They arranged to meet at one o’clock. Annie put her phone away, very pleased that he might take one of the rooms for his translation business. However questionable his private life, she knew she could trust him and rely on his advice, and with all the responsibilities she was now carrying, that felt good. She glanced at her watch, swallowed the last of her coffee and headed back across the road.
Back at the school, she had only just started writing a reply to her mum’s email when Paolina appeared to tell her Signor Lagrange had arrived. Annie went out to meet him. He was a slim, balding man, maybe in his mid or late fifties, with a friendly, suntanned face.
‘Signor Lagrange? My name’s Annie Brewer. What can I do for you?’
He shook her hand. ‘Good morning. I’ve been advised to come and see you by a good friend of mine. You know Matthew Brown, I believe?’
Annie smiled back at him. ‘Yes, indeed. Would you like to come through to my office?’ Together they walked back along the corridor and into her little office. Annie apologised for the rather Spartan surroundings. ‘I’m afraid I’m waiting for the new furniture to arrive.’ He took a seat opposite her. ‘So how come you know Matt?’
‘We share a love of the mountains. He and I often go climbing together.
‘So you’re a member of the Santorso Climbing Club?’ Annie kept her voice expressionless.
Signor Lagrange nodded. ‘Yes, for many years.’ His face became more serious. ‘I was fortunate to know your late husband very well. We were all devastated by his death.’
Annie nodded, but made no response apart from murmuring, ‘Thank you.’
He leant forward. ‘Anyway, I’ve come to see you in your professional capacity as the director of this new school of English. I have a problem and Matt tells me you’re the person to solve it for me.’
‘Anything I can do to help.’
‘Are you, by any chance, familiar with the new Montalto Hotel?’ Annie certainly was. The ski resort of Montalto was situated directly above the town; a fifteen-minute drive up a series of tight hairpin bends that climbed hundreds of metres in a short distance. In fact, one of the places she was planning to visit in her search for an apartment was Montalto. The new hotel was being heralded as the valley’s latest five-star hotel, offering luxurious accommodation to visitors, as well as employment to a good number of local people.
‘I certainly am. It must be nearly finished by now.’
Signor Lagrange nodded. ‘Yes, indeed. Anyway, I’m the general manager of the hotel. As part of my duties, I have to ensure that our staff all have a satisfactory command of English.’ Annie leant forward in her turn. This was sounding promising. ‘This is where you come in.’
Annie resisted the temptation to get up and hug Signor Lagrange, but it took willpower. Here she was, the school not yet open, being presented with the sort of contract she could only dream of. ‘I’d be delighted to help.’
Together, they discussed the details and Annie soon realised that there was going to be enough work in this one contract alone to keep a teacher fully occupied for months and months. She spared a thought for the two new teachers she had engaged to start in January. It looked as if she was going to need them both. She and Signor Lagrange discussed everything and she arranged to come up to the hotel the following week to meet the staff and do a preliminary assessment of their levels. Finally, they shook hands on it and she promised to email him everything that afternoon. He looked relieved.
‘That’s excellent. The hotel opens to the public in March, so if lessons can begin early in the New Year, so much the better.’
Annie thanked him and stood up. But, before leaving, Signor Lagrange had one more surprise for her. He dropped an envelope on her desk. ‘It’s very important you get to know the hotel and the ski resort as well as possible. That’ll help a lot when you’re teaching my staff. I thought you might like one of these.’
Intrigued, Annie opened the envelope and pulled out what looked like a big credit card attached to a blue ribbon. It took her a moment to work out what it was. As she realised, her breath whistled out. ‘A season ticket?’ She looked up at him in wonder. ‘You’re giving me a season ticket to the ski lifts?’
He was smiling more broadly. ‘It’s a full season lift pass. Matt tells me you’re a very keen skier and I thought you might like one. I’ve got half a dozen to give to VIPs. You’re the first.’
Annie very nearly kissed him. She had been skiing for as long as she could remember and she always bought a season ticket. A split-second calculation told her this little piece of plastic was worth hundreds and hundreds of euros. She felt quite overwhelmed.
‘But… really, this is too much.’
He waved away her protestations and then caught her eye. ‘Your husband and I were good friends. It’s the least I can do.’
This time Annie did hug him. ‘Thank you so very much, Signor Lagrange.’
‘Massimo. Please call me Massimo.’
‘Thank you, Massimo. And I’m Annie.’
He saw the expression on her face and smiled at her. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Annie.’
Matt arrived, as arranged, just after one o’clock and Annie’s first act was to hug him as well. When she released him he took a step back and smiled at her. ‘And I’m pleased to see you, too.’
She smiled back and told him about her visit from Massimo Lagrange and the amazing business opportunity he had offered. ‘So, lunch is on me, Matt.’
She showed him round the school, giving him his pick of rooms for his translation business. He chose the first room on the left, opposite the reception area. This was a medium-sized room looking out over the car park and it had its own little bathroom. Annie apologised for the garish colours on the walls, but he declared himself perfectly happy to redecorate if he felt it necessary. She saw him looking hopefully towards the reception desk and she explained that he would have to wait to meet Paolina until another time as her lunch break started at twelve-thirty. She gave him a serious look. ‘But, remember what you promised. All right?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He affected a totally unconvincing air of servility.
They went across the road to the pizzeria. She ordered a mixed salad while he chose a bistecca alla valdostana, and they nibbled olives and bread sticks while they waited for the food to arrive. Annie decided to steer clear of the subject of blonde Luisa and, instead, she told him all about her plans for the future. She avoided talking about Steve and told him how she had reached the decision to go it alone.
‘I’d been working in the same place in Turin for seven years and I’d just had enough of it. The trouble with teaching is that it’s so cyclical. You’re there at the beginning of term, you teach the class until the end of term and then they leave and move on, but you stay put. And, to be honest, I was pretty much running the school, but getting paid peanuts. It was getting me down.’
He nodded, sipping his water. ‘I can imagine. My life in Florence has been getting me down, too. The trouble with working from home is that you never get out. Nobody cares whether you’ve shaved that morning or whether you’re even wearing clothes.’ Annie’s eyes flicked over his stubbly face and he grinned. ‘All right, that was a bad analogy. I don’t shave every day anyway, but you know what I mean. That’s why I specifically want my office to be separate this time. This way I live in one place and I work in another, almost like a normal person.’
‘Nobody could accuse you of being a normal person, Matt.’ She was remembering just what easy company he was. After he left Turin years ago, Steve had missed him a lot; and so had she. In fact she had missed him more than she had ever admitted, even to herself. She looked up at him, a smile on her face. Over the past few years, she reflected, smiles had been in very short supply.
After