Chapter 29 #2
‘Not your fault – you mustn’t think that.’ Tad’s arm tightened around Kathleen’s shoulders as he spoke, and the older woman sagged against him. ‘What was he in such a rush about anyway?’
‘Dobbiamo andare subito,’ said one of the paramedics.
‘They need to move him,’ Tad translated as the paramedics fastened straps on the wheeled gurney on which Hugh now lay.
‘Portarlo all’ospedale.’
Nobody needed a translation to understand where Hugh was about to be taken.
‘Will he be all right?’ Kathleen said. ‘I want to go with him.’
‘Puo andare con lui?’ Tad asked. ‘Can she come with you?’
‘No. She must take a taxi. We go now.’
‘Call Luca. He’ll bring you,’ Hugh said, a hand waving in the air for emphasis before it sank back onto his chest.
With the hospital destination noted and sirens blaring, the ambulance pulled away from Casa and for the first time since she’d met Kathleen, Amy thought the woman looked small and frail. She suddenly looked her age.
‘I don’t know Luca’s phone number,’ Amy said. ‘He’s the guy who took us to Monte Baldo that day. Do you remember, Tad?’
‘No way I could forget that day, Amy,’ Tad said, then he turned to Kathleen. ‘I’ll phone for a taxi.’
‘Thank you.’
As Tad dialled for a taxi, Kathleen gripped Amy’s arm, an unexpected urgency to her words as she said, ‘Talk to him, Amy. Tell him how you really feel. I have to admit I think Hugh’s absolutely right about that.’
* * *
A short while later, after they’d installed Kathleen into a taxi and dispatched her to the hospital, Amy pulled clothes from her case until she found it, then headed back downstairs with Nanna Gold’s recipe book in her hand.
Tad was in the professional kitchen, a loaf of crusty local bread on a board and a serrated knife beside it.
‘Do you fancy a slice of bread and butter?’ he said.
‘I’m not sure I’ve got much of an appetite, to be honest,’ she said.
‘I know it’s a bit random, but I think food is essential in a crisis, even if it is only a bit of buttered bread. With jam, if you prefer?’
‘Go on then. I’ll have a slice if you’ve got some strawberry jam,’ she said, a gentle frown on her brow.
‘It’s what we used to do when I was a kid. If anyone in the family had a problem, or – more usually in my case – something to own up to, Mamma always cut some bread and made us sit at the kitchen table. With something to eat, it takes the pressure off, you know?’
While he cut a couple of slices and buttered them, Amy slid Nanna Gold’s book onto the stainless-steel countertop.
‘Is that it?’
Amy nodded.
‘I thought you might like to look through it,’ she said, aware she was skirting the main issue – again.
Tad smiled, passed her a slice of bread on a small plate, then settled on a high stool, gesturing for Amy to do the same, and he began to leaf through the book. On the first page was a recipe for Yorkshire puddings.
‘She started the book when she was pregnant with my mum – she wanted to pass on her love of cooking to her daughter. Not that she knew Mum was going to be a girl, or that my mother couldn’t have turned out to be less interested in cooking if she’d tried.
Maybe she hoped for a girl who would be interested in cooking like her – I never actually asked her. ’
‘And no reason why she couldn’t have passed cookery skills on to a boy, either,’ Tad said, his fingers tracing a path over the handwritten entry. ‘Leave the mixture somewhere cool overnight. Cook in beef dripping. Your nanna knew her stuff, didn’t she?’
His interest in the book was interrupted by another arrival – this time the driver tasked with taking Billie to the airport.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ Amy said, leaving him and heading upstairs to help Billie bring her suitcase down, Gianna on hand for the formal checking-out process.
‘I won’t see you when you get back tomorrow,’ Billie said as they walked to the car. ‘I’ll already be en route to see Kelly.’
‘I hope it all goes well,’ Amy said.
Billie’s eyebrows arched. ‘He’s promised to meet with me, and I think that’s an excellent start. He’s not serious about that actress – I’m convinced about it.’
Amy wasn’t anything like as confident as her boss, but she bit at the edge of her lip and stayed quiet as Billie climbed into the transfer vehicle.
‘I’ll let you know my plans once I know them,’ Billie said, her window sliding closed as the car pulled away from Casa del Cibo.
Maybe with her focus on Kelly, and once she was away from Italy, perhaps Billie would lose the vitriol with which she’d viewed the cookery school and she’d settle down, allow Amy and the copywriter to give Casa del Cibo the write-up it deserved.
Back in Casa’s kitchen, Amy retook her seat and pulled closer her plate of buttered bread.
‘She’s gone.’
Tad paused, his hand on a page holding instructions on baking Auntie A T’s cookies.
‘You’re definitely staying until tomorrow, then?’
‘Yes.’
Tad frowned, his gaze fixed on her, the warmth of it far more than Amy deserved.
‘Why the hell do you work for her?’
The edge to his voice was inescapable, and Amy didn’t blame him. Billie had gone from teasing him with a possible cooking series on TV, or his own London restaurant, all the way through to promising to wreck his career.
Amy pulled in a deep breath, but Tad didn’t give her time to reply.
‘I mean, I know it’s none of my business – you’ve made it clear we’re nothing more than ships passing in the night; I get that.
But, Amy, you’re worth so much more than this.
You’re resourceful and bright and funny.
You have the patience of an absolute saint, and I don’t think you realise how talented you are in the kitchen, either.
I’m betting there are loads of other things you’re brilliant at, too – and yet you allow yourself to be belittled daily by that woman. ’
Tad swallowed hard, flicking through a few more of the pages of Nanna Gold’s book. Amy took a bite of jammy, buttery bread as he did so. It worked, allowed her to regain her crumbling composure.
She sat quietly while Tad leafed his way through recipes for blackberry jam, pastry, tiffin, a honey and date custard tart, which Amy’d had a go at once and completely messed up.
It seemed they both needed a few moments of quiet and she watched him as he studied the recipes, eventually settling on the page holding details for a chocolate mousse cake.
‘Nanna had a sweet tooth, like me,’ Amy said.
‘Aye, I can tell.’ He grinned, then his expression became serious as he fixed his gaze on her. ‘Are you going to answer my question?’
‘Yes, but I want to try to explain it all, if you’ll let me.’