Chapter 24
For the next few days I help Giovanni in the house, keeping the buckets of plaster topped up. The heat is my punishment for imagining that the lasagne competition could ever have worked. I feel stupid, and I’ve let Giovanni down. La Tavola doesn’t have a future now.
‘I’ve been to deliver the dishes back,’ I tell him, ‘but they were too busy arguing over their washing lines again to notice me. I wanted to talk to Rosa. If only we could have got her onside, I’m sure the others would have joined in.’
‘You’re right. I think they might. But she’s the eldest, the scariest, and the one to keep this feud going. I don’t think she ever forgave Teresa for marrying the man she loved. And they both felt Lucia took their brother.’
‘So sad to be left with no one,’ I muse, glancing at the bags of photographs no one wants and the Sunday-best clothes that won’t see another Sunday. ‘Sad that their happy memories of life growing up will be gone.’
The house is starting to shape up. The walls are newly plastered and the stairs mended.
Everything feels fresh and clean, like a blank canvas, a new beginning for the house.
‘This is looking great, Giovanni. I’m going to call the estate agent.
Get an appointment to have the place valued and on the market.
I’m just sorry I couldn’t repay you by pulling off the cookery school. ’
‘It wasn’t your fault. You honoured your side of the bargain and helped keep La Tavola running while I was working here.
’ And then he looks at me with gentle concern in his eyes and says, ‘Tell me, have you taken some time to talk with Stella yet? I mean, it would be good, before you put this place on the market.’
‘Why, Giovanni? Why should I talk to her?’
He says softly, ‘She said she was a friend of Marco’s. Did he ever mention her?’
I sigh. ‘Marco had been out a few times to see the house and oversee the paperwork. The day it was finalized, he was in great spirits. He came home with stories of the house and the village. The dreams he had for our quieter life here. The following day was Aimee’s birthday.
He said the house was the best present he could give her.
A place to run free in the summer.’ Just as she and Luca are now, I think.
‘A place where we could be family.’ And then, having kissed the three of us, he left for work.
‘He’d promised to make his lasagne that afternoon for her birthday dinner.
But, he didn’t come home. The washer-up rang me to say an ambulance had been called.
But he was pronounced dead before I got to the restaurant. ’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Giovanni is looking at the floor.
‘Giovanni, is there something I should know about Stella and Marco? Please, tell me if there is.’
I swallow and he looks slowly up at me.
‘Giovanni! Giovanni!’ We swing round to the door. Nonna Lucia is bright red in the face and out of breath.
‘Lucia!’ He runs over to her. ‘Are you okay? Come and sit!’
‘What’s happened?’ I join him and take her other arm to support her.
‘It’s Rosa. She climbed on a chair to push Teresa’s washing back, claiming it was on her side. Now she has fallen. Stupid woman. All over some undergarments.’
‘I’m coming,’ says Giovanni, grabbing his phone and dialling for help as he runs out of the door.
‘I’ll come too!’ I say.
‘The medics are on their way,’ Giovanni says, as we arrive at the house where Nonna Teresa is sitting by Nonna Rosa’s head, stroking it.
‘Not so hard. I’ll have to put my rollers back in at this rate!’
‘Well, sounds like she’s still angry so that’s a good sign!’ Giovanni whispers, relieved.
‘I’ll go down to the road and point the medics this way,’ I say. ‘I know how hard it can be to get here …’
And to leave. I hear a small voice in my head and wonder if it’s Marco.
What was Giovanni going to tell me about Marco and Stella?
Please, God, not an affair. Anything but that.
Or was it something she did? Something he hasn’t told me.
If only you were here to tell me yourself, Marco, I think, as I stomp crossly towards the main road.
‘Well, madam, from where I’m standing you’re not going to be doing much cooking or looking after yourself.’
The medics have patched up Nonna Rosa’s ankle, telling her to keep it raised and to keep her weight off it. They’ve also given her some painkillers.
I’ve been back to La Tavola to check on things there and returned to the house to find Giovanni, with Nonnas Teresa and Lucia, in Nonna Rosa’s kitchen. She is sitting on one chair, her foot raised on another.
‘I’ve been looking after myself for as many years as I can remember. I shan’t stop now,’ she snaps.
No one says anything. I can almost smell the sunshine on the warm cobbles outside.
‘You have to keep your foot up,’ says Giovanni.
‘The weight off it,’ Nonna Teresa says.
And then Nonna Lucia says quietly, ‘So it’s help from us or nothing.’
‘I’ll take nothing!’
‘Very well,’ says Nonna Teresa, and turns to leave.
‘No, wait … I need the bathroom and I haven’t eaten for hours. They wanted me to go to the hospital, but I know the food there is dreadful. Even your lasagnes would be better than that.’
There is huffing and puffing all round.
‘Perhaps you would like Giuseppe to call in and help you to the bathroom,’ says Nonna Teresa.
Nonna Rosa sucks in her lips, as if she’s sucking a lemon. And I think Nonna Lucia may have chuckled.
‘You cannot insult our food, then expect us to look after you and cook for you.’
‘I’m not expecting it.’ She folds her arms and lifts her chin.
‘Well, how will you cope?’
‘Perhaps I’ll ask one of the young people to show me how to use my telephone and order my food on an appé.’
I can’t help but laugh, as does Giovannni.
‘It’s an app, Rosa, not an appé,’ I say. ‘In the meantime, I brought you pasta.’
‘What? One of theirs? Did no one eat it on Sunday? Too afraid of food poisoning.’
‘Actually it’s cacio e pepi . I went to La Tavola and made it.’
No one says anything. They look down at the big foil dish I’ve brought.
There are so many unsaid words in the air and a feeling of tension, as if we’re all daring each other to be the first to speak.
I’m holding my breath. Finally Nonna Rosa looks up from the dish, then at the other two women and says, ‘This is what we have come to? The three of us relying on pasta made by outsiders?’
They stare at each other and suddenly, with no warning, they throw back their heads and laugh.
They laugh until tears run down their cheeks.
Giovanni and I join in. Call it a release, a moment of madness, a line drawn in the sand.
Whatever it was, it seemed to work. As they wipe the tears from their eyes, and their shoulders stop shuddering, Nonna Rosa gives instructions: ‘Teresa, get the plates. Lucia, you get the forks. I’m starving,’ she says, bossing them around.
Although they haven’t been in each other’s houses for decades, they seem to move seamlessly around Nonna Rosa’s, laying the table and serving the pasta.
Each of them digs in a fork and twirls, lifts it to her mouth and bites, strands of pasta smacking at her cheeks. They look at each other, then dig in their forks for more. And Nonna Rosa says, ‘Well, for a newcomer to the village it is very good.’
‘I agree!’ says Lucia. I created the sauce with the pasta water, which mixed with the cheese, making it creamy.
Nonna Teresa leans in and says, ‘Tell me, what’s your secret?’
‘Well, I made it with the children … like Marco and I used to do. I haven’t done it for a very long time.’
‘Then it’s made with love, and that’s why it tastes so good.’
We all raise a glass.
‘It’s not what you put into the pasta as much as who you share it with.
’ Nonna Rosa sips the red wine. She puts her glass on the Formica table as we clear the plates.
‘This has made me think,’ she says pensively.
‘La Tavola has kept us all company over the past few years, while we have been too pig-headed to put our differences behind us.’
The other women nod.
‘We should be very grateful to you, Giovanni,’ she says, looking up at him.
I realize I have a lot to thank him for, too, and grab my moment with both hands: life’s too short not to. ‘The truth is, there is no summer festival happening like we told you. We just wanted to get you all in the same room so we could ask for your help.’
‘No party?’
‘No engagement?’
‘Er, no …’
‘Well, there should be. You two were made for each other,’ says Nonna Teresa.
I catch Giovanni’s eye and blush, but carry on quickly: ‘But La Tavola will have to close if we can’t make some money to keep it open and find a way to make it pay for itself.
I’m not staying here, but I did want to thank Giovanni for all the help he has given me at Casa Luna, and La Tavola.
Like you, when I needed it, it was there. ’
For a moment there’s silence, then Nonna Lucia says, ‘So, what can we do, three old women?’
‘There is a chance we could raise the money needed to pay the rent on the building, but we need your help. We could run a cookery class over a weekend ending in a Sunday lunch together. A company I know will pay a lot of money for some of its people to come and stay in the village and learn to cook authentic Italian food.’
‘But we don’t have any authentic Italian chefs here.’
‘No,’ I say slowly, ‘but we do have you three. And that’s about as authentic as it gets.’
‘But we’re not teachers, just home cooks.’
‘Brilliant ones at that!’ I say. I see them look at each other and their chests swell with pride.
Nonna Teresa is the first to speak. ‘And La Tavola needs us to cook for it?’
‘Or, if what you say is true, we’re going to lose it for ever?’ Nonna Rosa says.
‘It is a lifeline for people,’ says Nonna Lucia.
‘We shouldn’t be fighting with each other.
We are here, on our own. We have only each other left.
It is the way of the world right now. People are having to leave their homes and move to bigger towns to find work.
It breaks up families, meaning they no longer stay together, eat together or pass on the skill of cooking.
Food costs are rising. Processed and cheap convenience foods are the devil.
It’s like you say. It’s who you share the food with that makes it special.
If La Tavola folds, the people in this village will be deserted, like Casa Luna, because there is no one left to care. ’
The three nonna s look at each other, and it’s like no time has passed, as if they are three young girls knowing exactly what the others are thinking.
‘I mean, Giovanni’s a good cook. He needs more pepper in his cacio e pepe …’
‘And he sometimes undercooks his broccoli in broccoli carbonara.’
‘But his caponata is really very good. You can tell an Italian grandmother taught him that.’
‘I will be sad to see what he has done turn to nothing.’
‘He has helped us all when we’ve needed it.’
They nod.
‘When my drains were blocked.’
‘Oh, the stench!’
‘And when I locked myself out and he climbed in through the window.’
‘Only way you’ll get a man climbing in through your window …’
And they cackle.
‘And every week, whether we want it or not, he makes sure someone is here with a meal for us, and sits to keep us company.’
‘We were too stubborn to get together and cook for each other.’
‘It is time to say thank you.’
They nod in agreement. Nonna Rosa speaks for them all: ‘Contact your company. We will run the cookery school for the weekend.’
My eyes widen.
‘Are you sure? With no arguing?’
‘That’s not a certainty. What can you expect when three nonna s get in the kitchen?’
I can’t help but smile.
After Giovanni and I leave, we stop a little way from the house and hug. And then we pull back a little and drink in each other’s faces, our eyes darting from each other’s eyes to lips. I’m being drawn to his, like I’ve wanted this for weeks, like I need to feel them on mine.
‘We did it, cara ! We did it!’ he says softly, his eyes dancing with excitement, his head tilting and leaning in to meet mine.
I freeze and pull back from the embrace. ‘What did you just call me?’ I feel as if I’ve had a bucket of ice poured over me.