Location, Location
Could a leaky roof unexpectedly lead to love?
Frederico blamed all those programmes on British television. The ones encouraging people to buy dilapidated old wrecks of houses and do them up. From his memories of his two-year stint spent working in the UK, they were on all day, every day! Locations in the warmer climes were the most popular – France, Spain, Portugal, and of special interest to him since it was his homeland, and where he had now returned to live, Italy.
Well, if you had a leaky roof, he imagined a bit of sunshine helped!
Getting into his car to drive to the nearby town where he worked, Frederico scowled across at the little house that was his only close neighbour. It had been empty for years. Then, last week, she’d arrived in a dusty car with a UK registration plate.
Jilly, her name was. She’d come over to his house and introduced herself – in Italian, for which he grudgingly gave her a star, since she had at least troubled herself to learn the language.
Mind you, when he’d replied in English, explaining about his sojourn there, she’d seemed happier to continue that way. He learned that she came from Devon. He’d been there. It was very pretty, he recalled. So why hadn’t she bought herself a little house there as a renovation project?
He scowled some more as he started up his car.
He knew somewhere inside him that he was being unreasonable. But the thing was, he’d moved into the house he was living in because of its quiet – some people would say rather lonely – location. After the way it had ended with Sophia, that was what he wanted, to hide away, even though his mother said it was the worst thing he could do.
“You must not cut yourself off, Frederico.you will be better meeting people,” she constantly lectured him.
But she, he was well aware, had an agenda. She wanted him, her only son, married.
Both his sisters were married and had children. But that wasn’t enough for her. He sighed.
Jilly was out in her garden as he drove past.
She gave him a friendly wave and he felt guilty about his less-than-welcoming attitude.
It wasn’t all about his selfishness, he decided.there were other reasons she shouldn’t have come.
They made it all look so easy on TV. But it was hard, physical work and, frankly, she didn’t look up to it.
She had the pale colouring that burned in the sun and a general fragility about her. He couldn’t see her up a ladder, that was for sure! That was, however, where she was when next he saw her. There she was, appearing to be trying to clamber up on to her roof. It was just a singlestorey structure. But even so...
Without thinking further, he hurried out to her.
She was already retreating down the steps – taking them very carefully, he noticed. The land surrounding the house, neglected for years, had been taken over principally by spiky plants. Not a soft landing were you to fall.
And he knew about that, he reflected, as Sophia’s face popped into his head.yes, he was an expert on hitting the ground hard.
“It needs retiled.” Jilly’s voice interrupted his thoughts. She pointed up to the roof. “I’m getting someone to come and give me a quote. I saw an advert, but I thought I’d take a look myself beforehand.” She paused.
“I’ve never had this kind of job done before, Frederico, so I don’t know how noisy it will be. But if it disturbs you, let me know and I’ll see if it can be completed when you’re out.”
“Thank you.” He nodded. She was if nothing else a thoughtful woman.
“Who is it you’ve got coming? I know a lot of the local tradesmen.”
She supplied the name. “Do you know him? Is he OK?” Frederico paused.
He had been at school with him and he was bone idle and a cheat.as far as he’d heard, he still was to this day.
If she wanted shoddy work and a big bill, he was her man. But you didn’t behave like that, did you? “My cousin Luigi is in the building trade, and very good,” he said instead.“how about I ask him to have a look at it for you?”
It was true about Luigi. He wasn’t just singing his praises because he was family. “Would you? Oh, I’d be so grateful if you could arrange it!” She beamed as though he’d just given her the world. He nodded again, unable to remain unaffected by the pure radiance of her smile.
And he was not the only one, as he discovered a few days later . . .
“Luigi says your new neighbour has a most lovely smile.” Frederico’s mother, seated opposite him in his kitchen, gave him a searching look. Busy pouring coffee for them, he didn’t reply.
“Ah, well, I will see for myself shortly,” she continued. “How’s that?”
“She told him she wanted to learn how to cook proper Italian food and asked if there was a school in the town he could recommend.a school!”
She laughed, clearly finding the idea highly amusing.
“I told him to tell her she didn’t need any school,” she added.“i would give her lessons.which is where I am going now.” “Mother!” He nearly dropped his coffee.
“What is wrong with that?” His mother gave him a fierce look.“are you suggesting I am
After the way things had ended with Sophia, he wanted to hide away. But his mum had an agenda
not a sufficiently good cook to give lessons?”
“Of course not! It’s just . . .” He shrugged, again unsure of quite what it was.
Shortly after, he was away for a month at the company’s head office. When he finally got back, he noticed immediately the smart new roof on his neighbour’s house.
Luigi had done a good job, as he’d known he would. There were other improvements that were immediately obvious, too. The land around had been cleared, and a window that had been in bad condition refitted; the door, which had had a huge gap at the bottom, had been replaced, too. Jilly was up a ladder painting it. She looked a lot more confident than when he’d first seen her up it.
She waved, so he parked his car and went over to her.
In telephone calls from his family while he’d been away, he’d learned that his mother, grandmother and one of his sisters, too, now seemed to be regular visitors to Jilly.
He loved his family, he really did, but they could be a bit overpowering. Especially to someone like Jilly, who was clearly a solitary sort of person. Why would she have taken on a house in this location unless, like him, she wanted to be away from people?
He started a clumsy apology, but she stopped him.
“I love having them coming round.” She smiled at him.“you look tired.will you join me for a meal? Save you cooking.”
He started to protest, but so did she.
“Come on, I know from your mum all your favourite dishes and I’ve got the ingredients to make at least three of them!” He smiled, too. How could he say no without seeming very ungracious?
The food was delicious. Quite as good as anything he’d ever eaten, though he wouldn’t dare tell his mother that!
They took the remainder of the wine he’d brought outside and sat at a table Jilly had contrived from the discarded old door and several empty olive oil cans.
“What made you come here?” he asked her.“do you have connections here?”
She shook her head.
“No connections at all. I was out of action for some time after I was involved in a bad accident, and because I couldn’t do much else, I watched a huge amount of daytime television.”
She laughed. “I don’t know whether you ever saw any when you lived in the UK, but there’s a load of programmes on about doing up old houses –” “I remember them!”he interrupted, also laughing.
“Yes.well, it became an ambition of mine, I suppose.a dream for the future. I decided that, when I got better, I’d buy somewhere and renovate it and the process of doing that would complete my own healing.” She was silent a while.
“I think it has, too,” she continued. He looked at her in the light of the candle on the makeshift table, remembering his first impressions of her.
The pale skin he’d expected to burn hadn’t. Instead it had gone a beautiful golden colour. And the air of helplessness that had concerned him was gone.
“I came here feeling weak,” she said,“but now I’m strong again.”
Her words kept returning to him as they finished the wine. He, too, had come here in a weakened state. But not because of physical injury, like Jilly.with him it had been emotional damage.
The way Sophia had thrown him over had hurt him badly. He’d just wanted to be alone. But now that was changing. Had already changed.
The truth was, he never thought about Sophia now.
He’d missed Jilly while he’d been away. It hadn’t been just eagerness to return to his own home that had kept him going on the drive back – it had been his eagerness to see her again. Suddenly she sighed.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Yes. But I need to go back home at the weekend –” “The weekend?”
He saw from her face that she’d seen the alarm in his, but he didn’t care.
Their eyes locked.
“Just for a couple of weeks and then I’ll be back,” she said. “A lot of my work I can do from home, and this feels like home now.and if there are problems I’ll do something else. I’ll sort it out somehow.”
“I’ll help you,” he said.“we’ll sort it out.”
Their eyes locked again – and then their lips.
His mother accompanied him to see off Jilly. Then, while he watched the aeroplane till it was just a speck, she suggested they take the opportunity to go shopping.
“Oh, our poor Jilly,” she said as they drove along.“she’ll be missing us the same as we are missing her.what will there be on TV for her to watch tonight?”
He shot his mother a baffled look.
“You yourself said, Frederico, when you were living there, that the television was awful. Nothing but endless programmes about doing up old houses.”
He laughed till tears streamed down his face and he had to pull in. He had said it, yes, but now he’d changed his mind.
In his eyes, they were the best things on TV!