Three Days in Florence Read online

  The car took the winding roads smoothly. The driver obviously knew them well. For the first several miles, their route was lined with tall dark pine trees, punctuated by the odd farmhouse. Kathy peered into the gloomy woods in the hope of seeing a wild boar or a deer. She’d heard some deer barking over the past few days but hadn’t caught a glimpse. She’d also found porcupine spines on a walk around the palazzo’s grounds. Until then, she’d had no idea there were porcupines anywhere in Europe.

  The hill towns were still waking up. A group of elderly locals sitting at a bus stop watched them go by, following it with their heads as though they were in a luxury car advertisement. Occasionally the taxi shot through a tunnel. The driver kept his sunglasses on at all times, despite the sudden darkness. When they came out at the other end, Kathy struggled to see in the brightness of the sun.

  Out of the woods, they passed bright green vineyards – the grapes still tiny and sour – and fields of silvery wheat peppered with blood-bright poppies. White climbing roses covered the wild banks at the side of the road, like snowflakes, while the flowers of sainfoin – the ‘holy hay’ – turned the meadows pink. Kathy didn’t think she had ever seen anything so beautiful as the beginning of a Tuscan summer. It had all been so much lovelier than she’d imagined. If the trip hadn’t exactly worked out as she’d hoped, she still wanted to remember this landscape for ever. The light, the colours, the smell of the air.

  Then, twenty minutes into the journey, she saw the view she had waited to see for as long as she could remember, since she was a little girl looking through that photo album with her mum. As the taxi came out of another tunnel, it appeared in front of them, like a mirage. The skyline of Florence. It had to be. It could only be.

  ‘Is that …?’ she started to ask the driver.

  ‘Duomo?’ He nodded. He must have been asked the question a thousand times.

  ‘Really?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘Vero,’ the driver confirmed.

  The terracotta-red dome was much larger than Kathy had expected. It dominated the horizon, standing tall above the buildings around it. She shook Neil’s arm to draw his attention to the marvel that was laid out before them.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Over there. It’s Florence. There’s the cathedral. The Duomo …’ She tried out the word for herself. ‘You see that orange dome right there in the middle? That’s it!’

  Neil glanced up from his screen so briefly he couldn’t possibly have focused on the view. His eyes went straight back to his emails, but he did take the time to say, ‘So now you’ve seen Florence, you can stop going on about it.’

  Kathy felt a small prickle of shame beneath her armpits. Had she been ‘going on about it’? She turned to Neil to read his face for reassurance. His eyes flickered across the screen of his phone. He hadn’t meant it nastily, she decided. He had a hangover. That was all.

  Kathy turned her own eyes back to the horizon, to the unchanging skyline of the city that had inspired so many over the centuries. She wound down the car window so there was nothing between her and the view she had dreamed of. Soft warm air kissed her face and bare arms, smoothing away the goose bumps, like a tender caress.

  After a moment or two, Neil put down his phone and turned to face her. Sensing him move, Kathy looked back towards him and smiled, eager to share her happiness at seeing at least the roof of the Duomo. Neil took her hand – the one wearing the engagement ring – and for a second or two she thought he was going to kiss her and make the moment perfect. But he was unsmiling as he said, ‘Chicken Licken, when the window’s open, the air-conditioning doesn’t work.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  The taxi pulled up outside the door to Departures. Neil jumped out and immediately went to stand by the boot of the car to make sure no one was able to swipe their luggage. Sophie, Amelie and Oscar tumbled out after him, all glued to their phones. Kathy fished about in her bag and found a five-euro note for the driver.

  Neil walked ahead into the terminal, pushing all their luggage on a single trolley. His children followed without ever looking up from their screens. Kathy hurried to catch up with them, desperately scanning the signage as she did so. By the time Neil had reached the bottom of the escalator that would take them to the check-in desks, she’d already worked out exactly where they needed to go. She’d also, in record speed, scanned the departures board to ensure their flight was not delayed or cancelled. Navigating an airport with Neil was a matter of pre-empting what could go wrong. That morning, Neil tutted at the dawdlers who crossed their paths but, thanks to Kathy’s speedy airport navigation skills, they made it to the desk without him swearing at anyone in particular.

  So far, so good. Kathy handed her passport to Neil so he could present all five to the woman on the desk. She accepted them with a smile. ‘Grazie.’ She held the passports open as she copied their names into her system. She waited for the computer to give her the boarding details. Then the check-in assistant’s lip-sticked smile folded into a frown.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ Neil asked.

  Please, God, don’t let there be a problem, Kathy said to herself.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said the check-in attendant, whose badge said she was called Sabina. ‘Miss Courage, is it possible you have been booked onto the flight under a different name?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Neil, answering for her.

  ‘Only I can’t find you on the list of passengers.’

  ‘Did you type her name in correctly?’ Neil asked.

  ‘I can do it again,’ Sabina said. ‘Just in case.’

  Sabina mouthed the letters of Kathy’s name as she typed them, to give Neil the reassurance he needed that she was spelling it properly. She waited a moment for the computer to react.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Miss Courage, I’m afraid you are not on this flight.’

  ‘What do you mean, she’s not on this flight?’ Neil was still speaking for her.

  ‘Her name is not listed on the passenger manifest. Mr Sherwin, you are here. And the three other Sherwins. Your children? They are all here. I can print off your boarding passes.’

  ‘What good’s that to me?’

  ‘So four of you can get on the plane.’

  ‘I can’t fly without my fiancée.’

  ‘Miss Courage is not booked on this flight.’

  ‘Well, that’s ridiculous.’ Neil pulled out his iPhone and began scrolling through emails. ‘Of course she’s on this flight. And if she isn’t, then you need to put her on. As per this confirmation email right here.’

  Neil pushed the phone under Sabina’s nose.

  ‘May I?’ she asked, before delicately opening the email attachment with a beautifully manicured finger. She read the details.

  ‘Aaaah,’ she said. ‘I see what has gone wrong. Mr Sherwin, four of you are on this flight today but Miss Courage is not booked to fly back until next Monday. It’s the same flight but a different day,’ Sabina clarified. ‘Look. Here. Your flight is today. Miss Courage’s flight is on the twenty-seventh.’

  Neil gave the screen a cursory glance. ‘Well, obviously you need to change it.’

  ‘I wish I could,’ said Sabina.

  Kathy fervently wished she could too.

  Standing behind Neil right then, Kathy felt like a small creature living on the side of a volcano that senses the eruption long before it happens. Like a small creature, she wished she could just disappear into a hole packed with nice warm straw and sit the whole thing out. On her own. Sophie and Amelie were glaring at her, as though it was Kathy’s fault they were being kept from the retail opportunities beyond security.

  ‘If you don’t put my fiancée on the same flight as the rest of us, then you’d better have a bloody good reason.’ Neil had gone from nought to swearing in fifteen seconds.

  Sabina addressed her response to Kathy: ‘I can’t put you on the flight using this system. It won’t allow me. This terminal is for check-in only. The only thing I can suggest, Miss Courage, is that you go
to the ticketing desk and see if they can sell you a new seat. I think there is some space.’

  ‘OK,’ said Kathy. ‘I’ll try that.’

  ‘You will not,’ Neil insisted.

  ‘I can’t help you any further.’ Sabina shrugged.

  ‘Then heads will roll,’ said Neil. ‘I hope you’ve got plenty of hobbies, Miss Italia, because you’re going to have a lot of time off when you lose your job.’

  Sabina maintained her best customer-service smile.

  ‘Let’s do what she suggests,’ Kathy pleaded. ‘There’s no queue at the ticket desk. If I hurry, I’ll be able to catch you up. It’s obviously a mistake at our end.’

  Kathy laid her hand on Neil’s arm. Behind them, a long queue was building. She was pretty sure that the children wouldn’t care too much if she was left behind anyway.

  ‘Leave this to me, Chicken Licken,’ Neil said.

  Her nickname did not sound friendly this time. It sounded like he wanted her to know she was letting him down by living up to it in yet another situation where only aggression would win the day.

  ‘Who’s your supervisor?’ Neil asked the long-suffering Sabina.

  Sabina’s supervisor was duly called but the supervisor only confirmed what Sabina had said. It was not possible to change Kathy’s booked flight at the check-in desk. For now, the best solution was for her to buy another ticket and sort out any mistake when they were back in London. There was a long queue behind them. The flight would begin boarding in forty-five minutes. Other people needed to be checked in.

  ‘Sir, if you and your family don’t go through security in the next five minutes, you’ll be unable to board the flight, as will these people behind you. We will look after Miss Courage.’

  Kathy crossed her fingers and closed her eyes.

  ‘I’m not happy about this,’ said Neil. ‘I’m not happy at all.’

  But at last he moved away from the desk.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It had taken almost fifteen minutes, but felt much longer, for Neil to be persuaded that nothing more could be achieved by invoking international consumer rights. The girls, Oscar and he would go through to board the flight, leaving Kathy to queue for a new ticket. He kissed her forehead and said, ‘Don’t take no for an answer, Chicken.’

  Sabina’s supervisor smiled tightly.

  Neil headed for the security gates. Kathy waited to say goodbye one more time but he didn’t turn round to see her wave. The girls hadn’t said goodbye at all. It was as though she didn’t exist to them. At least Oscar had muttered, ‘Later.’

  ‘Are you OK?’ the supervisor asked, once Neil was gone.

  ‘Of course,’ said Kathy, feeling guilty relief flood her body now she could sort things out in her own way. ‘I’m sorry for the way my fiancé reacted. He gets tense when we’re travelling. He’s a nice man, I promise you. He doesn’t mean to be rude.’

  ‘We’re used to it,’ the supervisor said.

  All the while, the queue at the ticketing desk had grown from two to ten. Kathy joined the back, knowing time was of the essence but worrying that people would take offence if she asked whether she might go ahead. Everyone at an airport was in some sort of hurry, weren’t they? She could only cross her fingers and hope the queue moved quickly.

  And it did move quickly to begin with. There were two women on the desk and they both worked steadily, issuing customers with new tickets and oversized-baggage tags at a reassuring pace. But then, when there were just three people left in front of Kathy, one of the ticket-desk attendants suddenly put a little sign on the counter in front of her – chiuso – got up, shrugged on her jacket and disappeared. From the mime she gave her colleague – which was of someone knocking back an espresso – it was time for her coffee break.

  Her colleague continued to work through the queue. She issued two more people with tickets. She was fast and efficient. There was only one person in front of Kathy now. Final boarding had already been called for the flight Kathy hoped to get on, but the woman standing behind her – who was also British – explained they always called boarding early for UK flights because of passport control at the gate.

  Kathy tried to be reassured by the observation. Nevertheless, as the next customer stepped up to the desk, Kathy muttered a silent prayer. Please let this customer’s request be an easy one.

  Alas, the customer ahead of Kathy did not want to buy a new ticket. He wanted to know why his old ticket did not come with a sufficient luggage allowance for the two enormous cases – big enough to hide all the bodies – that he’d dragged up to the desk.

  The woman behind the counter responded to each and every one of the man’s utterances with a shake of the head. The customer got louder. The ticket vendor continued to shake her head. He gesticulated. She merely shook her head again.

  As the minutes ticked down, Kathy felt like a desert traveller seeing an oasis when the woman who had taken a coffee break returned to her counter. However, she didn’t sit down and take the next in line. Instead, she – rightly – joined forces with her colleague to deal with the increasingly angry man with too much luggage. Kathy couldn’t follow the Italian but could see from the hand gestures that it was not going well. The chiuso sign remained on the other desk and it wasn’t long before a security guard was called to take the unhappy traveller away.

  By which time, all hope Kathy had of being on the same flight as Neil was absolutely finito.

  When the coffee-break woman finally sat down at her desk and greeted Kathy with a beaming smile, she seemed astonished that Kathy had ever dreamed of getting back to London that day.

  ‘There is nothing until tomorrow and even then, you know, I’m not so sure. French air-traffic control …’ She shrugged as though a French air-traffic-control strike was as much a part of the annual cycle as the return of the migratory birds.

  ‘Why don’t you keep your flight on Monday?’ she asked. ‘I can’t get you back more quickly. Unless you want to take a train to Rome or Milan or Genoa and catch a plane from there.’

  A train? An Italian train? Kathy’s face betrayed her consternation. She could almost hear Neil’s voice asking, in a Greek chorus with her mother’s, ‘How will you know what ticket to ask for? How will you make sure you get off at the right station? How will you get out of the station without being robbed?’

  The woman at the counter waited for Kathy to make up her mind. While Kathy pondered the alternatives, the woman behind her in the queue piped up, ‘If you don’t have to be home for anything in particular, you should just stay here and enjoy yourself. Eat lots of gelato for me!’

  Staying in Florence for another three days might have sounded like the best outcome to Kathy’s queue mate but Kathy’s queue mate didn’t have to deal with Neil. While Kathy had been trying to get a new ticket, Neil had texted five times to ask, What the hell is going on? As soon as Kathy stepped away from the ticket desk, she dialled him. Though he was almost certainly on the plane by now, with luck he would still have his phone on.

  He picked up at once.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Still by the check-in desks.’

  ‘What? Why aren’t you through security? The flight’s closing.’

  ‘I couldn’t get a ticket,’ said Kathy. ‘The queue was long and it took ages for me to get to the front.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell the people in the queue it was urgent? Why didn’t you say you had to be somewhere fast?’

  ‘Everybody in the queue had to be somewhere fast.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Chicken. You didn’t even try, did you? And now I’ve got to fly back to London with the children on my own.’

  ‘What should I do now?’ Kathy asked. ‘Should I keep the ticket I’ve got? The Monday flight?’

  ‘I can’t have you stuck out there until Monday! The kids are at our place all weekend. I suppose I’m going to have to sort this out myself.’ Neil sighed. ‘There’s another BA flight at nine o’clock this evening.’


  ‘It’s full,’ said Kathy. ‘The woman on the ticketing desk said there’s no space on any direct flight to London today.’

  ‘Of course it’s not full. There’s always a spare seat on those planes for a VIP and I’m a VIP.’

  ‘But you’re already on a plane.’

  ‘I mean, because I’m a VIP, they’ll put you on it. As soon as I get to London, I’ll have Melanie call BA and sort it out using my executive club details. Just stay exactly where you are and try not to get yourself into any more trouble.’

  Trouble? Kathy wanted to tell Neil that it wasn’t her fault she hadn’t been booked onto the flight but he carried on talking over her.

  ‘Stay in the airport and wait for me to call. This is an absolute shambles. Heads will roll over this. Starting with that girl on the check-in desk and ending with the CEO of British Airways.’

  ‘Sir, you’ll need to turn your telephone off now, please.’ One of the cabin crew on board Neil’s flight cut the conversation short.

  ‘Just stay where you are and keep that engagement ring hidden,’ Neil instructed Kathy. ‘I’ll call you as soon as I land.’

  ‘Safe flight,’ said Kathy. ‘I love you,’ she added. But Neil had already hung up.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dragging her wheelie case behind her, Kathy trundled across to a bank of seats and sat down heavily.

  What a disaster. She’d had to get up too early (as far as she was concerned – Neil was a natural lark) and she hadn’t had any breakfast. The drive to Peretola airport had been icy on all fronts and now she was facing a day at the terminal. She realised then that she didn’t even have any euros to buy a cup of coffee since she’d given the cabbie her last fiver. So she was facing a day with no coffee and no food, drinking out of the tap in the loos. Kathy had not been especially excited about going back to London but it would have been infinitely better than the day she was looking forward to now.

  She idly pressed the on button of her phone and scrolled through the photographs she’d taken over the last three days. As she sat on the hard plastic seat, it was difficult to imagine that just a few hours earlier she’d been in such a beautiful place as the Palazzo Boldrini. She was wistful as she scrolled through a series of spectacular views and a close-up of an enormous peach-pink rose that had reminded of her childhood copy of Beauty and the Beast.