‘He wants to go to the salumeria,’ said Manu. ‘He’s like this every Saturday.’
‘Your English is very good, Manu,’ Kathy observed then.
‘Oh. That’s because I lived in London until I was nearly six. When I came here, I could speak English better than Italian. Now I’m about the same in both.’
‘I wish I could speak Italian.’
‘I could teach you some if you like.’
‘I would.’
‘Do you know anything in Italian at all? I mean, can you say “hello” and “please” and “thank you”?’
‘I think so. I know ciao and buon giorno. I know grazie. I don’t know how to say “please”, though.’
‘Per favore,’ said Manu. ‘Practise it.’
‘Per favore.’
‘Excellent. Now I’ll teach you how to say your name. Mi chiamo Kathy …’
‘Mi chiamo Kathy.’
‘Well done.’ Manu gave her a thumbs-up.
He kept up the Italian lesson all the way to the market, which was set up in front of an austere white church on a nearby piazza, in the shade of some enormous umbrella pines. There were fruit stalls and flower stalls and stalls selling cheese. With Faustino at the end of his lead, Kathy was automatically an insider. The stallholders recognised the dog and, of course, Manu. They called out to him as he passed.
In turn, Manu greeted them all by name.
Kathy couldn’t help but be struck by how polite he was. Neil’s children never spoke to anyone over thirty unless they had to, or they wanted something. Manu actually passed the time of day with the stallholders who called out to him. Perhaps he, too, would retreat into sullen silence once hormones took hold.
Most of the stallholders asked Manu where his uncle was that morning. The woman who ran the vegetable stall in particular looked disappointed when Manu said that he was at home in the hotel.
‘He’s not unwell, I hope,’ she said. ‘If he is, then these will cheer him up.’ She handed Manu a punnet of strawberries. ‘I won’t put them on the bill. Don’t forget to tell him Gina sent them,’ she added.
‘All the women here want to marry my uncle,’ said Manu, as he slipped the free strawberries into the basket.
He must usually be more personable on a Saturday morning, Kathy thought.
‘But he’s told me he’d rather be a monk.’
‘Oh.’
Manu handed a slip of paper to the cheese seller, who parcelled up the hotel’s order with the care of someone preparing a birthday gift. She, too, asked Manu to remember her to his uncle. At the salumeria, the owner cut fifty slices of mortadella. Fifty for the hotel and one for Faustino. Faustino’s eyes were wide and wild with delight as the man dangled the extra slice above the little dog’s head. Snap, snap. It was gone in two bites.
‘I could have a sausage for you if you come back later,’ the butcher told Kathy.
As Manu translated, Kathy did a double-take. The butcher grinned. Kathy told herself this wasn’t the UK. That wasn’t a double-entendre. Though it almost certainly was. She wasn’t sure whether to be flattered.
The olive-oil vendor saw Manu coming and had two bottles ready for him.
‘Where’s your uncle?’ she asked. ‘I put my lipstick on specially.’
Manu, who was still translating everything for Kathy’s benefit, said afterwards, ‘She wanted to know who you were. She thought you might be my uncle’s new girlfriend.’
Kathy had to laugh at that. She didn’t think she’d seen anyone look at her with less romantic intention than Henry had that morning. Indeed, Manu confirmed, ‘He’s never going to have a new girlfriend. He said he’d rather have a pet crocodile. I’d definitely rather have a crocodile.’
‘I see. What’s next on the list?’ Kathy asked.
‘We’ve got everything,’ said Manu. ‘And when we’ve finished shopping, we always have gelato.’
‘Then we must do exactly the same today,’ said Kathy.
Manu led the way to a café on the edge of the market piazza. The tables outside were already full of people enjoying a morning coffee with a little ice cream on the side. Elevenses with ice cream seemed like a perfectly wonderful idea.
‘What’s the best flavour?’ Kathy asked.
‘They’re all good,’ said Manu. ‘And it’s hard to choose, which is why I normally have a large cone.’
‘What? With five flavours? Before lunch? Are you sure?’
‘I’m still growing,’ said Manu.
‘Fair enough. Though I think I’ll stick with two. Will you order?’
Kathy chose the cremino and a dark chocolate fondente. Manu chose five flavours and insisted they should be topped off with nuts and a swirl of squirty cream. By the time the vendor had loaded all of Manu’s choices onto a double-headed cone, Kathy could believe her mother’s old tale that in Florence the ice creams were as big as baby’s heads. Manu’s confection certainly was. Kathy’s choice looked rather mean alongside it, which was perhaps why the vendor topped hers with a complimentary strawberry.
The cremino was delicious. Basically, it was vanilla ice cream with chocolate spread, Kathy found out, but there was nothing wrong with that. There were few things in life that couldn’t be improved with chocolate spread. Manu insisted she try a spoonful of each of his flavours. In turn he helped himself to about a quarter of each of the flavours Kathy had.
‘And you do this every week?’ Kathy asked.
‘Every week,’ said Manu. ‘My nonna’s favourite is stracciatella. Mamma’s is mint with chocolate chips. Uncle Henry prefers to eat sorbetto.’
Sour, thought Kathy. That figured.
‘Or he just has a coffee if he’s in a very bad mood.’
As he had been that morning.
‘I can teach you some more Italian, if you like,’ Manu said then.
‘That would be very kind of you.’
Manu shrugged. ‘It’s no problem. I know I’m lucky to speak two languages.’
‘So where should I start? How do I say, “This ice-cream is completely delicious”? I’d like to thank the ice-cream seller.’
Manu gave the question some consideration. He smiled into his ice cream. Then he said, ‘You should say, “Sei un grosso culo peloso.” Try it.’
Kathy repeated the words as she thought she’d heard them.
‘Close,’ said Manu. ‘But not perfect. Try them again.’
Kathy tried again.
‘Maybe if you do it like this.’ Manu demonstrated the sentence with a theatrical hand gesture.
Kathy didn’t notice the two grandmotherly women on the next table raising their eyebrows and sharing a look of consternation.
‘Good,’ said Manu. ‘You’re getting there.’
Kathy said the sentence one more time. With the accompanying hand gesture. ‘What exactly does it mean?’ she asked.
‘Oh. It just means, “That was delicious,”’ said Manu, taking another bite of his ice cream.
Kathy didn’t notice the glint in the little boy’s eyes. ‘It seems like a long sentence.’
‘To say something in Italian takes more words than in English. That’s all.’
Soon – all too soon – the gelato was gone. Manu saved a tiny bit from the bottom of his cone. As soon as he glanced at Faustino, who had been sitting at his master’s feet doing frantic puppy eyes, the little dog leaped up. This was what he had been waiting for.
‘Watch this,’ Manu said to Kathy. ‘I’ve been teaching him a trick.’
It wasn’t much of a trick.
Manu tossed the end of the ice-cream cone into the air above Faustino’s foxy little head. Faustino made a valiant effort to catch it before it hit the ground, but he was too slow, or he snapped in the wrong direction. Whatever, the wafer ended up on the tarmac and he had to race a sparrow to get to it.
‘Hmm. He needs more practice,’ said Manu.
‘As do I,’ said Kathy. ‘Could you say that phrase for me one more time?’
Manu obliged with a grin.
‘You’re a very good teacher,’ Kathy said. ‘I’m going to try it out right now.’
As they got up to leave the table, the ice-cream vendor was delivering a couple of enormous sundaes to some Swedish tourists. When he turned to go back to the counter, Kathy caught his eye and trotted out the phrase Manu had taught her.
‘Sei un grosso culo peloso,’ she said, with an enthusiastic smile.
For a moment, the vendor looked at her in confusion. He shook his head as though trying to clear his ears. Kathy tried it once more. This time the vendor’s mouth dropped open in shock.
‘Mi dispiace,’ Kathy said. She at least knew that phrase – I’m sorry. ‘My Italian isn’t very good,’ she said in English, since most of the Italians she’d met so far seemed to speak some. ‘I just wanted to say how much I loved the ice-cream.’
The vendor nodded slowly but still looked more baffled than pleased. Kathy looked around to find Manu. He and Faustino had already skipped ahead and were waiting in the shadow of the church.
‘That didn’t go as well as I’d hoped,’ Kathy told her new young friend. ‘He didn’t seem to understand what I was saying at all.’
‘Must be because of your accent,’ said Manu.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Kathy let Manu hold Faustino’s lead on the walk back to the Casa Innocenti. He accepted with good grace, seeming impressed that she’d cottoned on to the fact it was neither an honour nor a treat to wrangle the small but solid dog. She preferred to carry the heavy basket.
They took a different route back, past a row of small shops, which included the boutique where Carla worked when she wasn’t at the hotel. Carla waved as they passed. Manu had the inside track on all the shopkeepers. Two doors down from the boutique there was a shop that looked like a hoarder’s paradise.
‘Virgilio’s shop,’ Manu said. ‘Nonna says it’s full of ghosts because all the dead people’s stuff ends up in there.’
Kathy shivered as she peered at the display in the window. It did look like the perfect shop for a ghost. Old rings and bracelets nestled in a layer of dust as thick as the velvet padding of an expensive jewellery box. None of it looked as if it would ever find another home. It was terribly sad to think of how treasured those tarnished old bits and bobs must have been once upon a time. Some of the rings must have embodied a promise. An engagement. A marriage. A lifetime of love.
While Kathy was looking at the window display, Virgilio himself suddenly loomed up behind the cabinet and flashed her a gappy smile.
‘Quick! Run!’ said Manu.
Manu set off at speed, with Faustino yapping alongside him. Kathy kept her nerve, of course, and politely nodded at the shopkeeper. Virgilio motioned that she should come into the shop and take a closer look at his wares. Kathy tapped the face of her watch, as if to say, ‘In a hurry,’ and, with a resigned nod, Virgilio melted back into the shadows.
‘He knows witchcraft,’ said Manu, when Kathy caught up with him.
‘I’m sure he’s just a perfectly nice old man,’ said Kathy.
Still, she felt unsettled. Though perhaps not by Virgilio but from the stories his window held and thoughts of her own ring, which was Heaven only knew where.
Back at the Casa Innocenti, Roberta was waiting for them.
‘Did you have ice cream?’ Roberta asked, as she took the basket and dog’s lead.
‘I had fragola and menthe,’ said Manu. It did not go unnoticed by Kathy that he’d neglected to mention the other three flavours. And the nuts. And the squirty cream.
‘That sounds delicious,’ said Roberta, adding, ‘I bet it would have been even nicer with chocolate, vanilla and stracciatella.’ Which were the other three flavours Manu had eaten. His grandmother knew him very well.
‘Kathy,’ Roberta said then. ‘Your fiancé called.’
Fiancé. Kathy was still getting used to the word. She borrowed the house phone to call him back. This time, Neil picked up at once.
‘What’s happened now?’ he asked. He sounded harassed.
‘Nothing,’ said Kathy. ‘I mean, everything’s fine. I’m just calling you back.’
‘I’m in the middle of cooking lunch,’ he said.
‘The pasta sauce?’
‘No.’
Kathy heard the microwave ping.
‘The kids won’t eat pasta. Sophie’s gluten free, remember? Oscar and Amelie just don’t like tomato. They’re having Thai chicken curry.’
‘I thought they were all vegetarians.’
‘Not this week.’
‘Neil,’ Kathy asked, ‘could you send over some money to the Innocenti? My account won’t let me do international transfers.’
‘What? I thought they were letting you stay for nothing.’
‘They are, but I thought it might be a nice gesture.’
‘And I’m sure they agree. I wondered when the requests for money would start.’
‘They aren’t asking. I am. They haven’t even mentioned money.’
‘That’s a strange kind of hotel they’re running.’
‘They have this …’ Kathy thought of telling him about the code but let the sentence tail away. ‘They’re just very decent people. Proud.’ Neither did she tell Neil that he’d already met one of them.
‘That’s what they’d have you believe.’
He segued into a monologue about all the things he had to do that morning. When he finished, Kathy decided it was time to ask, ‘Neil, have you had a conversation with the children about our getting engaged … about the way they reacted?’ It had been on her mind, along with so many other things.
‘When was I supposed to do that? You have no idea what it’s been like here today. The twins are in meltdown over their mocks. Sophie is pre-menopausal.’
‘Pre-menstrual?’ Kathy suggested.
‘Whatever. She’s being a nightmare. And to make things worse, Shelley and Dave made an announcement right after breakfast on Friday. After we’d already left for London.’
‘Which was?’
‘Shelley’s only gone and got herself pregnant. At her age.’
Which was forty-two.
Kathy was suddenly glad she was alone in the attic room. She had been standing so she could look out of the window as they spoke. Now she sat down on the bed. ‘She’s pregnant?’
‘I didn’t think it was possible past forty,’ Neil said.
His words went straight to Kathy’s heart. He knew it was possible. Of course he did. Otherwise he wouldn’t have …
He continued to talk. ‘So, naturally everyone’s gone completely doolally about it and there’s no oxygen whatsoever left to discuss our good news. Typical.’
‘Tell Shelley I’m really pleased for her,’ said Kathy. ‘And Dave, too. He must be thrilled.’
‘No doubt they’ll expect us to babysit,’ Neil continued.
But your babysitting days are over, right? Kathy said to herself.
‘And they’ll probably time it that she drops the sprog just as we’re having our wedding.’
‘We can make sure that doesn’t happen,’ said Kathy. Though she supposed she should be pleased Neil was even thinking about a date. Perhaps it meant he didn’t just think the ring was a holding gesture, as she had suspected.
‘Look, did you want to tell me something?’ Neil asked. ‘Only I have got a lot to do here.’
‘No,’ said Kathy. ‘It’s fine. Like I said, I was just returning your call. Did you want to tell me something?’
‘No, I didn’t. Sophie wanted me to call you. She says can she borrow those weird red shoes of yours? The ones she borrowed at the wedding.’
While previously she would have been happy to know that Sophie liked anything in her wardrobe, Kathy found she was glad to be able to say that unfortunately those ‘weird red shoes’ were, of course, still with her in Florence.
When she got off the phone, Kathy sat on the bed in the attic room for a little while. Shelley’s news ha
d come as a surprise to her. Perhaps an even bigger surprise than Neil’s proposal. Oh, she knew that Shelley and Dave had long wanted a baby, but three rounds of IVF had all been unsuccessful. She’d thought they’d given up after the last one. Yet here they were, announcing that they were going to be parents right after their beautiful wedding. How many weeks along were they? Kathy wondered. Had they waited until twelve weeks had passed to tell Neil’s mum? Those weren’t questions Neil would have bothered to ask. Neil failed to ask a lot of important questions.
Kathy was glad she hadn’t heard the news direct from Shelley, face to face, and that she hadn’t had to plaster on a smile and coo her congratulations. She would have had to hug her and tell her what wonderful, wonderful news it was. Had she not lost her phone, she would have had to text her congratulations. Kathy was glad she had an excuse not to do that too. She couldn’t find the words. Not the words that would have been appropriate anyway. She wanted to be pleased for Shelley, she really did. She liked her fiancé’s sister-in-law and could think of no one who deserved her happiness more. But why now? At least now she could react exactly as she wanted to, within reason. She couldn’t scream – there were too many people downstairs – but she could lie face down and bite the white cotton pillowcase hard until the need to scream had passed.
Here in Florence she could prepare for the inevitable meeting at Neil’s mother’s house, for being invited to feel the bump and guess whether it was going to be a girl or a boy. She could prepare for having to grin and bear it. She could prepare for talking about her engagement afterwards. Her consolation prize. And right now she didn’t even have the ring.
Kathy threw the phone at the pillows.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Ten minutes later, Kathy was back downstairs in the Casa Innocenti’s kitchen, looking more serene than she felt (though the pillow she’d chosen to bite was probably a little sore). She was glad to see that everyone was busy again. It gave her another opportunity to offer help.
‘Actually,’ Roberta said gratefully, ‘you could take some dishes out onto the terrace.’
Ernesto always had Saturday lunchtimes off. In his place, Roberta prepared the hotel guests’ lunch. Most didn’t want anything because they were out sightseeing. That day, however, a new pair of guests had just arrived and their room wasn’t quite ready so Roberta had offered to fix them something to eat while she finished cleaning their suite.
Three Days in Florence Page 14