The Olive Branch
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Synopsis
Escape to Italy with THE OLIVE BRANCH - the irresistible new novel from Jo Thomas, award-winning author of ebook runaway bestseller THE OYSTER CATCHER.
You can buy almost anything online these days. For Ruthie Collins, it was an Italian farmhouse.
Yet as she battles with a territorial goat and torrential rain just to get through the door of her new Italian home, the words of Ed, her ex, are ringing in her ears. She is daft, impetuous and irresponsible.
But Ruthie is determined to turn things around and live the dream.
First, though, she must win over her fiery neighbour, Marco Bellanouvo, and his tempestuous family...and then there's the small matter of running an olive farm. As the seasons change and new roots are put down, olives and romance might just flourish in the warmth of the Mediterranean sun.
'Warm, funny, romantic with a terrific sense of place. I loved it!' Katie Fforde
Release date: March 26, 2015
Publisher: Headline
Print pages: 352
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The Olive Branch
Jo Thomas
I take in the bare room around me. It’s soulless, empty of furniture and feelings.
I look at my friend Morag, her eyes bright with excitement.
The clock is ticking, and with every passing second my heart beats louder.
‘Ten, nine . . .’ The timer clicks down. My mouth is dry.
‘Eight, seven . . .’ I feel sick, again not sure if it’s due to Prosecco or tension. This is insane.
‘Six, five . . .’ I look around the place I once called home – now an empty shell, like me.
‘Four, three . . .’ I consider my options. There’s only one as far as I’m concerned.
‘Two . . .’ And it’s utterly reckless.
‘One.’ I glance at Morag, who looks as though she might burst, and I don’t know if I do it intentionally, or if my finger just twitches involuntarily. But I press the button, and we fall giggling into a Prosecco-fuelled slumber on the lumpy settees.
The next morning, after paracetamol and gallons of water have started to take effect, a slow realisation creeps over me like cold custard. I rush to the computer and check my emails. There it is, in black and white, bringing back my moment of madness and reminding me of why it should be compulsory to take a breathalyser test before using the internet late at night.
Congratulations! You were the successful bidder! My heart jumps into my mouth and bangs noisily against my ears. Now what am I going to do?
My panicked thoughts are interrupted by a knock at the door, and as I stumble across the room to open it, my heart thunders some more.
‘Hi, we’ve come for the sofas,’ says the bright, well-spoken young woman who is standing there with her eager boyfriend. I look at the couch where Morag is still sleeping.
‘We’ll just be a moment. I’m nearly done here,’ I say as the young couple start lifting the sofa that was my bed until a few minutes ago.
There’s only one thing I can do, says the mad, impetuous voice in my head. And I realise it’s mine.
As I watch the goat marching up and down the courtyard, like a foot guard at Buckingham Palace, I wonder if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.
‘Recalculating! Recalculating!’ My sole companion for the entire journey continues shouting, her voice cutting through me like a dentist’s drill. I switch her off firmly, with pleasure, before turning off the engine of my little Ford Ka. The windscreen wipers let out an exhausted whine and the screen is a whiteout of water in seconds, like fake rain in a low-budget film. Only this is not fake, it’s very real, I remind myself, as the water drums noisily on the car roof.
I take a deep breath. It’s been like this ever since I left Bari, the sprawling port at the top of Italy’s heel, where I stopped off to do a quick shop in Ikea for essentials and lunch. This is another thing I wasn’t expecting, aside from the goat: torrential rain in summer in southern Italy.
I gaze out of the car window and pull my lightweight hoodie closer around me. A collection of silver bangles jangles on my wrist and I look down at my Rolling Stones T-shirt, which I’ve cut into a crop top, and my paint-splattered cut-off Levi’s. I’m definitely underdressed. Grabbing my favourite vintage leather jacket from the seat beside me, I pull it on and shiver. I should be in waterproofs and wellies.
Taking another deep breath, I pull the handle and push the car door open against the driving rain. I straighten up, holding one hand over my eyes, and shiver again as I look down at the envelope in my hand.
The rain lashes against the paper, making the ink run, and I have to keep shutting my eyes against the deluge. The goat glances in my direction and I’m sure I hear it snort.
I use one hand to shield my eyes and strain to look at the house in front of me, then back at the long, potholed drive I’ve just driven down. I can hardly see the big stone pillars and red metal gates at the entrance. I shove the envelope back in my pocket and pull out a printed picture of the house. The image is papier mâché in seconds, disintegrating and landing on the wet stones at my feet. If I’m not quick, my canvas slip-ons will go the same way. This has to be the right place; there’s nowhere similar nearby.
I passed a couple of small houses on the way in, as the narrow road led me up and down and round and round like a fairground ride, with occasional potholes for added fear factor. Some of the houses had curved roofs, while others were modern and flat-roofed. I also spotted the occasional collection of dilapidated trulli – small circular houses with conical roofs, like clusters of field mushrooms. But I’m not looking for a trullo. The house in front of me now is like something from a film set. It’s old, weather-worn, faded pink and big – much bigger than I imagined. There’s nothing else like it on the lane. This must be it.
I hold my hand up against the punishing rain, and half wonder whether a plague of locusts is going to follow next. Perhaps this is a sign . . . I push the silly thought away, along with the memory of my mum’s despairing phone messages and Ed’s disapproving emails.
My T-shirt is stuck to my skin and the rain is dripping down my short hair and on to my face, running off round my nose stud like a little waterfall. There’s no point in rummaging in the boot for my raincoat now, so I sling on my lavender leather satchel and wonder what I’ve let myself in for. I could get back in the car, drive away from here as quickly as possible and email Ed to tell him he was right all along: I am daft, impetuous and irresponsible.
But then again, at least I’m not boring and stuck in my ways. There’s only one way to go: forwards! I bow my head, pull my bag tighter to me and run towards the listing veranda groaning with an unruly and neglected bougainvillea.
With my chin tucked into my chest, I spot a large pothole and sidestep it, slipping and skidding on the worn cobbles. I’m startlingly close to the cross-looking goat, which is now standing across the front door. I am in the middle of my worst nightmare.
‘Maah,’ the goat bleats, making me jump. God, that was loud. I stare at the goat and it stares back at me. Its eyes are different colours: one scarily yellow, the other blue. For the first time in weeks, I have no idea what to do. Guard goats were not on my list of essential information.
I wonder whether ‘shoo’ has the same meaning in Italian as it does in English. It’s not something I can remember covering in my evening classes. But I need to do something. I’m freezing out here.
‘Shoo, shoo!’ I say, waving my hands in the goat’s direction and backing away at the same time. I don’t want it to run at me with its horns, which look pointy and sharp. You don’t get goats standing in the way of your front door back in Tooting. The odd drunk camping out for the night, maybe, but somehow they seem easier to overcome than this.
‘Shoo, shoo!’ I try again, this time with more hand-waving. The goat flinches, as do the terrified butterflies in my stomach, but still it doesn’t move from its position in front of the big, dark wooden door. Even the three-day drive down through France and Italy, with stop-offs in lay-bys to catch forty winks and only an irritating, indecisive satnav for company, is nothing compared to this.
I’ve spent the past six weeks dealing with estate agents, flat viewings and solicitors, packing up and dividing the belongings Ed and I shared. I separated everything out and gave over custody of our joint retro record collection and the player I found on eBay. I sold off redundant furniture, oversaw its collection and moved myself out of our flat. It all went without a hitch; nothing fazed me. But territorial goats? No idea! I throw my hands up and turn my back on it.
Opening up my satchel, I search around for some kind of magic bean that will help me out here. Then I spot it: a half-eaten Kit Kat I bought in a service station somewhere outside Rome. I thought the sugar boost might get me round the greater ring road – that and Dolly Parton on the CD player. It sort of worked. I got round on a wing and a prayer, nerves jangling, heart in mouth, high on energy drinks and with a lot of hand gestures and horn honking – not necessarily mine. I pull out the Kit Kat and wave it at the goat. It steadfastly ignores me, looking the other way from its sheltered position. I quickly pull back the wrapper.
‘Come on. It’s chocolate.’ I wave it, immediately feeling like the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and break off a piece to toss in front of the goat. As it backs away, I think I’m going to have to give up and look for somewhere else to stay tonight until I can find the owner. Then it sniffs at the taster and snaffles it up with appreciative noises, walking towards me, no doubt hoping for more.
‘See, it’s good.’ I break off another bit, tossing it in front of the goat, which is now moving faster and faster. I walk backwards, getting quicker all the time. I feel like I’m in a scene from You’ve Been Framed. I’m miles away from home, in the heaviest rain I’ve ever seen, with my worldly possessions in a Ford Ka, trying to tempt a goat away from a front door with half a Kit Kat. I’m beginning to understand how Noah felt, and I’m debating whether there would be room for goats on my ark.
This is all Ed’s fault! I think irrationally. And my mum’s. The goat keeps hoovering up the Kit Kat and I’m nearly at the edge of the slippery forecourt. I step back and my heel hits a low stone wall, giving me a reality check.
I step up on to the wall and my phone springs into life. I pull it out, hoping for some kind of encouraging words. Two text messages and some missed calls. I don’t bother to check the calls. The texts are from Ed and my mum. That’s all I need. If Ed knew that at this moment I was trying to bribe a territorial goat, he’d start by saying ‘I told you so,’ with lowering eyebrows. It’s his reaction to everything I do – he thinks I’m impulsive; ‘hot-headed’, he calls it. He’s forever telling me I always leap before I look. He, on the other hand, doesn’t do anything without consulting Google or Facebook first. We’re total opposites. At first, that was the fun part about it. But now he thinks I knee-jerk-react to everything. I think he thinks too long and hard about things and doesn’t take risks. It could’ve been the perfect combination. But it wasn’t.
If Ed had been here, it would be a whole different story. He wouldn’t have stepped out of the car without a team of health and safety officers inspecting the place first, and he’d’ve employed Bear Grylls himself to get rid of the goat.
No, I can’t fall at the first hurdle now, even if this goat does have the guarding instincts of a Rottweiler. It pushes its face up towards my hands and I can’t move. I do the only thing I can: reach out a tentative hand and scratch it between the eyes. It seems to like it. But I’m stuck here now. If I stop, it nudges me, hard. There’s nothing for it, it’s now or never.
I throw the last piece of Kit Kat as far as I can, beyond the uneven cobbles. The goat turns and nearly topples over in its excitement to get to it, slipping, sliding and clattering across the stones before leaping on the tasty treat. I throw myself towards the front door. My hands shake as I pull out the big, rusting key and push it into the lock, whilst trying to keep one eye on the goat. In the process, I drop the envelope on the wet floor. I pick it up and push really hard against the door. It doesn’t budge. The goat is trotting back towards me. I pull away, dip my shoulder and give the door an almighty shove; it flies open just as there is a huge crash of thunder and a silver sliver cracks across the sky. I fall through the front door, desperate to escape the elements, into a cavernous room, along with the goat.
‘Maah,’ it says loudly, dripping all over the floor. A great wave of despair washes over me. What on earth have I let myself in for?
I grapple up and down the sides of the door frame in the dim light of the farmhouse, looking for the light switch. I find it. I flick it down with a clunk and glance round the room, but nothing happens. I pull the door open wider to let in more light and in the hope that the goat will find its way out. There’s a damp, musty smell. I’m not sure if it’s the house or the goat. I give the animal a wide berth and go to the first window I can see. I open it, then pull back the stiff bolt on the wooden shutters and push them open.
There’s another huge clap of thunder. The goat doesn’t move, possibly hoping I haven’t noticed it standing by the front door.
I go round the room and open every shutter I can see. Some are stiffer than others, and I make a mental note to give the bolts a spray with WD40 as soon as I can get to the shops. I’m sure I passed an ironmonger in town.
The windows are small and the room is still dark, but when I get to the glass doors at the end of the room and push open their shutters, it really makes a difference. My eyes begin to take in everything, and as they do, they’re drawn upwards. The light cream stones make pointed dome shapes that cross in the high ceiling, creating a star shape. It’s amazing. I turn round, taking it all in – breathtaking – then promptly trip over a plastic table piled high with boxes of junk in the middle of the room.
Whilst the ceiling may be breathtaking, the rest of the room is in need of some real TLC, I think, looking at the patchy paintwork. My mind starts racing with all sorts of ideas for how to show off its best features. It was the same when Ed and I first saw our flat. I could see all the possibilities and the ideas just kept coming: how we could turn the kitchen into a kitchen diner, make the fireplace the feature in the room again, bring in light. Ed saw the investment potential, I saw the design possibilities. It’s the same here. My mind won’t stop whirring with ideas.
The stone wall above the fireplace is blackened and could definitely do with repainting. I’d keep the walls white, of course. There are bare bulbs in the sockets on the walls; some terracotta roof tiles would work well as uplighters.
It’s all fixable. I mean, I knew the place would need work, and the scope is fantastic. But I’m going to have to find the local tip to start with, I can see that.
I’m freezing and hug myself. Maybe I should try and light the big woodburner. But I want to explore some more first. There’s no point trying to bring my stuff in from the car while it’s still raining out there. I go to the stone archway where three stone steps lead to another room. I take the steps and look round for wooden shutters to open.
Wow! A domed roof. Lower than the other room but actually curved. This was probably the lamia, used for animals at one time. There’s a semicircular stone arch on one wall. Set into it is a collapsing sink unit, crooked cupboard doors and a crusty cooker. But I’m sure I’ll be able to put those cupboard doors back on, and paint them up, too. Maybe do some tiling behind the sink.
I once went on an evening course back home to learn how to do tiling. I was self-taught with the carpentry on the skirting and the window seat I made in the flat. I suppose that’s the thing about working from home: I always had those DIY programmes on in the background and I guess I just got hooked. I was hoping to do a plumbing course too, but took Italian instead in a moment of madness, seduced by a glass of cheap Prosecco and a square of pizza at the open evening. Luckily Ed and I never needed the plumbing sorting. We bought the flat knowing it needed work but that it would make us a tidy profit if it was done up. And Ed was delighted that I’d be able to do most of it. His skills were in numbers, investments, book-balancing, and he certainly invested well when we bought the flat. Still, the work needed on it was nothing compared to this place.
There are more boxes spewing junk in this room: cables and cord, bottles, plastic funnels and redundant overalls. I definitely need to find the tip as soon as possible! In fact, first things first, best find out what they call it. I pull out my phone to look it up on my translation app. Typical! No internet access here. Looks like the stone wall at the front of the house is the best place for a signal so far.
I rummage in my bag for a pen and the black Moleskine notebook I bought at the ferry port. It’s my ‘change my life’ notebook. I take a deep breath. I’ll show everyone I’m not just going to roll over and disappear into a pit of misery or put up with another night on a sofa. My back’s still aching.
Our big sleigh bed went weeks ago. It felt like it was barely cold. After Ed and I split up, it took just six weeks for the flat and its entire contents to be sold. I was sleeping in the empty flat on one of our big squashy sofas until the new owner could come to pick it up. That was the thing that did it, I think. I didn’t even have my own bed any more. That, and the thought of going to my mum’s and having to see her partner Colin in his vest every morning, belching and scratching himself whilst watching Lorraine at full volume. Mum and Colin got together when I went to college. Not long after I moved out, he moved in. It was like my place at home had been filled. There was no going back, no vacancies. I was on my own.
I open the new notebook. My last one had been full of electricity readings, Post Office redirection reference numbers and skip hire details. The pages of this one are stiff and have that wonderful ‘new book’ smell. This is an important page. The first page of the rest of my life.
1. I put a firm full stop after it. Tip.
Then I cross it out and write: 1. Internet. 2. Tip. 3. Goat owner!
I must find out who owns that goat.
I go to pull back the greying net curtains over the sink and they fall down in my hand, dusty and smelly. I sigh. They probably needed replacing anyway.
4. Kitchen nets. And the list starts to grow.
I go back down the stone steps, running my hands along the cold stone walls. There’s another doorway opposite, to one side of the fireplace, and a stone staircase disappearing into the thick wall on the other.
Through the doorway, which is more like a corridor, I’m in the living room. There’s an empty fireplace and another couple of small windows. I open up the shutters. More rubbish. But that’s okay. Rubbish can be got rid of. It’s not like it’s anything major. After another look around, I can see myself sitting here, armchairs in front of the fire. Maybe even use it for B&B guests if I can get the bedrooms painted up. I’ll keep it all white in here too. I touch the lime-washed wall. It’s cool, and my teeth are beginning to chatter. There’s a door leading out to an overgrown courtyard.
I look out of the window to the front and can just about make out my car parked beyond the stone forecourt. The rain must be easing. I’ll get my clothes in once I’ve had a quick look round the rest of the house. It should’ve stopped by then, or at least be lighter, and hopefully the goat will have gone too.
I suddenly remember something, and add it to my list: 48. Electricity box. I don’t want to be stuck here in the dark tonight. That could be a step too far.
As I head through to the next room, towards the back of the house, I stand stock still in the doorway. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. There are only tiny high-up windows, so I hold up my phone’s torch. It’s a high-ceilinged room again, though not as high as the first, and all white. There’s an arch in the wall at the far end, and set into it, a stone statue of Jesus on the cross with a red curtain below. There’s a table in front of it covered with a deep red cloth, and eight chairs set out in front of the table. It’s an altar! A church!
I wasn’t expecting this at all. It’s amazing, and so cool and peaceful. It’s a great space, but I have no idea what I’ll use it for yet. I turn around, wondering about the family gatherings that must have taken place in here. A place for christenings, marriages and funerals. All that history, now just abandoned and gone. I take it all in as I turn around, and then, like a child who’s just got everything on their Christmas wish list, I run through the other rooms, making more and more additions to my list.
There are stone stairs down to the cellar that I take two at a time. It’s another dome-shaped ceiling, and there are even one or two dusty bottles left behind in a corner, and a couple of large steel barrels that actually look quite new. I run back past the goat, who’s now at least looking out through the open door. I’m tempted to give it a shove, but think it’s more likely to go if I ignore it. This time I take the stone stairs going up, running my hand along the wall, getting more excited about everything I could do. I can’t believe I’m here, or that this place is actually mine. I’m desperate now to see what’s upstairs.
It’s dark at the top of the stairs. I pull out my phone again and use the torch, just avoiding tripping over more rubbish piled high. I poke my head into each of the three rooms, wondering which is the most habitable. The floor is bare boards and the walls need something doing to them. I decide to go for the room at the back as my bedroom. It’s the smallest, but it looks like I can move straight in. I’ve got a blow-up mattress; Elinor, one of my Italian night-class gang, lent it to me. That’ll do for the time being. It’ll be like camping, I tell myself; fun! And at least it’s in southern Italy, not south London. I think back to the day my bed was carried out of the flat.
Coming out of the bedroom, I go straight to the long window on the landing at the back of the house. It takes all my force to open the shutters, but my God! I catch my breath. There is a small wrought-iron barrier that I hold on to in order to steady myself, and I wonder if it’s safe. But what a view! Despite the mist and the steady rain, I can see for miles: olive trees, with the occasional house snuggled amongst them. And you only know they’re there because of the smoke rising from the chimneys.
Fires? I think suddenly. At the end of August? Then I remember, it’s probably the fornos being lit, the outdoor ovens. It is Sunday after all. I remember that from my last trip here, when I fell in love with the area and everything about it, including a young art student called Francis. I smile at the memory. He wasn’t the love of my life; I was only seventeen. He was lovely and fun, but I didn’t feel any urge to come back and find him. What I did fall in love with was Italy. I always said I’d return.
Ed didn’t get it. He liked all-inclusive holidays in Sharm el-Sheikh, or skiing holidays in January. He didn’t like the food or anything about Puglia when we visited last year, before ‘we’ became ‘I’.
I wanted to move here there and then. I thought it would give us a joint interest, help to put us back together, but Ed just wanted to find Wi-Fi so he could check the household account and his pension fund. He would never have done something like this. When we met in the university bar in our final year of college, it was an ‘opposites attract’ thing, I think. He was there with his business studies mates and me with my art buddies. We’d all come to see a band play. It was one of the few things we did have in common, our taste in music. We went to lots of gigs. They were fun times.
During our early days in rented flats, we’d scour markets and boot fairs for furniture and bric-a-brac. That’s when we started seriously collecting the eighties albums. It became our weekend hobby. We’d travel all over the place, eating fish and chips on the way home on a Sunday night. That was eight years ago now. But as Ed started to climb the corporate ladder, his tastes began to change and second-hand bric-a-brac became a thing of the past. Ed wanted new, apart from the retro record collection, which had risen in value. He thinks I’m mad now. Maybe I am.
I turn and look at the big landing. I still can’t believe I own all of this. In Tooting we had a two-bedroom flat. Okay, it was a nice flat, and as Ed predicted, it was a great investment. We had loads of interest when it went on the market, selling it in days for twice what we paid for it, but it was nothing compared to this.
I go to the other long window at the far end of the corridor and push open the shutters. I look down on my car, parked at an angle like it’s been abandoned. The rain definitely seems to be easing up to a light shower. I want to go and explore the courtyard to the side of the house now, where there’s a trullo, and an open-sided barn that I just know will be full of junk. I smile. My own trullo. An old single-storey, conical-roofed stone building. When I first came out here, I was fascinated by them. I’d read somewhere that they looked like the Smurfs’ houses, and they do!
I run back downstairs to the front door. I’ll bring in my case now as well, and find some dry clothes. I step outside. It’s warmer than inside, and guess what? It’s stopped raining. The wet and battered bougainvillea is giving off the most wonderful scent after the storm. I look back at the house. My house. I would never have believed I could own something like this, not on my own, not without Ed. There’s a flicker of excitement in my tummy, like fairy lights being switched on and lighting me from the inside.
‘The only regrets you have in life are the things you didn’t do,’ my grandfather used to tell me. So I took him at his word. Now my mum thinks I’m certifiable. But it was just a window of opportunity. I didn’t do it to horrify Ed, although that helped me make my decision. A part of me had always wanted to break out and do something like this, buy a wreck and do it up. I didn’t mind where, but I had thought it more likely to be some run-down part of London or maybe Kent. I was never going to be able to afford something on my own in London, though, and now I own all this!
My mind starts to run off into a fantasy world as I go through the archway at the side of the house and look beyond the overgrown brambles. There’s the open barn on one side of the courtyard, and yes, it is brimming with rubbish. But it would make wonderful B&B accommodation. I couldn’t do it now, obviously, but one day, who knows? For now, I have plans for the little trullo.
I try the door. It’s not locked. I pull out my list again and scribble: 74. Lock for trullo. Then I push open the door and bend down to go in, like Alice in Wonderland after she’s had the ‘Eat Me’ cake.
I stop. I hear it before I can see it. Once inside, I stand up straight and listen again. There’s a dripping noise. I pull out my phone and use the torch. There’s some furniture here: a dark set of drawers that will do for one of the bedrooms in the house, and a small table and chairs. Then I look up, and up and up at the white plaster ceiling – like the inside of a gnome’s hat, I think to myself, and smile just as a plop of water hits me in the eye and my phone dies. Ah, so that’s where the dripping noise is coming from.
With an old paint bucket in place, I take a final look round. This will make the perfect rental cottage, bringing in a little bit of money to top up what I earn with the online greeting card designs.
101, I write in my notebook. Internet connection. I underline it a lot and then make a very firm full stop. I look back at the trullo. I’ll put a bed in, a table and chairs, and cushions along the alcove by the fire. I’ll post pictures on . . .
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