Chapter 17
I spend the following day, Monday, trying to clear plaster out of the house and clean the work surfaces.
I’m exhausted and every movement seems an effort, but I have to be able to make coffee and find plates for the children to eat.
But Stella is uppermost in my mind: how does she know Marco?
What could she have to tell me about my husband that I don’t know?
Giovanni told me to speak to her. But I’m not sure I’m ready for anything she has to say.
I thought I knew Marco as well as he knew me, totally and completely.
By evening, when the children return from their second night at Caterina’s, I’ve washed the bedding, swept the plaster into piles to be walked around, wiped the windowsills and mopped the floors. In all my time working there, Marco is nowhere to be seen.
The children return full of stories of fun with Pietro and Isabella. I thank Caterina and she tells me she’s here to help. Just like La Tavola when she arrived in the village.
‘I left a very bad situation,’ she tells me, making sure the children are out of earshot.
‘My husband was a bad man. I made the decision to leave and take the children. I just went. I had no idea where, just that I needed to put as much distance as I could between us. I’m so grateful for the help I found in La Tavola and from Giovanni.
The past isn’t forgotten, but here, we have a now and a future. ’
I can’t speak – the words catch in my throat. I hope she understands I’m grateful for all she’s done for me.
The following morning, having slept like a log, I creep downstairs in the early morning sunlight and go outside.
I can sit there and just be in the now. I’m wondering if Marco will be at the kitchen table and, if he is, how I’ll feel about him now that Stella has turned up.
I’m very mixed-up, trepidatious, yet hoping I can see him.
I can’t. He’s not sitting there as he was before.
My heart dips in disappointment, wishing he was still here for me, but he’s finally left me, abandoned me when I needed him most, when I needed him to explain about Stella.
I wander over to the cafetière by the kettle. Suddenly I hear a noise outside the back door. A bleat. Slowly, I open the back door. A goat is standing there, staring at me. It opens its mouth. Baaaaa! Its long beard swings. I jump back in surprise.
Baaaaa! it says again, and steps forward. I move further back and grab a tea-towel: it seems to be attempting to come into the house.
‘Shoo!’ I wave the tea-towel at it. ‘Shoo!’
There’s another bleat, and another … Two more goats are in the garden, bleating at me.
‘Shoo!’ I say louder, even though they’re making me smile.
I hear footsteps upstairs.
‘‘What’s happening?’ Luca calls.
‘Have we got sheep in the garden?’ That’s Aimee’s voice.
‘Goats!’ Luca corrects her.
‘Put your shoes on,’ I shout up to them. ‘Mind the fourth step! Watch out for the plaster!’
Luca and Aimee rush downstairs in their pyjamas and towards the door, sidestepping the piles of plaster as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
‘What’s happening? Where did they come from?’ asks Luca.
‘No idea,’ I say, still waving the white tea-towel as if in an act of surrender.
And in some ways it feels like it is. I seem not to be in control of anything going on here.
All my plans to tart the place up and sell it on quickly have gone out of the window.
A bit like my parenting skills: I want to tell the children to be careful, not to get dirty, don’t go far, but they’re outside before I can say a word.
The goat nearest the door bleats again.
The children throw back their heads and laugh.
‘He’s funny!’
‘And tickly!’ says Aimee, as the goat nibbles her pyjama top.
‘Perhaps they want breakfast,’ says Luca, frowning, as if he’s always thinking about what needs to be done.
‘Here, give him this,’ I say, and hand over some stale bread from yesterday. Luca offers it to the goat, which starts to nibble it, and gives some to Aimee.
They’re giggling again.
‘And there’s another!’
‘And there!’
‘Mum, they’re eating everything!’
Suddenly there’s a knock and I’m distracted. I sprint past the piles of plaster to the door.
‘ Ciao! ’ It’s Giovanni.
‘Giovanni, we’ve got goats in the garden!’
‘Ah.’ He smiles. ‘ Buono! Good! Giuseppe dropped them off,’ he says, as a goat takes a couple of steps into the kitchen. ‘They’re supposed to be outside.’
‘Out, out!’ say the children.
‘Giuseppe dropped them off?’
‘Well, you said the garden needed clearing. His goats are the best. He moves them around the village to keep the grass down. I told him you needed the garden clearing and he said he’d drop them off. Couple of days should do it.’
‘A couple of days?’
‘Should be nice and clear by then.’
‘We’ve got goats here for two whole days?’ Aimee jumps up and down.
‘Any longer and he’ll be expecting a fee!’ He laughs.
‘Oh, God, is it going to cost?’
Giovanni shakes his head. ‘I’m joking. Giuseppe is happy that his goats are fed well and so is he at La Tavola.’
It’s a mutual agreement, helping each other.
‘Like you helping at La Tavola, Mum,’ says Luca. And he’s back to being the sensible young adult he’s been for the last two years.
‘You two keep an eye on the goats,’ I say, and when Luca smiles I glimpse the child he is again.
‘Are you sure you don’t need me to help here?’ he asks.
‘We’ll be fine. Go and enjoy the goats. Just don’t …’
‘Don’t what?’
‘I don’t know. What shouldn’t you do with goats?’
‘Don’t let them go anywhere they shouldn’t!’ says Giovanni.
‘Good plan,’ I say, pleased that the children seem entertained without Wi-Fi.
‘I said I’d meet Pietro later … if that’s okay. Can he come and see the goats?’ Luca asks.
I catch myself feeling surprised. It seems so long since he’s just enjoyed being a boy. I could cry for all the time he’s missed and feel guilty that I’ve only realized this recently.
‘Of course!’ I sniff. I give him a little hug and he lets me.
‘It’ll be okay, Mum.’ He gives me a little squeeze.
‘Of course it will,’ I say. ‘It’ll be—’
Luca cuts in. ‘Don’t say fine!’
‘More than fine.’ I chuckle and the children disappear outside to the goats, the cat, sitting on the table, watching them, and Giovanni’s little white dog, Bello, leaping around the garden joyously, clearly thinking he’s a goat, much to the goats’ confusion. But they all seem happy enough.
I turn back to Giovanni, who is looking around the big room, taking in the mess.
I expect a comment about it being a lot to take on, but he just says, ‘Better get started. First, let’s clear this plaster.
There’s a tractor and trailer on the way.
We’ll get it piled up by the door, ready to load into the trailer. ’
‘We?’
‘I have some helpers on their way. Alessandro and his older brother, Enrico.’
‘You’re good to them,’ I say.
‘It’s just Alessandro and Enrico, looking after their nonna .
They’re kind to her. But it’s good they can get some work experience and skills.
Alessandro started to wander down a wrong path.
Enrico’s been trying to hold things together at home.
He’s smart. He needs to work, and it’s good for them to learn how to do stuff, and to keep Alesssandro busy over the summer. ’
He grabs the broom I’ve left propped by the stairs and sweeps the piles of plaster towards the door. I pull it open and there, hand raised, on the doorstep, is a caller, standing in a plume of white dust.
‘ Scusi, scusi ,’ I say. She closes her eyes but stands stoically still. It’s one of the nonna s, Teresa, I think, with the flowered white dish. I look down and see she’s holding it now.
‘Oh, Teresa, scusi ,’ says Giovanni, putting down his broom and rushing out to her.
‘Giovanni,’ she says, as he greets her warmly and apologizes. Then she turns to me. ‘I brought lasagne. You said how much you liked it so I made you another.’
‘Oh, that’s so kind of you,’ I say, holding out my hands to take the dish, knowing resistance would be futile and wondering if goats like lasagne.
She peers around me into the mess of the house. ‘Terrible. It’s been abandoned for so long.’ Then, ‘I heard you were widowed.’
‘Um … yes.’ I’m not sure how to answer. ‘It’s just me and children here, as I said.’
‘Poor children,’ she says, as shrieks of laughter float to us from the back garden.
‘They’re adjusting. It’ll be the two year anniversary in just under six weeks, the day after he bought this place.’ Aimee’s birthday … when we were waiting for him to get home from the restaurant to have a special tea.
There is more laughter from the garden and the dog comes running in with Mr Fluffy, Aimee and Luca chasing him, followed by a goat. They race out of the front door and round to the back. No one bats an eyelid.
‘It’s good to have children here,’ she says, a little misty-eyed. ‘I was widowed. I know your pain.’
‘ Grazie ,’ I say, and she turns to leave.
Giovanni is smiling as he leans on his broom.
‘ Ciao, Teresa, e scusi ,’ he repeats. She pats his cheek.
As she walks away, we watch another figure puffing up the hill, carrying an orange lasagne dish.
‘Oh, please, God, not another!’ I may have said it under my breath.
Giovanni gives me a wicked smile, teasing me and enjoying the fun of the moment, just like Marco would have.
Nonna Lucia approaches and stands in front of Nonna Teresa. They stare at each other, give a curt nod and politely wish each other a good morning. Neither makes to move around the other.
‘Just say thank you,’ Giovanni whispers.
‘It’s okay. I’ve got this. Lucia, buongiorno .’
She lifts her chin. ‘You ate all the lasagne I made, so I made you more.’ She holds out the dish I recently returned. I’m feeling hot in the morning sunshine.
‘I already brought lasagne,’ says Nonna Teresa.
‘But she ate all of mine last time, so she must prefer it.’
I can feel the heat in the air and the tension between the women. ‘It’s very generous of you …’
‘You didn’t like my lasagne?’ Nonna Lucia raises a grey eyebrow.
‘Oh, we loved it!’ I say quickly, and step forward, taking the dish in my other hand. I’m now holding two heavy dishes of lasagne. ‘Yours too, Teresa.’ I nod to her dish.
The two women fold their arms over their chests, neither wanting to be the first to leave.
The sun is shining brightly in my eyes, and with no hands free to cover them, I don’t see the other person arrive until I hear her voice … and feel her presence. It’s practically frosty under the hot Tuscan sun.
‘I can see I’ve been beaten to it,’ says a third voice. Nonna Rosa. I can see her large silhouette against the sun, holding a lasagne dish.
Nonna Teresa is the first to speak: ‘They have lasagne, I’ve made them one. They liked mine so much they finished it all and gave back an empty dish.’
Nonna Lucia joins in: ‘They asked for more of mine. And she’s a widow. I understand how she feels.’
‘We all understand how she feels,’ retorts Nonna Teresa.
‘But I have been widowed the longest!’ Nonna Lucia replies.
‘Mine was the most recent,’ Nonna Teresa bites back.
‘I brought lasagne,’ Nonna Rosa says to me. ‘I heard you had a problem in the house.’
‘I have. The ceiling has collapsed.’
‘I thought so.’ She looks smug. ‘I saw Giuseppe. Very unsettling. You’ll need my lasagne to recover.’
She holds it out to me. I look at the two in my hands. Giovanni takes one, and I smile gratefully, accepting the third.
‘I can show you how I made mine if you like,’ says Nonna Lucia.
‘She won’t show you – she won’t tell you it all!’ argues Nonna Teresa.
‘And you won’t, because you tried to steal my recipe!’ says Nonna Rosa.
‘I did not try to steal your recipe! It was our mother’s,’ says Nonna Teresa. ‘I learnt to make my own, my husband’s mother’s way.’
‘Still not as good as mine.’
‘Mine is better. It comes from outside the family,’ says Nonna Teresa.
‘Mine will always be better than yours. It is our family recipe. I don’t need to be told by someone else how to make Tuscan lasagne. I’ve been here all my life. Not an incomer.’ She looks at Nonna Lucia.
‘I came because I married your brother. He loved my lasagne.’
‘You took him from the family, more like!’
‘And my husband loved mine.’
‘My husband loved mine, because it tasted just like his mother’s,’ says Nonna Teresa.
‘He only married you for the lasagne. I turned him down first.’
‘Wait!’ I try to cut in, to no avail, and wish I could hold up a hand as they carry on arguing. ‘Stop!’ I shout. They are silent. I can hardly believe my ears. ‘This can’t be true. You’ve all fallen out over lasagne recipes?’
No one says anything and I hear Giovanni draw a sharp breath. Clearly this was a much bigger problem than my fallen ceiling.
Finally, Nonna Rosa speaks: ‘It is never,’ she says slowly, ‘just about the lasagne recipe.’ She starts back down the hill.
The other two wait their turn, Nonna Lucia first, then Nonna Teresa. ‘Families. Take it from me, you’re better off out of them,’ she says, as she follows the others, hips swaying as they make their way home.
I stand there, holding the two very heavy lasagne dishes. Giovanni leans against the broom, holding the other. I let out a long breath. Luca and Aimee are staring at me. ‘Well, I think we can agree that that could have gone better,’ I say.
Giovanni laughs. ‘They like you. They’re pleased you’re here. They want to look after you. It was the same when I first arrived.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s their way of welcoming you and telling you they’re here to help.’
‘Well, what are we going to do with all these lasagnes?’
Giovanni smiles. ‘Share them, of course.’
And I can’t stop smiling back.