Chapter 7
The daylight wakes me. For once, I haven’t been lying in bed and waiting for dawn.
I throw back the covers and trot down the stairs, counting them so that I miss the broken one.
To my surprise and delight, I can see Marco sitting in the kitchen, as if he’s been there all night, watching over us.
The sunlight streams through the windows as I push open the shutters.
‘Good morning,’ I say. He’s drinking coffee, just as I’d known he would be. He always liked to be up first. Coffee on the go.
‘ Buongiorno, cara ,’ he replies, as I open the back door to let in the fresh dewy air and make myself coffee with the cafetière, walking around Marco who is on a chair, olive-skinned arms resting on the table.
He’s wearing his usual white T-shirt. ‘Just like I showed you how to make it when we first met.’ He chortles, making me smile.
I’m thinking about the day he told me he’d bought this place.
He had a small inheritance from his mother and wanted to buy somewhere.
I never thought he’d get a house for the little pot of money he had.
At the time we could have used it on the restaurant, but it would have been only a drop in the ocean of our huge overdraft.
This way, he had something to remind him of her.
His home town was in Le Marche but he thought buying in Tuscany meant he was moving up in the world.
I remember him sending photographs, telling me he couldn’t wait to show me the place, introduce me to it and the local people.
The lasagnes have been generous gestures.
I think about Marco’s lasagne, from Le Marche.
Not a lasagne, he would tell me, but a vincisgrassi , a lasagne-type dish.
Seven layers of pasta, lots of béchamel sauce and a mixed-meat ragù .
He always made it for special occasions, mixed meats, pork and beef, but it could also include chicken livers, hearts and giblets, sweetbreads, pancetta, veal, duck, lamb, goose, rabbit or mushrooms, depending on the family recipe, Marco told me.
I look at the table. Having emptied the three dishes and, yes, fed some to the cat outside the back door and buried some in the garden, I need to return the clean dishes, although I have no idea how to get them to their rightful owners.
I don’t know who the women were. I sigh. There’s only one way I can do this.
The children are still asleep. I leave a note to say where I’ve gone, that they’re not to answer the door, and I’ll be back really soon.
I step outside to be greeted by the cat weaving its way around my legs in the already hot sunshine.
I carry the three heavy dishes, with the tea-towels I washed by hand, with some of our clothes, in the old sink in the kitchen and dried in the morning sun, on branches of the fig tree.
The fridge is crammed with as much of the leftover lasagne as I could fit into it.
Each differed slightly in flavour and texture, but they were all delicious and very filling.
One had mozzarella on top, another a different type of meat, lighter than the first, and the third tasted like a darker meatier version.
I’m trying to remember the order they came in as I walk up the narrow, cobbled street, to where the terraced houses face each other, at the end of the neglected buildings, shuttered and silent.
It’s sad to see them empty. I’m surprised more houses aren’t snapped up by people wanting a slice of Italian life, although there’s nothing around here, nothing at all, apart from the small shop, and practically no one.
It’s not the sort of thriving Tuscan village I’d imagined, with cafés and a bustling market.
It seems that even in areas like wealthy Tuscany there are pockets that have been abandoned and left to run themselves into the ground.
Poverty and isolation must have driven out even the most enthusiastic bargain hunter.
I pass another small house with an open door. A younger woman is hanging out washing on the little wrought-iron balcony. She smiles and I smile back, wishing her a good day. But apart from that, and the cat following me, there’s no one around.
But, in the distance, in the other direction, I hear voices again, loud women’s voices. They stop as soon as they start, clearly a short, sharp interaction. The quiet has returned. Except for one sound: goats. And bells.
The old man, Giuseppe, is coming towards me with his goats. He’s leaning on his stick and dressed in a thick woollen jacket, two sizes too big, despite the early heat of the day. The goats are walking along the middle of the road, the one in front raising its head and bleating, tongue quivering.
‘ Buongiorno .’ I nod and pass him, and he wishes me the same with a wide, toothless smile. I give the goats a wide berth and hold my breath, in case Luca was right and they were smelly. We didn’t come across many goats on the school run at home.
Home. Was it home, or was it just because it was where Marco was?
Where Marco and I created our business and our family, and an Italian restaurant would have an appreciative audience.
Wherever we’d chosen, I don’t think things would have ended up differently, with rent escalating and rising food prices.
Back home, prices were going up and up and we’d had to pass that on to the customer.
No wonder people had stopped going out to eat.
I walk on slowly, feeling the weight of the heavy dishes in my arms. Nearing the top of the hill, I catch my breath, inhaling the warm, pine-scented air.
I turn slowly to the wooden gate of La Tavola.
It’s ajar. The dog slips out of the gap and runs towards me, wagging his tail and making me smile.
Then, calling him to me, ‘Bello, Bello?’ I push open the gate and step into the shady walled garden.
‘Hello? Buongiorno? ’ I call.
I walk towards the front door and knock on the peeling paintwork. It swings open further, letting in the morning sunshine.
‘Hello? Buongiorno? ’ I call again, taking in the long table inside and the big kitchen beyond it. It’s clean, white and surprisingly cool as I step down into the big room. The dog follows me and I have no idea if he’s supposed to be there or not.
‘Hey,’ says Giovanni, walking out from the kitchen with a small coffee cup. ‘You came back. I thought you might. Like I say, we’re always looking for helping hands.’ He smiles, his dark curls bouncing around his face.
I shake my head. ‘Sorry, not here to help. Just come for some information really,’ I say, as the young woman I saw hanging out washing comes through the door behind me.
‘Ah, caffè ! Great!’ she says. ‘ Buongiorno again. Would you like some coffee?’ she asks, going into the kitchen and returning with a pot and two small cups. She is pouring it before I can refuse.
‘I don’t want to take up your time,’ I say, looking between the two of them.
Giovanni is smiling. ‘ Buongiorno ,’ he greets the younger woman.
‘Time is the one thing we have here for free,’ she says.
‘Have a seat. Everyone is welcome,’ says Giovanni. ‘We’re waiting for a delivery, but also, as always, planning, brainstorming, whatever you call it, trying to think of ways to make ends meet.’
They go to sit at one end of the long table on a wooden bench and beckon me to join them.
There is a notepad with a pen that the woman picks up, and a long list. I sit down next to them, hoping to find out quickly what I need to know so I can leave them to it.
I look outside the door to where the dog has lain down under an olive tree on the stone patio.
‘I need to fix that end of the bench,’ says Giovanni. ‘It’s been repaired more times than I can remember, but keeps going.’
‘I could make cushions if we could get hold of some fabric. But it’s not cheap, even at the market.’
The coffee smells good. I pick up the cup.
‘This is Caterina,’ he says. ‘She came to the village …’ he glances at her for approval and she nods ‘… after leaving a difficult situation with her husband.’
‘I left with nothing,’ she says. ‘It’s hard to imagine now.’
I hold the cup and don’t move. Here am I, worrying about too much lasagne, and I can’t imagine what this woman went through to get here.
‘I …’ I stutter ‘… I’m so sorry. It must have been very hard.’
‘Thank you. It has been difficult but this place has been a blessing. We’re finding our feet again.’
Giovanni smiles his very attractive smile. ‘What can I say? It’s the fabulous food she comes for!’
‘And the company,’ she says.
‘And we love her for her mending.’
‘I have been making a new tablecloth too,’ she pulls out a piece of patchwork from her basket and runs her hands over it, ‘with all the scraps. But I’m running out.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ I say, admiring it.
‘It’s good to keep busy.’ She gives me a smile tinged with sadness.
‘It keeps the bad dreams at bay. Making something where there was nothing. There is something good to be found in the most desperate places. These scraps were ready for burning. But they have something wonderful to offer when put together like this.’
I think about the house, the work it will take to ready it for sale as a holiday home in Tuscany.
The furniture needs replacing and the walls repapering.
I barely know where to start. But part of me is finding comfort in the old kitchen table and the worn plates.
I check myself: I can’t be sentimental about it.
I have to do it up to sell it. We can’t live on fresh air, however beautiful it is here.
‘Have you always sewn?’ I ask.
‘I worked as a hairdresser at home. I had my own salon. But my husband didn’t like me having my own business. It became a problem to him.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘I felt unsafe. I wanted the children to be safe and it wasn’t safe where we were so we came here. It feels safe here.’
‘And she has started working on the garden,’ says Giovanni.