The Sweet Life (16 page)

When Celia and Janey met in the hallway the next morning, Celia was friendly, but brisk.

‘You forgot to check in with me yesterday,’ she said in a mildly accusing tone, as Janey flushed. So much had happened yesterday that it had completely fallen out of her brain!

‘No matter,’ said Celia more kindly. ‘I’ve arranged for Luca to stop by this morning.’ Her eyebrows shot up in surprise as Janey turned pale beneath her lightly developing tan and looked less than pleased at the news. ‘He had an unexpected cancellation, and said he could do it. I hope that’s okay with you,’ Celia continued. ‘He’ll take you to the Australian Embassy to meet the Ambassador – who’s looking forward to meeting you very much – and to tour our building. It’s a beautiful place. And you can get Vegemite on toast in the canteen if you’re feeling homesick! The Aussie accents you’ll hear all around you will be a bonus.’

Celia smiled and rushed off to work, promising to meet up with Janey once she reached the embassy.

Luca was due to ring the security buzzer at ten-thirty. For once, Janey was not looking forward to seeing him at all and was totally unsure about what to wear and how to act. The thought that he was possibly behind the nasty joke that seemed to be unfolding around her made her stomach flip. She’d be stuck in the car with him! What was she supposed to say to a potential stalker?
Hi, how are you? Are you responsible for
messing with my head? And could you please
stop
?

Janey slipped into the wrap dress and ballet flats, deciding on minimal make-up and a low ponytail. When the buzzer sounded she stood up and made for the door as though she was heading to her own execution.

‘Ciao bella,’ Luca said in his usual heart-stopping way, only today it was heart-stopping for all the wrong reasons. It was suddenly an ordeal to meet his eyes. She just wanted the trip to be over with, before it’d even begun. Janey shook her head when Luca made to open the front passenger door in his usual way, and climbed into the back seat as if she really was a visiting VIP.

‘Che?’ Luca said, surprised. ‘Is anything the matter, Janey?’

‘Headache,’ Janey lied. ‘Don’t want to keep the Ambassador waiting, if that’s okay. Please just take me there as fast as you can?’ She closed her eyes to forestall any more conversation.

Luca shrugged and slid into the driver’s seat.

‘You are otherwise well?’ he began as the car shot out from the kerb. ‘You enjoyed our little walk?’

Janey’s eyes flicked briefly to his in the mirror, before she looked away.

‘I’m fine,’ she said. She lapsed into deliberate silence, hoping he’d take the hint and leave her alone. Half of her was screaming to find out more about him, and the other half was experiencing major trust issues. She hoped the battle of her inner voices wasn’t registering on her face.

It couldn’t have been, because Luca continued cheerfully, ‘My younger sister, Lucia, she and her school friends plan to go to Ostia tomorrow, the beach just outside Roma. She is only a little older than you, and hopes you may join them. She very much wishes to meet you. You will go?’

Under normal circumstances, a trip to the beach, and the opportunity to make exotic new friends her age, would be Janey’s idea of heaven. But not now. Not when Janey wasn’t sure about Luca’s motives for saying or doing anything, where she was concerned.

‘Um,’ she said. ‘I’m kind of busy tomorrow.’ She mentally crossed her fingers, hoping he wouldn’t ask for details about her plans, because she didn’t have any.

‘Then mercoledì – Wednesday?’ Luca replied. ‘She would be most happy to accommodate you.’

Janey shook her head. ‘Please tell her molte grazie, but my days are booked up until I leave at the end of next week.’ This wasn’t at all true, but Janey wasn’t sure she wanted to make friends with Luca’s sister, even if she did sound lovely and welcoming. It could be another weird trap. It just seemed easier to say no.

She registered Luca’s quick frown in the mirror as he changed lanes to avoid a speeding motorcyclist.

Cold turkey, cold turkey
, she told herself as she stole a quick, unhappy glance at Luca’s back before staring determinedly out a side window.
He seems really nice
, Janey thought to herself,
and you’re probably wasting a colossally great chance to get to
know him better, you idiot.

But then again
, said her other, more sensible inner voice,
he could be the ultimate weirdo trying to keep tabs on you all the
time, in which case you’re doing the right thing
.

‘I think,’ said Luca, ‘that you are perhaps – how do you say? –
avoiding me
because I have caused offence in some way. If you will not tell me, I will – what is that English expression? – get to the bottom of things! You cannot escape me so easily, Janey Gordon.’

Janey’s eyes shot back to his fearfully, failing to hear the teasing note in Luca’s voice with her nerves wound up so tightly. She said nothing, only slid even more firmly into a far corner of the back seat, away from his probing gaze.

Luca said more gently, ‘Lucia will be so disappointed! She very much wants to meet the person she calls my “new Australian girlfriend”.’

Janey flinched, but did not reply. And minutes later, relief washed over her as they were waved through a boomgate flanked by armed guards. At the front entrance of the building, she sent a nervous smile Luca’s way before slipping out of the car and hurrying into the building without looking back.

She gave her name at the reception desk and was handed a visitor’s pass. An embassy employee guided her up to the antechamber to the Ambassador’s office and politely told her to wait. A moment later, the Ambassador’s personal assistant popped her head out of her office and welcomed Janey. Libby was a friendly woman of around Celia’s age with a sleek brunette bob, wearing a tailored black pants-suit and tortoiseshell Gucci spectacle frames.

‘Celia and the Ambassador are still in their nine-thirty meeting,’ she apologised. ‘And Celia wanted to tour you around personally. She told me to make sure I kept you here. Can I get you anything while you wait?’

Janey smiled and shook her head. ‘Have you been working here long?’ she asked, staring up at the airy gilded ceilings with their baroque scrollwork.

Libby nodded. ‘Gorgeous, isn’t it?’ she said, taking a seat next to Janey. ‘I’ve been with Doug – the Ambassador – and his family since he was second secretary at the London office. I
much
prefer Rome.’

‘I’ve never been to London,’ Janey replied with interest. ‘What’s it like?’

‘Centre of the universe,’ Libby grinned, ‘and boy, does everyone know it! Goes without saying the weather’s better here. And the food. The men are pretty easy on the eye too,’ she added with a wink.

Libby and Janey chatted for another twenty minutes. When Libby asked how she’d been spending the last few days, Janey reluctantly opened up about the strange things that had been happening to her.

‘Almost as if the guy was standing a metre away,’ she shuddered, describing the two weirdly specific text messages she’d received only the day before. ‘Like he was watching me, no matter where I went or what I was doing.’

‘Have you told Celia?’ Libby exclaimed. ‘You’ve got to report this
cyber bullying
to your aunt. I can’t believe you’re just dealing with this on your own! We have resources here, we can help you. But you have to tell your aunt everything you’ve told me!’

Janey sank back a little wearily in her plush armchair. ‘I’m not really in Celia’s good books at the moment,’ she shrugged. ‘We ’ve had a couple of small misunderstandings over stupid stuff.
And
she ’s been really busy, and so have I. We haven’t been able to clear the air, and telling her all about my troubles with some mystical Fellini character probably wouldn’t help. I’m not sure she’d believe me anyway.’

Libby had to hurry away with a quick apology as the phone suddenly rang in her office, leaving Janey in the luxuriously appointed waiting area.

If she craned her neck, Janey could just make out Libby at her desk, tapping something into her computer while she cradled her handset between her ear and her shoulder.

Janey glanced down at her watch and noticed that it was nearing noon. As if on cue, her stomach rumbled ferociously, and she clutched at it with a tiny laugh, hoping no one had heard. But her laughter died in her throat as the familiar, but unwanted, buzz of her mobile sounded.

It was another text.

She drew the mobile out of her rucksack as if it was a snake, poised to sink its fangs into her hand.

I’m in the building. Come

find me? Or I’ll find u.

Either way.

Janey gave a small shriek and dropped her phone.

Libby paused part-way through her call and looked up. She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Sorry, Janey! I’ll be right with you!’ she hissed, before launching back into Italian with her caller.

Janey gingerly picked up her mobile phone and dropped it into her backpack, before scribbling a note on a piece of paper and sliding it under Libby’s nose.

Feeling unwell.

Will reschedule the tour

for another day. Soon.

Nice meeting you!

Apologise to Celia.

Libby looked up in surprise, halting her phone conversation once more. She called out to Janey to wait, but Janey had already slipped out of the Ambassador’s chambers and was clattering down the central staircase to the exits.

On her way out of the embassy grounds, she froze when she saw Luca lounging against the bonnet of the parked car, chatting to another one of the embassy’s drivers. She panicked. Was he lying in wait for her? Hadn’t Luca himself only just said that she couldn’t escape him so easily?

Pretending she hadn’t seen him, Janey put her head down and hurried on.

But she could hear Luca’s voice behind her, calling out to her to wait!

Janey lost her head completely and scrambled out of the embassy grounds. She climbed onto a nearby bus that was letting passengers off at a stop just outside the embassy walls with no idea where it was going. Somehow, at that very moment, it didn’t matter one bit.

When her heart stopped hammering quite so loudly, Janey dug through her backpack for her guidebook and tried to work out, from the passing street signs, just where they were headed.

The bus wasn’t at all crowded, and Janey felt a little shy about standing up and approaching the elderly couple several rows back, or the loud gang of teenage boys lounging just by the doors, and asking them in broken Italian where they were going.

She fanned her face and looked about with more interest. The bus wound its way up and down narrow streets, the driver venting loud volleys of frustrated Italian as mopeds, motorbikes and pedestrians charged in and out of his path. The entire city seemed to live life in fast-forward and Janey was fascinated to see Rome’s citizens coexisting with so much ancient history. Turn a corner, and beside a fenced-off pile of broken marble columns there might be a tiny grocery store or wine bar plying its trade, above which would be apartments crammed with ordinary families going about their business, toddlers playing on the narrow balconies overhead while their mothers hung out washing, or in one case, splashing about in an old tin bath while the bus passed several metres below.