Читать книгу What Happens in the Alps... - T Williams A - Страница 13

Chapter 4

Annie got back to the school just before dark and was fortunate to find a parking space very close to the front door. She rang the bell and waited for the buzzing sound that announced that the door was unlocked. The first thing she saw when she pushed the door open and stepped into the reception area was a pile of cardboard boxes and her heart lifted. The brochures had arrived.

She stood her skis up against the wall and dumped the heavy boots on the floor. Paolina got up from her desk and smiled. ‘You look as though you’ve had a good day. You’re glowing.’ This afternoon Paolina was wearing an amazingly hairy grey sweater that had evidently started life on the back of somebody a good few sizes bigger than her. She looked like an Old English sheepdog but, at least, the heating had been working less as a result and the temperature in the room was sub-tropical rather than tropical.

Annie smiled back. ‘Absolutely great and quite exciting. I’ll tell you all about it once I’ve had a look at the brochures. Everything all right?’ Annie had had a recurring dream, more of a nightmare, over the past weeks that the five thousand brochures either wouldn’t arrive in time or, if they did, that there would be some terrible typo on the cover. She picked up a copy from an open box and took a deep breath, hardly daring to look.

‘They’re perfect, Annie, and the SEA logo looks really good.’ Paolina sounded enthusiastic.

Annie braced herself and took a good look at the brochure. Paolina was right. It looked perfect. After flicking through it, she released her breath and gave Paolina a big smile.

‘Fantastic, Paolina. They look fantastic. We need to celebrate. I’ve got just the thing.’ Annie ran through to the kitchen, soon to become the teachers’ room, and pulled a bottle of Prosecco out of the fridge. She grabbed two tumblers and took them back to Paolina. She was just tearing the foil off the top when the doorbell rang. She hastily stuffed the bottle into a drawer as Paolina pressed the button to open the door. To their surprise, a man appeared, carrying a huge bouquet of flowers. Paolina’s eyes widened.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Flowers for you.’

‘For me?’ Paolina’s eyes were even wider now. The man pulled out a pair of reading glasses and studied the clipboard in his other hand, then looked up first at Paolina and then at Annie. He glanced back at Paolina.

‘It’s for somebody called Annie Brewer.’ He pronounced it Brevver.

‘That’s me.’ Annie gave the disappointed Paolina an apologetic look as she took the huge bunch of flowers from his hand.

‘Sign here, please.’ The man handed her a clipboard and she signed it absently. As he was about to go back out of the door a thought occurred to her.

‘Does it say who the flowers are from?’ He shook his head.

‘Not on my sheet, it doesn’t. There’s an envelope inside the cellophane. It’ll be in there. Goodbye, ladies.’

Together, they removed the flowers from the cellophane wrapper and found a little envelope stapled to one corner. Inside was a card with the word Grazie printed on it in big letters. Below this was a short, handwritten message. Leonardo the dog thanks you for your life-saving intervention. He has a headache but he is going to be fine. It was signed Alessandro. The other thing that was strange was that it was written in English – perfect English. Paolina was craning her neck to read the card so Annie passed it over to her without a word and went off to the kitchen to look for a vase. Nothing in there was big enough, so she ended up bringing out an old glass vase inherited from the last occupant of the apartment and a big plastic jug. As they divided the flowers between the two receptacles, Annie related the story of the Labrador on the ski slope. Paolina was impressed.

‘So the flowers are from the man in the blue jacket. Did you get the rest of his name?’ Annie shook her head.

‘Just his first name: Alessandro. And that’s all I gave him. I just said my name was Annie.’

Paolina continued. ‘And you said this Alessandro was very handsome.’

Annie didn’t remember saying anything of the kind. ‘I just said he had nice eyes.’

‘Amazing bright blue eyes, you said, which means you liked them a lot and so that means you found him handsome.’

Annie didn’t bother trying to question Paolina’s logic which, if the truth be told, was pretty much spot on. He certainly was a handsome man. Even though he had been wearing a woolly hat and heavy jacket, she had been able to see that.

‘So, if you just told him your first name, how did he know your surname and how to find you?’ Paolina sounded bemused.

Annie shook her head. The only way he could have found out her name was if he knew somebody who knew her and there was, of course, somebody up at the ski resort who did indeed know her name. ‘Massimo.’ She saw the look on Paolina’s face. ‘Signor Lagrange who gave me the lift pass. They must know each other. There can’t be too many other women up here with a name like Annie and an English accent.’

‘You haven’t got an English accent.’ Paolina sounded scathing. ‘At least, hardly at all. When I first met you I just thought you were from down the valley; Turin probably.’

Annie had no time to register the compliment. She was still thinking hard. So, she thought to herself, if Massimo and he are friends then I can easily find out about him. Once again she felt a sensation of surprise that she should be interested in a man again. This hadn’t happened since Steve’s death and it was a strange, but not altogether unwelcome, sensation. What was it Karen had said about life having to go on?

‘And seeing as the blue-eyed man was able to get to you so quickly, he must work up there. Maybe he’s something to do with the ski school or the hotel.’

‘He certainly skied well enough to be an instructor, but he wasn’t wearing the regulation red jacket with the white bands around the chest. Who knows what he does?’ Annie finished stuffing the last of the flowers into the plastic jug and looked up. ‘Why don’t you take this half of the bunch home to your mum, Paolina? It’s Friday today and they’ll probably be dead by Monday if we just leave them here. I’ll keep the ones in the vase in my office for now.’

Paolina was only too happy to accept. ‘I’ll tell her they’re a present from my new boyfriend. She’ll be ever so impressed.’

‘You’ve got a new boyfriend?’ Only a few days earlier, Paolina had been relating the sad end to her most recent romance.

Paolina grinned. ‘Well, yes, but this one would be more likely to send me saucy underwear than flowers, but mum doesn’t need to know that.’

‘That was quick.’ Annie was impressed. Clearly, Paolina hadn’t wasted time in replacing her previous boyfriend. She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s almost five o’clock. That’s when local radio said the first advert would go out. Quick, turn the radio on.’

They had to wait ten minutes until the full length version of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ had finished before the advert came on, but it was worth the wait. It sounded very good, very professional, and Annie was well pleased. When it finished she looked across at Paolina with a broad smile. ‘So, it’s started. Our advertising campaign is under way. Fingers crossed that it works. Now, where’s that bottle of Prosecco?’

They were halfway through the wine when the doorbell rang again. Annie opened it to find to her surprise that it was the accountant’s secretary, accompanied by two friends. She had just heard the radio advert and they wanted some information about English courses. Annie gave them a big smile and opened a second bottle of Prosecco.

As the evening progressed, the doorbell rang three more times, producing a number of potential students, eager for information about the school. Any doubts Annie might have had about the effectiveness of radio advertising were blown away. By nine o’clock, when everybody finally left, the Academy already had half a dozen definite enrolments. Annie went down to the pizzeria with a broad smile on her face.

Annie was halfway through her Quattro Stagioni when something funny happened. She was sitting by the pizzeria window, from where she could see out onto the road, directly opposite the entrance to the Academy. As she set down the little carafe after pouring herself some more red wine, she glanced out of the window. As she watched, a man came walking along the pavement until he reached the door of her building. He glanced round furtively and then set a bag down on the ground at his feet. From it, he produced a screwdriver and, to Annie’s amazement, started to unscrew her brand-new sign. For a moment she sat there, wondering if maybe the man had been sent by the sign makers to rectify some defect, but a glance at her watch told her it was unthinkable that they would still be working at almost ten o’clock at night. What on earth was going on? She jumped to her feet and ran out into the street.

Outside, the snow had finally stopped and it was freezing fast. She rather wished she had stopped to collect her coat before rushing out as it was very cold indeed. She crossed the street and went up to the man with the screwdriver. ‘Can I help you?’

He jumped and glanced over his shoulder at her. He was a short, stocky man, maybe in his twenties or early thirties, his face half hidden by a scarf and a hat, but there was no disguising the expression of guilt on what she could see of his face. Before she could say anything else, however, he reached down, grabbed his bag, and set off along the pavement at a run. Annie followed him for a few metres, but in her indoor shoes she didn’t stand a chance. She slipped on the ice and only avoided doing herself some permanent damage by grabbing hold of the mirror of one of the parked cars. Once again she was thankful Karen hadn’t been watching. Reluctantly, she turned gingerly round and went back to inspect the sign. As she did so, she heard footsteps and turned to find Beppe, Signora Toniolo’s husband, hurrying across to see what had happened. He was a normally friendly-looking man with a shining bald head and an expansive waistline. Now he was looking worried.

‘Annie, Annie, what’s wrong? Has something happened?’

She gave him a little smile and explained about the man with the screwdriver and, together, they inspected the sign. The man had only managed to remove one of the screws so far and Annie even saw it lying on the pavement at her feet. As she picked it up, she heard Beppe voicing the same thoughts that were passing through her head.

‘He was trying to steal your sign, your brand-new sign. Now why, I wonder, would he want to do that?’ He removed the screw from her unresisting fingers and twisted it back into the hole until it was quite well bedded. Years of kneading pizza dough had given him powerful hands.

Annie was puzzled. ‘Maybe he’s just a weirdo who likes stealing shiny new signs.’ Even as she said it, Annie knew that it didn’t ring true. Beside her, Beppe’s face showed what he thought of the notion. Maybe the man’s motives were more sinister.

‘I wonder if it’s one of your competitors, trying to get at you.’ Beppe caught her by the arm and led her back across the road. ‘Come along, Annie, it’s too cold out here and you’ve still got half your pizza left. When you’ve finished eating, I’ll tell you a little story.’ He grinned at her in the garish light of the Pizzeria sign. ‘But I’ll let you eat first.’

Annie did as instructed and returned to her food, mulling over what the man had tried to do and what Beppe had said. As far as competitors were concerned, the only one she knew about in Santorso was the ABC School. From what she had heard from Paolina and others, it didn’t enjoy a good reputation, but that didn’t necessarily mean they would stoop to underhand means against a new arrival. Or did it?

She was still working her way through the pizza when her phone rang. It was Matt. As she saw his name come up, she felt suddenly pleased.

‘Hi, Matt, where are you?’

‘Just north of Turin on the motorway. There’s snow on the ground here and the radio’s telling me you’ve had a load of it up there.’

‘I think you might need your four-wheel drive if it snows any more. So are you coming up to do a bit of house hunting?’

‘Yes. I’m staying the night with a friend just down the valley.’ Annie decided not to delve too deeply into the sex or identity of the friend in question. Quite probably, Luisa the TV girl already had a rival, if not a replacement. How he lived his life, she had realised years ago, was his affair and the girls he picked up bore their share of responsibility as well. ‘And, yes, I’m going to do the rounds of the agencies tomorrow.’

‘Good luck with that. I’ve been looking for flats all week, but with no joy so far.’

‘Do you need a hand to move your stuff?’

‘Thanks, Matt, but there’s no need. It’s just a couple of bags. All my things are at the school already.’

‘I’ll call round to the school at the end of the afternoon tomorrow to see if you need anything.’ Annie was struck by his caring tone and she remembered what Janet had told her about his enquiries as to her well-being.

‘Thanks, Matt. You’re a sweetie.’ She realised that she was really pleased he was back in her life.

‘Anything for you, Annie.’ She blew him a kiss and immediately found herself wondering how it was she was having affectionate thoughts about two men in the space of less than a day.

Annie carried on with the pizza that was by now fairly cold until, finally, she could eat no more. She dropped her knife and fork on her plate and sat back. A few minutes later, Beppe came over.

‘Finished?’ Annie nodded in response. ‘Nothing else; an ice cream, some coffee?’ Annie shook her head. Beppe indicated the spare chair at her little table with his hand. ‘May I?’ Annie smiled and waved him down. He took a seat and began his story. It fairly quickly emerged why he had been so insistent that she finish her food before hearing it.

‘When we first opened the pizzeria here, back in the eighties, there was a scruffy little local restaurant just along the street from us. The building was demolished when they extended the car park, but for the first year, we were in competition. From the very first day we opened for business, things started to happen. One day we’d find the dustbins overturned and rubbish all over the street. On one occasion we found the window had been smashed and, worst of all, we kept finding that somebody had…’ Beppe looked across the table apologetically. ‘Please excuse me, Annie. What we found was that somebody had… used our front doormat as a toilet.’ Mercifully he didn’t go into any greater detail.

‘Oh, God, that’s disgusting. But, are you sure it was him?’

‘Nowadays I daresay we could use DNA testing to prove it, but not back then. All I know is that the day he closed his doors and moved away, these events stopped.’

‘Beppe, that’s enough.’ Signora Toniolo had emerged from behind the bar and had been following the conversation. ‘You’ll frighten the poor girl.’

‘It’s all right. I’m fine.’

Signora Toniolo wasn’t so sure. ‘And don’t you worry about what Beppe was saying. The man trying to steal your sign was probably just doing it for a laugh. You’ll see, it’ll be fine.’

Annie certainly hoped she was right.