Three Gold Coins

Matteo had rented a small silver van. ‘Just in case I f-f-find a goat that needs to come home with us,’ he explained, lifting her bag onto the back seat for her.

He closed the door with a satisfying new-car-sound click and turned to face her. She squirmed under his direct gaze, remembering their night of almost-passion and the upsetting events afterwards, embarrassed that she’d not replied to his messages and now was heading on a road trip with him, something that was always an intimate experience, regardless of whether the other person was your mother, friend, lover or almost-sex-date.

‘I’m so sorry about how things ended the other n-night,’ Matteo said, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his cotton cargo pants.

‘I would like that,’ she said. He looked hopeful and she was pierced with guilt. ‘I’m sorry,’ Lara added, wiping her damp palms down her hips. ‘I shouldn’t have ignored your messages. I just…’ She trailed off, feeling ridiculous, and also deceptive because of what she’d been hiding about her family situation. Also, his presence here in front of her, with the smell of wood smoke in his shirt, was distracting. Without a shadow of a doubt, she was still attracted to him.

They climbed into the van and waved goodbye to Samuel and Henrik as their wheels bumped gently over the uneven surface of the driveway.

‘We’re going to have a great week,’ Matteo said. His huge grin made her smile too, giving her heart a kickstart. She wouldn’t forget seeing him with a gun. But Matteo wasn’t Leonard. These were entirely different circumstances. Sunny was right. It was just possible that he was the hero in the story after all.

They’d been driving in comfortable silence for over an hour. Things were a bit too stiff and polite, but easing as the time went on and they were bound together on this journey, with their van wending its way over the magnificent Apennines towards Bologna. Lara was simultaneously soaking up the grandeur of the mountain range—the giant backbone of the country—while also feeling the weight of responsibility of the task Samuel had set her.

‘I’ll pay you your week’s wage as usual, since you are still working for me,’ he had said.

Samuel had simply gestured to his wrist and his legs, and Lara had cursed herself for suggesting it.

‘He no longer speaks to me,’ Samuel said. ‘In that regard, he’s like all the others.’

‘Maybe if you posted this to him,’ she said, tapping the box, ‘then he’d speak to you.’

Samuel had wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘He is,’ he conceded. ‘But he’s already defying the rest of his family to be in contact with me. I don’t want to burden him with this too.’

Burden. That was a good word for it, Lara thought now, picturing the claret-coloured box tucked inside her bag on the back seat, thinking of the story she had to relay to Carlo.

She pushed that thought away in favour of watching the world drift by outside her window. The road passed through many tunnels and they popped out the other side to be greeted by open yellow farmlands with flocks of sheep huddled under oak trees, or huge round bales of hay curing in the sunshine, or dense groves of olive trees clinging to sheer drops by the roadside. A stone house with curls of smoke serpentining into the sky. Ice blue lakes reflecting dazzling light. A lone cyclist resting on the side of the road, her water bottle in one hand and a map in the other. It was all wonderful, luring Lara into a place of calm and wonder.

She’d been so lost in her place of calm that his sudden gesture gave her a spike of adrenaline. She flinched, pulling herself towards the car door and turning her back to him as she buried her face in her hands.

She uncovered her face, immediately mortified. ‘Oh, nothing, sorry!’ She looked up and took a breath.

‘I just needed water,’ Matteo explained, holding up the bottle, glancing at her quickly.

‘Yes, I know. Sorry. It was just a reflex. I was off in a daydream and got a fright, that’s all.’

Matteo nodded slowly, but she could tell he knew there was more than she was saying.

The thing was, Dave hadhit her. And not just during his messed-up sex games. Sometimes she lied to herself and pretended it hadn’t happened. But it had. She may have been able to block it from her mind, but her body still remembered.

They had been in Bologna for half the day and the beautiful city had worked its magic on Lara, loosening the knots of tension in her body, easing the racing of her mind and heart. ‘I think I’m in love,’ she told Matteo, her words muffled as she gnawed on a rind of parmesan, determined to get every last sliver of cheese she could. The formaggio was smooth and creamy—another class entirely from any she’d ever eaten in Australia.

Matteo leaned back in his chair and grinned across the table at her, his eyes catching the light from the flickering candles. Any residual awkwardness between them had all but disappeared during several hours of wonderful sightseeing on top of a red tourist bus, Matteo offering her the best seat.

They saw the Basilica San Petronio, the light-filled, expansive Piazza Maggiore, Neptune’s fountain, and the University of Bologna—the oldest university in the world. They pottered about in the warren of backstreets filled with shops. There were fishmongers with huge white boxes of fish, lobsters, squid and prawns on ice, and fruit and vegetable sellers, and spice merchants. The colourscape in this city was different from the villages in Tuscany. Here the walls were muted orange or lemon, with blue shutters. Her heart was bursting with the beauty of this grand university town with its huge basilicas, its ancient towers, its kilometres of arched stone porticos that wove their way around the city, and its young and energetic vibe.

It was in this city that Matteo had completed his degree, and he was an entertaining guide. She was seeing another side to him—more enthusiastic academic than quiet goat handler. She liked this version of him too. Which was frustrating, really, as she was most certainly trying not to like him.

The edges of the white tablecloth lifted and ruffled in the swirling breeze that had picked up as the day went on. Lara shivered. She welcomed the coolness of this city—feeling much further north than it actually was—but pulled her new coat around her just the same. She’d found the coat in a vintage shop tucked away in an alley. It was simple and durable, made from a heavy cotton fabric, stiff like denim, and perfect for a traveller to roll up into a bag.

Today on her wanders, she’d learned that tortellini was the invention of this region. She’d walked past dozens of shops that displayed the pasta not in packets, as she’d only ever seen it in Brisbane, but in their front windows, freshly made and sold by weight. The stores were pokey and delightful, crammed not just with extensive displays of the prized pasta, but also with huge wheels of cheeses, and scores of hams and other cured meats that hung from the ceilings on chains, along with chandeliers that cast romantic light over the produce.

‘How am I ever going to eat pasta again when I go home?’ she said, sighing deeply.

‘It is good, yes? I think you will have to learn to make it properly,’ Matteo said, reaching for another slice of mortadella and rolling it up like a cigar before folding it into his mouth and chewing with glee.

‘Maybe I could find a class while I’m here. I’ve been reading the recipe books in Samuel’s villa and trying to improve, but nothing beats learning from another person.’

Matteo swallowed the last of the mortadella. ‘I am sure Gilberta would love to teach you. You remember her?’

‘At your mum’s house,’ she said, wincing at the memory of that awkward day. ‘That was the day you and Alessandra…’

Lara played with her fork. ‘Have you seen her since?’ The question was out before she could stop it.

She couldn’t suppress the smile that sprang to her lips. ‘And what about your mother? Has she found you another suitable partner yet?’

‘It wouldn’t matter if she had,’ he said steadily. ‘Trust me, I learned that lesson long ago. I’m the only one who knows who is right for me.’

Lara bit her lip to stop herself asking more questions. She changed the topic. ‘So, you mentioned Gilberta. I liked her very much. We have acting in common, though she had an actual career whereas I was just…filling in time, I guess. Waiting.’

A waiter in a starched white shirt and slicked-back hair wove his way through the tables under the restaurant’s stone portico, approached their table and refilled their wine glasses.

‘Grazie,’ Matteo said. Then he turned his gaze back to Lara. ‘What were you waiting for?’

Lara, aware this conversation was heading into tricky territory, turned her attention back to the cheese board, scraping up a soft white sheep’s cheese with a cracker. She chewed thoughtfully. She supposed, since she had decided to be over Matteo, and there was no possible future for them, that it really didn’t matter what she told him.

‘I lived with a man for several years. I thought…’ She frowned, not entirely sure what she’d been thinking at the time. ‘I guess I thought Dave would marry me one day and we would have kids.’

‘No.’ She quaffed a mouthful of wine, appreciating the acidic fizz in her mouth as vino met formaggio, delaying her story.

Matteo leaned forward, his arms folded on the table, his linen shirt open enough that she got a good look at his collarbones and fleetingly imagined laying her lips on them. ‘What happened to this man?’ he asked. And she might have imagined it, but it seemed his eyes dropped down her body to rest on her navel. She felt herself flush and wanted, briefly but urgently, to flee this conversation. Instead, she put her hand where his eyes seemed to be focused. ‘He didn’t want me,’ she said, smiling through the humiliation.

Lara looked away. Someone riding a bicycle along the flagstone road beside the portico tinged their bell and the rubber tyres made a whizzing sound. A family arrived at the entrance to the restaurant, two young children clinging sleepily to their parents’ legs, one holding a teddy bear. They were ushered inside with loud enthusiasm.

‘I had two babies—twins, a boy and a girl,’ she said, forcing herself to be strong, focusing her eyes firmly on her plate. ‘But I knew I couldn’t keep them.’

It was now or never. She had to tell him the truth. Playing games didn’t sit well with her, especially after what she’d been through with Dave.

‘I have bipolar affective disorder,’ she said, any fantasies she had harboured about a romance with Matteo fluttering to the ground. ‘Dave convinced me that I couldn’t possibly be a good mother and that the best thing for everyone was for me to end the pregnancy.’ She sneaked a peek at Matteo. ‘But I couldn’t go through with it.’

He was watching her intently, twirling the stem of his wine glass between his fingers. ‘And where are they now?’

‘My sister is their mother now. My niece and nephew, Daisy and Hudson, are actually my babies.’

Matteo groaned quietly. ‘That must have been very difficult. I can’t imagine.’

It had been a slow release, starting with the moment Daisy was pulled from her belly, Sunny holding Lara’s hand so tightly, tears in her eyes as her daughter immediately screamed in protest, while the surgeon worked to pull Hudson out next. Both babies had been strong and were quickly swaddled. Lara had lain on the table, tears leaking from her eyes while the doctor stitched her up, knowing that the babies looked perfectly right in Sunny’s arms.

Lara had been unable to breastfeed, both because she needed to go straight back onto her medication and because she knew she couldn’t share that level of intimacy with the babies when she wasn’t to be their mother. Sunny had been sensitive and patient, only holding the babies or bottle-feeding them when Lara suggested it, steeling herself for the chance that Lara would change her mind.

They’d taken the babies back to the flat in Redfern, where they’d stayed a couple of weeks, caring for them together. Then Lara flew home to Brisbane first, to be with Eliza, while she and Sunny made the mental adjustment to their new roles, with Sunny as mama and Lara as aunty.

The first few years were the hardest. During the pregnancy, Lara had had to block out so much in order to hold things together. But after the birth, she’d had to get on with the deep and difficult work of recovering herself, spending so much time in therapy, continuing to deprogram herself from Dave, and dealing with the new memories floating to the surface, threatening to drown her with their intensity. Then slowly coming to terms with what she’d hidden, how many lies she’d told herself and her family while she’d been with Dave, seeking their forgiveness for shutting them out. She’d been in no shape to care for the babies. It had been a relief to know they were safe in Sunny’s hands, though it had been her own private hell.

Constance had been her rock. Lara asked her if she’d made a mistake, if she should move out and go far away from them rather than living in the granny flat out the back, and what it would be like when the twins finally learned the truth. They talked through it all.

‘First of all, there is no one right way to handle this situation,’ Constance had said, calmly as always. ‘Your family is free to make its own set of rules. Yes, you might choose to go away if you feel it would help you to heal, but that doesn’t make it necessary or right. There are many paths to love and healing. You also might feel you would benefit most from the support of your family for yourself.’

Sometimes, Lara would turn her pain inwards, cursing herself for doing such an awful thing. One day, Constance told her that she wasn’t alone, that mothers all over the world had to make decisions every day to keep their children safe—from war, violence, famine, poverty, natural disasters and human traffickers—and sometimes that meant splitting up families, giving children to relatives, sending them far away, sometimes putting them on leaky boats to sail across oceans, not knowing if they would survive, let alone find a better life at the other end.

‘Knowing this doesn’t make it all better,’ Constance said. ‘But maybe just knowing you aren’t the only mother in the world who has had to make an impossible decision might help you to feel more connected to other women, rather than alone in your struggles.’

Then when the twins turned three years old, something changed. It was as though a window opened and a burst of sunshine and fresh air poured through her. Instead of learning to say goodbye again and again, pulling herself away, she started to relish her role as aunty, feeling confident to play with them and hold them and not fear the pain that followed. She began to store up good memories instead of bad. She began to live again.

‘And what about this Dave man? Where is he in the picture?’ Matteo asked, pulling her out of her reverie.

Lara cast her gaze out to the night sky and let out a long slow breath. ‘I told him I’d had an abortion,’ she said, realising that she might as well throw all her cards on the table. Matteo waited out the silence that followed, and she rushed to explain.

‘He was a psychologist, but he used that against me to trick me and confuse me and play games with my mind, like convincing me I was hopeless and wouldn’t be able to look after the kids. It’s called gaslighting.’

‘Very much. Like the wolves on your farm, I guess.’ She knew now that protecting the goats from the wolf was the only action Matteo could have taken that night. Gentleness could still equal strength.

Lara swallowed hard against her rising emotion. ‘He controlled the money, the shopping, my medications. I believe he got rid of my cat and he destroyed the screenplay that I’d been working on for years, and both times convinced me it was my fault. He isolated me from my family and made sure I didn’t keep friends. He had affairs, I think, though I could never catch him out. And when he found out I was pregnant, he tried to convince me to kill myself.’

There. She’d said it all. Lara reached for her glass of water and brought it to her lips, gulping, then choking and coughing. Matteo came and knelt at her side and patted her back until she could breathe properly again.

‘Sometimes, yes,’ she said, instantly regretting saying sometimes. It was a qualifier Dave didn’t deserve. She should have just said yes. Yes, he was violent.

Very slowly, he reached up and laid his hand tenderly against her face. She leaned into it, relieved to have told him her story, regardless of where it went from here. For the first time in a long while, she felt hope for her future. But as for romance with Matteo, she knew that everything she’d just told him wasn’t exactly her winning pitch.

Back at their old, labyrinthine hotel, Matteo walked her to her door and watched while she slid the room key into the lock.

She was reminded of the awkwardness between the two of them that first night at the villa, standing outside their bedrooms, back so late from the hospital. She wanted him to reach out and touch her once more, but instead he tucked his hands into the pockets of his trousers.

‘I am in room 204, just over there.’ He pointed. ‘If you need anything, just call or knock.’

‘Okay, thanks,’ she said, a bundle of confused emotions now weaving themselves together. She’d expected that telling him her story would turn him off—if he’d even been ‘on’ in the first place—but then the moment after she’d finished choking, when he’d put his hand on her face, she’d felt something real. He was probably just feeling pity for her, though. And pity was the last thing she wanted.

Nerves loosened her tongue. ‘But you know, if you wanted to come inside, like if you needed to sleep on the floor to help you feel as if you’re at home or something like that…’

‘But of course it’s been such a long day,’ she went on. God, how she needed to stop talking. ‘You’ll be tired. So much driving. All those mountains.’ Her hand was gesticulating wildly all by itself.

In his pocket, his phone began to play an opera tune, which she recognised as the one identifying his mother’s call.

He closed one eye in a wincing gesture. ‘Er, I think I will say goodnight,’ he said, looking at her gently.

‘I must take this.’ He held up the offending phone. ‘I will see you downstairs for breakfast in the morning?’

He backed away a step, as if unsure whether he should take his eyes off her in case she did something crazy, then nodded and turned and answered his phone, talking and walking.

Lara fumbled with her key again, scurried inside, shut the door firmly behind her, staggered to the bed, texted Sunny, then flopped face down. What an idiot she was.

You’re not an idiot, Sprout. You were brave.

It will be okay in the morning. Remember?

Everything’s better in the morning. Try to

get some sleep xx