Читать книгу Giulia - Maria Gabriella Zampini - Страница 5

It seemed like the kids were only too happy to stick around a while longer.

As Giulia put yet another coffee on, her mind drifted to the beautiful sea waiting for her just a few metres away, but she had no desire to see the motley crew outside her house leave just yet. Leonardo appeared at the door:

“Guys! There’s plenty that needs doing in here! Giulia can’t be expected to do it all by herself now, can she?”

Within seconds, the kitchen was full of boisterous kids, one of whom went to the sink to wash the cups, another grabbed a dishcloth to dry them, one of the girls (Roberta?) seized hold of a broom and proceeded to drag it around the floor, in between everyone’s feet, and someone else did some sweeping of their own, lifting Giulia up into their arms and carrying her carefully outside to the patio.

“You stay here, sit and relax. We do everything.”

Andreas looked at her with his intense blue eyes, made sure she was sitting comfortably on the rattan couch and disappeared back inside.

Giulia closed her eyes and shook her head: ‘Wow, some guys know just how to push your buttons, don’t they?’ she thought to herself with a frisson of excitement. ‘So strong, so tall, dark and handsome...’ She snapped out of it, feeling almost ashamed at having such thoughts. ‘Don’t be so stupid, Giulia,’ she reprimanded herself, ‘he’s just a nice, polite young man, nothing more.’ As she relaxed and stretched her legs out onto the table in front of her, happy that she’d kept herself in check, she saw Andreas out of the corner of her eye, coming towards her with a steaming cup of coffee.

“How much sugar?” he asked, sitting close to her.

“One, thank you.”

He added the sugar cube, took the teaspoon, stirred the coffee and handed it to her.

“Do you want a cigarette?” he asked, producing a pack of Camels from his pocket.

Giulia managed to muster a nod. She was loving all this attention, but wasn’t it a bit unusual? Or perhaps she was just imagining things as always. She’d been avoiding suitors for so long that she could no longer distinguish between kindness and flirting! She looked up to the sky, then as she turned towards Andreas for him to light her cigarette, she met his gaze: an ocean of blue she could just drown in...

“Morning, Mamma!”

The cheery voice of her confident fifteen-year-old son, Daniele, brought her crashing back to Earth and her role as a forty-something mother.

“Sweetie!” she cried, knowing full well it would put his nose out of joint, “I see you’ve managed to join the land of the living! I’m guessing you overdid it a little last night?”

“Maybe a bit,” Daniele admitted freely, “but Ale said I could go down to the beach with him and we had such a good time. We lit a bonfire, loads of people came and began to sing, then loads more people turned up! Have you seen how many friends we’ve made?”

He was bursting with pride that he and his older brother had been the catalysts for such a memorable evening. Giulia looked at him fondly, well aware how important it was to him that Ale, eight years his senior, treated him as an equal.

“Yeah, a right mess you’ve got me in to! Just kidding, darling,” she added, seeing the boy’s face begin to drop, “you know I love having all these people round!”

It was only then she realised that Andreas was no longer sat next to her. She breathed a sigh of relief, asked her son if he wanted breakfast (of course he did), went back inside and started to warm some milk.

Everywhere was absolutely spotless. The youngsters, now back outside, had done an incredible job.

‘If they keep this up, I wouldn’t mind them staying here the whole month!’ she thought to herself, unaware just how prophetic that was.

It was three o’clock by the time she realised she could wander down to the sea. The kids had taken their many scooters and their not so many cars (including hers) and headed for the most popular beach in the area - the one where it was so crowded it was a job even to put a towel down!

Not that they’d be needing towels; they’d gone to that beach so they could play their instruments and attract a crowd of guys with perfectly chiselled bodies and topless girls in thongs, which come to think of it was a perfect description of Giulia twenty years earlier! Just swap the djembes for guitars and Lucio Battisti1 songs!

She carefully rolled up her beach towel and put it in a bag together with a book (she always tried to read something in the summer, because in the winter she was too tired in the evenings and didn’t have enough time during the day), a bottle of water, a clip so she could put her hair up and some sun cream. She took one final look around to make sure everything was in its place and strolled over towards the steps that led her down to her beloved rocks.

It was a place Giulia knew so well. Her family had rented the house by the sea every summer for as long as she could remember, and she had always felt happy here, far from the madding crowd.

So when she and the boys’ father had decided to buy a seaside property, they had chosen this one. There was no need to cram into a baking-hot car and drive to find a decent beach, and they were safe in the knowledge that the kids would never be too far away.

Summers were good back then. It was quiet, peaceful and calm. Time seemed to stand still. Fun and games in the sea by day, and candlelit dinners by night.

Giulia sighed. Now, the house was quiet and peaceful only because most of the time it was frequented just by a single woman in her forties....no, early forties!

She unrolled her towel and looked around. As usual, the moored boats were bobbing gently up and down, and kids on pedalos were riding over so they could dive in off the rocks; one of them waved at her, and she instinctively looked down to check her swimsuit was on properly.

Giulia wasn’t sure why, but she hadn’t worn a bikini for ten years now, ever since the split from her husband. At first, she’d hated wearing a one-piece because it meant her stomach didn’t get tanned. But then she’d discovered that she could roll it down to her waist, as long as she was certain there was no-one else around and she was far away from prying eyes. Not that that was easy, even in her own little bit of paradise.

She looked down at her shapely long(-ish) legs and flat stomach:

‘Who exactly are you saving yourself for?’ she wondered. ‘Who are you keeping in shape for, going to the gym for, trying your best to stay under eight stone for...?’

She turned her nose up (just like Daniele) and shrugged her shoulders: ‘I’m doing it for me and to hell with everyone else! I don’t need a man to keep in shape!’ Giulia laid face down on the towel - rolling her swimsuit down was out of the question with all these boats around - opened her book and began to read.

She dozed off.....