Three Gold Coins Read online

  She shared this with Dave when their tasks were finished and they were having coffee in the shelter’s kitchenette—which was really just a nook with a boiling water unit on the wall.

  ‘What would you call it?’ he asked, stirring his instant coffee and grimacing at the rainbow-coloured oil slick that floated on the surface.

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It would depend on the cat. They’re all so unique.’

  ‘Like you,’ he said, staring at her in a way that made her feel he could see right inside her. ‘You’re different. I can tell.’

  How did he know that? She half smiled, nervous under his attention. She was different. Could he see into her mind?

  ‘I meant that in a good way,’ he clarified. He leaned back in his chair and she felt his withdrawal from her like a small puff of cold air.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ she laughed, hoping she looked natural and carefree, wanting his attention back on her.

  ‘It’s clear that you care about something other than yourself. You’ve got a big heart. I like that.’

  She smiled and stirred her tea with her plastic spoon, too flattered to look at him.

  ‘When I was younger, I…’ He hesitated. ‘I had some difficult stuff going on with my father. Someone with a big heart helped me out. Probably saved me, really.’ He smiled, though it seemed empty, as if raw pain was just below the surface.

  Lara nodded her understanding. Maybe that was what he saw in her—shared childhood experiences. ‘I get that. My dad wasn’t easy to live with either.’

  Dave adjusted his shirt collar, as though embarrassed, and cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, forget that. It doesn’t matter.’ He sat up straighter and changed the topic. ‘I’m renting, which is probably a great thing—otherwise I’d be bringing home half the shelter every week.’ He swept a rogue curl to the side, a gesture she found endearing, then blew cooling air over his terrible coffee in three short puffs.

  Lara listened to the ever-present barking of dogs in the concrete and chain-wire kennels at the back. It was a cold day, grey and windy. She wanted to take them all hot-water bottles and blankets.

  ‘It’s devastating, isn’t it?’ she said, feeling a sense of hopelessness at the overwhelming flood of animals that just kept coming. ‘I don’t know why we do it to ourselves. Coming here is torture, really. It always takes me a couple of days to recover.’

  Dave’s eyes grew serious. ‘I could help you with that. Both of us here together, you wouldn’t have to feel so alone with your pain.’

  Lara gulped. ‘Wow.’ No one had ever said anything like that to her before. Normally, people would just tell her not to worry so much. She was intrigued. ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a psychologist.’

  That dampened her excitement.

  ‘I have a placement in a general practice on the south side and I’m studying again, to become a medical doctor.’

  ‘How old are you?’ she asked, surprised. He didn’t look that much older than her.

  ‘Twenty-eight,’ he said. ‘And you?’ He was flirting back now, she was sure.

  ‘Nineteen.’

  He whistled gently between his teeth. ‘I thought you were older, only because you seem so mature and you’re here volunteering. Shouldn’t you be out somewhere cutting up the dance floor or protesting in a rally?’

  ‘I’m a bit clumsy for dance floors,’ she said, and he laughed. ‘And I prefer the company of quiet people and animals.’

  ‘I do too.’

  Lara shifted in her seat. Her interest was ignited by how similar they were, though his age and profession did make her feel a bit weird. She felt older than her peers, but not nearly as adult as a twenty-eight-year-old psychologist. A psychologist, of all things. What were the chances?

  ‘When are you next here at the shelter?’

  ‘Next Saturday,’ she said hopefully.

  He nodded. ‘Good. Then I’ll see you again.’

  6

  Lara

  Lara and Matteo pulled together scrambled eggs and caprino cheese on toast for breakfast. Samuel had goat milk stored in glass bottles in the fridge and what looked like homemade caprino. Just outside the kitchen door grew basil and cherry tomatoes, and down in the chicken yard Lara found four golden-brown speckled eggs.

  Matteo had scrubbed up nicely, with a fresh white collared shirt and faded jeans highlighting his golden skin and his strong—but not too muscly—body. Too many muscles made her flinch.

  They sat at the kitchen table, both enthusiastically tucking into their food. Matteo picked up a chunk of caprino and chewed, murmuring his appreciation. ‘That is good cheese,’ he said, his face more relaxed and alive now that the coffee had kicked in.

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ she said, licking several crumbs off her finger.

  ‘Have you w-w-w-worked as a badante before?’ he suddenly asked. It was a reasonable question. Everything had happened so quickly, there had been no time for reference checking.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But I’ve been helping my sister to raise her twins since they were born. They’re five now. I know it’s not the same, but I think there would be some crossover of skills—cooking, washing, housework, medicines, bathing.’

  ‘Of course,’ he agreed.

  ‘I’ve also had a job with a real estate agent. I’m happy for you to call my employer if you like.’

  He waved the offer away. ‘I’ve al-already seen you act honourably.’

  ‘Well, thanks.’ His words made her feel unexpectedly proud.

  Then he told her that he lived and worked at a goat farm and dairy, not far away, which produced goat cheeses; that he’d studied animal science at university; that he had three older brothers, all married, all living up north; that his mother lived alone in Fiotti, the nearest town, as his father had died several years ago; and that he came over whenever he could to help Samuel.

  She told him that she lived in a granny flat outside her mother’s house, and that Sunny and the kids lived inside the house with Eliza, and that they’d been living together to support each other since the twins were born.

  ‘But I needed to get away for a while,’ she admitted, her mind flying to the other side of the world. She would text Sunny straight after breakfast.

  ‘I understand that,’ he said, his dark gaze holding hers long enough to make her look away. ‘I would like to do this too sometimes,’ he chuckled. ‘My mamma?’ He gave her a look that might have conveyed several things.

  ‘She is hard work?’ Lara asked, trying to clarify.

  ‘Sì, sì. But I am stuck with Mamma,’ Matteo said, giving a smile that suggested he was actually happy about that, despite the hard work. Just then his phone pinged in his pocket and he pulled it out to study the screen, his jaws working through a mouthful of tomato and basil. ‘You see—here she is. My mamma.’ He held up the phone and gave a what can you do? shrug.

  ‘How long are y-y-you here in Italia?’

  Lara used her knife to cut open a cherry tomato. ‘I don’t know. I don’t have a flight home booked yet.’

  Matteo nodded approvingly. ‘Living in the moment,’ he said, and drained the last of his coffee.

  Living in the moment. Mindfulness. It was the catchcry of the millennium and the backbone of her therapy.

  Suddenly, Matteo gave her a huge smile and placed his knife and fork together on the plate. ‘The ladies are waiting. We go milk now.’

  ‘Right,’ she said, slightly alarmed.

  ‘I’ll t-t-teach you,’ he said, standing, beckoning to her to follow.

  Naturally, if Samuel had a broken wrist and she was going to be his badante, she would have to milk as part of her job—for however long she would be here. But out in the barn, her nerves sizzled as she settled herself onto the milking stool at the warm flank of Willow, who was tugging at hay and raising her back legs impatiently. Matteo knelt beside Lara, his shoulder and arm pressing against her as he reached for the goat’s udder to demonstrate. A stray c
url brushed her cheek as he moved to settle Willow, murmuring to her in Italian. Lara couldn’t understand his words but his tone was soothing.

  ‘First we must wash the teats,’ he said, producing a small plastic bowl with some soapy water. ‘I do one to show you.’

  She watched him wring out a green washcloth and clean around one teat and up into the udder a little.

  ‘You have to really clean the tip,’ he said, paying excruciating attention to one of Willow’s nipples—because let’s face it, that’s what they were. Lara shifted on the stool, feeling long-forgotten sensations in her own.

  Matteo handed the second washcloth to her and she took it, wrung out the water, and reached under the goat to wash her other teat gently. ‘Sorry, Willow,’ she muttered. The goat kept eating, unperturbed. Lara put the washcloth down, relieved.

  ‘Now we milk,’ Matteo said. He put a small container under Willow’s teats. ‘Each teat is separate. You have to milk both sides.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, wishing she’d brought a notebook and pen.

  ‘You don’t pull down like this,’ he said, pulling Willow’s teats until they stretched in a manner that made Lara wince. ‘You push up, like a baby goat.’

  He wrapped his thumb and first finger around the top of the teat, just below the bag, and pressed upwards gently. ‘Then you use the next fingers to squeeze the teat.’ He did it slowly, moving his middle finger and ring finger downwards in turn, to direct the milk. It squirted out. He did it again, this time a little faster with more rhythm.

  ‘It’s like playing a recorder,’ she said, observing his fingers working together but independently, as if playing different notes.

  Matteo gave a little smile, though she wasn’t sure if he’d understood what she’d said. After he’d released a few squirts from each teat he stopped and picked up the small container.

  ‘This?’ he said, indicating the milk. ‘This we throw away. D-d-dirt, bacteria.’ He tossed the milk onto the straw, then picked up a stainless-steel bucket to begin again.

  ‘Squeeze and roll,’ he said, reinforcing the movement. ‘Now your turn.’

  ‘Oh God,’ she said, taking a deep breath.

  Matteo chuckled. ‘It’s easy.’

  It was not easy. Lara couldn’t get anything out of a teat for ages, and Willow got stroppy with her and shuffled her legs about, twice almost landing a foot in the bucket. Lara was afraid to squeeze too hard. She tried squeezing one teat at a time, and squeezing both together. But she couldn’t coordinate her fingers.

  Beside her, she could feel Matteo’s body vibrating as he tried to suppress his amusement.

  ‘Stop laughing,’ she said, ‘you’re distracting me.’

  ‘Look.’ He demonstrated again how to do it—and milk flowed out easily, of course—and then how she was doing it, like a drunken sailor trying to pull down rigging on a sailing ship, until they both fell into fits of laughter.

  ‘Stop,’ she said, breathing deeply. ‘I need to focus.’

  He moved out of her way and she tried again, but she was trembling with embarrassment and giggles. She couldn’t help thinking that this really was a bizarre thing to be doing less than two days after arriving in a strange country and with this kind-of-lovely man disturbingly close to her.

  Matteo reached over, laid his strong arms along hers and covered her hands with his. ‘Like this,’ he said, slowly and gently directing her fingers. It was terribly difficult to concentrate on learning the movement with the warmth of his skin awakening her own.

  But then it happened.

  ‘Look!’ Lara squealed. Satisfying streaks of milk were zinging into the metal pail.

  ‘You are doing it,’ Matteo said, lifting his hands away to allow her to take over. ‘Very good, Lara, keep going. You are a natural,’ he enthused.

  ‘Cosa sta succedendo qui?!’

  Lara and Matteo both started and turned towards the barn gate. Standing on the other side was a long-legged woman with shiny dark hair, expensive-looking sunglasses and a crisp white shirt opened lower than Lara would ever dare. Essentially, she was a living image from a fashion magazine.

  Matteo jumped up and went across to speak to her, and the woman shouted back. Italian words and hand gestures flew between them, Matteo’s tone placating and the woman’s accusing. Lara made out the word badante, and a sharp finger was pointed in her direction. And Lara almost felt the slap as she was put firmly in her place: she was the servant girl perched on a stool at a goat’s udder, and she’d been caught flirting with the elegant lady’s man.

  After Matteo and the goddess had departed—she in a shiny red automobile spraying up stones and Matteo following in his truck—Lara finished the milking and took the buckets to the kitchen where she located bottles and poured in the milk, feeling so proud that she’d achieved her first task as a badante. She made herself a second coffee and sat out the back of the house, admiring the amazing view over the valley. She needed to check in at home. It would be late afternoon there. She pulled out her phone.

  Hi Mum and Sunny, is everything okay? Xx

  Everything’s fine, Sprout. Just enjoy

  yourself. You’re in ITALY! Don’t waste your

  time worrying about anything back here.

  The kids are fine. All is good. I’ll tell you if

  you need to know anything. X

  Darling, where are you? Are you still in

  Rome? Mum x

  So much has happened so quickly. I’m in

  Tuscany and have taken a job as a carer

  for an old man. Staying in a villa. Have

  just learned to milk goats!!! Trust me, it’s

  not easy!!!

  Well that sounds wonderful. I wish I was

  there with you. I’ve always wanted to go to

  Tuscany. I’m just back from my mahjong

  group—such a great bunch of ladies.

  I must have them over for tea. It’s good

  to be making new friends at my age.

  Keep me posted. Mum x

  Next, Hilary’s name popped up. Since Lara’s sudden departure from the agency she was managing rentals. She’d sent a series of photos, each one worse than the last.

  No wonder you left. Look at what the

  tenants at 42 Dura Street left behind.

  Lara scrolled through photos of burns in the carpet, a year’s worth of rubbish festering under the house, broken blinds, graffiti on walls, and…oh…the bathroom.

  The bond money won’t even scratch the

  surface of how much it will cost to fix this.

  The owners will be devastated. I should

  have been paying you danger money. It’s

  too late for me, Lara. Save yourself. Stay in

  Italy. It’s the only sensible thing to do.

  Poor Hilly Billy. What a nightmare

  Lara scrolled through the photos again, simultaneously glad she wasn’t there and dreading the day when she’d have to go back. Hilary had said she could have her job back whenever she returned, and as stressful as it was Lara knew she might have to take it, at least till she got back on her financial feet. But that was something she could worry about later. For now, she looked up from her screen, taking in the tall purple and grey-green blooms of the lavender surrounded by buzzing, industrious bees, and took a deep breath. Despite the circumstances that had led to her swift departure from her family and job, she could almost feel Italy starting to work its charm on her, convincing her that everything in the world was beautiful and good. She wanted to believe it, so badly.

  7

  A clerk from the hospital phoned Lara later that day to tell her in broken English that Mr Samuel Baker was ready to go home. Lara found Samuel in a patient transfer room. He was sitting in a reclining chair, his left arm in its cast propped up on a pillow, his right hand holding his phone to his ear. He was speaking in Italian, his voice rising and falling, his jaw jutting. Short sentences. Exasperated sighs. Then it was done.

 
‘Hi,’ Lara said, smiling, trying not to be intrusive.

  Samuel’s eyelids were heavy over those blue eyes, his pale skin so translucent under the fluorescent lights that his veins showed. The bright green paint on the walls didn’t help his pallor.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ Lara ventured, nodding to his phone.

  Samuel let out a puff of frustrated air. ‘My daughter, Giovanna.’

  ‘Is she coming to see you?’

  ‘No. She lives in London. Wants me to go and live with her. Thinks this is a sign.’ His eyes softened a little then, almost as if a small smile was brewing at this mystical notion.

  ‘What do you think?’

  He shook his head almost imperceptibly, but said no more.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked, leaving the family argument behind them. She perched on the arm of the recliner next to his. There was only one other person in the room, his eyes cast down at a newspaper.

  Samuel grunted. ‘In need of a decent meal,’ he muttered.

  ‘Well,’ she said, buoyed to think that this was something she could help with, ‘let’s get you home and get that sorted. I’m okay in the kitchen. I could whip you up something really nice if you tell me what you’d like.’ She hoped he wasn’t too much of a carnivore; she ate a little meat but didn’t relish handling it.

  He raised the knobbly pointer finger of his right hand. ‘Before we go, let’s get a few things straight.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, bracing herself.

  ‘How long will you be here, in Italy?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘How long will you be staying with me? If you plan on going soon then I’d rather find an assistant from somewhere else.’