One Summer in Italy Read online

  Focusing abruptly, Levi gazed at his dad. ‘What the fu— hell for?’

  ‘I thought you might be able to tell us. Maybe she’s another little surprise you’ve been storing up for us. Another secret.’

  Levi rubbed his face, his stubble rasping. ‘No, she damned well isn’t. She’s left the business anyway. I’ll have to try and catch up with Wes tomorrow and find out what went on. When I was in Italy things got a bit strained because he employed Octavia without discussing it with me.’

  ‘Wes’s been odd too,’ Val put in. ‘When he was first with that Octavia he was pleased as punch, wasn’t he Bry? Then he turned sulky.’

  ‘I think she ended things.’ Levi was about to make his excuses to his parents and go home to bed when his phone beeped to alert him to a new text message.

  Sofia: Amy wants to meet you on Monday. She’s having a bit of a hard time emotionally so I don’t know how things will work out but she’s asked me to be there too. Are you OK with that?

  Levi almost dropped his phone in his haste to type in YES!!! Hopefully Amy would be calmed by Sofia’s presence. He’d be calmed by it himself, come to that, and something inside him lit up just at the prospect of seeing her. The only slight disappointment was that Amy wanted to wait until Monday.

  Sofia: Amy suggests McDonald’s. It’s near where the unfortunate homeless kid hangs around. I think she’s quite absorbed in his situation. It seems to be making her pensive.

  Levi: OK, let’s go with what she wants then worry about her motivation if and when we need to. Thank you. Tell Amy I’m looking forward to seeing her again. x

  After bringing his parents up to date with a brief ‘Sofia’s got Amy to agree to meet me on Monday so I hope I can sort things out with her then. I’ll let you know,’ Levi kissed his mother, gave his dad a man-hug, and escaped home in the hope of a bit of peace and quiet.

  So when, after the short ride through the dark streets, his bike’s headlight picked up Octavia sitting on his doorstep as he rumbled up the drive, he was deeply pissed off.

  Crossly, he pulled up, switched off the bike and heaved the machine back onto its stand, before releasing himself from his crash helmet.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, treating Octavia to a cold stare.

  Octavia had jumped to her feet and now she spread her arms wide and gave him a beaming smile. ‘That’s not much of a greeting after you’ve been running around goodness-knows-where for weeks.’

  Levi took several deliberate steps back in case she had any plans to wrap those arms around him. Being cool and remote would be challenging with her clinging to him like a monkey shinning a tree. ‘What do you want, Octavia?’

  Pouting, she let her arms fall. ‘I thought we could get together and—’

  ‘Well, we can’t.’

  The pout vanished and her lips thinned. ‘You might as well know this about me. I usually get what I want.’ Then she turned and stalked away into the darkness. He saw her silhouetted briefly at the end of the drive as the motion-detector security light came on. Then she was gone.

  Unsettled by Octavia’s weirdness considering he’d never had a relationship with her and had politely blocked any attempt she made to start one, he opened the front door to his house and tripped over the mountain of mail he’d ignored earlier. Swearing horribly, he scooped up the collection of envelopes and leaflets and carried them through the hall to drop on the kitchen table. Though yawning and dead beat he riffled through the haul in case it contained anything that seemed more important than dragging himself upstairs to bed.

  It was then he found Wes’s letter of resignation.

  Sunday was not a good day. After trying to ring Wes and getting only voicemail, Levi had dropped into bed on Saturday night thinking a good night’s sleep would help him cope with life’s tricks, only to toss and turn, his mind refusing to stop thinking about Amy, Sofia, Wes and Octavia.

  He gave his car a run to Wes’s house on Sunday morning. It was a neat, plain house in the midst of a neat, plain estate built of yellow brick, not ostentatious but not cheap. It suited Wes. He liked to keep his lawn mowed and flowerbeds weeded but he wasn’t out in the garden today, and he didn’t respond when Levi knocked at the door.

  Frustrated and worried, he gave the knocker an extra hefty flip as he turned away. To his surprise, the door suddenly opened and there was Wes, hair sticking up, looking bleary.

  Levi almost took a step back from this uncharacte‌ristically dishevelled version of his friend. ‘There you are! Are you OK? Did I get you out of bed?’

  Wes shrugged. ‘It’s Sunday, isn’t it?’

  As he said no more, Levi came straight to the point. ‘What’s up, Wes? I only found your resignation last night. I was stunned.’

  After several moments of treating Levi to a narrow-eyed stare, Wes stepped back and waved him into the house. Levi tried to ignore the empty pizza box on the hall floor that he had to step over, and, when he entered the sitting room, several empty beer cans on the coffee table – if nine could be considered several.

  Wes made no attempt to either clear up or offer a hospitable cup of coffee. He just plumped down in a chair and waited for Levi to do the same.

  Levi tried to keep the anxiety and tension he was feeling from his voice. Wes didn’t look like Wes and that worried him. ‘What’s wrong? I can’t believe you’ve resigned, obviously, but I’m more worried about you. Have you had bad news? Are you ill? I haven’t seen you in this state this since we were students.’

  Gaze falling contemplatively to the row of beer cans on the table as if someone was going to come along with an air gun and use them for target practice, Wes shrugged. ‘What state?’

  Levi gazed at him, puzzled. ‘Messy,’ he answered succinctly. Then, softening his voice, ‘Do you need help? I’ve no idea what’s going on. When I went away we were best mates running a business together. You seemed perfectly OK with me going off to see what was happening with the daughter I never knew I had and were your usual composed and competent self. I come back and you act like you’re in darkest depression.’

  For a second Wes’s lips tightened as if he were physically struggling to keep words in his mouth. Then he raised his hands and pressed the heels of them against his eyes. ‘I suppose I am,’ he said, sounding muffled. He let his hands drop back into his lap. ‘I know it’s not really your fault.’

  Levi sank back in his chair, mind churning but coming up with no answers. ‘So, if it’s not “really” my fault, is it kind of my fault? Something I’ve done? Do you feel I was away an unreasonable length of time? What?’

  ‘It’s all made me really unhappy,’ Wes replied morosely.

  ‘Me being away?’ Levi repeated. The answers Wes was giving didn’t seem to go with the questions Levi was asking.

  ‘Not as such.’ Wes propped his elbow on the chair arm and covered his eyes as if he didn’t want to see Levi’s face. His breath shuddered. ‘When I found out – I just felt like shit. Utter shit. Lower than dirt. I thought she was really into me but of course she wasn’t. Why would she be? Plain, homely Wes, two stone overweight. Always in Levi Gunn’s shadow. I got to really resenting you.’

  Ice began to form in Levi’s gut. ‘She?’

  Wes swallowed hard before saying hoarsely, ‘Octavia.’ Another of those shuddering breaths, only one step removed from crying. ‘She was only with me because she wanted to keep track of you. She was quite open about it when she dumped me. She’s got a thing for you. You slid off her radar so she came to the office to search you out. When I said you were away for an unspecified length of time she seemed to shrug it off. But then she got flirty with me and we started seeing each other. I thought we really had something.’ He heaved in another breath.

  Horror washed over Levi. He had to force his words past an obstruction in his throat. ‘Wes, I am so fucking sorry. I had no idea. Well,’ he amended truthfully, ‘I did think it was odd that she seemed to have struck up something heavy with you so quickly and I wanted to warn you
off her but you seemed so defensive. If I’d realised she was doing anything so cold as using you I would have said it anyway.’

  Wes’s breathing began to quiet. Wearily, he let his hand drop from his face. ‘I suppose so. But I’m not going to be able to see you guys together. Hence the resignation.’

  Levi almost leaped from his chair his blood boiled so high. ‘Together?’ he thundered. ‘We’re not together! Not now, not ever. Her behaviour’s not normal. I barely know her. I didn’t know her at all before she found my phone, when she made it obvious that she was interested and I tried to make it equally obvious that I wasn’t. I thought it had ended there, I promise you.’

  Wes’s eyes chilled. ‘So she wasn’t at your house last night like she texted and told me.’

  ‘She texted to tell you?’ Levi could scarcely speak for fury. ‘She called at my place uninvited and I immediately sent her on her way. That was it. What a bitch!’

  After a long moment Wes nodded, as if accepting Levi was telling the truth. ‘Seems like I’m not even good enough to get your leavings. That’s how pathetic I am.’ He retreated behind his closed eyelids once more.

  Levi stayed with him for an hour, unsure whether Wes actually wanted him there but with a strong reluctance to simply leave him in this state. He made coffee, he talked about how Wes was definitely worth more than a scheming flake with no conscience. He loaded the dishwasher and took out the rubbish.

  He tried hard, but in vain, to get Wes to take his resignation back. Eventually, bitter with the knowledge that his best friend might truly be too unsettled to stick around, he went home when Wes asked him to. Intellectually he knew he was blameless in the whole episode … but it still felt like his fault. He cursed Octavia for managing to mess up his friendship and affect his business. He’d heard of people having unwanted admirers and the havoc their irrational obsessions could cause, but he still felt incredulous at finding himself a victim.

  Thinking angry thoughts about Octavia and her loose screws he drove to his office. Gunn’s Motors was closed on Sundays but he had his own set of keys, of course. Everything looked normal as he shut off the burglar alarm at the panel and took the stairs two at a time. In the office, the Mac Pros stood dark-screened and silent on the island of desks amidst the usual detritus of work – pads, pens, trays and phones. The coat hooks were bare of Wes’s jackets. Everything felt strange. Levi had left it all behind nearly six weeks ago and, it being Sunday, that there was no backing track of doors closing, cars starting and people talking downstairs in the garage.

  Powering up his machine, he logged on to once again spend hours going through every page and all its files …

  … to find everything exactly as it should be.

  He sat back, brows knitted. In a way, he would have welcomed evidence that Octavia had somehow got herself root user privileges and done something to their server, proof for Wes that Octavia hadn’t only worked for The Moron Forum in an elaborate, bald-faced ruse to keep tabs on Levi.

  Falling back on the solace of methodical work, he emailed everyone responsible for pages to tell them he was back in the country … and, by the way, here’s your fresh password. It never hurt to safeguard security, he thought grimly, as he listed each password and updated the server.

  Everything else he left for Monday.

  Monday. Anticipation and apprehension shivered through him. He’d see Amy again. And Sofia. His heart missed its step and he took out his phone, wanting to ring Sofia and hear her voice. Then, realising there was, for once, no reason not to do exactly that, dialled.

  Sofia picked up on the second ring. ‘Hey.’ She sounded relaxed and happy – her default, now he thought of it.

  His voice seemed to drop two notes just because he was talking to her. ‘How are you? What are you up to?’

  She laughed. ‘We’re in London at Amy’s request, looking at clothes in Camden Market. We got the train from Peterborough.’ Her voice dropped. ‘I think she wanted to get out of Bettsbrough for a bit. She wanted to mull.’

  He was conscious of a swoop of disappointment. Probably it was Amy’s need to ‘mull’ that had prompted her to choose tomorrow instead of today for their meeting but it had left Levi restless, in limbo. He’d hoped Sofia would be nearby so he could see her.

  ‘What time are you coming back?’ he asked experimentally. ‘I could pick you up to save you getting the bus back from Peterborough to Bettsbrough. They’re probably a bit slow on a Sunday evening.’

  ‘Is there room on your motorbike for three people?’

  The laughter in her voice made him smile. ‘I have a car too.’ Quite an expensive car, even if he had bought it second-hand.

  ‘Hang on. I’ll ask.’ Sound became muffled, as if Sofia had covered the mic while she consulted with Amy. Then she came back. ‘I think we’ll stick with the bus.’ Was that regret in her voice?

  He made sure to keep his own voice even. ‘OK, I’ll see you both tomorrow as planned.’

  He closed the office and headed off towards the supermarket to stock up his fridge, conscious of Sunday opening hours, then drove home, feeling as if the day was dragging.

  A parcel awaited him on his doorstep. His name, in upright, angular handwriting. No address. It rattled when he shook it. He didn’t even take it indoors to open it, just ripped off the paper to find inside a box of chocolates in the shape of erotically entwined couples.

  He could think of only one person likely to send him something like that and, sure enough, when he found the card it said, Thinking of you, Octavia x.

  He didn’t know her address to send them back and he had a feeling that contacting her, even if it was to ask her not to send gifts, would count as engaging with her. With a growl, he tossed the box in the bin unopened and took himself and his shopping indoors vowing to never let his phone out of his sight again if losing it led to this carry-on.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Levi drove to the office bright and early on Monday morning. He needed to get back in the swing of things, and it would pass the time before meeting Amy and Sofia at lunchtime.

  Wes had left no task half done except the creation of new emoji for the forum, which he’d begun for the fun of it but not completed. If Levi couldn’t persuade Wes to rescind his resignation then he’d outsource the rest to a graphic artist. He could think of few jobs he felt less like attempting himself, especially as Wes had used quirky animation software Levi had no desire to learn.

  He felt sick every time he thought of how bleak Wes was over Octavia. He couldn’t believe what a freaking user she was and the knowledge that he, Levi, had brought this on Wes, however unwittingly, made him feel unclean.

  He slogged through his work, including spending half an hour with Bookkeeper Mary to go through recent accounts, still half-expecting to find something Octavia had been up to.

  Finally the clock crawled towards noon and he rose unsteadily from his desk, heart thumping.

  What if Amy told him she never wanted to see him again? Although he’d known his child such a short time the mere possibility caused his stomach to leap as if he’d swallowed a frog. He trod downstairs, hardly feeling the steps beneath his feet. When he passed his mum’s workstation she held up a pair of crossed fingers to him, well aware of his errand.

  It took only a few minutes to reach McDonald’s and take a booth near the window. The final minutes ticked past and he wondered, with a feeling of near panic, what he’d do if Amy and Sofia just didn’t turn up and he never saw either of them again.

  He checked his phone for messages. Nothing. He wiped his palms down his black jeans.

  Then suddenly they were just inside the door, looking in his direction, Amy pale, Sofia dark, Amy apprehensive, Sofia beaming, an encouraging arm around Amy’s shoulders.

  He jumped to his feet, relief making him grin like a clown.

  But Amy wasn’t smiling. She was staring at him as if he was likely to change into a monster any moment. It took several moments before she bega
n to move towards him.

  ‘Hiya!’ Sofia said brightly, as they drew near.

  Levi returned the greeting, wishing it felt appropriate to add a kiss. Amy slid into the booth opposite Levi and Sofia followed. He wanted to say, ‘Well, this is awkward!’ to make them laugh but he was too worried that Amy would think he didn’t see the situation as something to be taken seriously. He cleared his throat. ‘Shall I order? Or do you want to … talk first?’

  Amy muttered, ‘I’m hungry,’ so he took their order and went to the counter. He wished Amy had nominated somewhere else for lunch, somewhere where they had wait staff so he didn’t have to turn his back.

  Amy hadn’t vanished by the time the food was ready, however, and he returned to the table with a laden tray. Amy muttered her thanks and concentrated on opening packaging and using a straw to pierce the lid of her drink. Levi waited. Eventually she flicked him a glance.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said immediately. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you who I am. Your mum told me about the message you’d left that if anyone came after you you’d vanish. I agreed that your safety was paramount and, in completely uncharted waters as a parent, did as they asked. She and Stephen were terrified of losing touch with you altogether. None of us knew you were going to do such a great job of getting employment and how hard you’d work to keep the position. We didn’t know you were going to make a friend like Sofia, who could speak Italian and help you out if things went wrong. We just knew we wanted to keep you safe.’ Unexpectedly, his throat tried to close up on him at the thought of all the things that could have happened to this fragile-looking girl in front of him. He had to take a couple of gulps of coffee before continuing.

  ‘As I got to know you, I agonised over whether and when I should tell you. I really did. I lay awake at nights worrying, coming back over and over to the fact that once I told you, I couldn’t take it back. As long as you didn’t know, you wouldn’t take flight. I had the opportunity of sticking with you.’ As she remained silent, he added, ‘Do you want to ask me anything? Go ahead.’