Al Dente
So it turns out the cable car wasn’t that scary after all and after a lazy day spent at Isola Bella beach, recharging their batteries in the clear turquoise water, renting eye-wateringly expensive sunbeds and beach umbrellas and getting sand in all the wrong places, Flick and Maggie woke bright and early the next morning.
Both had a big day ahead of them, though Flick’s was slightly bigger – a whole three thousand metres bigger in fact, in the shape of the highest and most active volcano in Europe.
‘Of course! We’re going to get the cable car up and then hike around the perimeter of some extinct craters and lava flows, before going into a volcanic cave after lunch.’
‘It sounds dangerous.’
‘You know fear and excitement are actually the same emotion.’
‘So I’ve heard. Please be careful. What if you slip?’
‘Don’t worry,’ assured a jovial tour guide, as an eager Flick clambered inside. ‘We have hiking shoes and hard helmets. Your daughter will be fine.’
As Flick tried to stifle a snort of laughter, Maggie rolled her eyes.
The tour guide looked about fifteen. What was it with everyone looking like children these days?
Every time she saw a doctor, they seemed to be getting younger.
Or was it her that was getting older? And the policeman she gave a statement to couldn’t have been more than twenty-something.
A memory of walking into a police station six months ago, to report the disappearance of her fiancé along with her life savings, flashed through her mind. She’d been at her lowest ebb.
‘Ciao, grazie.’
Now she felt like an Italian mother waving her child off on a school trip. Smiling at Flick’s excited expression, she called out as the minibus began to drive away.
‘Enjoy the hike, but remember if you see him, don’t do anything silly!’
‘What? Like push him in the volcano?’
‘I’m being serious!’
‘Me too!’ Flick laughed. ‘Enjoy the cooking class! And don’t forget, whatever happens, keep calm and pasta on!’
Maggie laughed then and stood in the morning sunshine, watching until the minibus disappeared, before stooping down to stroke one of the cats that hung around the hotel.
Plump and ginger, he reminded her of George.
There was still no news. He was still missing.
She hoped someone had taken him in and was feeding him.
And yet, for the first time she felt a glimmer of hope seep in around the edges.
She’d been lost for a while too but on this tiny corner of a tiny island, wearing a new brightly coloured beach dress she’d bought yesterday from a souvenir shop, and with the morning sun on her face and the kitten purring by her ankles, Maggie was starting to feel found.
There were lots of cooking classes to choose from in the area, but the most popular and highly rated was in an old stone farmhouse, deep in the Sicilian countryside and surrounded by olive trees. It was run by a grey-haired matriarch called Mamma Lucia.
‘But you can call me The Godmother,’ she announced, as she welcomed her mix of students through the large wrought-iron gates and led them through her impressive vegetable garden and into her large kitchen.
Trailing at the back, Maggie assumed she was joking. Only, she didn’t look like she was joking. In fact, she looked rather scary, in her navy-blue apron, black-framed glasses and wooden clogs. Which clattered loudly on the flagstone floor as she barked instructions to them in Italian.
‘Sorry, what is she saying?’ whispered a fellow student nervously.
‘She wants us to put on our aprons,’ translated a young American from Boston who Maggie had overheard earlier saying he was travelling through Sicily to explore his heritage and the cooking class looked like ‘a fun thing to do’.
‘Be quiet! I’m talking!’ bellowed The Godmother.
Everyone fell silent. There were many words to describe the cooking class so far, but currently the word fun didn’t look like it was one of them.
‘Cooking is serious business,’ she continued, her sleeves rolled up, elbows covered in flour as she began demonstrating how to make today’s menu – lasagne alla zucca, parmigiana di melanzane, tiramisu – starting with the fresh pasta for the lasagne.
Everyone nodded mutely. The way The Godmother was cracking those eggs with a sharp flick of her wrist – smash – down on the marble top, spilling the whites and piercing the soft yellow yolk so that it oozed into the moat of flour, made everyone flinch.
There was something very metaphorical about those eggs. Well, this was mafia country.
Careful not to be caught not paying attention, Maggie snuck a tentative look around the class.
It was a mixed bunch of about fifteen students, of all ages and races.
Apparently several had come on tours from different cruise ships.
But there was no sign of Him. That said, she wasn’t really surprised.
Despite his love of cooking, a class wasn’t really his thing.
He was never one to follow recipes, preferring to make things up as they went along.
Maggie caught herself at her choice of words. Oh, the irony.
‘Signora, your attention, please!’
She jumped as The Godmother noticed her being distracted and paused from pounding and kneading the dough, to shoot her a furious scowl.
‘Sorry. Of course. Absolutely.’
Nodding vigorously, Maggie gave her full attention as she turned back to pummelling and beating it into shape. She needed to stop thinking about Theo or his texts, and focus. Like The Godmother said, cooking was serious business and at this rate she was going to get into trouble.
Which is why, when she heard the door creak open behind her and the scurry of footsteps, she didn’t turn around at first.
‘Scusi, scusi, sorry to intrude . . .’
It was only when she heard an unmistakable Southern drawl she dared glance over her shoulder.
To see a woman in a leopard-print pantsuit and heels, tottering towards them.
Despite the cool shade inside, she was still wearing her sunglasses and wide-brimmed sunhat, while in the crook of her arm she was carrying a designer tote bag that was so oversized it was almost bigger than she was.
Birdy.
Maggie recognized her immediately as the woman she and Flick had met in the restaurant in Rome. What on earth was she doing here? And, more importantly, was she going to survive the wrath of The Godmother, who looked up sharply at this sudden intrusion.
Maggie braced herself. As did the rest of the class.
‘They sent me to another culinary school, but it was run by complete schmucks! Luckily my driver is local so he knew all about your world-class reputation and drove me here with his foot on the gas . . . I just hope I’m not too late to join your class.’
But if Maggie was thinking Mamma Lucia was going to scream at Birdy and shoo her out of her kitchen, she was very much mistaken.
Instead, seemingly flattered by these compliments from this glamorous American woman who, quite possibly, was of a similar age, The Godmother’s back visibly straightened, her chest inflated and, with a smile not unlike that of the Mona Lisa, she gestured for her to take an apron and join the rest of the students. Which Birdy dutifully did.
‘Grazie.’
‘Prego.’
The two women nodded respectfully to each other, like a couple of prize-winning boxers. In one corner there was the brassy American, in the other the terrifying Sicilian. It was as if both knew they’d met their match. It was quite remarkable actually.
Ten minutes later the demonstration was over and the students were asked to pick partners and move over to their work stations to begin their various tasks.
‘We meet again.’
As Birdy appeared at her side, Maggie was now the one who felt flattered.
‘You remember me?’
‘I’m good with faces. I had six husbands.’
‘Gosh.’
‘Though I rarely remember all their names.’ She laughed, removing her sunhat and sunglasses. ‘But I remember yours. It’s Maggie, right?’
‘Yes.’
Taking a silk headscarf out of her bag, she proceeded to deftly wrap up her hair in an elaborate turban as Maggie watched her in fascination. Honestly, she couldn’t look more fabulous. Meanwhile her own frizzy curls were pulled back into an elastic scrunchie.
‘Where’s your cute little friend?’
‘Hiking a volcano.’
‘Wowee. She’s got some energy, that one. A real firecracker.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Maggie smiled fondly as she thought about Flick’s earlier excitement. But this was coupled with a pang of anxiety. She hoped she wouldn’t do anything stupid up there. It was an active volcano after all. ‘So, what a coincidence, seeing you here!’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t believe in coincidences, do you?’
‘Allora!’
The Godmother appeared beside them, rapping the countertop with a spatula.
‘The pasta must be rolled thin before we make the lasagne!’
That said, if you were talking hot and dangerous with the risk of violent eruptions, look no further than this kitchen.
And we’re not just talking The Godmother.
Huge frying pans of hot oil were bubbling and smoking on the giant stove, into which slices of aubergine were being dropped; butternut squash (and students’ fingers) were being roasted until the flesh was tender; and there was a very dicey situation going on with the young man from Boston, an electric whisk and the bechamel.
‘She’s very serious,’ muttered Maggie, as The Godmother moved on to the next nervous students.
‘Food is a serious business.’ Birdy rolled out the dough with surprising expertise. ‘I’ve had countless men fall in love with me for my buttermilk fried chicken and mashed potatoes.’
‘They sound delicious.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t know, honey. I never ate any.’
‘Whyever not?’
‘I was keeping my figure.’ Birdy patted her tiny waist. ‘But I can tell you something. They didn’t marry me for what I could do in the kitchen. Do you know what I’m saying?’
As Birdy raised an eyebrow and let out a low chuckle, Maggie blushed.
‘You ever been married?’