Paolo had disliked Lucien the moment he saw him. After he’d made sure Anna had recovered from her mercy dash – she’d looked a little pale to begin with, but the colour seemed to be returning to her cheeks – Paolo sat at the table with the other one – Martin? – and talked about the injury – Louisa’s sprained ankle. He seemed intelligent and knowledgeable, and Paolo told him what to do; an ice-pack, elevate the ankle, rest it. He had assumed Martin was Louisa’s husband to begin with, he took such an interest. But then they had a discussion, over Paolo’s head, literally, about when someone called Tom would be back, whether it would be in time for lunch, and it became obvious that Tom was her husband. All this Paolo absorbed without really listening, while he watched Justine and Lucien, standing between the table and the door of Il Vignacce, talking.
Were they married? From where he sat Justine’s left hand was not visible; he could see her hair coming down from a knot, heavy and dark and slippery, the nape of her neck and the smooth pale curve of her bare calves. It was obvious that they were together, though, from the way they had separated themselves off from the rest, from the angle of their bodies towards each other. There must be a critical proximity that denotes intimacy; the point at which you can detect the other’s body heat, perhaps. But in their case it wasn’t, he thought, a relaxed intimacy; something seemed to be wrong. Paolo wondered what it could be.
What are we doing here? Paolo asked himself, not for the first time. He felt as though his life had been overturned. After all his careful preparations, his imagining, his waiting and coaxing, his mother had told him the truth. His father was Luca Magno, a man he had heard of, and had read about; a minor figure perhaps, a historical footnote, but a man whose death had been the subject of speculation and public mourning. And now he was here, among foreigners whose lives should be of no interest to him; he should bid them a polite farewell, he and his mother should walk back up the hill, but he found himself curiously reluctant to do any such thing. And so he just sat in the humid shade, watching the girl. He smiled when he was addressed and accepted their invitation to stay and eat; Anna, he thought, could do with the rest.
He couldn’t remember seeing a ring on Justine’s finger, when they were alone down there by the river, but then he hadn’t looked. He’d been looking at her hair, her mouth, the pale soft skin on the inside of her elbow, her profile as she gazed along the river.
Paolo didn’t trust Lucien but grudgingly had to admit that he could cook. He had almost laughed at his mother’s look of alarm when they’d been invited to lunch; she didn’t believe for one moment that a scruffy group of English holidaymakers would be able to prepare anything palatable. They sat beneath the tree; the day was overcast, the air hanging warm and heavy with moisture in the clearing. There was no wind now to dispel it down in the valley where they sat, cocooned by the forest, the trees around them absorbing any breeze. Paolo looked down the table, and for a moment he thought Justine was looking back. But then she turned away quickly, and he couldn’t be sure.
Justine stared down at her plate, where a swirl of red peppers still lay in their puddle of oil, electric orange and spicy. She reached for her glass, cold, yellow white wine, and drank to cover her confusion.
It was quiet without the children, and from a distance the table of holidaymakers and locals beneath the tree must have looked festive; the kind of scene adorning an expensive travel guide, or an account of idyllic, harmonious expatriate life. Martin sat at the centre of the table like a dark, serious paterfamilias, radiating authority. The food was delicious, and Lucien had presented it beautifully, as usual; the salad as pretty as a bouquet with red and green chicory, peppers slippery and bright with oil, a rich, dark glaze on the meat.
As was becoming the rule at their communal meals the drink was being consumed more enthusiastically than the food, and for once Lucien appeared to be drinking as much as anyone else, filling his glass steadily. Down the centre of the table a surprising number of wine bottles were ranged, some empty, plenty still to be drunk, threading their way like a procession in and out of the dishes and the smeared glasses.
Louisa, well mannered as ever, was having a friendly, if halting, three-way conversation with Paolo and his mother, involving considerable good-natured translation and some lengthy pauses. Justine listened, sitting back in her chair so as not to attract attention. It drew her in, Anna’s story; Justine found herself piecing it together from the snippets translated by Paolo; it sounded romantic told in this way. She wondered what the war could have been like here, in such isolation, and what it must have been like to move from here to Rome. She wondered how Anna’s father had died; she hadn’t said.
‘So you work in Rome?’ Louisa was asking Paolo.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A specialist orthopaedic hospital.’
He sounded weary, suddenly, and serious. Grown-up, thought Justine.
‘Should we save some food for the boys?’ asked Martin, suddenly, interrupting.
Justine looked up.
‘I thought I’d make them a sandwich,’ Louisa said, wearily. She looked pale. ‘They don’t really – they probably wouldn’t eat this stuff. What about Dido?’
Martin’s brow clouded slightly. ‘Perhaps I should – but she likes to look after herself. And she hardly eats anything, anyway.’
Louisa bit her lip, but passed no comment. ‘How long have they been down there?’ she asked instead, smiling brightly. It looked to Justine as though she was trying not to seem a fretful mother. ‘I’m losing all track of time.’
‘They went just before you got back,’ said Martin. ‘An hour and a half, maybe two?’
Louisa nodded, apparently unconcerned. There was a silence; over their heads the tree moved a little as a breath of wind sighed down from the hills around them, and the faint shadow of its leaves shifted on the tablecloth.
Anna said something to Paolo, who turned to Louisa, smiling. ‘Your husband is visiting Grosseto, for business? As a restaurant critic?’
Louisa hesitated; before she could say anything, Lucien spoke.
‘He’d had enough of us,’ he said, cheerfully drunk. ‘He wanted to be alone. Going through a difficult time.’
Justine saw Paolo look at Lucien, frowning, and felt uncomfortable. She wondered how much Lucien had had.
Louisa spoke.
‘He’s fine,’ she said, her voice shaking slightly, looking hard at Lucien before turning to Paolo. ‘He’s gone to look at an organic farm in Grosseto,’ she said firmly. ‘A vineyard and a restaurant. Maremman cattle.’
Lucien went on. ‘Things haven’t been too easy for Tom lately. Have they? Terrible shame.’ He gave Louisa an attempt at a sympathetic smile and sipped his wine.
To Justine’s surprise, it was not Louisa who responded this time, but Martin.
‘I wouldn’t worry about Tom, if I were you, Lucien,’ he said, smiling.
Lucien raised his eyebrows, looking around the table for support.
Martin went on. ‘I had a long chat with him last night. It sounds like a beautiful place – the vineyard he’s gone to see; I encouraged him. It’s for sale.’
Across the table Justine saw Louisa frown as if she might be about to say something, but she didn’t.
Lucien, however, sat up in his seat. ‘For sale? Tom wants to buy it?’
He sounded sober now, and incredulous, almost angry; it was exactly the kind of thing he’d like to be doing himself, thought Justine, he’s angry because someone’s on his territory. It was as if, today, she saw Lucien through someone else’s eyes; someone who was not all that well disposed towards him.
‘Or I might,’ said Martin, casually. ‘We talked about Tom managing it. Maybe it’s just one of those things – a fantasy. But I thought it could be interesting. Might cheer him up.’ And Martin looked at Lucien, head on one side, as if daring him to argue with the idea that Tom might need cheering up.
‘Long way to go for a fantasy,’ was all Lucien said, looking around at the table with a rather forced smile. Justine didn’t feel like smiling back at him.
‘Well,’ said Martin, ‘I don’t think he saw it that way. And anyway, there’s something else – an errand he’s running for me on the way back. Picking something up.’ And he leaned for his glass, putting an end to the conversation.
Well, thought Justine. Well, well.
Lucien opened his mouth, then closed it again. Far beyond them, on the edge of the pasture, the cows looked up as two tiny figures appeared from out of the trees, running towards the house.