Chapter 25
Sabrina was outside the restaurant at a quarter to nine sharp the next morning. She’d checked in on Marielle before she left.
She was still on her sofa and hadn’t woken to take the two ibuprofen or the glass of water Sabrina had set out for her. She
really was out for the count.
Flick rounded the corner within five minutes, her ponytail swinging as she walked with her long stride.
“Morning,” she said and opened up the front door, turning off the alarm and lifting the electric security blinds with practiced
hits on switches and buttons.
“First job in the morning is very important,” said Flick. “Putting on the coffee machine. I drink gallons of it. You can have
a coffee whenever you like, by the way. Come on and I’ll show you how it works.”
She was just doing that when Teddy walked in, his face bearing a not-too-happy expression.
“ Buon giorno , Teodoro,” said Flick in an affected Italian accent. “Whatsa uppa with you? You have the face of a decomposing crab.”
“Tripadvisor, that’s whatsa uppa . More bad reviews.
” Teddy ripped the phone out of his pocket, found the page, and read, “‘Rude waiting staff, cold inedible food that we had to wait half an hour for.’... ‘Dirty toilets. Inappropriate sexual comments from waiters toward my wife.’... ‘Found foreign object in pasta.’... A nice mix covering all the ground, don’t you think?
Oh look... ‘Cold mozzarella sticks.’ We don’t even serve mozzarella sticks. ”
“Blimey, that is bad,” said Flick, closing up her happy morning smile.
“Have you answered them?” asked Sabrina.
“Sorry?” said Teddy.
“Have you replied to them? Asked them to contact you to give you more details about when they were here? I’m presuming they’re
fake reviews, aren’t they? If other people see that you’ve answered them and... called them out basically, they’re less
likely to see them as gospel. And definitely make the comment that you don’t serve mozzarella sticks. Also put up an announcement
that you’re getting fake reviews and are currently liaising with a technical expert to uncover where they’re being generated
from...”
Sabrina’s voice tailed off. She wasn’t sure if Marielle had told Teddy what she did for a living. If she hadn’t, then he was
going to think that his new cleaner had a right gob on her.
What he said was, “That’s actually a really good idea that I hadn’t thought of. I presumed the best plan was to ignore them.”
“How do you know all that?” said Flick, well impressed. Sabrina gave a small, almost embarrassed shrug of her shoulders. “I’ve
come across it before.”
Flick picked up her coffee. “I’m going to get onto that straightaway,” she said.
“Can you tell me where the cleaning stuff is, please?” asked Sabrina. Whatever she was in her other life, this was the only
one she was living at the moment, and she guessed she needed to start with scrubbing the toilets.
While Flick was in the office, Sabrina cleaned the loos and put in fresh loo paper from the storage room, filled up the soap containers, and emptied the bins.
She was introduced to the sous chef Antonio, who was actually Tony from Whitby, but he wanted to be Italian, so they’d made him an honorary one.
She mopped the restaurant floor, polished the cutlery, and set the tables.
She did jobs she wasn’t asked to but thought they might need doing, like wiping down the laminated specials menus, giving the stainless steel coffee pots a good polish, and watering the plants.
Teddy’s cousins—their father Luca was Salvatore’s younger brother—Niccolo and Roberto turned up just before twelve and greeted
her with big curves of smiles. They were young, good-looking Italians who didn’t take life too seriously, and Sabrina liked
them on sight. She guessed, despite their flippancy, they were hard workers because she didn’t think Teddy would tolerate
slackers, family or not.
George arrived then, whose job it was mainly to make pizzas in the wood-fired oven in an adjoining room. “Proof that anyone
given the proper training can make good pizzas,” Teddy explained to her. “Even an old Greek.”
“Less of the old—I’m only sixty-one,” George threw back with some choice words of Greek, and Teddy threw a mouthful of Italian
back at him, and Sabrina thought that this must be how it always was between them, this cheerful banter disguised as warfare;
it smacked of people who were fond of each other.
When the first lunch customers turned up, Sabrina’s duties were transferred into the kitchen. Teddy set her on cutting up
onions and peppers and mushrooms and grating garlic because he never crushed it, he said, and crossed himself as if it was
on some sort of sin scale to do so. While she was chopping, she was observing. She liked the buzz, the theatrics of the waiters
conversing with each other in their native tongue, even though Teddy told them at least twice to tweak down the volume. She
noticed how many people seemed to be grabbing a quick lunch, no starters, no desserts, and she noticed how many were walking
in only to be turned away because no tables were free. And she knew that whatever was blocked in her brain, the corporate
analyst part of it was running as well as it ever was.
They had a break at two thirty. Teddy said that she could go or stay until five.
She stayed and ate with them all around the big table and absorbed the chat, also answering the odd question, even though they all knew she’d lost her memory and was working here in the hope it would help her get it back; she was glad they knew because she had nothing to hide from these kind people.
She turned down a pudding, though Flick didn’t: a slice of lemon cheesecake that was the size of a house brick.
Then when the others, all except Teddy, went off until the dinner shift, she carried on cleaning.
“You don’t have to,” he said.
“What else am I going to do?” she replied. Whoever they’d had in cleaning before had done an okay job, but her standards were
higher.
She thought he should have dimmable lights for the evening customers—the lights were too harsh at present—and candles with
real flames rather than the battery-operated ones. It was all good, but it could be better. There was a much more intimate
feel to the evening, and little touches and changes would add to that.
The last diners left at ten, but no one rushed them to finish; no one shut the door as soon as they were out of it and bolted
it; there was no air of We’ve got your money, now on your way.
“You look knackered,” said Flick to Sabrina.
“I’m fine,” she said, but she did feel very weary now. She started to lift up the chairs and put them on the tables, but Teddy
told her to stop.
“Do that tomorrow,” he said. “We don’t open Sundays; we just get ready for Monday. So ten till three, please.”
“I’m not in,” said Flick, stretching her long arms up and yawning. “Just you and Uncle Teddy. Won’t that be nice for you,
Sabrina? Right, I’m off to bed. Good night, everyone.”
“Okay, I’m coming,” said Teddy, darting out of the kitchen to escort her.
“Oh for God’s sake, I’m only around the corner.”
“I know this, but it’s late,” he said and followed her out, and Sabrina thought what an enviable relationship they had, so
close.
She was just putting her jacket on when he returned. “I’ll give you a lift,” he said, picking up a pizza box from the counter. “Here’s your supper.”
“It’s fine, I—”
“Don’t you dare turn down one of my pizzas,” said George, wagging his finger at her.
“Okay, I won’t.” She smiled in return.
Everyone filed out and said good night, Teddy locked up, and he and Sabrina walked out to his Golf in the restaurant car park.
“I pass by my mother’s house, so it would be stupid not to drop you off. And even if I weren’t, it would be about a minute
out of my way,” he said, getting in.
“Well, thank you, it’s much appreciated. Do you live nearby?” she asked, clipping in her seat belt.
“A mile away,” he said. “I’m renting somewhere at the moment so when I find a house I’m not in a chain. I sold mine recently.
No doubt my mother told you that I bought it with someone who dumped me less than a month after we completed.”
“No, she didn’t actually,” said Sabrina.
“Ah, sorry then, I thought she might have because she tells everyone.” He laughed. “And also that my ex-fiancée emigrated
to Australia, and it still isn’t far enough away for my mum.”
Australia. Her daughter was there. She had a strong feeling she’d told her she’d be in touch as soon as she was settled and not to worry
if she didn’t hear from her in the meantime. But that was before all this happened.
“You okay? You look deep in thought,” said Teddy.
“I was thinking about my daughter. She’s over there now and I don’t know what she’ll do if she needs me and can’t get hold
of me.”
“Well, I’m sure that would trigger a full-on search for you,” he replied. “I know Mum checks the internet every day. Do you
know whereabouts in Australia she is?”
Sabrina shook her head.
“Maybe you should contact the newspapers—”
She cut him off. “I can’t. And I can’t tell you why, either, because I don’t know.” She dropped her head into her hands. All she had to go on were feelings, instincts, intuition, and it wasn’t enough. She had to remember more.
“It must be awful for you,” Teddy said. He thought he believed her story a little more than he did yesterday, though he wouldn’t
commit wholly yet.
“It is.”
He pulled up outside his mum’s house.
“Thank you, Teddy,” Sabrina said, unclipping her belt and facing him. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“’Night,” he said. He hadn’t meant the word to sound dismissive, but that’s how it came out.
She reached for the door handle and then turned back to him.
“I know you’re concerned about your mum—she told me what happened when the last person lived in the flat—but you have nothing
to worry about from me. I just need to remember a little more and then I’ll be gone. Marielle has been beyond kind, and I
swear to you that I’ll pay her back for everything she’s done for me, somehow.”
He looked into her eyes. He couldn’t tell what color they were in this light, but they were clear and large and lovely, and
they really didn’t look like the eyes of someone who was out to take advantage of his mother.
“Good night, Sabrina,” he said, imbuing his tone with warmth this time. “Enjoy your supper. George makes the best pizzas I’ve
ever tasted.”
“Thank you, I will.”
He waited until she had opened the door to Little Moon before driving off. He hoped to God his mother was right about her.