Chapter 34
‘Ping!’ It’s a text the following morning, from Giovanni, making my stomach flip again,. Why can’t Sebastian do that? He’s asking me to meet him early at La Tavola.
I push open the wooden gate and move into the small courtyard. The bunting from last night has already dried out and is looking much perkier. The smell of pizza hangs in the air. The morning is fresher, not so intense. Clearer and cleaner somehow.
I walk across the courtyard to the kitchen door. It’s ajar. I open it wide.
‘ Ciao? ’ I call. But I can’t see anyone. ‘ Ciao? ’
A table is laid just outside the kitchen door at the back of the building with just enough space for two.
‘Giovanni, are you there? Did you want to talk to me?’
On the table there is a coffee pot, with a basket of bread, freshly squeezed orange juice and a small jug of olive branches and rosemary, smelling lovely.
‘Hello? Giovanni?’ I call up the stairs to his apartment. By the bottom of the stairs I notice a rucksack. I’m assuming it’s Stella’s and my heart twists.
‘Hey, ciao ,’ he says, coming through the front gate and lightly kissing me on both cheeks. ‘I got your message.’
‘Oh, hey,’ I say, not sure which one. I’m confused as I’d sent only a quick reply to his.
‘Just out for his walk.’ He gestures towards Bello.
‘Ah. How’s Stella?’ I ask.
‘Still asleep on my sofa when I last looked.’
A wave of guilt washes over me again. What will happen to her once we go? We won’t be here. The house will sell.
‘So,’ he says, glancing at the back door and then at the little table for two, ‘this looks nice.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ I say, wondering why he would go to so much effort, wondering what he wants to tell me.
‘Shall we?’ He holds out a hand to the wrought-iron table and chairs.
We sit. The coffee in the pot is hot and suddenly I’m as nervous as if I was on a date.
‘Here.’ I switch into hosting mode and pour coffee for us both, the sun warming our faces as it rises. He’s smiling – and it’s as if a thunderbolt has struck me. I pass him his coffee, as well as I can with a shaking hand.
He offers me the basket of bread and I take a piece, feeling anything but hungry.
‘Good marmalade,’ he says. He sniffs it. ‘I think it’s Nonna Teresa’s.’
I could have sworn I heard a rustle from the kitchen, perhaps the storeroom.
‘It was kind of you to do this,’ he says. ‘You didn’t need to thank me. I’ve already told you, it’s me who should be thanking you. With the money from this weekend, La Tavola should be able to keep going for a good while longer. And if we can run more of these weekends …’
‘I – I didn’t do this.’
He laughs. ‘Well, whoever you got to do it, it was kind of you and unnecessary.’
‘No, really, you texted me!’
He stops spooning marmalade from its little terracotta pot onto his plate, still smiling his lazy, lopsided smile … He frowns and puts down his knife. ‘Only to say I’d meet you, replying to you.’
He looks sideways and the other way.
Something feels amiss. Giovanni hadn’t asked to meet me. And I was excited that maybe he wanted to talk to me about something other than the house or La Tavola. How stupid am I? What else is there to talk about?
Does he still think I’m going with Sebastian? Considering returning to the UK to live by the sea with my two children, three stepchildren and a black Labrador called Bert?
‘You did text me to talk to me, didn’t you?’ I say slowly.
He shakes his head. ‘You texted me!’
We narrow our eyes and, suddenly, hear a sneeze.
And a load of shushing, followed by a very quiet ‘Bless you.’
We stare at each other, then jump out of our seats, abandoning the coffee and bread in the sun. We run into the kitchen and pull open the pantry door where everyone is hugging and kissing and smiling.
‘It was Pietro! He spoke!’ says Caterina, with tears in her eyes.
‘Pietro, was that you?’ Giovanni grins widely.
‘Bless you,’ he repeats, and we all hug him in the cold confines of the pantry, tears now rolling down Caterina’s face.
‘It’ll be okay. We have hope,’ she says, and I can feel tears forming in my eyes as I hug her.
And when we stop hugging, and sniffing: ‘It’s time you all came out of the pantry now, isn’t it?’
They shuffle their feet, contrite. The three nonna s, Caterina, Stella, Pietro, Luca and Aimee file into the kitchen, like naughty schoolchildren.
‘Sorry, Mum. Like you said, it’s okay to enjoy yourself. We just wanted—’
I cut him off: ‘I know, lovely. But sometimes you can’t have what you want. You have to let people make up their own minds.’
‘But there’s always hope,’ he says, and beams at me.
‘I know, yes, there is. But we’ll be leaving soon.’
‘But we don’t want to go!’ says Aimee. ‘We want to live here!’
I’m taken aback. I wasn’t expecting this. ‘What about school? Your friends? Going back to how things were? I can afford to buy us somewhere when we’ve sold Casa Luna.’
‘We don’t want to. We want to stay here,’ Luca says. ‘They have schools here too! Pietro is going to be starting and I could too. We thought if you and Giovanni got together, you’d have to stay. Nonna Rosa said so!’
Nonna Rosa shrugs, downcast.
‘And I want to see Snowy grow. And what about Stella? We can’t leave her behind! We’ve only just found her! She’s our sister!’
Luca is plainly in agreement. ‘Dad would have wanted us all to be together.’
Stella’s eyes are fixed on the ground. ‘I’ll be okay, guys. I’ll come and visit.’ She looks at me. ‘If that’s okay?’
‘Of course!’ My heart feels like it’s breaking all over again at the prospect of leaving this young woman behind, taking her new-found family from her.
‘Well, we need to get ready for the class today.’ I pull myself up straight. ‘We need to decide about the lasagne for today’s lunch. Whose recipe are we going to use? I’ve been thinking about how we can do this fairly …’
Nonna Rosa flaps an arthritic hand at me. ‘There’s no need,’ she says breezily.
‘There’s every need. We have to work together to keep what’s important here going. This place.’
‘We know,’ says Nonna Teresa.
I remind myself that after today we need a conversation about them trying to match-make me with Giovanni and getting the children’s hopes up.
‘And it has to be done fairly. Not creating more divisions, like that stunt in the garden just now,’ I say firmly.
Giovanni’s hands are on his hips, and the pair of us are like cross teachers, scowling at the three nonna s.
Nonna Rosa takes a deep breath and pulls herself up to her full height, only an inch or so above the other two, but it makes a difference. She lifts her chin defiantly.
‘We have made a decision!’ she announces, ignoring my comments about the unsuccessful match-making.
‘Being forced to spend time in a small pantry makes you see things differently,’ says Nonna Lucia.
‘Actually, it was Stella who made us realize,’ says Nonna Teresa.
I fold my arms and cock my head.
‘Locked in the pantry, when you were trying to match-make Giovanni and me.’
They nod as one, unabashed.
‘You would make the perfect pair.’ Nonna Lucia is sidetracked for a moment.
Nonna Teresa clasps her hands, misty-eyed. ‘We want you to be happy.’
‘You are so right for each other,’ they all say in unison, nodding.
I cough, blushing and embarrassed for Giovanni.
‘However, two people have to feel the same way about each other. You can’t just hope that your feelings will be shared,’ I say. Am I wearing my heart on my sleeve? I wish there was somewhere to hide. ‘So, the lasagne?’ I clap my hands together. ‘Whose are we making?’
Nonna Rosa straightens again. ‘I have offered to share the lasagne recipe with my sister and sister-in-law. You’re right. Perhaps I needed to remember that we can’t make ourselves feel better by denying others. It’s about team work.’
‘Well, that’s great news!’ I’m grateful that this hasn’t turned into some ugly scene about whose lasagne recipe we’ll use. ‘So we’re making your family lasagne?’
‘No,’ they declare.
Luca and Aimee are giggling.
‘We will not be making any of our lasagnes today,’ Nonna Rosa informs me.
My spirits plummet.
I stare at Giovanni. Was all this hard work for nothing? They’re not going to make the lasagne. How can we finish the cookery course without teaching the dish that people have paid to learn?