Chapter 27 Loretta
L ORETTA
By mid-afternoon, Salvatore and Chiara have left for the day, Rocco and Sophie are upstairs getting ready to go out and explore some of the sights, Marina has taken over on reception and Alberto, who came down again to join them for lunch, is back upstairs for his afternoon nap. Loretta will meet him up there soon, but not just yet.
She walks around the kitchen checking everything first. The risotto’s warming on the hob.
She smiles, remembering Sophie furiously taking notes this morning while Loretta explained that in risotto con tastasal , ‘tastasal’ literally means ‘taste the salt’.
‘My father used to make salami,’ she told Sophie. ‘He dried it right here in this kitchen, hanging it from the beams. To test if the salt in the salami was the correct quantity, my mother put a small amount of salami in the risotto. And that is how we have risotto con tastasal.’
The smell of the juniper berries in the risotto brings back strong memories of Loretta’s mother. Mamma would have appreciated Sophie’s wide-eyed wonder at their cooking methods. How simple things like adding a few drops of water to break down the tomato paste before stirring it into the pot had Sophie oohing and aahing with delight. Mamma had a soft spot for people who responded to food with joyful abandon, not treating it like the enemy as so many did. Sophie’s devotion to good food runs deep, and Loretta loves her for it.
Earlier today Sophie had sighed with pleasure when Loretta gave her a spoonful of mascarpone mixed with coffee liqueur and icing sugar to taste before she added it to the cake.
‘Mmm, my God! That is a dessert I would cheerfully die for!’ Sophie exclaimed. ‘If I had children, I’d sell them to the circus for a mouthful of this.’
Loretta absent-mindedly stirs the risotto with the wooden spoon that’s resting in the pot.
As much as she’s been charmed by Sophie, it continues to trouble her how completely besotted Rocco is.
Also troubling her is Padre Alessandro, who dropped by this morning, ostensibly to check in on Alberto after learning about his health scare. The whole time Alessandro was with Loretta though, he was agitated, looking from side to side as if he’d lost something. She invited him to come tomorrow for breakfast and to bring his parents. He paused to think about it before reluctantly agreeing, and only after she nagged him a little to accept, which was also strange. Invitations to eat at Il Cuore are always met with unbridled enthusiasm.
He then chatted to Rocco for a minute or two in a hushed voice and left. When she asked Rocco afterwards what they talked about, he dodged her question. There’s definitely something fishy going on with that padre. Tomorrow when he comes for breakfast, she’ll try to sniff out what it is.
Loretta also has the too-thin young guest, Signora Taylor, on her mind today. This morning her triangular elbows poked out so sharply from her skeletal arms it was as if her bones were about to burst through the skin. Yesterday, Signora Taylor ate nothing when she sat with her husband at breakfast, but then she came back to the restaurant by herself only minutes after they left and gorged herself, standing at the buffet, ramming the food down her throat, and Loretta had had to look away. Then there she was again this morning with nothing but a glass of water and only three cubes of watermelon on the plate in front of her, while her husband feasted on everything in sight. Why didn’t she eat in front of him?
Loretta knows it’s inappropriate to interfere in guests’ private lives, but if that was her daughter, she’d want someone to intervene. So, this morning, she smashed a boiled egg with a fork, spread it over a chunk of fresh bread, put some pancetta and a few cubes of cheese next to it on a plate and walked it over to the table where the young couple sat.
‘Signora, please, eat something. I cannot have any guest leave my restaurant hungry.’
‘Ah, aren’t you wonderful!’ Il dottore clapped his hands together. ‘Come on, Ellie, you can’t let Signora Bianchi down. You have to eat something, babe.’ His tone was cheerful, but he smiled at his wife in a way that looked more like he was baring his teeth.
The young woman stared back at him with eyes so dilated with fear that Loretta knew instantly and unequivocally that there was something dark at play. Perhaps the amazing doctor with the face of an angel who’d saved Alberto wasn’t all he seemed to be after all.
As she walked away from their table, she had a tug on her memory that she wasn’t able to place. Signora Taylor was familiar to her – she knew her from somewhere. But where?
Loretta puts the lid back on the risotto and wipes down the already clean white marble bench. Also in her thoughts are that infuriating old American couple, the Dawsons, who wear tacky matching tracksuits every day. The husband pulled Loretta aside this morning and asked her if it was possible to hang sheets off the pink walls because they give his wife a headache.
‘Signore, the restaurant walls are sixteen feet high. How large are your bedsheets in America?’ She had to stop herself from asking him if he’d considered that his wife might have a headache because whenever he opened his mouth to speak, it was as if he was trying to get the attention of someone in Positano. Instead she said, ‘Perhaps, signore, if breakfast was complimentary for the rest of your stay, it might help la signora’s head to feel a little better when she eats here surrounded by’—she waved her arm around—‘... the walls .’
He huffed and sighed and scratched his beard as if he was actually giving her proposition some thought, when all along he couldn’t hide his eyes that grew as big and round as dinner plates. Unsurprisingly, after more theatrical pondering, he finally agreed that yes, free breakfasts might indeed help.
Alberto won’t be pleased when he finds out they’ve lost forty euro a day in income.
Loretta wipes down the sink and the front of the fridge, checks on the cakes and gives the risotto a final stir before she takes off her apron and hangs it on the back of the door. She looks around her sprawling, spotless kitchen one last time, making sure everything is where it should be.
To think that Dottore Luca, Marina, even Alberto, want her to retire. This room in all its shiny white glory is her sanctuary, her lifeline. If she didn’t have her kitchen to help sort through her thoughts, she’d surely turn mad.
She passes Marina in the office on her way upstairs. There’s something off about her daughter that Loretta can’t quite put her finger on. How she wishes Marina had a partner to share her problems with.
Back in the apartment, Alberto’s snoring. If there’s one thing Loretta wants for Marina, it’s that she doesn’t end up like her. She hopes her daughter finds heart-thumping, passionate love. It’s what everyone deserves.
It’s what I deserve.
The thought grips her.
It’s what I deserve.
It’s what I deserve.
Without giving herself time to change her mind, she pulls her phone from her pocket and sends a text.
I want to see you.
When shall we meet?
She’s done it. She’s allowed the current inside her to drag her out to the stormy sea and it’s as exhilarating as it is terrifying.
She climbs into bed next to Alberto, pulls her chain out from inside her turtleneck jumper and clutches the pendant of the Madonna.
What have I done?