yet?’

‘Not a sausage. I’d better go. Thanks again, Cath. See you soon.’

Any word from Dan yet?
If only. Sophie had almost given up hope of hearing from him now. There were only so many times you could hit refresh on Facebook and email before you felt like hitting yourself. After her carefully worded reply to him, which had taken the best part of an hour to construct, she had received precisely nothing in return. Why did men
do
that – make you think there was a chance, a future, only to completely ignore you when you responded to them? Hell, it wasn’t as if she was asking
him
to send her ten thousand pounds. Ten lines of text would do. Even ‘Hi’ would be a start.

Had she put him off somehow? She had read and reread her message, trying to decipher it forensically, looking in vain for what she had said that could have frightened him off.

Don’t worry about it
, she had written,
I’m fine. Good to hear from you.
(Obviously she’d omitted all the bits about stalking him hopelessly around the world, the broken heart that lasted months (years), the fact that she’d never fallen in love again.)

Give me a shout if you’re ever over this way
, she’d finished breezily.
Love Sophie.
She hadn’t said
Ring me
or
Let’s meet up!
or
Let’s get back together!!!
, even though she was convinced those thoughts must have been practically audible, humming across the Peak District to him in the form of rippling soundwaves.

Maybe it was the ‘Love Sophie’ that had scared him. But then, he’d written ‘Love Dan’, hadn’t he? He’d said he hoped she wasn’t seeing anyone, that he missed her, that he had been miserable without her!

Still. Whatever. She’d been over him for three years, so a brief Facebook exchange was not going to change anything. Besides, she was far too busy to think about him now anyway, what with working all hours in the café, planning her next half-term of Italian classes, and the play to worry about this week as well. She certainly didn’t have time to agonize about lines of text on a computer screen. So there.

She would be sorry when the play was over. She’d only been rehearsing with the group for a couple of weeks, but felt as if she’d bonded with them all already. She loved enigmatic, sexy Max whose passion for theatre rubbed off on everybody. She adored Ruby and Gareth, who played the two main characters. They were twenty-somethings like her and great fun. There were a couple of teenagers, Beth and Alys, both shy emo types who hid behind their fringes and too much make-up, but who were awesome in character and really came alive when speaking their lines. The pair of them were hopelessly in love with Jonty, who was twenty, dark and dimpled, with the dirtiest laugh Sophie had ever heard. And the oldies were fab too: Valerie, who made all the costumes on her Singer sewing machine; Patrick, dapper and twinkly with his Brylcreem and shiny suit; Meredith with the elegant silver bun, who did everyone’s make-up; and Dickie, who’d once been an extra in
Emmerdale
and name-dropped like there was no tomorrow. As for Brenda Dodds, she was a total pussycat who always brought home-made brownies along to rehearsals. It was a mystery why Geraldine had taken against her.

The play was on for two nights – Thursday and Friday – and according to Max, both were pretty much sold out. The company didn’t have their own theatre but had links with a nearby secondary school who were letting them use their stage and facilities for a small fee. It wasn’t exactly The Crucible, but hey, you had to start somewhere. And now the costumes and props were all ready, and everyone was pretty much word-perfect. Show-time.

Sophie hadn’t really made a big deal of her part in the production, but when she peered out from behind the curtains before the opening performance, her knees buckled in surprise to see her parents sitting expectantly in the second row, and Anna, Catherine, Phoebe, Nita and Roy further back in the audience. Her eyes felt swimmy with emotion suddenly, and she had to take three deep breaths. They’d all come. They’d all bothered to get tickets and sit here in the chalk-smelling hall on a plastic chair, for her sake. When Sophie checked her phone she saw that Geraldine had remembered too, and sent a text.
Knock ’em dead, kid
, it said.

‘Two minutes,’ Max said just then and a twitter went around everyone backstage. Beth started having palpitations about her hair, Ruby had a wardrobe malfunction that required three of Valerie’s safety pins, and Jonty locked himself in the toilet to do some unusual voice exercises that sounded as if he was gargling and being strangled at the same time. Sophie felt dizzy with fright, her throat horribly dry. Oh God. She was actually going to have to walk out onto that stage in front of all those people and speak. And act! Why had she ever thought this was a good idea? Why had she let Geraldine talk her into it?

Max came up behind her then and squeezed her shoulder. ‘You’ll be great, doll,’ he told her. ‘As soon as you get out there, the adrenalin will take over and you’ll fly through it. No probs.’

‘No probs,’ she echoed jerkily, her breath feeling tight in her lungs. And then the lights went down through the hall, a hush descended and the curtains opened to reveal Ruby and Gareth on the stage.

‘Let’s do this,’ said Max under his breath.

It was over before she knew it – her feet carrying her to her spot on stage, her lines spoken without pause or error, a hand on the hip, an exasperated face at the audience (that got a chuckle) and then clip-clop, clip-clop, back off stage. It was more than that though: it was the roaring sensation that buzzed through her, almost uncontainably; the surge of pride at the end when the audience clapped them through two curtain calls, and the joy of seeing her parents’ beaming faces, Phoebe giving her the thumbs up and her friends all applauding. It was like the rush of a drug, a pure high of happiness and relief and
I-did-it
!

And then she happened to glance back through the audience and saw another familiar face right at the back, his hands high as he clapped, his mouth stretched wide in a smile. It was Dan. As their eyes met and shock ricocheted through her, he put his forefingers between his lips and gave a wolfwhistle.

How did he . . .
? she wondered in a daze, then remembered that she’d posted a link to the play on Facebook. That was how. And now he was here, actually here in the same room as her again. It was all she could do to walk off stage as the curtains closed for the final time.

The cast squealed and hugged each other as they went backstage. ‘Fabulous, guys, you were fabulous,’ Max cried, slapping each of them on the back as they went past. ‘Ruby, you totally nailed that ending. Gareth – magnificent, my friend. The audience loved you all. Well done. Amazeballs!’

Sophie could hardly hear anything anyone was saying. She was rushing hot and cold all over, still stunned by the sight of Dan in the audience. She hadn’t just imagined him, had she? No – he really had been there. Clapping. Smiling at her. Wolfwhistling. Actions spoke louder than words, as every drama student knew. And right now, his actions were speaking pretty damn loudly.

‘Are you okay, Soph? You look a bit flushed.’

It was Ruby, one hand on her back, her eyes brilliant with energy.

‘I . . . Yeah. Fine. You were great by the way.’

‘Thanks! So were you. I think Max has got some bubbly in the fridge if you want a glass?’

‘Sure, yeah.’ She swallowed, aware that she was acting oddly. ‘I’m just going to powder my nose and see my friends. Back in a minute.’

They were all there, clustered around the stage door: her Italian class friends, her parents, Dan. Three satellites of people who meant so much to her. She wasn’t sure who to greet first.

Anna and Catherine burst forward to hug her, solving that problem. ‘Hey! You were ace!’ cried Anna.

‘The whole play was great,’ Catherine enthused.

‘Geraldine will be so proud when I tell her,’ Roy said, moist-eyed.

‘That dark-haired guy was fit, wasn’t he?’ Nita was saying. ‘Is he single, do you know?’

‘Well done, darling,’ her mum said, coming forward next and kissing her. ‘You did so well.’

‘You were the best one in it,’ Jim said gruffly. ‘You
were
!’

‘Oh, Dad,’ she said fondly. ‘I hardly think—’

‘Well, I do,’ he said. ‘You sparkled up there, like a real star.’

‘You totally did,’ Anna agreed. ‘I think a new career beckons, you know.’

Dan, she noticed, was standing back behind everyone else, smiling as he watched her accept all the compliments. God, he was still as handsome as ever, with those melty brown eyes and the dimple in his cheek; his hair was a little shorter than in the Australia surfie days, less boy-band, more grown-up somehow. A black coat was slung over one arm; she’d never seen him in winter clothes, she realized. ‘Hi,’ she mouthed, feeling breathless to be sharing the same airspace with him again.

His smile broadened. ‘Hi,’ he mouthed back.

Other people were saying stuff – Roy was introducing everyone to her parents and Phoebe was making some comment or other – but she was deaf to it all. Blind to everyone else. The hall seemed to shrink down and down around her until the world consisted only of her and him.

She stepped forward and so did he. Then they both rushed together at once and practically fell into each other’s arms. She was half laughing, half crying, and she could smell his scent (just the same) and was being crushed by his embrace (just the same), and it was, without any doubt, the single best moment she’d had in years.

‘Are we going to the pub then, or what?’ she heard Jim’s voice after a while. ‘I want to drink a toast to my talented daughter.’

‘And I want to know who this bloke is,’ she heard her mum murmur in reply. ‘Where’s she been keeping
him
all this time, then?’

Sophie separated herself from Dan and stood next to him, beaming at them all. ‘Mum, Dad, this is Dan. We were together in Australia a few years ago.’