The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay (21 page)

“It doesn’t matter,” Luca said, quartering his paper so he’d have a hand free for the coffee cup. “It’s all about the party afterwards.”

“I just think she’d be happier,” Francesca persisted.

“Happiness isn’t the issue,” Nina said.

“Happiness ought to be the issue.” Francesca turned to grimace at Luca.

“I’m perfectly happy, thanks.”

“A word of advice: Maria doesn’t understand reserve. She likes straight talking. She and I have had our moments.”

“And how,” Luca agreed.

“I like straight talking, too,” Nina protested.

“That’s true, actually,” Luca said. “That’s how she got into this mess.”

“I do know Maria, you know,” Nina reminded her. “I’ve known her all my life.”

“You’re saying that the fact I’ve known her for less time makes my insight less valuable?”

“She isn’t saying that.” Luca’s voice was sharper.

“I know that you’ve never got on.” Francesca looked sympathetic.

Nina heard herself gasp. “We’ve always got on fine. What did she say?” The humiliation was like a hot knife.

“Can you see yourself from the outside?” Francesca asked. “Can you look at the situation and wonder why Nina doesn’t just have it in the Catholic church and make everybody happy?”

“Francesca. I’m technically a Protestant, but actually an atheist. My Catholic future husband is also an atheist and would prefer not to have a Catholic wedding. You’re saying — what — that I should become a Catholic solely for my mother-in-law’s sake? Seriously, you think becoming a Catholic isn’t that big a deal?”

Luca shook out his newspaper to its full broadsheet size and disappeared behind it, other than for his hands at its edges.

“Here is my suggestion,” Francesca said. “A registry office wedding and then a blessing by the priest to please the Italian contingent.”

“You say ‘Italian contingent’ like that doesn’t include you.”

“I was born in Greenwich. That’s in London. And look, they’re coming a long way and some of them really can’t afford it.”

Luca’s newspaper said, “I think Nina should do what she likes.”

Francesca was vexed by this. “But what about Paolo? He’s not happy about it, either.”

This was surprising news to Nina. “What? What makes you say that?”

“He doesn’t seem happy about it to me. That’s all.”

“But Paolo agrees! He doesn’t want a church wedding and a big fuss.”

“Right on,” Luca said.

“Francesca tells me that you don’t much like my mother,” Paolo said later, walking with Nina to the pub. “Not that I’d blame you.”

“Your mother’s lovely,” Nina said carefully, “but she’s also used to having things her own way.”

“And so are you.”

“And so am I.” She agreed because agreement with a mild reproof is attractive in a person. It was what Anna said, that it’s undignified to disagree with criticism and shows a lack of confidence.
It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter
, Nina said to herself. But it did matter.

“I have news,” Paolo said, “that possibly you’re not going to like. Francesca has interceded with Mum.”

“What? Interceded how?”

“She’s explained you to her.” Paolo seemed to be amused. “She promised her that they’d take her to Rome.”

Nina stopped walking, an appalled look on her face. “I don’t want to go to the pub. I’m going back.” She turned in the street and began walking the other way. “We need to talk to your mother.”

Giulio was at the office, and they’d missed Luca and Francesca by only ten minutes, Maria said, calling through the hatch from the sitting room. It made her twitchy to have other people in her kitchen; she’d do as instructed and stay put, but then she’d direct all the news, all the questions, through the hatch in a rush, so that by the time they sat down together she was all out of conversation. Nina could see her face looking through the
tea-tray-sized hole and when she caught her eye Maria reminded her to rinse the pot with boiling water first. Maria wouldn’t drink tea that hadn’t been made in a warmed pot. She could detect an unwarmed pot.

“She knows how to do it, Mama,” Paolo said irritably. He and Nina made the tea, sourced and plated up the biscuits, washed and assembled the china that was kept for company, dusty on the cupboard shelf, and took the tray through.

Paolo set it carefully down on the ugly table that had been his granny’s once, and that was known among the family as the Heirloom. “So, what did Francesca say to you?”

“They are taking me to Rome,” she said inconsequentially. She broke a biscuit in half. “I don’t wish to discuss the wedding.” She looked critically at the tray. “No tea plates, Paolo.” Paolo went obediently to the kitchen. When he’d gone through the door Maria said, “Please, you must stop flirting so much with Luca. It isn’t proper.”

Nina could feel herself flushing. “I don’t flirt with Luca. Luca’s one of my oldest friends. We’re friends.”

“He’s married now and he doesn’t have friends. Not female ones. It isn’t right.”

“That really isn’t fair.”

“And you shouldn’t have behaved the way you did at his wedding.”

“That’s just ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous.” Nina was aware of sounding shrill.

Nothing further was said until Paolo came back into the room. He’d heard some of it. “What on earth’s going on?”

Nina was aware that it wasn’t how her mother would have handled things. Anna’s priority in dealing with anyone at all was that she was loved and admired at the end of the conversation.
Maria reached into her handbag, the one that was beige patent leather, found a handkerchief, and clicked the bag shut. She dabbed at her eyes and Paolo put his arms around her and said, “Don’t be so dramatic about everything; everything’s fine.” He didn’t sound absolutely sure, though.

“Maria likes to make situations,” Francesca said, on the Sunday after this at lunch. “But she has a good heart. Try to put up with us a little.”

No matter how many times Nina rehearsed it in her mind afterwards, she couldn’t make Paolo see that “try to put up with us a little” was a put-down. She brought it up unhappily on the way home. “It says that I’m the outsider and she’s on the inside,” she argued.

“She’s married to Luca, she’s close to Maria, she’s Italian — of course she’s on the inside,” he said placidly.

“Paolo. Paolo.” Her heart beat wildly. The top of her head ached. “You did it, too. You just did it, too. You place me on the outside.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’d be on the outside, too, if I could.”

The registry office skirt suit was made of a heavy raw silk and was cream with white trims. The buttoned fitted jacket had a big, soft collar, and the wide skirt, billowing over net petticoats, was tightly belted and ballerina length, so that the whole effect was very like an old Dior design, an outfit in an Audrey Hepburn photograph that was also a postcard Nina kept by her bed.
Anna had made the suit, though Nina found it only after her mother had died, in her apartment on the top of the wardrobe, inside a suitcase labeled with her name. Under the layers of tissue there were also cream silk stockings, white shoes, and a little hat with white netting that she could lift so as to be kissed. It was strange and wonderful to wear the clothes, as if Anna were also there at the ceremony, there inside the fabric, the seams and hems. In the end the day passed well and Maria was brave, even stopping to admire the flower arrangements at the registry office, though she was also overheard saying that she didn’t find Nina very bridal.

After they’d eaten three courses in the tent in her father’s garden, and had danced to the jazz trio and had cut cake, Nina found that the waistband had become a bit too tight for sitting down in comfort (she hadn’t provided herself with a going-away outfit, she realized too late), which was a pity because quite a bit of sitting had to be done, in the Daimler that Robert had booked to take the newlyweds to the airport, and then on the evening flight to London. They were to spend a night there in a swanky hotel booked by Giulio, ready for the early-morning journey to Greece. Nina was preoccupied on the London flight, uncomfortable in the skirt suit and casting sly sideways glances at Paolo, wondering if he, too, was thinking about why things had become awkward between the two of them. It was hard to account for, their formality with one another. She adored Paolo and he adored her and everything should have been rosy. They’d been friends all their lives, were deeply bonded, were all set for a comfortable life, and they’d already had successful, enjoyable sex. What else was there? What on earth was wrong? She struggled to make sense of it. She was nervous about the honeymoon, too, because of having to make sure that it was unequivocally happy — it felt as if this
responsibility was hers — in a place where there was nothing to do but to be honeymooners, where everyone would know they were honeymooners. She was quiet, the following morning, as they soared out of the sunshine of London, into the cloud cover of mainland Europe and onwards into the unseasonal rainy weather of the Aegean. She’d slept badly — Paolo insisted on cuddling up in bed, had tracked her across the sheet in his sleep, and he was large and fleshy and made her overheat. Both of them were tired, because of the wedding and having risen very early, so they caught up with some rest as they flew, which meant that Nina was able to close her eyes and go over things. It was baffling to her, what it might be that was wrong. Didn’t she want to be married to Paolo? Yes. She did. She had meant it when she said yes. Did she really, privately, long to be married to Luca? No. She didn’t. She had meant it when she said no. It was the right order of things, to be married to the friend, a man who loved her sincerely, and to have Luca there in the vicinity. Luca was never going to love her as Paolo did and the pattern of things felt right. Anna would have approved it. So what was the problem? Even the geography of the problem was unclear.