The Food of Love (17 page)

kitchen. “I will make it as my mother made it.’

Privately, Bruno thought that Tommaso’s mother might not

have been a very good cook, to judge from the ingredients he had seen assembled on the kitchen table, but Tommaso was determined

and there was nothing he could do about it. “I’ll be at

Gennaro’s if you need me,’ he said, accepting defeat.

Tommaso opened a bottle of wine and set to work. It was good

wine, he thought as he poured himself a glass to try it; and with risotto, that was really all that mattered. He put the rice in a pan with some butter and started to chop an onion into chunks. What

else did he need? Some oil, some garlic. And herbs. He couldn’t

remember precisely which herbs his mother had used, so he cut a

generous selection at random from Bruno’s window boxes.

When he had finished adding the herbs his risotto still looked

a little sparse. He opened the fridge and peered inside. Ah yes, some cream - cream always made things better. In a cupboard he

also found some dried porcini. He dimly remembered his mother

making risotto with funghi sometimes, so he chopped up the porcini and threw them into the mix as well.

A ring at the door heralded Laura’s arrival. As usual, she came

straight into the kitchen to see what was cooking.

‘Uh-uh,’ Tommaso said. ‘Tonight it’s a surprise.’ He replaced

the lid on the pot she’d been trying to smell and gently pushed

her out of the kitchen.

‘Then for the time being I’ll just have to make do with the

chef,’ she said, slipping her hands inside his shirt and lifting her head up for a kiss.

Five minutes later she said breathlessly, ‘How long until it’s

ready?’

‘Don’t worry. We’ve got ages,’ Tommaso said, continuing with

what he had been doing.

Five minutes after that they were entwined on the sofa, half

naked, when Tommaso suddenly smelled burning.

The risotto. He’d completely forgotten about the risotto.

Dashing into the kitchen, he lifted the lid on the pan. Instead of a creamy liquid soup of wine and rice, what stared back at him was a stinking, sulphuric crater of blackened grains, like the remnants of a burnt-out volcano.

‘Fuck,’ he said with feeling.

‘Is everything OK?’ Laura called from the other room.

‘It’s fine. Everything’s fine.’ He thought rapidly. Bruno had

said he’d be in Gennaro’s. Perhaps his friend could still salvage this.

‘I’m just popping out for more ingredients,’ he called. “I’ll

only be a moment.’

Bruno listened to his friend’s explanation and immediately

guessed what must have happened. ‘Did you remember to soak

the porcini before you used them?’ he asked.

‘Soak them?’

‘Never mind. Look, you won’t be able to use any of that rice

now, it will have tainted the whole dish. Let’s go upstairs and

we’ll see what we can do.’

‘But we have to stop Laura seeing you,’ Tommaso said. “I

know - I’ll go first and blindfold her.’

‘ Blindfold her?”

‘Sure. She’ll think it’s a game. Girls love that kind of thing.’

‘They do?’ Bruno said doubtfully.

‘Just leave it to me.’

Bruno waited outside the door of the apartment. After a few minutes Tommaso slipped out. ‘Done it,’ he whispered. ‘She doesn’t

suspect a thing.’

‘Well … if you’re sure …’

‘Don’t worry. Now, what do you want me to do?’

‘Run down to the store and get another bottle of red wine. As

fast as you can.’

‘OK.’ A quick thumbs up and Tommaso was gone.

Bruno pushed open the door and crept cautiously into the

apartment. It was silent. Then there was a dirty giggle from the direction of the sofa. Laura was lying on it, half-undressed. A

thick woollen scarf was tied round her head, covering her eyes.

‘Tommaso?’ she said. Bruno froze.

“I know you’re watching me because I can’t hear you cooking.’

She turned her head this way and that, trying to detect his whereabouts with her ears alone. ‘And if we’re going to play this game, I

want a kiss,’ she announced. ‘A kiss for every five minutes you keep me waiting for my meal. So that’s at least two you owe me already’

Bruno stood stock still, not daring to move.

‘Or else I take the blindfold off.’

Unsure what to do, he took a step towards her. He must have

made some sound because she said ‘Aha,’ and lifted her head up,

waiting.

He couldn’t help it. He bent his head. He touched his lips to

hers, briefly. The lightest of kisses, so brief and fleeting that it barely counted. And then a second … His stomach felt as though he were falling through space; and afterwards, his lips stung and his cheeks were as red as someone who has bitten a diavolillo.

‘Hmm,’ was all Laura said, and he thought in his guilt that she

sounded a little puzzled.

He went into the kitchen and tried to pull himself together. A

risotto would take at least twenty minutes, but he didn’t have the ingredients for anything else. He put the rice on and started frying up the other ingredients. While they were cooking he quickly

assembled some antipasti from the bits and pieces in the fridge: olives into which he stuffed some capers and sage; breadsticks

wrapped in slices of prosciutto.

‘Time’s up,’ Laura called from the other room.

He tiptoed out and, when she lifted her mouth for a kiss, carefully pushed one of the olives inside it.

‘Mmmm,’ she said, her mouth full. ‘Very nice. But I want a kiss

as well.’

Bruno hesitated, then quickly dipped his head and kissed her,

briefly. The taste of the olive mingled with the sweeter taste of her own mouth. He gasped, and took a step backwards.

‘More,’ Laura murmured. ‘Tommaso, stop teasing me.’

The sound of his friend’s name shattered Bruno’s reverie. What

on earth am I doing? he thought, aghast. He went into the kitchen and leaned against the door, trembling.

At last Bruno heard Tommaso coming up the stairs. When he

slipped into the apartment, holding his bottle of wine, Bruno

pointed at the sitting room and quickly left his friend to take care of the rest of the evening.

He wandered the tiny cobbled streets of Trastevere for hours,

trying not to imagine what Laura and his friend were doing now.

He had a distillato at a late-night bar to calm himself, shaking his head when the beautiful transsexuals who were its only other customers tried to proposition him.

He was still shaking as he contemplated how close he had been

to disaster. If the blindfold had slipped … it didn’t bear thinking about. He could imagine all too readily the horror and disgust in Laura’s eyes. Not to mention, of course, Tommaso’s red-blooded

rage. What had he been thinking of?

But alongside that vision of horror, another version of events

kept slipping unbidden into his mind. In that version, Laura looked at him not with disgust and horror but with love and longing,

opening her mouth as she leaned towards him for another kiss …

Madness. It was all madness. “You have to get a grip on yourself, Bruno told himself. You’ve just got to exercise more self-control.

She’s Tommaso’s girl, and that’s an end of it.

Bruno let himself into the apartment and listened. All was quiet.

He went into the kitchen. There was only one remedy when he

was feeling like this. Trying not to clatter the pans, which would wake the others, he poured some olive oil into a frying pan and

added some slices of chilli and a crushed clove of garlic. In another pan he heated up some stock for pasta in brodo.

Lost in what he was doing, he didn’t notice the face at the

window, watching him, until he was taking the stock off the heat.

Caught by surprise, his hand shook and some of the boiling liquid slopped on to his bare arm. He gasped in pain.

Laura, unable to sleep, had climbed out on to the roof to sit

and look at the view - that incredible chaos of medieval rooftops tumbling down to the river, with the palaces and domed churches

of Rome’s centre immediately beyond. Hearing noises coming

from the kitchen, she had assumed at first that it was Tommaso.

Then she’d seen that it was Bruno, cooking. But what made no

sense was that he was so good at it, even better than Tommaso.

She had never seen anyone who could prepare food like that. Just the way he chopped the chilli was unbelievably deft, and yet he did it without even glancing down at his hands. Then he saw her

watching him, and spilled the boiling liquid on himself.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly, “I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

Bruno had already thrust his arm under the cold tap. ‘Wait, I’ll come round.’

By the time she got to the kitchen he was trying to wrap a

dressing round his arm one-handed, tightening it with his teeth.

‘Here, let me.’ A patch of skin on his forearm was starting to

blister. ‘Bruno, I am so sorry,’ she said again as she took the bandage and wrapped it round his arm. “I wasn’t thinking.’

‘It’s OK,’ Bruno said. ‘It happens all the time in a kitchen.’

‘When you’re washing dishes?’ she said, puzzled.

‘Uh - sure. Sometimes the dirty pans are hot.’ Luckily Laura

was concentrating on the bandage, so she couldn’t see that his face had turned almost as red as his burned arm. ‘And I’m clumsy.’

‘You didn’t look clumsy to me.’

He looked down at her hair as she tied the bandage for him.

Automatically he began to separate the various ingredients of her scent. Bergamot, citrus, cinnamon … and something else, too; a faint, sweet top note that was the smell of her own skin. He tried to capture it in his memory, to fix it precisely in his palate.

The wedding cake would have candied fruits … No, stop thinking like this, he told himself sternly.

‘All done,’ she said, stepping back to admire her handiwork.

‘It’s tight,’ he said, trying to flex his arm.

‘It needs to be.’

‘But I need to finish the soup.’

“I can do it.’ She put the saucepan back on the stove for him.

‘Just tell me what to do.’

‘There’s a spoon on your right to stir it,’ he said. ‘And the chilli needs to go in now.’

‘Like this?’

‘Perfect.’

He watched her. ‘It will be about ten minutes before it’s ready,’

he said. ‘You don’t have to wait.’

‘No, I’d like to. Least I can do.’

There was a long silence. Laura said, ‘When I was watching you

through the window, do you know what you looked like?’

‘No, what?’

‘A wizard. Stirring your cauldron. Eye of newt and wing of

bat.’

‘Eye of newt?’ He screwed up his face. ‘That would taste of

very little,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Too small.’

She smiled. ‘It’s just an expression.’

‘Oh. I see. Well, I suppose cooking is like magic, in a way.

Spells are just recipes, after all.’

‘Imagine if you could really cast a spell on someone just by

cooking. That would be freaky, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ he said, avoiding her eye. ‘Imagine.’

‘People turning into frogs all over the place.’ She pointed at the soup. ‘Should we taste this?’

‘If you like.’ He already knew exactly what it would taste like.

She took a spoon and tasted some of the broth. ‘That’s really

good,’ she said, surprised. “I mean - really, really good.’

‘It needs two pinches of salt and a little olive oil.’

‘You haven’t tasted it.’

He shrugged. ‘That’s still what it needs.’

‘Okay, mister wizard. You’re in charge.’ She added the salt,

then picked up the bottle of oil. ‘How much?’

‘Two glugs.’

‘Could we possibly translate that into imperial measures?’

‘Put your thumb over the top of the bottle and tip it up. When

you let your thumb off, the olive oil will glug twice as it comes out. Then you’ve put in just the right amount.’

‘Neat.’ She put the bottle down and sucked the last drops of oil off her thumb. Bruno felt his heart lurch. ‘So how come you

aren’t a chef?’ she said, not noticing. ‘You’ve obviously got the talent.’

‘Well - maybe one day’

‘Tommaso’s teaching you, I suppose?’

‘Something like that.’

‘He’s a very talented cook.’

‘He’s talented at lots of things,’ Bruno said loyally.

“I guess he’s always been a big hit with women,’ she said

casually.

“I suppose so.’

‘Was there ever anyone - you know - special?’

‘No,’ he said truthfully.

‘But there must have been other women he’s cooked for?’

Bruno hesitated. How he longed to tell her the truth! But it

was too late now. Too many lies had been told. If Laura ever

found out what had really happened, she would be appalled.

‘No,’ he said. “I can promise you: Tommaso has never cooked

like this for any girl before.’

He saw the happiness flood into her eyes and had to turn away,

full of self-disgust.

In the kitchen at Templi, quiet reigned. The first diners were

sending in their selections, Karl was calling each item, and all around the room chefs were quietly acknowledging their orders as they began to execute their allotted tasks. Surveying the scene, Alain Dufrais allowed himself a tiny nod of satisfaction.

Over in the patissier’s corner, Bruno was also feeling better. A shortage in the garde manger station meant that Hugo Kass had

been temporarily removed from desserts, and Bruno was able to

get on with his preparations undisturbed.

Suddenly he heard a ‘Psssf. Looking around, he could not at

first identify the source. Then he saw Tommaso crouching behind