Chapter 9 #2
His mother bustled in. ‘Ay, ay, ay,’ she said, waving her hands and speaking in rapid Portuguese. ‘Why is the table not set?’
She berated Katerina, who’d been curled up on the sofa, absorbed in her phone. The girl jumped up and started laying the table, shooing Rebecca and Cristina over to the recently vacated sofa.
Felipe helped, placating his mother and handing cutlery to his cousin.
‘Have you had any thoughts about a new cooker, querido ?’ she asked in Portuguese, which was a sure sign of her agitation. ‘Should we have the one with the big griddle or the one with the medium griddle, and how many burners? I just don’t know.’
‘Don’t worry, M?e . I’m going to the distributor this weekend and I will talk to him about his best recommendation.’
‘Oh, you’re a good boy.’
He nodded, although he wished she would make the decision. She was the one that used the damn thing, day in and day out.
‘If it is bigger, it would be good, but not so big. And then if it is too small?—’
‘ M?e. Why don’t we book an appointment with the distributor, and you can take a look.’
She patted him on the arm. ‘No, you can do it better than me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
He smiled down at her and gave her a soft kiss on her cheek. ‘I’m always here for you, M?e . For all of you, you know that.’
‘I do and I’m so grateful.’ Tears shone in her eyes and she dashed them away. ‘Now food. Who is hungry?’
‘I’m starving,’ said Cristina, looking up from painting Rebecca’s last nail.
Ten minutes later, Ana brought the dish to the table and placed it in the centre, the food sizzling lightly on the big brown earthenware platter.
As always, it smelled delicious; his m?e was a brilliant cook.
Ana deftly served the food, and he watched as Rebecca examined the portion on her plate, her face sombre as if she were keeping her reservations at bay.
It wouldn’t have surprised him if at any moment she’d picked up her fork and poked it.
His mother taking her seat was the signal to begin and the room fell silent apart from the clink of metal on china. He delayed starting, still watching Rebecca.
Her expression was almost comical as she approached the food with the same wariness with which one might approach a rabid dog.
Then, scooping up a forkful, she steeled herself as she took a mouthful, preparing herself for the anticipated revulsion.
It was even more amusing when her eyes popped open, widening with sudden surprise, and then she caught him watching her and she flushed pink.
‘Like it?’ he asked with a teasing smirk.
She nodded, looking around quickly as if to check no one else had noticed her initial reluctance. ‘It’s… really nice.’ Delighted with herself, or so he assumed from her sudden smile, she added, ‘Really good.
Maria smiled, oblivious to Rebecca’s previous misgivings. ‘I will share the recipe. You can take it home to your madre . She can cook it for your family.’
Rebecca pinched her lips together. ‘My mother isn’t really much of a cook.’
Maria dropped her knife. ‘Is she unwell?’
Rebecca frowned in confusion. ‘No, she just doesn’t like to cook.’
‘Doesn’t like to cook?’ Maria pondered this with a look of puzzlement as if it were far too difficult to comprehend. ‘What do you mean? Who cooks for your family? Who looks after them?’
Rebecca looked over at Felipe as if appealing for support, but he genuinely had nothing to offer.
He couldn’t imagine his mother not being in the kitchen or directing operations.
Even in the dark days immediately after his father’s death, when his mother had been an automaton, she had still found the energy to cook dinner every night for them all.
And it was all of them. His two sisters, the three young cousins who had already lost their mother at an early age, and himself.
Even though she had found it difficult to cope with the grief, it was her way of showing that she cared for them, that they were still family.
‘My mother doesn’t like cooking. She finds it a chore and… she used to cook a big roast dinner on Sundays but then… my father and brothers would have other things to do. It would just be me and her. She said it wasn’t worth the effort for two.’
‘ Puxa , that is sad,’ said Maria, shaking her head in gentle disapproval.
‘I shall teach you how to make this, so that you can make it for your m?e. Show her good food is for one, two or twenty. It is always worth making food; it nourishes body and soul. The cooking and the eating. Food and eating together has been at the heart of the Rebelo family. It is what took us through the darkest of times.’
Maria smiled around the table at each one of them and Felipe realised what she said was true.
Eating together in the depths of their grief had given them purpose; cooking had given M?e a reason to go on, and showing up to please her had been their reason to keep going.
He hadn’t appreciated how important that had been until now.
Rebecca looked around the table and Felipe took pity on her. ‘My father and uncle died in an accident together. It was very sudden and a terrible shock for the whole family. It was ten years ago now.’
She put her fork down with a clatter. ‘I’m so sorry. How terrible. I had no idea.’
‘It’s not for you to worry about,’ said Maria immediately, wanting to put her at her ease.
‘Like Felipe says, it was a long time ago. We mustn’t look back.
It was a dreadful tragedy, and I miss my husband, but it happened.
I am proud of how it has shaped us, made us strong together.
’ She smiled at Felipe and then Ana and the two younger girls.
‘We are family. My two daughters have married fine young men and Felipe?—’
He cut her off before she could say too much. ‘Will one day marry a fine young woman.’ He turned to Rebecca. ‘She’s desperate to marry me off.’
‘Not desperate, querido . But you are thirty-one now. Me and your pai had been married for ten years by then.’
‘And they’d had you by the time they were twenty-three,’ piped up Katerina with a fiendish smirk. ‘You’re letting the family down.’
Felipe felt his muscles tense at her words. Letting the family down . He’d done his best to make sure that never happened and they were not going to guilt him into a relationship before he was good and ready. At the moment, he relished what little freedom he had.
Across the table, Ana gave him a small smile. Sometimes he thought she might understand, but it would be disloyal to voice his frustrations.
After dinner, they sat around chatting as they finished the bottle of wine while Cristina applied another coat of varnish to Rebecca’s nails.
‘What do you think?’ asked Cristina when she’d finally finished.
Rebecca held up her hands and nodded. ‘Very good. Do I have to pay you?’
Cristina sat up straighter. ‘Now that is a really good idea.’
‘Don’t you dare,’ admonished Maria, reaching over and tapping Cristina’s hand.
The young girl pouted. ‘It was worth asking.’
‘You can do an extra shift in the hotel if you want more money,’ said Felipe, thinking it would be good to get someone to take over the laundry this week.
‘It’s like being a slave,’ moaned Cristina.
‘I know,’ replied Felipe. ‘I’m an awful cousin.’
‘You’re not so bad,’ said Katerina in a comforting tone.
He narrowed his eyes. ‘And what are you after?’
‘Well, if Cristina wants to work extra, she could take my shift on Saturday,’ she said with a sly glance at him.
He shook his head. ‘Nope. Not happening.’
Now she pouted.
‘Maybe I could help,’ suggested Ana.
‘No, because I’m going to need you to help out in the restaurant. I have to go to Lisbon for several meetings.’
‘Ooh, visiting the Love Palace,’ said Katerina, and they both cackled.
‘Yes, Lisbon,’ he said, refusing to justify his reasons. If he took a day off that was up to him. His resolve hardened when both girls began to give smoochy kisses to the backs of their hands.
‘Oh, querida , I’ve missed you so much.’
‘Kiss me again, amada .’
‘Oh, Felipe, you’re so handsome.’
The two of them carried on in this vein, with Maria smiling on, Ana trying not to laugh and even Rebecca smiling.
Felipe rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t you two have schoolwork to finish?’
‘No,’ said Katerina. ‘Watching you squirm is much more interesting.’
‘Who says I’m squirming?’ he teased. ‘I’m looking forward to a break from you two monkeys.’
‘You don’t mean that,’ said Katerina, dramatically clutching her neck. ‘You love us even though you give us the worst jobs to do.’
‘Yes, because I’m a cruel villain. I think it would be easier to employ people who do what I tell them.
’ He wasn’t going to remind them that the weekly allowance he gave them was far more than the hourly rate for the work they did.
They each worked one shift a week, which wasn’t much to ask.
When he was Katerina’s age, he’d worked most evenings in the restaurant and still went to school the next day.
His father had always impressed upon him that the family all pull together, and it was something he felt he should continue as part of his father and uncle’s legacy.
But sometimes it was a relief to get away from the chaos and the constant buzz of the female hormonal soup that he lived with.
‘You should take Rebecca with you,’ said Maria suddenly.
He could almost hear the synapses clicking in synchronisation as one by one each female head bobbed up.
‘That’s a very good idea,’ said Ana.
‘Yes,’ said Maria. ‘Rebecca, you should go. You have Friday and Saturday off and no classes on Sunday. You should visit Lisbon. It’s a beautiful city. You can stay at Felipe’s apartment. It has two bedrooms, doesn’t it, Felipe?’