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Chapter Thirty-Five
‘Sophia,come si dice… how do you saywhere can I find the fish?’
‘Do-vey peskay?’
‘Almost: you saydov’è il pesce,’ said Geli. ‘And you pronounce fishPEH-sheh.’
I repeated it a few more times until I got it right.
We were at Casini’s having another Italian lesson. I was so relieved when Holly turned up. I was worried that after our conversation last week, I’d scared her away. She seemed quieter than normal. I hoped that was just because she’d had a long day and not because her pervy boss had been trying it on again. Hopefully we’d have time to speak at the end of the lesson so that I could check she was okay.
Today we were learning about how to ask for things in the supermarket. That would have come in handy a couple of months ago. I hadn’t stepped foot in that place since they’d run me out of the store. Lorenzo and I had been driving to a big supermarket out of town and he often brought stuff home that he’d picked up whilst shopping for the restaurant.
After we’d spent another hour running through vocab and phrases, Geli announced we were going on a little field trip. As we were leaving, she asked if I remembered how to say arsehole. Strange question, but I told her I did:stronzofor a man,stronzifor men,stronzafor a woman andstronzefor women. Funny how I remembered the swear words so easily…
We put on our jackets and stepped out of the bar, following Geli, who was leading the way. I walked beside Holly.
‘How are you?’ I said.
‘Fine, thanks, you?’ she said, avoiding eye contact. Nope. Holly definitely wasn’t her normal bubbly self. Her shoulders were slouching like she had the weight of the world on them. I wanted to ask her about things at home again, but I needed to tread carefully.
‘Yeah.So-so. Still got the mother-in-law staying… not ideal, but hey, ho.’
Marta had been there for a week and there were still no signs of her leaving. First it was a problem with the builderapparentlyand now there was a delay with her new oven arriving, and of course, there would be no way she could go back home without a fully functioning kitchen…
Whilst I seemed to have stopped her messing with my stuff in the kitchen, the same couldn’t be said for things in the bedroom. No, she wasn’t sleeping in our room or anything (though she was so attached to Lorenzo I wouldn’t have put it past her to try). Instead, she had killed our newly revitalised sex life.Dead. Lorenzo said it wouldn’t be right for us to do anything whilst his mum was there. Because she was in Leo’s room next door, he thought it would be disrespectful. So that was that.
I was climbing the walls. I wanted Lorenzo so badly. But what could I do? He’d been patient for months when I wasn’t ready, so I had to do the same and respect his wishes. Talk about sod’s law. If this had happened when I’d lost my libido, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But,oh no. That would have been far too convenient.Typical. We’d finally got things back on track, got the flames of passion burning again, and Marta had come and poured cold water all over them.Great.
One silver lining of the massive Marta cloud was that as well as doing lots of housework, she’d been helping out a lot with Leo. She particularly seemed to enjoy feeding him. She’d cook homemade food for him every day and always insisted on giving him his bottle. If he cried, she’d be there in a second to soothe him. To be honest, I didn’t believe in picking him up every time, but I was trying to be less rigid.
I also enjoyed feeding Leo. I loved the way he’d stare up at me with his big brown eyes as he sucked on the bottle. But Marta was completely dominating his feed times. If I hadn’t had so much to do with this deal, I would have put my foot down, but going through these contracts was so time-consuming. If all went well at my meeting tomorrow, the deal should go through next week, which would be a huge weight off my shoulders.
‘Must be a right pain in the arse having her hanging around,’ said Holly. ‘I prefer it when the ’rents are out of the house too, so I can just get on with teaching the kids without them sticking their noses in.’
’Rentsmust mean the host parents.Got it.Sometimes keeping up with Holly’s slang was like understanding another language.
‘Yeah, sometimes it’s good to have your own space. Hopefully my mother-in-law won’t be staying for too much longer. So…’ I paused, hoping she was relaxed enough to open up. ‘How are things at the house? With Silvestro? Has he—’
‘We are here!’ said Geli.
Dammit. I wanted to hear how things were with Holly. I looked up to see where we were. The supermarket?Oh gosh. Did we really have to go here? I supposed I couldn’t avoid it forever. Actually,no. Why should I? I’d done nothing wrong.
We walked in and I spotted the horrible women straight away. They were in the corner talking loudly. They looked at us and then went back to their conversation.
‘Allora,’ said Geli. ‘I would like each of you to go up to the women and ask for something. Daphne, I want you to ask where the cheese is, Holly, I would like you to ask for rice and, Sophia, ask for some dried fruit.’
We each took it in turns to approach them. I repeated the phrase I remembered in my head and asked forla frutta seccajust as Geli had asked me to. One of the ladies grunted, then pointed, telling me it was in aisle two on the right. I was pleased that I understood what she’d said.
Next we did role play with Geli, asking for various things in Italian. I definitely felt more confident about shopping by myself in the future. Just as we were about to leave, Geli called us over to where the women were still standing and chatting away.
She pulled me to the front and I think she told the women to be quiet a moment and they suddenly fell silent. I understood her say that I was her British friend. The next few words I didn’t follow… I picked up on some of the others, though.Baby. Crying. Leave. Rude.Geli became more animated. Waving her hands, glaring at them angrily. The women folded their arms and started getting agitated.
Hold on. I think she’s having a go at them. About how they treated me when I came in with Leo.
Yes. She was!
Now she was telling them to say sorry.
