The Food of Love (34 page)

Bruno had no time to wonder exactly what he meant. ‘It’s

mended? You’ve finally got the parts?’

‘More or less. Of course, I had to improvise a little.’ He led the way to where, in the middle of the barn, a strange vehicle now

stood. It had the body of Bruno’s van, the front wheels of a tractor, and the pop-up headlamps of a very old Alfa Romeo. Inside,

Bruno could see that where the steering wheel had once been

there was now a pair of scooter handlebars. ‘It may not look

much,’ Hanni added unnecessarily, ‘but I reckon it’ll get you as far as Rome. After all, it’s downhill most of the way, isn’t it?’

‘In the relationship of its parts, the pattern of a complete Italian meal is very like that of a civilised life. No dish overwhelms

another, either in quantity or in flavour, each leaves room for

new appeals to the eye and palate; each fresh sensation of taste, colour and texture interlaces with a lingering recollection of the last. To make time to eat as Italians still do is to share in their inexhaustible gift for making art out of life.’

Marcf.lla Hazan, The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Laura had arranged to meet Judith for lunch at one of her

favourite restaurants, Cecchino’s. It was not, Judith thought as she entered the long, low, tunnel-like room, the sort of place she

would have chosen herself. For one thing, it was distinctly lacking in what the guidebooks would call ‘ambience’. The tables were

plain and functional; the lights, which hung directly overhead,

were relentlessly bright; and the waiters, who all seemed to be at least sixty, could barely manage a token smile, even for beautiful young women dining without male company. But the food, Laura

had assured her, would more than make up for these shortcomings.

Judith

paused by the door. On a trolley, displayed as proudly as

any array of desserts, were the specialities of the day: a dozen or so calves’ feet, neatly laid out in rows, along with several mounds of a white, gristle-like substance whose function in the body Judith could only guess at. She made a face. Then because, after all, this was a girl who for the past year had happily worn a phial of blood around her neck, she shrugged and looked around for her friend.

Laura had been seated right at the back, a bottle of wine already open on the table. Her lunches with Judith were a chance to

abandon Kim’s dietary strictures and restricted intake of alcohol, and Laura had already made inroads into her first glass of

Sangiovese.

‘Hey, girl,’ Judith said, kissing her friend before taking the

other seat. ‘How was your trip?’

‘Great. But, ah, a bit shorter than we planned.’

Judith raised an eyebrow.

‘Kim got sick. A touch of mushroom poisoning.’

Judith sensed there was something she wasn’t being told. But

the waiter had arrived at their table, flipping open his order pad with a bored expression that suggested he knew already what they were going to eat.

He had clearly not expected to be interrogated fiercely, in

Italian, about the day’s specials. The cart by the door was wheeled over and a long discussion ensued, during which the waiter began to look at Laura in a different light. To discuss gristle with knowledge and passion in Cecchino’s is to command instant respect, no

matter what your appearance or country of origin.

Eventually the girls ordered - rigatoni con la pagliata and zampetti for Laura, bucatini all’ amatriciana and scottadito for

Judith - and Judith was able to tease some of the details of Kim’s misadventure out of her friend. Eventually Laura got to the part where she had met Bruno unexpectedly in Le Marehe. Judith

gasped and prepared to dispense sympathy. Knowing how much

Laura hated even to hear Bruno or Tommaso’s name, she could

see how meeting him by chance must have been an unsettling

experience. As yet more details tumbled out of Laura’s mouth,

Judith became increasingly horrified.

‘So they were lying to you? All that time) That’s—’ She wanted

to say ‘humiliating’, but she settled for the milder ‘weird’.

‘Yes,’ Laura said. ‘All the time I thought it was Tommaso doing

the cooking, it was actually Bruno.’

‘But why?’

Laura shrugged. “I suppose—’ She stopped. “I suppose because

he was in love with me.’

‘Tommaso?’

‘No. I think Tommaso - well, if it hadn’t been for the food it

would only ever have been a quick fling. Of course, I thought that because he was cooking for me like that, it must be something

more he wanted. Whereas Bruno …’ She hesitated. ‘Bruno was

probably someone I’d never have looked at twice, to be honest.

And I think he knew that. So he went on cooking for me because

it was all he could do.’

‘You’re well shot of both of them,’ Judith said. ‘And all’s well that ends well - if it hadn’t been for Bruno and Tommaso, you’d

never have got together with Kim.’

‘Absolutely,’ Laura said. But there was a note of doubt in her

voice which her friend immediately picked up on.

‘Things are all right with Kim?’

‘Oh, of course,’ Laura assured her. ‘Things with Kim are great.’

Because although she knew Judith very well by now, there were

some things - some niggling doubts - that you couldn’t say even

to your best friends without seeming - well, a bit disloyal.

Hanni had been partly right: the way to Rome lay downhill as far as the valley and the long road-tunnel of the Furlo gorge, but after that there were more mountains to cross - the fearsomely high

Sibylline peaks, capped with snow even at this time of year. The van gasped for breath, and Bruno gasped with cold, since a heating system was not one of the luxuries Hanni had thought worth

installing. His maximum speed was barely more than a tractor’s,

thanks to the various modifications, and it was an exhausting day and a half’s drive before signs to familiar towns such as Frascati, Nemi and Marino came into view. He stopped as infrequently as

he could. Before leaving, Gusta had given him a basket of food:

some piadina and salume to eat on the way, and other culinary

treasures for the task ahead: two large white truffles, the finest they had, prised from the roots of a nut tree and now wrapped

separately in foil to preserve their aroma; a sheep’s cheese matured in the cool limestone caves beneath the village; and a tiny flagon of the family’s precious aceto balsamico. At the very bottom of the basket, wrapped in a piece of old brown canvas, he found four

chef’s knives, their blades ancient and discoloured but their cutting edges gleaming and newly honed.

When he finally entered Rome, Bruno’s first task, however, was

not to find Laura but to repair another fractured relationship. He drove slowly through the outskirts, oblivious to the whistles and honks of his fellow motorists, and finally drew up outside the little building that had once housed II Cuoco. With a heavy heart he

pushed open the door.

He stopped, amazed. It was full. More than full: there were

people waiting patieiuly at the bar for tables. The long cellar where once bottles of wine had gathered dust had been opened up to

make more space; the wall between the kitchen and the main

dining room knocked through; and there was Tommaso, cheerfully

cooking away to the accompaniment of deafening rock music—

Pizza. At every table, Bruno now saw, they were eating pizza.

He laughed out loud. Of course! As he watched, his old friend

flung a huge ball of dough into the air, spinning it nonchalantly above his head to aerate it before slamming it down on to the

counter again and grabbing a pair of rolling pins to bang it flat in a blur of movement, like a drummer. There was a burst of

whistling and applause from the waiting customers, which

Tommaso acknowledged with a huge grin and a roll of his shoulders, before flicking the pizza across the kitchen into the

wood-fired oven as casually as if it were a Frisbee. Now that Bruno looked more carefully, he realised that many of the adoring customers were young women, and that they were not so much

hanging round the bar as hanging round the kitchen, moving

their bodies in time to the music.

Another familiar figure rushed past. It was Marie. If Tommaso

was drawing plenty of female admiration, Marie was getting the

same from the men in the room. Her top was the shortest Bruno

had ever seen, exposing a swathe of brown midriff, and instead of an order pad she had been writing orders directly on to her arms, legs and even her stomach, which were covered in scribbles of different colours. Together with her newly pierced eyebrow,

lowr-slung hipster jeans and cowboy boots, she looked more

like a rock chick than a waitress. He noticed, too, that the normal rules of restaurant service seemed to have broken down: when you saw a pizza going past, you grabbed a slice, before passing the

plate on to your neighbour.

He made his way over to the kitchen, squeezing through the

crowd. There was a pizza on the counter in front of him and he

broke off a tiny piece to try it. It was really very good - a thin Roman crust, a slather of fresh tomato pulp, some chunks of

creamy buffalo mozzarella, sea salt and two fresh basil leaves,

nothing else. As he watched, Tommaso added a looping signature

of olive oil to the one he was making. The oil, Bruno was pleased to note, was from the same estate he had used himself when cooking here - though he had never been able to pour it from over his

head, like a bartender making a cocktail, the way Tommaso was

doing now.

‘Tommaso,’ he yelled over the din.

Tommaso saw him and froze for a moment. Then he wiped his

hands on his apron and clapped Bruno on the shoulder. ‘How are

you? I

didn’t expect to see you here, old friend.’

‘Neither did I. Tommaso, I’m sorry I went off like that.’

‘My fault. I overreacted about that girl. What do you think of

the place now?’ He spread his hands proudly.

‘Well, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a restaurant with a mosh pit.’

‘Isn’t it great?’ A worried look crossed Tommaso’s face. “I suppose you want your job back. But I should warn you, our new

clientele doesn’t go a bundle on calves’ intestines and all that shit.’

‘It’s all right, I don’t want a job,’ Bruno assured him. ‘I’ve

come to look for Laura.’ He noted the way Tommaso was able to

keep track of half a dozen pizzas even while they were talking:

pounding the dough on one, dragging another out of the oven,

sliding a third down the counter for collection by a waitress, and still finding time to play air-guitar on his rolling pin to Status Quo’s ‘Caroline’.

‘Is this music ironic?’ he shouted.

Tronic? Never heard of them. This is the Quo.’

Bruno gave up. ‘Listen, I’ll see you later. Oh, and this is for

you.’ He took one of the foil packages from out of his pocket.

‘We don’t do that stuff any more,’ Tommaso yelled.

‘It’s a truffle. Just grate it on the pizzas.’ He gestured at the crowds. ‘It’ll be the best pizza they’ve ever had.’

He drove to the Residencia Magdalena. But Laura’s name was not

on any of the doorbells. Eventually he stopped someone coming

out and asked if they knew which apartment was hers.

“I don’t think she’s here,’ the man explained. ‘This is a summer school course on Etruscan history. I guess the regular students had to leave.’

‘Do you know where she’s gone?’

‘Sorry.’ The man shrugged. ‘You could try the university office.

They may have an address for her.’

He drove around the streets of Trastevere, searching for her.

He knew it was hopeless but he couldn’t bear to do nothing.

Eventually, well after midnight, he went back to the little side street that snaked down the hill from the Viale Glorioso. It

occurred to him that he hadn’t actually asked Tommaso if he

would mind him sleeping there: it was perfectly possible his friend had a new roommate now.

He climbed the stairs to the top floor and let himself in. It was quiet and dark. Then, from the direction of Tommaso’s room, he

heard a familiar sound.

‘Oh - ah - oh - oh—’

Laura.

He heard another female gasp, and Tommaso laughing throatily

in response. His blood boiled. Kicking open the bedroom door,

he flicked the lights on.

iScusi,” he said apologetically as Tommaso and Marie stopped

what they were doing and stared at him. “I thought - ah, that is I’ll just go now.’

‘Nice to have you back,’ Tommaso called as Bruno beat a hasty

retreat.

Gennaro was so delighted to see his van again, he offered to take it back for what Bruno had paid for it, plus free espresso and cornetti, a deal that Bruno thought remarkably generous.

‘I’m impressed by these modifications you’ve added,’ Gennaro

explained. ‘Not to mention the old girl’s homing instinct, of

course.’

If only I had a homing instinct for Laura, Bruno thought

gloomily. He had already phoned the university office and got a

recorded announcement saying it was shut until term started the

following week.

‘But a week’s not long to wait, is it?’ Marie asked, her arm

looped casually through Tommaso’s as they drank their coffees.

‘No, but in a week’s time, give or take a few days, Laura’s next term will start too - in the US. If I leave it until then it’ll be too late. She’ll have gone back home.’ He sighed, then a thought

occurred to him. ‘Tommaso - her mobile phone number. It’s