in delight. ‘See how the drawings were so accurate?’
‘You’re having a good time?’
‘Oh, God, yes.’ Then she realized that that hadn’t been what he’d been asking. He wanted to know how much longer they were going to be there. ‘Are you having a good time?’
‘Yeaaah. Just my back isn’t great.’
Exasperation flooded her. Why had he come? Ferdia had offered. Ferdia had wanted to be here.
‘You’d like me to hurry up?’
‘That’s not what I said.’
She tried to ignore his silent but evident impatience, but she had only so much stamina. ‘Come on, so.’
‘We’re leaving?’ He sounded delighted.
‘After we’ve been to the gift shop.’
‘You? Mrs Anti-Consumerism?’
Without answering him, she headed out, scanned the shelves and found what she was looking for. ‘Just need to pay for this.’
‘What is it?’
‘A little flying machine. One of the designs. For Ferdia.’
‘What?’
‘To thank him for Tuesday.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ Liam looked displeased. Not angry but irritated. ‘And where’s my thank-you?’
‘You want a thank-you? Would you like a little flying machine too?’ She was being sarcastic, which wasn’t like her.
He gave her a strange look. ‘Whatever. So what do we do now? I need to eat.’
‘We can take a wander, see if we stumble across a nice place?’
‘So? Palazzo dell’Arte Vivente?’
‘… What do you mean? We’d have to book and stuff.’
‘Jessie hasn’t sorted it for us?’
She was astounded. ‘Not that I know of. Did she say she would?’
‘I don’t know. I just thought, if she did it for Ferdia, she’d do it for me.’
‘But, baby …’ She felt ridiculously guilty. ‘I didn’t know anything about it the other night. It was all between Ferdia and Jessie. I don’t know what to say.’
‘Fuck it. We might as well go home.’ He stalked away up the street.
‘Liam!’ A hundred thoughts were tracking through her head. Should she ring Jessie? Was Liam right to be angry? Could she fix this?
No, she decided. No and no.
On the drive back to the villa, Nell knew he meant her to be intimidated by his silence. Or perhaps feel guilty that she hadn’t made his day spectacular. But she felt neither. Liam was like a kid, nearly as bad as ten-year-old Vinnie.
When they reached the villa, he parked the car with jerky motions then gave the door a hard slam as he got out and shot up the stairs.
There was no one to be seen, so Nell went down to the pool, looking for a friendly face.
‘You’re back early,’ Cara exclaimed. ‘How was it?’
‘Nice. Thank you.’ Because it had been nice. Bits of it, anyway. ‘Do you know where Ferdia is?’
‘You could try his little house?’
She headed back up the stone path and knocked on Ferdia’s door.
He opened it immediately. ‘Hey, you’re back! Come in. How was it?’
‘Amazing. What are you doing, lurking up here like a vampire?’
‘Working. I’m doing a –’
‘I got you a little thing in Florence.’
‘You did?’ He sounded surprised.
Shyly, she gave him the model. ‘It’s only small. Just to say thank you for Tuesday and sorry about today.’
He opened the box.
‘It’s one of Da Vinci’s designs,’ she said. ‘A flying machine. It moves and all.’
‘Look at that! She gives me flowers. She gives me planes.’ He opened his arms wide, and uncertainly she took a step back. He’s going to hug me.
It was unexpected. And yet it wasn’t.
She let him wrap his arms around her. It was hard to know how it had happened but she and Ferdia had become friends.
SEVENTY-SEVEN
Late on Friday afternoon, there was a knock on Ferdia’s door. ‘Ferd? Can I come in?’
It was Saoirse. ‘Course. What’s up?’
She crept towards the couch and sat down, curling her legs into herself. ‘I feel a bit …’ Tears began to trickle down her face. ‘Robyn. She doesn’t like me.’
Saoirse was probably right, but he didn’t want to add to her misery. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I get on her nerves and she keeps saying she’s bored. I don’t know what she expected – I told her this wasn’t Shagaluf. But today was weird. And horrible. Everything I tried on in the outlet, she said I looked fat.’
‘You’re not.’
‘I actually know that, she was just being a bitch. But her and Liam, they were talking to each other and, like, blanking me. I’m sure they were laughing at me.’
Fury stirred in Ferdia. ‘Based on what?’
‘She sat in the front of the car, beside him. They were talking in quiet voices and laughing. But when I asked what was up, they said, “Nothing, nothing” in that fakey way.’