Chapter 3
Jemma
‘You are magrissima,’ Nonna said disapprovingly as she hugged Jemma.
‘She is bella,’ Nonno dared to contradict.
Jemma knew her grandmother was right. Her favourite suits were beginning to hang from, rather than drape over, her figure. She leaned into the embrace. ‘It’s not like you never see me, Nonna. I live right next door.’
‘I know where you live, insolente. I also know that you are off to work before we get here, and you often don’t come home until after the trattoria is closed. What kind of life is that for a young woman?’
‘A career, Nonna. That kind of life.’
‘Pfft.’ Nonna snapped her fingers. ‘Giving a job a fancy name doesn’t make it any more important.’
Nonno chuckled as he hugged Jemma. ‘Yet you are happy to tell all our customers of our granddaughter the barrister, Rosa?’ he chided.
‘It won’t matter if she becomes a judge if she starves herself to death, will it?’ Nonna said, pushing him aside so she could propel Jemma into the kitchen at the back of the restaurant.
Seated on a stool at the industrial bench in the middle of the room, Dad immediately got to his feet. He crossed the tiled floor and drew Jemma into a warm hug. Unlike her mother, this part of her family could be relied on never to be short of three things: minor dramas, opinions—and love.
‘Hey, kiddo.’ Dante saluted her with a sauce-covered ladle from his position at the enormous cooktop.
It would never seem normal to see her uncle there instead of Dad.
Despite the weather turning chilly, Dante wore a t-shirt and track pants, though whether that was to display the coveted vascularity of his weight-lifting obsession or his tapestry of tattoos, she wasn’t sure.
‘Sit. Eat,’ Nonna said, doling amaretti biscuits onto a plate by the handful.
‘Frangelico, Pierce?’ Jemma lifted an eyebrow at her father. Years back, in the throes of teen angst and rebellion, she’d started calling him by his first name. The habit had stuck, even if she still thought of him as ‘Dad’.
‘Of course,’ he responded. Jemma had always preferred the adult version of the chocolate-chip-studded hazelnut biscuit.
‘What happened to the “no sweets before dinner” rule?’ Dante demanded, as though they were kids in competition for adult favours, rather than uncle and niece. Probably not all that surprising, given they were almost the same age.
‘For Jemma, it is different,’ Nonna said. ‘She is too thin, see?’ Jemma twitched her arm away as her grandmother pinched her bicep. ‘She is like you, Dante, spends too much time in the gym.’
Jemma gave an almost-silent huff of amusement; she and Dante couldn’t look more different.
Where she was wiry, Dante bulged, his muscles corded with popping veins.
After his latest stay in jail, her uncle had gone clean, giving up the performance-enhancing steroids—but he’d soon discovered he couldn’t build the mass he wanted without chemical assistance.
‘I’m only doing self-defence classes, Nonna.’
‘Martial arts?’ Dad said. He pushed the biscuit plate toward her, indicating that he agreed with the prevailing view about her weight. ‘That’s new, isn’t it?’
‘Getting too wet for running,’ she replied. Trust Dad to pick up on the change to her routine. ‘What’s in the pot, Dante?’ she asked, although the rich tomato smell was something of a giveaway.
‘Pasta,’ Dante replied. ‘Pierce is in charge of the sauce.’
Dad pointed at the large casserole dish on the hotplate. An occasional explosion of fragrant tomato juice erupted between the lid and edge of the pot, tracking down the deep blue enamel. ‘Rabbit ragout.’
‘You murdered fluffy bunnies?’ Her grumbling stomach rendered her complaint void. ‘You really have gone country.’
‘They’re in plague proportions in Settlers Bridge. I’m making the most of the free meat before the farmers start poisoning them.’
‘You didn’t use steel-jaw traps, did you?’ The cruel devices had been illegal for over a decade.
‘Not trying to entrap me, are you?’ Dad said with a grin.
‘Yeah. Sad when you have to look to the family to drum up business.’ She shot her father a wink. She and Dad had a running joke about the divide between her career and her uncle’s somewhat shady interests.
‘Used to do that when I was younger,’ Nonno said.
‘What, break the law?’ Jemma asked. ‘Explains a lot. Apples and trees, you know.’
Dad shook his head slightly, signalling for her not to pick a fight.
‘Rabbiting,’ Nonno clarified. ‘There are many in Tuscany. Or at least, there were.’
‘They’ve probably all been caught and eaten by now. How come you’ve never been back, Nonno?’ Jemma asked. It was easy to divert the conversation; her family were loud, bombastic, with a tendency to interrupt and talk over one another.
‘Be an expensive trip just to check on the welfare of the coniglio,’ her grandfather replied.
‘What time would Nonno have for holidaying?’ Nonna asked, unfailingly pragmatic.
The room filled with a waft of garlic as she slid a tray of crusty bread from the oven.
Until that moment, Jemma would have thought it impossible for the kitchen to be any more fragrant.
‘Look at us, eating dinner at eleven at night. The only time we can all be together.’ Nonna shook a finger at Jemma. ‘And that’s your fault.’
Jemma threw her hands up in protest. ‘You had dinner service until an hour ago, Nonna. And I’m not the one who lives miles away. You said yourself: I’m right next door. Plus, I manage to turn up every month for dinner … unlike some.’
‘Nice,’ Dad muttered. ‘Throw me under the bus, why don’t you?’
‘Needs must,’ she replied. ‘I figure you’re used to defending your absence.’ Though he lived less than two hours away, Dad may as well have gone to the moon, according to Nonna. He’d left the city, the heart and hub of everything.
‘But you are always busy, Jemma,’ Nonna said. ‘When are you going to find a man so you don’t need to work so much?’
Nonno guffawed. ‘How would a man stop our granddaughter from pursuing her passion, Rosa? What example does she have? Nowadays, you’re at the trattoria more hours than me.’
Faint concern threaded through Jemma. Nonno was inexhaustible, indefatigable. He had always been a larger-than-life figure to her, as permanent as stone, as reliable as earth. Was he slowing down?
‘Only because you’ve joined that ridiculous walking group,’ Nonna said, and Jemma’s breath eased.
‘As though you’re not on your feet enough.
But if you want to be striding around the streets in silly stretchy pants while it’s still dark, that’s on you.
Someone has to get in early now Dante wants the trattoria open for lunches. ’
Her uncle’s attention remained studiously fixated on the stovetop. Obviously, he wasn’t volunteering to be first in to work, even if the new hours were his plan.
Dad huffed. He’d always argued against opening the tratt for lunch, particularly with his cafe covering that need.
‘Shouldn’t you guys be winding down a bit?’ she said. ‘I mean, Uncle Dante’s here and you’ve got plenty of staff. Maybe consider a holiday?’
‘I didn’t coach her,’ Dad protested, sliding to the far side of his stool to distance himself from Jemma.
Jemma’s hands flew up in question. At work she controlled the instinct to talk with her hands, but with her family, she could be both voluble and visible. But never vulnerable.
‘Before you came in, I was trying to persuade your grandparents to come and stay for a few nights,’ Dad explained.
Jemma lifted one shoulder. ‘It’s not exactly Italy, but at least it’d be something.’
‘A bit better than something.’ Dad sounded a bit miffed. ‘You’d know that, if you ever took up my invitations.’
Nonna’s loaf gave a satisfying crack as she sliced through with a bread knife, and Jemma, Nonno and Dad all leaned in to snag morsels of shattered crust, dragging them through the pools of melted garlic butter that leaked onto the chopping board.
‘I’ve been to Settlers Bridge,’ Jemma protested around a mouthful of bread.
‘You’d think you could manage more than one visit a year.’
‘Yeah, work–life balance is important,’ Dante cut in.
There was a momentary and unusual silence, which Jemma assumed was everyone taking a pause to consider whether Dante had any knowledge on that subject. Until he’d taken over Dad’s role in the trattoria last year, she’d never known him to hold down a job.
‘I might take you up on that holiday offer sometime, Pierce,’ Dante continued obliviously. ‘Could do with a bit of a break myself.’
‘You’ve taken care of the salad, Dante?’ Nonna said before Dad had a chance to respond to the threat to his idyllic lifestyle.
‘All done,’ Dante said, swaggering over to the industrial fridge.
‘Open the wine and let it breathe, Pierce,’ Nonno directed. ‘Bread and wine are life.’
‘Agreed,’ Jemma said fervently.
Dad pushed his plate toward her, tipping his head at the bread on it.
The gesture spoke volumes: she wasn’t escaping tonight before he’d given her a talking-to about her diet, lifestyle and whatever else he felt required some fatherly input.
Sometimes it seemed he felt a need to make up for her mother’s lifelong hands-off approach to parenting.
‘How is Samanta?’ Nonna asked. For some reason, she always dropped the ‘H’ in Dad’s partner’s name.
‘Good. Great,’ he replied, with disturbingly dreamy inflection.
‘Oh my God,’ Jemma groaned, and Pierce whipped back to her.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s been what, nearly a year? And you still get that sappy grin on your face the moment anyone mentions Sam.’
‘I didn’t say anything,’ Dad protested.
Dante chortled. ‘Didn’t need to, bro. I’m with Jemma on this one.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with amore,’ Nonno declared, smacking his lips against Nonna’s cheek.