The Truth About You (33 page)

‘That’s enough,’ Lainey cut in sharply. ‘I really don’t need your advice, thank you, Skye, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t air your opinions quite so freely in the future.’

‘
I DON’T THINK
your mum likes me very much,’ Skye commented, as Tierney came in from the bathroom.

Tightening the towel around her, Tierney said, ‘She’ll like you even less if she finds out what you were doing after everyone went to bed last night.’

Sighing wearily, Skye rolled over on the bed to stare thoughtfully up at the ceiling. ‘You know what your trouble is,’ she said after a while, ‘you’re jealous.’

Tierney almost gasped. ‘Jealous of
you
, with my own brother? What are you on?’

‘No, I don’t mean that, I mean you’re jealous because your dad’s got another daughter, because your mum’s getting it on with Marco . . .’

‘She so is
not
getting it on with Marco! She went out with him once, yesterday, because he speaks Italian and she doesn’t, so why are you trying to make something of it?’

Skye merely shrugged, then raising a long slender leg she began inspecting its golden perfection. ‘You should have come down to the pool last night,’ she said, as Tierney freed her hair from a towel and shook it out. ‘Brett was really disappointed when you didn’t.’

Though Tierney felt sorry if she’d let Brett down, no way was she going for a moonlight swim while Skye was wearing the bathing suit she’d bought in the sex shop. She’d known what would happen, all the attention would be on Skye, and though she, Tierney, was only interested in Brett as a friend, she’d have felt dead stupid hanging about in her bikini with no one taking any notice of her.

‘I heard you screaming,’ she said, going to brush out her hair, ‘and I expect Mum did too, so chances are she’ll want to know what was going on.’

Rolling on to her front and resting her chin in her hands, Skye said, ‘Would you like to know?’

‘Not really,’ Tierney lied.

‘Yes you would, so I’ll tell you. They grabbed the swimsuit off me and I ended up going with all three of them.’

Tierney’s hand stopped in mid-air as her eyes went to Skye’s in the mirror.

Bursting into laughter, Skye sat back on her knees and reached for her make-up bag. ‘They got the swimsuit,’ she confessed, ‘but I only went with Max.’

Tierney was watching her, not really sure what to believe now.

‘Can I come in?’ Lainey called, knocking on the door.

‘Yes,’ Tierney called back.

‘So you’re up at last,’ Lainey remarked as she went to open their curtains. ‘It’s almost midday, you know.’ Turning to regard them, as though checking for hangovers, or worse, she said, ‘It sounded as though there was quite a party going on at the pool last night. How many people did Max bring back with him?’

‘Just Brett and Ricky,’ Skye replied, tissuing off her smudged mascara. ‘I’m sorry, it was me making all the noise. They kept splashing and acting stupid, you know, the way boys do, and we forgot to keep it down. I hope we didn’t wake you.’

Lainey’s eyebrows rose, making it clear that they had. Then, making no further comment, she began picking up clothes as she said, ‘Stacy took the boys over to Adriana’s with her earlier, so I wondered if you two – and Max – might like to do something with me today.’

Grabbing back a bikini top before it disappeared in the wash, Tierney said, ‘Like what? I thought you were going to try and find the woman who was Granny’s friend today, Carlotta what’s-her-name.’

‘Calduzzi. That was the plan, but Marco just rang to say that he made some enquiries in the village this morning and although she lives in Cortona now, so not too far away, apparently she’s on holiday in France till the beginning of next week.’

‘So what about the priest in Tuoro? Weren’t you hoping to talk to him?’

‘Yes, but I don’t expect he’ll be able to tell us much, seeing as he wasn’t even here at the time. Is that pile there to be washed, or hung up?’

Glancing at it, Tierney said, ‘Hung up.’

‘So,’ Lainey said, heading for the door, ‘how do you fancy having a look around Assissi, or Perugia?’

Glancing at Skye, Tierney groaned. ‘Oh Mum, it’s too hot to go traipsing round churches. Dad always makes us do that and it’s so boring.’

Lainey’s eyes seemed to dim slightly as she said, ‘I admit it can be at times, but in Italy it’s where most of the major art is displayed . . .’

‘Great, so we can look at boring paintings in churches and in galleries,’ Tierney broke in. ‘Is Max around yet? He said he was going to take us to the designer outlet place over by the autostrada today. Why don’t you come there with us? You can treat us to lunch and pay for our shopping?’

With one of the wry smiles Tierney loved so much, Lainey said, ‘That’s what really gets to me about you, you’re all heart.’

Tierney laughed, but as Lainey started to leave she felt suddenly bad. ‘If it means you’re going to be on your own today, we’ll come,’ she offered, ignoring the way Skye’s head came up.

Surprised and clearly touched, Lainey said, ‘No, it’s OK. You go on and do your thing. I’ll pop down to the village and see if I can rouse up a few ghosts – or I might take Marco up on his offer to drive over to Montepulciano for a look around while he sees one of his suppliers.’

Tierney stared at her. She was going out with Marco again.

‘OK?’ Lainey asked teasingly.

Tierney shrugged. ‘If that’s what you want.’

Blowing her a playful kiss, Lainey continued on to the boys’ room to sort out their washing, leaving Tierney to turn back to the mirror and carry on brushing out her hair. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said to Skye, whose silence was so charged she might just as well have been shouting.

‘I’m thinking the same as you,’ Skye responded, scrolling through her phone. ‘This’ll make two days in a row that she’s been out with Marco.’

Tierney put down her brush and rummaged for a scrunchie to tie up her hair.

‘Jesus, you can be such hard work at times,’ Skye told her. ‘You really need to lighten up, do you know that?’

Feeling a stupid rush of tears stinging her eyes, Tierney kept her head down as she tied up her hair.

‘Have you heard from
him
today?’ Skye asked, still playing with her phone.

Tierney’s heart contracted. ‘What do you think?’ she snapped. ‘He’s texting all the time.’

‘So what did he say?’

‘The same as always, that he really wants to see me when I get back.’

‘Well, all this is telling me,’ Skye declared, springing up from the bed, ‘that you must have been pretty amazing, the way he’s going on.’

As she disappeared off to the bathroom, Tierney shuddered with misery, more shame creeping over her. It wasn’t always obvious it was her in the photos he kept sending, but in some it was and she wasn’t sure whether it was seeing her own face that made her feel so sick, and scared, or the fact that he seemed to be using them as some sort of threat.

Don’t tell anyone what happened, or I’ll send these to your parents.

Of course, he never actually said that, it was the way she was reading it, but what if she was right?

She had to find a way of making him stop, but she just couldn’t think of one.

‘So, we hear from Zav that his dad is the famous Tom Hollingsworth,’ Marco was saying as he spread a rug on the grass ready to lay out the picnic he and Lainey had brought with them.

Given how relaxed – and impressed – he sounded, Lainey felt certain that was all Zav had told him. She wished Marco hadn’t mentioned Tom though, because now he had it was almost as if Tom was there, trying to spoil this time for her with a reminder of how much she missed him.

‘I have probably read all his books,’ Marco continued as he went to fetch the hamper from the car. ‘In Italian, mostly, but a few I have read in English.’

Realising he must be wondering why Tom wasn’t here with his family, Lainey tried to think what to tell him. Not the truth, obviously, she didn’t know him well enough for that, and anyway it would embarrass him horribly if she suddenly started offloading how her husband had been deceiving her for years, and she, fool that she was, had only just found out. ‘Do you have a favourite?’ she asked, falling back on her usual response for these occasions.

He frowned as he thought. ‘I suppose I was most drawn to the one set in Hungary,’ he said. ‘He must know Budapest very well, the way he writes about it. Did you go there with him?’

Having to shake her head, while wondering if Kirsten had, perhaps Julia too, Lainey said, ‘No, he usually likes to do his research trips alone.’ She almost added,
It’s where he is now, researching for a new book.

If only it were true.

Seeming to sense that she didn’t want to discuss her husband any further, Marco set about uncorking a bottle of chilled white wine, which he’d produced from a small fridge in the boot of his car. The homemade antipasti she was unpacking looked scrumptious – she just hoped she could summon an appetite to eat it.

They were in the shade of a leafy maple, high on a Tuscan hillside to the west of Montepulciano, where the views, stretching for seemingly endless miles, were of valleys crowded with vines that climbed and sprawled over the banks of the opposite hillside as though trying to reach the golden town at the top. It was a remote and tranquil spot, its beauty almost timeless.

‘Why do I get the feeling you’ve done this before?’ she teased, as he poured the wine into two small stemmed glasses he’d taken from a cool bag. Their frosted coating was melting fast in the heat, causing translucent droplets to drip over his fingers and on to the rug.

He had beautiful hands, she noticed, very masculine, yet elegant.

His smile was gently amused as he passed her a glass. ‘This is a very fine Pecorino,’ he told her, passing the question by. ‘Have you had this wine before?’

Surprised, she said, ‘I thought Pecorino was a cheese.’

‘
Si,
it is a very good cheese, but also it is a wine from the Pecino region of Le Marche, which is east of Umbria. You taste, but first you smell and tell me what fragrance you detect.’

A little self-consciously, since she wasn’t practised at this, she carefully swished the wine around the glass and closed her eyes as she inhaled the shy release of a bouquet. ‘It’s a little spicy?’ she said, glancing to him for guidance.

He nodded and gestured for her to continue.

Taking a sip, she allowed the flavours a few moments to settle over her tongue, before saying, ‘I think liquorice, maybe . . . Is it jasmine?’

‘You are very good at this,’ he told her, smiling. ‘Are you picking up the apple as well?’

She wasn’t sure about that, but nodded all the same. ‘It’s delicious,’ she declared, truthfully, and felt her heart falter as she thought of how much Tom enjoyed discovering new wines.

She had to stop making everything about him.

If only she knew how.

As they ate and drank Marco talked about the region and the winemakers he was due to visit later, making her laugh with his descriptions and mimicry of their idiosyncrasies and passions. He went on to tell her, because she asked, that he spoke English so well because he’d studied it at the University of Rome, and when she led him to the subject of his musical tastes she felt pleased when he declared a preference for opera. He’d inherited it from his parents, he told her, who’d died in a car crash just over ten years ago.

He asked about Alessandra and Peter, and seemed sad when she told him about Peter’s dementia. His other grandmother had suffered the same way, he told her, and in the end it had been a blessing when she’d finally let go.

Feeling a lump tightening her throat at the thought of her father doing the same, Lainey swallowed more wine to try and help the moment pass. She was ringing every morning and evening to check how he was, and Aunt Daffs always put him on the phone. Sometimes he had nothing to say, didn’t even seem to understand that he was supposed to speak, but last night he’d thought she was a child again, hiding somewhere in the house waiting for him to come and find her.

‘Coming, ready or not,’ he’d announced.

‘He was the best father in the world,’ she told Marco. ‘We were very close – we still are, but obviously it’s different now.’ She held out her glass as Marco offered more wine. ‘It’s why,’ she said, after taking a sip, ‘I don’t need to have a connection with my real father. I simply wanted to see if I could find out who he was, and if I might still have family here. Now, of course, I’m beginning to understand why my mother never wanted me to know.’

‘We still haven’t got to the truth of everything yet,’ he reminded her. ‘I admit it was easy to let Signor Donata’s story lead us to the conclusions you are believing now, but we have yet to speak to Carlotta Calduzzi. She might have a very different story to tell.’

Grateful for the straw to cling to, she took it and used it to push the ugliness of her suspicions to the back of her mind. Perhaps she should let them stay there; after all, what good would it do to know any more about her roots? Whoever her real father was, wherever her grandparents might be, it wasn’t going to change what was happening with Tom, and though she was trying to use this search as a way of not thinking about him, the truth was, nothing mattered more. In fact, she longed to cut the holiday short now and go home, but what difference would it make if she did? Kirsten was still going to be his main concern, and while a part of her understood that, another part was finding it impossible to accept.

‘Excuse me, I should answer this,’ Marco said, checking his mobile as it rang. ‘It is one of my afternoon appointments. Maybe he wants to change the time.
Pronto,
’ he said, taking the call.

As he got up to walk back to the car, Lainey watched him go and felt an admiration for him rising above her troubles. He hadn’t mentioned his wife at all today, so she had no idea how he might be feeling inside, but she knew that if he was experiencing similar emotions to her, she’d want to help him in any way she could. However, it wasn’t in her power to cure heartbreak any more than it was in his, though spending time with him was proving a balm of sorts.