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Chapter Four

Amy couldn’t believe how much she was looking forward to lunch with Sofia. ‘Going out to lunch’ was something her mum did with her colleagues from work on a Saturday. Amy and her friends ate when they were hungry, grazing throughout the day according to their euro supply or at whose house they were hanging out.

She was hit by a sudden wave of homesickness for Della and Maddalyn and her other friends in Germany. As it wasn’t yet time for Sofia to knock on her door she went out to the bench outside, where the rampant vine overhead made everything look green, to get a signal and look on Della and Maddalyn’s social media pages. Maddalyn’s last Instagram post showed a picture of the lush green park near her house in Neufahrn bei Freising, north of Munich, and read:

Holidays! No work.

Amy rolled her eyes and clicked on the speech bubble so she could reply.

I’m working my arse off!

Della’s Snapchat showed her on a beach in France, to which she’d added dog ears and bunny teeth and the label Hangin’!

Swallowing hard, Amy went onto her brother Kris’s Instagram and watched several live videos from the playing fields near their house; she blinked back her tears because her mascara wasn’t waterproof, and clicked to reply:

Take it mum doesn’t know ur smoking down the fields dummkopf

Kris was the elder of her brothers but he wasn’t quite sixteen and still thought smoking made you look cool.

Then she went onto Louis’s Instagram but all her younger brother had put up since the last time she looked was a stupid picture of him stuffing a torch in his mouth and blowing his cheeks up so they shone red. Even with the blown-up cheeks, Louis’s eyes laughed out of the picture, making her heart heavy. At twelve, Louis was the baby of the family, the only one who remembered no home other than theirs in Neufahrn because the family had moved there from England when he was two.

Improvement! she added underneath his post, then a collection of emojis, laughing, smiling, making heart eyes or scratching their heads, because Louis liked emojis better than actual words, judging by his text messages and social media updates.

Then, breath quickening and feeling a bit like a stalker, she looked on Facebook at her mum’s profile, but there were no recent posts apart from a sad face a week ago with a tear and some of her friends commenting Big hugs or Love you lots xx. She closed Facebook down, not sure whether it was grief, guilt or anger that suddenly made her feel like throwing up.

Then Sofia stepped out through her door. ‘Hey, Amy!’

Amy stuffed her phone in her little Cath Kidston bag, one that Dad had bought her. ‘Hey,’ she returned, feeling suddenly shy that not only was she ‘going out to lunch’ but her companion was at least thirty, maybe more, looking hot but cool in a short flowery dress. Her legs were amazing. Amy wished she had skin that tanned instead of the kind you could see through to the veins. Sofia’s dark hair was straight and glossy too. Today she’d divided her ponytail into three separate plaits and Amy wished she’d thought of it first.

Sofia grinned cheerfully. She was one of those people who could give you the feeling that there was genuinely no one she’d rather be with. She’d been a real friend, sticking up for Amy against that shit Davide and that cow Benedetta, helping conquer the hollowness Amy had carried in her stomach since she arrived in this Italian town where all the buildings were old and the native language was neither of those she knew. After she’d nearly been sacked she’d toyed briefly with trying to find another job but bailed on the idea almost at once. All well and good if a new place was an improvement on this one but she could easily be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire – with no Sofia to wield a fire extinguisher.

‘Ready for a lovely relaxing lunch before you have to hit the tables again tonight?’ Sofia treated Amy to a quick hug. ‘Glorious day but it’s getting hot. Have you slapped some stuff on?’

It was exactly the kind of question Amy would have resented if her mum had said it, but coming from Sofia it just gave her the warm and fuzzy feeling that someone cared. ‘Yep. All done.’ On her first day in Il Giardino she’d ended up with scarlet forearms and a peeling nose, and Sofia, although explaining she didn’t burn easily because she had the same Mediterranean skin as her Italian father, had helped her locate a pharmacy and buy the once-a-day stuff her mum stocked up with at home every summer.

‘Then let’s leave Casa Felice behind.’ Sofia led the way.

They were soon strolling down the hill into the town, the breeze playing with their hair and cooling their skin. Sofia pointed out things she’d already found out about, as if she’d known Montelibertà for months rather than the same couple of weeks as Amy.

Sofia peered to her right. ‘I’ve seen a place somewhere here I like the look of. It’s got a … oh, here it is! See what you think.’ She disappeared through a pair of open doors beneath a smart black-fringed canopy and a sign saying ‘Trattoria del Sole’.

Amy followed Sofia, blinking as they passed straight through the dim interior and the familiar aromas from a pizza oven to another exit, one that gave out onto a terrace much like the one at Casa Felice, with a stupendous view of the valley and the peaks. ‘Love it,’ she breathed, drinking it in. The near things seemed really near and the faraway things very far, as if the scenery had been built up in layers by a giant hand.

Sofia made a beeline for a vacant table nearest the edge of the terrace. ‘It feels a bit as if we’re getting one over on Benedetta by occupying a spot so like the one that’s “guests only” at Casa Felice, doesn’t it?’

Amy felt her spirits lift at Sofia’s conspiratorial tone. ‘Benedetta’s a mega-stress monster.’

They seated themselves on wooden benches warm from the sun. On the terrace the whirr-whirr and zirr-zirr of the insects around the tubs of flowers was louder than the traffic rolling up and down Via Virgilio.

Briskly, Sofia opened a menu. ‘I fancy a nice cold glass of vino.’ She paused, eyes wide. ‘You are old enough to drink?’

Amy laughed. ‘I’m old enough to serve it, so I must be! Do they do shandy in Italy?’ Della and Maddalyn called her a lightweight because she’d failed to develop the joy they seemed to find in alcohol and the trouble they got into when it was involved.

‘Let’s find out.’

A young Italian waiter approached their table, seriously hot, crisply curling hair tucked neatly behind his ears and dark eyes as soulful as a puppy’s. Sofia began a rapid conversation about birra con something. He nodded, smiling at Amy with a tiny lift of his eyebrows as if noting and returning her interest. In minutes, a tall glass of shandy appeared before her along with a glass of straw-coloured wine for Sofia and a tall, frosty bottle of water between them.

The waiter spoke to Amy in English, probably getting that the Italian was largely flowing over her head. ‘The water, it is sparkly, but you can have natural if you prefer it.’

Amy managed to smile back without feeling her cheeks heat up. ‘Sparkly’s lovely.’ It sounded nicer than ‘sparkling’.

The waiter moved on to another table. Sofia took a good gulp of wine and sighed contentedly. ‘I think you’re really brave to leave home for a summer job when you’re only eighteen. Look at me! I’m thirty-one and I’ve only just managed it.’

She laughed, but Amy already knew from earlier chats in the overgrown garden outside their rooms how hard it must have been for Sofia to look after her dad for years. It sounded rubbish. She tried to imagine Mum or Dad … No, don’t go there. ‘Waitressing’s harder than I’d thought,’ she confessed. ‘I was supposed to go to uni in England and live with my grandparents in Hendon. But, as I told you when we went out before, I wanted a gap year, so I decided to travel.’

What she hadn’t confessed was the gut-wrenching shock, Mum’s guilty tears, Dad’s horror, the screaming match that took place with Amy in the middle, the explanations and apologies that had preceded her sudden determination to do exactly what her mum hadn’t wanted her to do – miss her final couple of International Baccalaureate exams, making it impossible to be granted the diploma that should have allowed her to take up that university place. It made her feel sick to remember the time, less than three weeks ago, when she’d holed up in her room and, pounding angrily at her laptop, fixed up the job at Casa Felice via a website for seasonal workers.

Looking back on it, she felt a slithering suspicion that she needn’t have been so hurtful as to actually exit during the night, leaving a furious note behind her:

I’ve gone travelling because I need time alone. You don’t need to worry about me. I’ve got a job at a hotel called Casa Felice in Montelibertà, Italy. I’m only telling you so you know I’ve got everything sorted. I’m 18 and I’m not coming back unless I want to. I’ll keep in touch so long as you don’t follow me. If you do, I’ll move on and you won’t hear from me at all. Don’t ring or text me either. I’ll text you.

She took several sips from her drink before she could continue past what felt like a ball in her throat. ‘To be honest, we didn’t part on good terms. I talk to my brothers on social media and text Mum every few days to say I’m OK and that’s it. Dad’s actually my stepdad,’ she added, to forestall Sofia asking about him. She hoped it sounded as if she’d coolly put a plan into action rather than simply lashed out to hurt everybody who’d spun her life into the wall and watched it smash down in pieces.

Sofia had paused with her wine glass halfway to her mouth, brows right up at her hairline. ‘Wow. Poor you. I can’t imagine how falling out with your family feels.’ Her eyes brimmed with sympathy. ‘Do you want to talk about it? It’s fine if you do, but don’t feel you have to.’

Amy shook her head.

But then, because Sofia hadn’t said anything judgy, she immediately wanted to. ‘I found out something. Something Mum knew about and never said. In fact, she lied.’ She felt tears gathering hotly behind her eyes. ‘I hate my mum at the moment. I don’t think I’m ever going home.’

Sofia tilted her head, concern written all over her face. ‘That’s a big decision,’ she said tentatively. ‘Don’t you think—’

‘No.’

Sofia showed no sign of taking offence at the way Amy cut her off. ‘OK,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t think I’m going home, either, come to that – well, I don’t really have a home as I’ve sold Dad’s house because it was a ruin, but I don’t think I want to go back to living in Bedford. I’ve given myself a couple of years to travel before I even think about doing anything grown-up. Then I might do something about getting a degree myself.’ She grinned suddenly. ‘That makes our plans quite similar, doesn’t it?’

All at once, Amy felt loads better. ‘Where do you think you’ll go after Montelibertà?’

Sofia shrugged, turning her face up to the sun. ‘Somewhere I like the look of and I can find a job I fancy. There are a hell of a lot of places that need waiting staff.’

‘So you don’t have a husband or anything?’

Sofia crossed her eyes. ‘Nope. Enjoying the life of the independent woman.’ She grinned.

On a sudden surge of excitement Amy said breathlessly, ‘Will I be able to go with you?’ Almost instantly she wished she hadn’t said anything so stupid. As if Sofia, just about a teenager when you were born, would want you tagging along, all shy and dorky! You just sounded like you had a girl crush on her or something. She opened her mouth to stutter a red-faced retraction.

But Sofia didn’t betray by so much as a blink that she found anything odd in the suggestion. ‘Don’t see why not. Where do you fancy? North Pole?’

Amy tried to think of something someone older and cooler might say. Someone of about twenty-five. ‘Seen enough snow in Germany in winter. I was thinking Spain.’

Sofia’s eyes lit up and they swapped ideas about which part of Spain looked most appealing while they ordered salads and more drinks. People came and went from the tables all around, English, American and Italian voices mingling on the air.

‘If we pick up a bit of Spanish,’ Sofia suggested, ‘we could follow the sun to the Canary Islands as autumn comes and central Europe gets cooler.’

Amy didn’t know where the Canary Islands were but she nodded enthusiastically. ‘Awesome!’

‘Or we could travel south through Spain to Gibraltar and cross over to Morocco.’

‘Sounds great!’ Amy thought that with Sofia’s quiet confidence along for the ride, almost anything sounded possible.

They sat on, planning ever more adventurous journeys as the sun crossed the afternoon sky, making the colours of the peaks change as it hit from different angles. Sofia switched to drinking coffee, Amy to lemonade. Finally, Amy had to check the time because she knew soon she’d have to return to Casa Felice, put on her black dress and white apron and race around the tables. She sighed.

Sofia’s gaze softened. ‘Cheer up. Soon be payday.’

Amy’s heart hopped. ‘Will it?’

‘Friday. We’ll get paid for the first part-week we worked, then a full week’s pay next week – which is when we start getting our share of the tips!’ Sofia had popped sunglasses on as the sun moved around. They made her look supercool, like Selena Gomez or Demi Levato.

‘Tips?’ Amy had never been on the receiving end of a tip. She was used to her parents paying for meals when they went home to the UK and checking the bill to see whether a tip was included, but in Germany tipping didn’t seem so much of a thing.

‘Of course!’ Sofia fanned herself. ‘Haven’t you worked as a waitress before? I can give you “Tipping 101” if you like.’

Amy understood what she meant. There were American and Canadian kids at the international school she’d attended and something-101 always meant basic introduction. ‘That’d be good.’ She’d watched Sofia swerving through her tables and seeming to make customers and staff love her – apart from maybe Davide, who was surly towards Sofia but at least hadn’t ever tried it on with her.

‘OK.’ Sofia pushed her sunglasses up on her hair. ‘At Casa Felice most tourists leave tips and locals don’t – but that’s probably because “gratuity included” is only printed in Italian on the menu! The better the service the better the tips, generally speaking. Make personal connections if you can, remember faces so you can say “hello again!” to show you appreciate their repeat custom. They’re incredibly flattered and it loosens the wallets and purses nicely. At Casa Felice, whether they come back to your section isn’t important because all the tips go in together and are divided up on payday.’ She wrinkled her nose.

‘Is that bad?’

‘Can be. If you see your own tips you know what you’re getting, and that you’re getting your due,’ Sofia said frankly, dividing the last of the bottled water between their two glasses. ‘Smile, even if you hate your job. If you call the men “sir” then call the women “madam”, not “love” or “darling”. The women often carry handbags and therefore the money, so if they feel they’re being condescended to they may indicate their displeasure with a stingy tip.’

Amy threw back her head and laughed. ‘You are such an experienced waitress!’

Sofia’s smile wavered and she turned her gaze to the peaks across the valley. ‘Dad was sick for a long time but he had good patches, especially when I was your age. It had to be casual work so I could leave at short notice when I had to.’ She wrinkled her forehead. ‘I did once or twice work as a carer, too, but that was a bit samey.’

For several moments, Amy could only stare.

‘What?’ Sofia demanded.

‘You looked after your dad when you were my age?’

‘Since I was fifteen. Didn’t I mention my age before?’ Sofia laughed. ‘Don’t look so horrified! I would rather have done that than leave him at the mercy of someone else. But you can see why tips were useful, especially if I forgot to declare them to the taxman.’

With only a vague idea what a taxman did, Amy just stared at Sofia some more. ‘It seems like you’re never bothered by a thing.’

Sofia shrugged and turned the subject back to Amy. ‘Talking of being bothered, how are things with Davide?’

Amy pulled a face. ‘He’s being a shit person, criticising me in front of customers, but it’s better than him being a creep. I don’t think he dares to do much now you and Levi have shown him he can’t get away with it.’

‘Levi?’ Sofia sounded as if she didn’t know who Amy meant.

‘The one you were sitting with last night, who saw Davide tip up that tray of drinks and told Benedetta. Didn’t you know his name?’

‘I was just checking it was the same Levi. Have you talked to him much?’

Amy smiled, picturing the nice man who’d jumped in on her side when she’d thought she’d got the sack and had no idea what she’d do next. ‘I saw him again this morning and he said if Davide keeps bothering me I can leave a message for him at the desk and he’ll talk to my boss.’

Sofia made a shape with her mouth like an upside-down smile. ‘You can tell me too. If anyone bothers you, not just Davide.’

Amy beamed. Now she was settling in, she felt as if she might like Italy. ‘Thank you. You’re sooooo kind.’

Maybe she did have a girl crush. A tiny one.