If You Loved Me: A story of love, loss and a cat called Leonardo

By Jennifer Pulling

Caroline was a free spirit of the Sixties until her travels brought her to Rome where she fell disastrously in love with Marco. Years later her daughter Amy arrives in the city determined to unearth this tale of love and loss. Her quest takes her into a world of cats and eccentric cat ladies, long hidden family secrets and a perilous affair with mysterious Davide.

A ginger cat called Leonardo provides the missing link in Caroline’s romantic story. Yet there is a surprise awaiting Amy that will change her destiny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bealey Publishing
• Release date: Apr 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781838366704

Book preview

Jennifer Pulling

If You Loved Me

A story of love, loss and a cat called Leonardo

First published by Bealey Publishing 2021

Copyright © 2021 by Jennifer Pulling

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Jennifer Pulling asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Jennifer Pulling has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

Cover design by Stephanie Peat

First edition

ISBN: 978-1-8383667-0-4

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

Find out more at reedsy.com

Publisher Logo

Contents

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

X

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

IXX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

XXVII

XXVIII

XXIX

XXX

XXXI

XXXII

XXXIII

XXXIV

XXXV

XXXVI

XXXVII

XXXVIII

XXXIX

XL

XLI

XLII

XLIII

XLIV

XLV

XLVI

XLVII

XLVIII

LI

L

LI

LII

LIII

My heartfelt thanks go to:

Also by Jennifer Pulling

I

A large grey cat perched on a fragment of fallen pillar caught her attention. On her way to a café in Piazza Navona, Amy Armstrong paused to admire the creature’s Zen-like stillness. The cat turned its amber gaze to contemplate her, then turned away. Like many momentous occasions in life, Amy was unaware of how significant this moment had been.

She moved on, merging with those waiting to cross the road, a slight, dark-haired woman with eyes that a past lover once described as witch’s eyes, her jeans and cotton shirt making her indistinguishable among the teeming tourists of this city.

‘Simply inviting a colpo d’aria,’ Signora Nannini would comment, who lived with the Italian fear of being struck by one of these dangerous draughts and remained muffled in jacket and scarves until April was safely past. ‘These tourists are so foolish.’

But Amy was in Rome on a mission.

The aroma of dark roasted coffee hit her as soon as she walked through the café doors. She was gazing at the noisy roasting machines, the shelves stacked with bags of coffee, when someone spoke her name. She turned to look straight into the dark eyes of a middle-aged man who had approached her.

‘Paolo Giordano,’ he smiled. ‘I thought it must be you. There is a resemblance to your mother, although of course she was blonde.’

Taking his hand, she said: ‘This is an amazing place.’

‘Tazza D’Oro? Yes. In my opinion, though not everyone’s, they serve the best coffee in Rome. But it is much more than a simple coffee bar, this is a torrefazione: they roast their own coffee so the blends are unique to them.’ He gestured towards the cashier. ‘Please choose what you will take, we must pay before we can order.’

Amy shrugged. ‘A cappuccino, I suppose.’

‘Ah,’ he shook his finger. ‘Is it true this is your first time in Rome? Then you must have the house specialty, the granita di caffe.’

‘If you say so.’

‘I insist.’

The result was a dreamy mix of frozen coffee, broken into slush and layered with fresh whipped cream, the bitterness cut by the dairy sweetness.

She closed her eyes as she tasted the first spoonful. ‘Oh, it’s heavenly.’

Paolo laughed. ‘What did I tell you?’

He sipped his coffee. ‘So tell me, why it is you who have come to Rome instead of your mother?’

He must have been a real looker when he was young, Amy mused. Even now, in his fifties, he was very attractive with that full head of white hair. If his brother had been anything like him, then it wasn’t surprising…

‘Well?’ he prompted.

Should she lie and say her mother was too busy in the shop, or not well enough to travel? The truth was bound to come out, sooner or later. She finished the last of the granita and laid down her spoon.

‘The thing is, Signor Giordano, she didn’t want to come to Rome. In fact, she doesn’t want to take up the inheritance.’

He frowned. ‘I don’t understand. It was Marco’s express wish that the apartment should go to her. The family always knew it would be so.’

‘Yes, I read the letter but…’ It was all so difficult. How could she tell him of Mum’s odd reaction when the news arrived? That she had made Amy promise she wouldn’t say anything about it to her father. It had been all she could do to persuade her mother not to destroy the notary’s words.

‘Well, Signor…’

‘Paolo, please, I feel we are almost related.’

‘Okay, Paolo. I don’t understand her reason any more than you do. I never knew Mum had had a relationship with your brother until she told me.’

Paolo produced a pack of cigarettes and held it out to Amy. She shook her head. ‘You don’t mind?’

‘God no, Mum smokes all the time.’

‘Yes, I do remember that.’ He drew out a thin brown cigarette and flicked his lighter. Amy noticed the beautiful silver ring on his middle finger, smelled spicy cologne.

‘She’d never mentioned Marco before?’

‘No, and she really didn’t want to discuss it any more with me. Just said the past was the past, she had no intention of returning to Rome and wanted the apartment to be disposed of.’

Paolo’s gaze was fixed on her as if trying to grasp what she was saying. Amy wished she could end this interview, escape to the roar and bustle of the streets outside, to do what she had come to do before she went back to England.

‘Is that why you’re here, then?’ His tone sharpened. ‘To rid yourself of Marco’s apartment?’

She thought of the shadowy room in the apartment, of the previous evening, when she had sat watching the nightlife of the city from the big window that looked down onto the square. She’d remembered her mother’s reaction and been incredulous that anyone could turn down such a wonderful gift.

‘Mum asked me to deal with it, but I was also curious,’ she told Paolo. ‘I wanted to see the apartment for myself and I’ve never been to Rome. This seemed the perfect opportunity.’

He smiled then. ‘Everyone should see Rome at least once in their lifetime. How long do you plan to stay?’

‘Probably only a few days.’

‘Stay a bit longer if you can. Get to know the city. Then perhaps we can discuss the inheritance again.’

His words had a surprising effect on her. Instead of protesting that she couldn’t spare the time, she was needed in her mother’s spice shop, Amy found she was nodding in agreement. During this brief meeting with Paolo, a subtle shift seemed to have occurred. The feeling of having only a fleeting purpose in this city had been replaced by a sense of connection.

On her way back to Via Gioberti, Amy paused again at the site where she had glimpsed the grey cat. The sun was setting, illuminating the ruins, but there was no sign of the animal. She leaned over the railings to look and thought she caught the sound of voices. Then she noticed some metal steps leading downward and a sign explaining that Largo di Torre Argentina housed a sanctuary for cats. She decided she would return the following day.

II

CAROLINE – 1967

It was as if Italy had been waiting just for her.

Nothing could compare with the excitement of boarding a train in Paris and rushing through the night. The couchette attendant would arrive to pull down the beds and she would lie, sniffing the scent

of fresh linen, dozing fitfully, to be wakened by disembodied voices announcing the mysterious names of stations, or the random shunting of the train from one track to another.

In the early hours she’d tumble out of bed and go to queue for her turn in the now smelly toilet. Her face in the mirror looked puffy and strange from hours in the confined space of the compartment. It was certainly not the most comfortable way of travelling but she loved it: that sense of anticipation as the hours passed, until she’d go to stand in the corridor, to watch for the long-awaited station to slide into view.

As a series of trains took her further and further south, the journeys assumed a life of their own, springing from the need deep within to escape from the bookish young girl she had been to discover her sensuous self.

When she stood on the Piazza Michelangelo and gazed down onto Florence, that city of ochre and terracotta, illuminated by the setting sun, it appeared like one huge palazzo and she knew there was no turning back, all would now be revealed.

The sun is God, the artist JMW Turner is reputed to have said on his deathbed. And all this time, the sun was her god. She worshipped it, basked in it. Under its benign flame she explored city streets, stepped inside cool museums and galleries, crossed the Venice Lagoon to the island of Murano in a vaporetto and climbed towers and gazed over arcaded Bologna. Yet all the time, a part of her remained detached, as if she were watching herself, the heroine of one of the novels she liked to devour, whose destiny might be about to alter. However energetically she pursued this life, in an obscure way she remained intact.

Of course, there were encounters. She flirted, laughed a lot, drank wine and met men with mysterious double lives for lunch, never dinner. Once, she woke to the hubbub of goats and chickens, the Tuscan sun slanting across the bedroom floor, with a man named Dante beside her.

Until, one late spring evening, she stood in Rome’s Borghese Gardens, admiring the famous sunset view from the Pincio Terrace. She watched the sky blaze with light, swallows darting across it like the ink markings of a Japanese printmaker. Spires and domes seemed to float in the air. Caroline’s heart lifted as she realised this delightful relationship she’d entered into could continue indefinitely. Like the swallows etched against the sunset glow, she was free to come and go, to enjoy la dolce vita with no danger of breaking her heart.

Why then did she accept the offer of an exchange visit: a summer in Rome to study its literature and culture? Instead of these delightful trips why did she choose to remain in the same city for so long? Why did she go to Bar Il Delfino when she could have strolled through the cooling evening streets, crossed the river to Trastevere, sat at a pavement table in one of the trattorie and enjoyed a pizza and some wine? Or she might have joined the evening crowds, had her portrait done by an artist on the Spanish Steps. Like so many life-changing events, it depended on a random decision. Had she known where it would lead her, she would have turned in the opposite direction, stepped into a phone booth and called her friends, Mario or Antonello. Hindsight, as they say, is a wonderful thing. She could see herself clearly: hair cut in a shiny bob, wearing the pink trouser suit her mother made for her, smoking one of the workmen’s cigarettes her boyfriend introduced her to during her time in Florence.

She had courted romance but did not reckon on how much tranquillity one stands to lose in its pursuit, how perilous the adventure might be.

III

‘Where in heaven’s name is your papa?’ Signora Nannini demanded of her cat. ‘Surely it isn’t that difficult to lay his hands on a bit of guanciale?’ She dwelt for a moment on thoughts of the pork cheek that rendered up such indispensable fat for her repertoire of pasta dishes. ‘And a little cheese, some pecorino? You’d think I’d sent him out with a list as long as your arm.’

Leonardo yawned. He leapt onto the windowsill to stare longingly down on the street. He was a splendid ginger cat in gleaming condition, if overweight, and the apple of Giulia Nannini’s eye. Behind him, she bustled about in the kitchen, rather pointlessly setting a saucepan on the hob. Her husband had left the apartment two and a half hours earlier and the appointed time for lunch was perilously close.

‘Probably got talking to that friend of his, that Antonio, and they’ve gone off for a coffee,’ she told Leonardo who remained with his back to her.

She paused in front of the television set as the clock on the wall reached noon: time for the weather forecast. The only presenter she trusted was the handsome uniformed colonel on Rai Uno. Gian Franco, given the chance, would tune to Rete 4, preferring the bosomy girls’ all-female version.

‘Likelihood of some showers,’ the colonel pronounced in his precise Italian.

‘Oh Leonardo, I only hope he’s wearing his health vest. I’ll make meatballs of him if he isn’t.’

Perhaps at the mention of meatballs, Leonardo seemed to decide that if anyone were going without lunch it wouldn’t be him. He leapt off the windowsill and coiled himself round Giulia’s legs.

‘My poor baby, let’s see what Mamma can find to tempt you.’

As he had never known a moment’s real hunger in his life he could afford to be picky, sniffing at such delicacies as a plate of chicken breast before turning away. Today it was the turn of some beef slices. He nibbled daintily one or two before returning to his seat in the window.

‘Oh Dio, I hope you’re not sickening for something,’ she was saying when the front door opened and her husband entered the room.

He held a wet umbrella, which Giulia silently took from him and placed in the sink.

‘Sorry I’ve been rather a time,’ he said, ‘but I went to watch a parade in the Circus Maximus and who should I meet but…’

‘Your dear friend, Antonio,’ Giulia finished. ‘I guessed as much.’ She seized his string bag and peered at the contents.

‘All present and correct,’ he interjected.

‘So I should hope, after all this time.’

Her husband sighed at her retreating back. The cat gave him a conspiratorial glance from his perch. Gian Franco sidled to the television set and switched to Rete 4, turning the sound down at the same time. A voluptuous woman silently mouthed a welcome to a quiz contestant. He marvelled at the ripeness of her lips, the whiteness of her teeth as she flashed a smile. Leonardo approached and jumped on his lap.

‘So what kind of a day have you had, eh, cumpari?’ he murmured, stroking the animal’s fur, his eyes fixed on the screen. ‘The same as usual, I suppose.’

Leonardo was never allowed to leave the apartment for fear of the real or imagined dangers that awaited him on the Roman streets.

‘At least I get out to the market every morning.’

The quiz presenter appeared to be commiserating with the defeated contestant. She slid her arm round his shoulders and leaned her body against his. Gian Franco wondered what that might feel like. Time passed as he stared, seduced by her curves.

‘Gian Franco,’ Giulia was standing in the kitchen door. ‘Will you switch that thing off and lay the table please?’

The steaming bowl of pasta alla Gricia came to the table, the spaghetti nestled in a thick, glossy sauce and finished with a generous scattering of the Roman cheese. Giulia was a conservative but excellent cook of regional dishes. He poured their one permitted glass of wine.

Giulia took a sip. ‘I must tell you what I saw this morning. That English signora, you know the one who lives across the street? I watched her from the window going out with her children and you’ll never guess how they were dressed. Not a jacket in sight. It’s the same with the tourists. Yesterday, I saw one young woman wearing just a thin shirt and jeans. So very stupid.’

Gian Franco sighed. He heard this at least once a week, the threat of being hit by the air and that other mysterious malady of cervicale, which struck if you went outside with wet hair.

‘Perhaps the British are more robust,’ he ventured. ‘Or maybe they don’t have colpo d’aria in English.

If you can’t name it, surely you can’t suffer from it.

And if you don’t know when it has hit you, it cannot hurt you.’

‘What rubbish you do talk, Gian Franco. It is a known fact that draughts are dangerous. By the way, how’s the pasta?’

‘Delicious as always, my dear.’

‘Where did you buy the pecorino?’

‘The usual place,’ he lied. When the parade passed, he had lingered with Antonio to watch an historic enactment. After all, today was Rome’s birthday - surely it was right to honour it. That had meant a random snatching up of the cheese and salami before the stalls closed for the day.

‘It tastes different somehow. I’ll have to have a word with Mario when I see him next.’

‘I wouldn’t do that.’ Gian Franco rubbed the back of his neck in a nervous gesture. ‘You know how sensitive he is about his cheese.’

This action diverted his wife’s attention. ‘Were you wearing a scarf this morning?

‘I was but…’

He had lost it, fallen unnoticed in the crowd as they pushed their way through at the end of the show.

‘It was only a cheap one,’ he said. ‘Not the one you knitted me for Christmas.’

‘You’ll pay for it later,’ Giulia told him. ‘Chamomile tea for you, and later I’ll boil some water. You can breathe in the steam before you go to bed.’ She rose to clear the dishes and make coffee.

Leonardo gave him a long, consoling stare, then followed her into the kitchen.

IV

Over supper in the small pizzeria Amy had discovered, tucked away behind the Trevi Fountain, she thought over the events of the day. Paolo had obviously been distressed by the news that her mother wanted to be rid of the apartment. Such a