Chapter 17
diciassette
Alessio spent over an hour in the comune records room. It had that other-worldly smell of musty yellowing paper and antique wooden furniture.
Short-haired, narrow-nosed Elisa did her best to walk him briefly through the collection, indicating where he could find birth and death records, marriage data, migration papers, and everything in between.
While her time with him was brief, she managed to impress on him the importance of one thing: wearing the protective cotton gloves.
Elisa spoke very little English, but with the assistance of Google, Alessio was able to get his bearings.
‘You stay when you like . . .’ Elisa smiled as she exited the room, heading back to the reception desk.
Alessio steepled his gloved hands at his chest in thanks.
Then he turned, looking around him at the entire documented history of Impastino.
But where to start? He opened the photos app on his phone and jumped to a special folder he had labelled, Nonna’s smile.
In there he had saved a collection of some of the rare fleeting moments of his nonna’s happiness that someone had managed to capture on film.
He’d photographed old developed photos from the eighties, nineties and 2000s, appreciating the changing senses of taste and fashion of those times.
But one thing remained the same – that Mona Lisa–like smile.
Rare. Almost indecipherable. Usually Nonna Immacolata had been stony-faced, blank, or had avoided the camera’s lens altogether, rendering those smiles all the more precious.
Something happened to you that made you like this.
And I’m determined to work out what it was.
Alessio turned to the birth records section, noting the chronological labels marked on the spines of the disintegrating bound volumes. He felt both overwhelmed and uncomfortable, as if he were about to pry into someone’s personal belongings without their knowledge.
I have to start somewhere.
He grasped the 1925 volume and pulled. The weight of it – both physical and metaphysical – came crashing down on him like a tonne of bricks.
What if I find something I don’t want to find?
Simona’s final message continued to roll around Francesca’s mind for the remainder of the morning. She should not have been surprised by Simona’s ability to pick up on her lie. Simona simply knew her too well. Like a sister.
Simona was the calm to Francesca’s storm, and the reasoning logic to Francesca’s passion.
Perhaps this was why they had always been so close: they were a supportive balance of opposites.
That was certainly the reason it had taken only seconds for her to see through Francesca’s second-cousin charade.
But that morning, as Francesca stood beside Maria at the workbench juggling tasks – pitting olives, filleting sardines and churning out a mound of hand-made orecchiette – Simona’s probing question tickled her.
In so many ways, he IS the most perfect man.
With each roll of dough, each slice, each toss of the frying pan, Alessio came to mind.
The delicious tattoos that wrapped around his forearms. Those hazel-brown eyes that somehow saw through her.
His clean, fresh cologne; the scent memory of which she could replicate in her imagination, even beyond the heady ingredients in front of her.
This crush, or whatever it was, was intoxicating. It had been years since someone had captured her attention quite like this. But then again, she’d never met anyone quite like Alessio.
When they opened the doors at midday, the trattoria filled immediately. The peace of the morning gave way to the noisy, bustling busyness of service, and Francesca switched gears with well-practised ease.
‘Buongiorno!’ she greeted, arriving at the first table without immediately looking up from her order pad.
‘Buongiorno, signorina!’
The familiar-sounding reply pulled her eyes to the table. ‘Alessio! You came!’ Francesca’s stomach effervesced at the mere sight of him sitting there with her handwritten copy of the day’s menu in his hand.
‘I promised. And, I’m hungry.’
‘Ma certo! But first tell me . . .’ She lowered her voice a little and settled a gentle hand on his shoulder, finding only taut muscular definition under the warm cotton of his tee. ‘Did you find out anything about your nonna?’
He exhaled. ‘Nothing. Not a birth record. Not a marriage record. Nothing.’
‘Oh?’ Her focus clouded as she thought for a moment. ‘How strange! Not even a birth record? And the dates?’
‘I looked where I was told and even around the time of her so-called “birthday”. Because even she didn’t know for sure when it was. And twelve months either side.’
Not wanting to dishearten him she said, ‘Tranquillo. Something will come up. I am sure of it. In the meantime, I’ll get you some lunch.
’ She moved around to stand behind him and traced her finger down the day’s set menu.
‘Today we are starting with melone and prosciutto. Then, orecchiette alle sarde. You know, sardines. I cooked them first on the grill over charcoal then finished them in a loose sauce of fresh tomatoes, white wine, capers and dried black olives. It all pairs very well with the orecchiette. For dolce, a simple mousse of whipped mascarpone and our cherries, and perhaps un caffè?’ She tapped her pen to her lips. ‘Va bene?’
‘Sounds like I’m about to die and go to heaven.’
Noting the pair sitting at the next table, she bent down and whispered with a covert chin flick, ‘You will have interesting company on that journey. Do you remember Nonna’s mobile phones?’
‘I do . . .’ Alessio slowly leaned back in his chair to assess the pair.
‘These men are Nonna’s boyfriends.’
His eyes widened and his mouth dropped into an incredulous gape. ‘And . . . do they know this?’
‘That she’s dating both of them? I doubt it. They are best friends. The bald man . . .’ She mouthed the name Santino. ‘He’s Phone Number One. The short man . . .’ She mimed the name Mimmo. ‘He’s Phone Number Two.’ Francesca brought her index finger to her lips. ‘Shhh.’
‘You mentioned maybe a third phone.’ Alessio turned slightly in his chair to assess the other elderly men in the trattoria.
‘I’m too scared to look further.’ She peered cautiously around at the mostly elderly crowd, which included a disproportionate number of men. ‘It could be anyone!’
‘She’s got good taste in these two at least.’
Francesca tittered. ‘Speaking of taste . . . are we still ok for the Secret Life of Pasta session tonight, once I close the kitchen?’
He gave her a wink. ‘I’m in.’
She gave his shoulder an appreciative squeeze then left the bustling dining room to prepare his order.
‘Who is this for?’ Maria asked, craning her nose over Francesca’s shoulder at the bench.
Francesca began carefully plating Alessio’s lunch. ‘Alessio is here. And he’s hungry.’
‘Hungry for you!’ Maria cackled at her own humour, while Francesca fought the rising heat in her cheeks.
‘Nonna . . .’ She pushed Maria gently away. ‘Don’t start trouble. And don’t let Mamma hear you talk like that.’
Maria scoffed. ‘Don’t worry about her. Just focus on you.’
With each course she served Alessio, Francesca couldn’t help but linger by the corner of the serving ledge to watch him enjoy his first bites.
The way he tucked the blushing pink prosciutto around the melon, bringing it to his lips, followed by a sip of his vino bianco.
He closed his eyes and nodded, sending a tingle from Francesca’s toes to her nose.
Then, she watched him select the perfect mouthful of orecchiette alle sarde, being sure to collect a little of each element on his fork.
As his lips closed around it, Francesca saw his left hand ball into a fist, before flattening once again on the tablecloth.
His eyes closed with pleasure. But it was the mascarpone mousse that received the best reaction.
He devoured it in just a few mouthfuls before shaking his head, as if searching for answers.
Alessio’s enjoyment of his lunch was painted across his face, his hands, the way his shoulders relaxed with pleasure.
She savoured the moment.
All. Of. It.
As he waited for the evening’s Secret Life of Pasta session, Alessio paced at the end of the bed, feeling at a loose end.
Lunch had completely unhinged him. Was the food chef-y and worthy of a Michelin star?
No. Would it fill the cover of a magazine, luring hungry stomachs at the supermarket checkout (plastic bag in hand, of course)?
No. There was nothing fancy about Francesca’s lunch, and yet the complexity of the flavour pairings had struck him.
It took some chefs years to be able to cook so instinctively.
To be able to balance the flavours so harmoniously.
Capers and dried olives in the same dish was a bold move, but balanced against the kiss of sweet white wine and that tomato sauce . . . it was perfection. Intelligent. The brininess of the sardines hummed through the entire dish.
Then, the cherries. Each mouthful of mousse had felt almost tantric, and had instantly brought to mind the way her fingertips had pressed one of those sun-drenched fragrant beauties to his lips by the side of the road.
He’d let his mind wander for the briefest of moments, wondering what it might be like to lick some of that whipped lusciousness from her bare skin. The tug for something more pulled at his middle.
No. Focus.
He turned to examine the vast collection of cookbooks in Francesca’s collection.
Marcella Hazan.
Nigella Lawson.
Julia Child.
Yotam Ottolenghi.
Samin Nosrat.
Marco Pierre White.
Irma Rombauer . . .
Her collection was divided by cuisine type and specific cooking genre, with pasta the focus of the largest set in the collection. Naturally.
He withdrew a few books, which featured sticky notes peeping from the pages. Most were scribbled with indecipherable Italian. As he reached for Massimo Bottura’s Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef, Alessio’s eyes latched on to a folder, the spine of which was labelled Giostro Cooking School.
He withdrew it and set it down on the small circular dining table, fanning open the binding. The contents comprised copious notes, recipe cards, a journal, assessment reports and even a photo of Francesca with her father, pasta machine cranks in hand.
This suddenly felt a little too much. This was her private world.
And yet, he couldn’t help but continue to pry. Up to this point they had been so open and honest about this shared side of their lives, he felt he owed it to his curiosity to look a little deeper.
He pulled the assessment reports from their plastic pocket and began to read.
The words used – expert . . . deftly prepared .
. . confident . . . to perfect-ion – didn’t come as a surprise.
He had seen all this, and tasted it for himself.
He searched further until he came to her journal.
It was a perfectly organised collection of her thoughts and experiences.
And, perhaps because her studies had been in London, they were all in English.
The glaze did not thicken as Chef’s did. So I continued to emulsify off the heat . . .
He turned the page.
The chocolate just didn’t set. I thought I’d taken it to 45 degrees. But clearly not. It simply didn’t temper to a crack. I tried again, until I had wasted two kilos.
Another page.
. . . as the rum caught, I was sure I had set my chef apron alight. No, just my tea towel. Flambé failure.
He continued to flick and peruse, noting how none of her difficult challenges were pasta-related. He felt proud of her for this. It showed that she knew where her strengths were.
Grabbing his phone, Alessio made a list in Notes that reflected all that he found: Flambé; tempering chocolate; en papillote; boning a chicken . . .
In exchange for your pasta knowledge, Francesca, let me help you with a few tricky things.