Chapter 35
‘So, that’s it!’ I throw up my hands up in despair.
‘You’re going to let La Tavola go under.
Don’t you see the hard work that Giovanni has put into this place?
How can you? If we don’t pull off a big Sunday lunch for our final day, the company won’t pay!
We won’t get the money to save La Tavola!
Don’t you see what you’ve all got right in front of you?
’ Suddenly, every bit of frustration bubbles up in me and boils over, like milk on the stove.
‘No, Mamma , it’s fine!’ Luca puts a hand on one of my arms.
‘It’s not, Luca,’ I explain. ‘Giovanni is a good, big-hearted man. He’s impulsive and he came to care for this place.
For all of you. As we have done. Making it feel like home when we needed it.
You have everything that everybody is searching for here, a community based on love.
You all love each other, even if you find it hard to show it.
We all do.’ I catch Giovanni’s eye. ‘It’s hard when you’ve been hurt.
You don’t want to go there again. You don’t want to repeat the same patterns, so you keep your heart safe, wanting to hold on to the memories of the past, which make you feel you were special.
But time moves on. Your heart will heal if you let it.
There is still a place for the memories, but don’t let the memories, good or bad, ruin the chance of a happy future.
Don’t end up lonely and not following your heart because you’re scared of being happy again.
Don’t let everything we want for this place be ruined over lasagne.
This was never about lasagne. It was about so much more.
Vying for your mother’s attention, feeling let down by your sister who married the man you loved, and trying to stop change happening, which you can’t do, because everything changes!
It just does! And you have to change with it or get left behind, sad and alone.
It takes bravery, but sometimes you have to listen to your heart and hear what it’s telling you. Ignore your head!’
I find myself staring straight at Giovanni and him at me, as if, for a moment, no one else is in the room, which is silent.
I clear my throat. I may have said more than I intended, telling myself exactly what I needed to hear and what’s in my heart.
I give another little cough to try to bring my thoughts back to what I wanted to say.
‘We’re here to save what matters to us all, where we have all been made welcome.
La Tavola. To leave hurt in the past and celebrate those we love. ’ I’m still gazing at Giovanni.
‘Nothing says love like lasagne does,’ says Pietro, quietly. We all turn to him and smile. There’s a tear at the corner of my eye that spills.
‘You’re right,’ I say, and finally turn away from Giovanni.
I may not have him in my life. There is so much unsaid between us.
When the nonna s set us up, he wasn’t here looking for a date with me.
But maybe the problem was me: perhaps he understood I wasn’t ready to move on from Marco.
But the one thing I do know is that my children have never been happier in the last couple of years than they have been here, with Giovanni and Stella in their lives. With all of the village in their lives.
Nonna Rosa speaks: ‘Like we said, we’ve made a decision on today’s menu.’
I raise my eyebrows and shake my head at her, frustrated.
‘But I’ve promised them lasagne. I can’t change it now!’ I throw up my hands. ‘Like Pietro told us, nothing says love like lasagne.’
‘We can all change if we try,’ Nonna Rosa says. The other two nonna s smile and nod.
I look at Giovanni, wondering what’s going on, but he seems as much in the dark as I am, but he’s smiling at the nonna s who have finally come together again.
‘We have decided, together,’ says Nonna Teresa, ‘that we want to make your lasagne!’
‘What?’ I’m stuck for words.
‘Yours and Marco’s. The one you made with the children’s father. His memory. Your lasagne, made with love.’
My chin moves up and down but no words come out.
Nonna Lucia says, ‘It’s not about the dish you serve it in.’
‘Or how you slice the garlic,’ adds Nonna Rosa, her eyes filling with tears.
Nonna Teresa sniffs and blows her nose.
‘It’s about the memories you make, to keep safe, for always,’ says Nonna Lucia, with a crack in her voice.
‘It’s okay to have the good memories. About how it made you feel.’
‘And it’s okay to create new ones too.’
‘Not get stuck in the past!’ Nonna Lucia says.
‘So stuck we never thought we’d see this day!’ Nonna Rosa practically growls, looking at the other two.
The children are grinning, as is Stella. And through the tears building in my eyes, I smile. They’re right and all I can think of saying is, ‘Grab an apron, everyone. We need to be ready to cook when our students get here.’
The nonna s are moving around the kitchen, giving orders and creating work stations for each element of the dish.
‘We need a primo and dolce too!’
‘ Gelato! ’ says Pietro, and we hug him all over again.
‘ Salata for primo . You need to leave room for the lasagne!’
‘You need to tell us your ingredients,’ Nonna Rosa says to me.
‘Only if you promise not to sniff at them!’
The three shrug playfully. ‘We can’t promise, but we’ll try!
’ They all laugh, their eyes watery. Luca and Aimee are joining in with the nonna s and Stella, carrying bowls from the pantry to the table, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.
That is exactly how it feels. I’m doing the one thing I’ve tried not to do since Marco died.
I’ve been avoiding the kitchen, not wanting to cook, not wanting to go back and remember how it felt.
And the one thing I should have been doing all along is cooking with love.
The students start to arrive. Glenda and Walt appear hand in hand, while he and Daisy look as if they’ve put their differences behind them.
‘ Buongiorno , everyone! Today, as you can hear,’ the church bells are ringing in the distance, ‘it’s Sunday. And we’re all here to share one last meal together. A meal cooked with love. So, everyone, grab an apron and let’s get ready to cook!’
‘Sebastian, you come with me,’ says Nonna Rosa, and he seems thrilled by his popularity, if still a little nervous.
The students split into groups, Daisy and Walt together, laughing and teasing one another.
At one corner of the kitchen Caterina is making lemon gelato while Isabella and Aimee are producing biscuits. The pasta machine is screwed to the work surface and flour is being liberally tossed around by Nonna Lucia, smiling as pasta balls are created and kneaded.
And then there is the sauce, Luca, Stella and myself: I explain the ingredients that Marco would put in, telling us about Le Marche where he grew up with his parents and sisters.
The stories he would tell us from his home town, stories that Luca and Aimee have heard before but Stella is hearing for the first time.
The long summers when Marco worked in his father’s friend’s restaurant and hated returning to school.
When he left school and got his first job in a kitchen.
He’d travelled to the UK without a coat because he’d never known weather so bad, and I told them about the stars he cooked for when he was a chef on the touring circuit.
And how he and I had met, a story Luca takes up: how everything I thought I was and wanted changed in that moment.
And how the restaurant was born, along with Luca and Aimee.
That’s where we leave it. The happy stories we want to remember as we make the sauce, ready for layering with Marco’s twists, our family lasagne.
When lunchtime comes, and the church bells are still ringing, the kitchen smells of something very special: it smells of home.
In the courtyard and the dining room, practically the whole village is there, having heard that the nonna s are cooking lasagne and no doubt expecting them to be duelling with rolling pins.
What they find is a joyful kitchen.
We open the front door and extend the table, with those from Casa Luna, into the courtyard. We put jugs of wine on it, with water, forks and spoons. The salads are dotted down the table, with platters of homemade focaccia, in squares, with rosemary from the garden, garlic, drizzled with olive oil.
Then comes the lasagne.
It’s served and passed down the table, Luca and Stella looking very pleased with themselves.
As am I.
When we have served everyone, I regard the table.
Sebastian has been hijacked by one of the nonna s.
He lifts his glass to me. We haven’t had time to talk, and I know we must before he leaves later that afternoon.
I have to let him know how I’m feeling. I have to make up my mind about what I’m going to do …
and I may have done that. It was all down to the lasagne.
I lift my glass to him too.
I pick up my fork and see the children sitting between new friends, local residents and cookery-school students, happier than I’ve seen them in a very long time.
I breathe in the scent of the lasagne, transporting me to Sundays after the restaurant had closed, in our kitchen, cooking it together.
When life was good. The memory is there clear as day.
As is Marco. I put my fork into the lasagne, through the layers of pasta and béchamel sauce, the meat ragù , made with Le Marche ingredients.
We may not have got them all exactly right, but it felt the same when we cooked it and, frankly, it tastes the same.
Made with love and laughter. I lift the fork to my mouth, smell the herbs and garlic, chew and close my eyes.
I’m right back there: I feel warm, happy, loved.
Slowly I open my eyes and look straight ahead, to see Giovanni smiling.
Sebastian is now between two nonna s, who are making sure his plate is never empty.
I look at Aimee, next to Stella, and there, among them all, I can see Marco, eating and drinking.
He turns to me, lifts his wine glass and smiles.
He didn’t leave. He’ll never leave. He is part of our past and our present.
He will always have a place at the table and in our hearts, in our future.
It’s okay to have a future, I realize. It’s okay to have fun.
I look at Sebastian, who looks back across the crowded table at me, as if he’s hoping I’ll save him from the nonna s … I find myself smiling.
We finish our plates of lasagne, mop them with freshly baked bread and wash it down with glasses of spicy red wine. It’s delicious.
Slowly, I stand, collect plates and move towards the kitchen. People are talking and laughing and I don’t want to interrupt that. I head to the sink.
‘Thea!’
It’s Sebastian. He looks exhausted and rather too full.
‘It’s all I could do to get away from the nonna s. I have a feeling they’re trying to keep you and me apart. But, really, I need to speak to you.’
I smirk inwardly at the thought of the nonna s, still trying to stage an intervention between me and Sebastian, to match-make Giovanni and me.
‘Come with me,’ I say, leading him to the pantry. ‘We’ll say we’re getting dessert.’
In the cool of the whitewashed room Sebastian loosens his tie and lets out a little burp.
‘Excuse me. It was excellent lasagne. Just rather a lot of it. Do you mind if I sit?’ He points to the chair that is used for reaching high shelves …
or for Nonna Teresa to sit on when they’re hiding in here, I think, with a smile, remembering them all squashed in when they tried to set up Giovanni and me.
We still need to clear the air on that one.
‘The weather is lovely now. Much more settled. The storm seems to have cleared the air,’ Sebastian remarks.
How very British of him. And Sebastian is wonderfully British. ‘It has. Both in the weather and for me too,’ I say softly.
‘It has?’ he asks.
‘I have …’ I falter as I remember what I’m giving up. The chance to be with a good man, a solid man … but not my man, I think.
In the background I can hear the children laughing. This may not be what I planned. But it is an adventure. A new beginning in a place full of love, and that feels like a good place to start.
‘I’m sorry, Sebastian. Thank you, but I’ve come to realize the past is a place I shouldn’t go back to. La Tavola has shown me that. The past is a wonderful place, with beautiful memories.’
‘Like the pub when we got stranded.’ We laugh.
‘Exactly. But it’s not a place to stay. Time moves on. And there is a new beginning out there for both of us. A whole new future.’
He looks down.
‘That’s not to say we can’t be a part of that … just not the whole of it,’ I say. ‘I want to know all about your adventure and your move to Wales. I just can’t come.’
He nods. ‘Where will you go?’
‘I don’t know … but I know it’s to the future, and this time I really am fine!’
He stands up. ‘Be happy, Thea!’ he says.
‘And you, Sebastian. Thank you for making me realize that, well, this is just the start of a new journey.’
He holds out his arms and hugs me. It’s a comforting hug. A safe place. But it’s not the place I want to be.
I hear shuffling in the kitchen, crockery being put down.
‘We’d better help clear up or people will wonder where we are.’
‘Hiding out in the pantry!’ He opens the door, smiling now.
I see Giovanni turning away and walking back into the dining room. ‘Giovanni! Wait! I need to …’
But he doesn’t stop walking.
‘So, it is goodbye, then?’ says Sebastian.
‘Yes, it was good to see you again, but I’m not going back. In fact, I’m not going back at all. I may even stay here.’ A whole new idea is hatching in my head.
‘For good?’
‘For as long as this place feels like home.’