Music from Home

by Geraldine O'Neill

  “And she is so easy to talk to, and seems very intelligent. She has her own businesses, you know. She ownsGladragson Heaton Moor Road – the one Mrs Flynn gave me the voucher for – and another shop in Didsbury.”

  “Really?” he said. “She certainly sounds like a clever woman.”

  “I know she came with Stella’s mum, but she’s not like her. They just met because Mrs Maxwell goes into the shop.” She stopped for a moment, and then she looked him in the eye. “She’s single too, never been married. Do you know, Dad, I think you and Diana would have a lot in common.”

  He looked astounded. He took her by the arm over to a quieter space. “Maria . . . what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I think that if you like her, you should maybe ask her out.”

  “But you know . . .” he shrugged, “you know that I haven’t really been involved with any women since your mother died.”

  “Well,” Maria said, “that was a long time ago, and I was just thinking recently that it might be nice if you did.” She smiled. “And I must confess, I started to think it when I met Diana.”

  He suddenly smiled. “You know something? Maybe I might just go over and talk to her now. Nothing too serious – just see how we get on.”

  She went back to join Paul, Stella and Tony.

  “What do you think of this one?” Tony said, gesturing with his wineglass towards Stella.

  Maria was puzzled.

  “She hasn’t touched a bite since we came in!” he said. “Everyone else is tucking into the fantastic food and Stella says she’s not hungry.” He shook his head. “Don’t you think she could do with a bit of meat on her bones?”

  Stella pulled a face at him. “Be quiet, you!” she said, “I get enough nagging from my mother about food without you adding to it.”

  Tony started to laugh just a little too loudly and it suddenly occurred to Maria, when she really looked at him, that he had drunk a bit too much wine.

  It was during a lull in the music – as Johnny was changing one record on the player for another – when Maria heard the first shouts outside the restaurant. At first she thought it was teenagers carrying on, but then she heard a louder scream which stopped her in her tracks. She looked at Paul and saw him frowning and she knew he had heard it too.

  A sense of responsibility about something bad happening outside her father’s restaurant washed over her, and she told Paul she was just going to have a word with her father. He and Franco were in a circle of Italian men who were listening as Paul’s father was regaling them with one of his famous horseracing stories. As she moved towards him she heard the shouts again.

  She tipped Leo on the elbow. “I think there’s something going on in the street outside. There’s been a lot of shouting and screaming.”

  “Is there?” His face looked very serious. “Okay, we’ll go out and check it now.” Leo stepped close to Franco and said something into his ear, and then both men moved quickly towards the door.

  Maria went back to the others and joined in with the chat. She noticed that Stella’s gaze kept darting across the restaurant to where her parents were sitting to see if her mother was still keeping an eye on her. Her own gaze moved over to Mrs Maxwell’s friend and, when Diana caught her eye and gave her a big cheery smile, Maria wondered if her father had spoken to her as he had said he would.

  A few minutes went by and, when Paul went to the gents’, Maria said she was just going to have a word with her father and would be back in a minute. She went out the front door and into the cobbled street. Thankfully, the noise had all died down. She walked a few yards and then she could see her father and Franco further down the street talking to Timothy. Even from a distance, and although he was talking quietly, she could tell by his gestures that the tall, bulky man was upset.

  “Is everything okay?” she called.

  Her father waved a hand at her. “It’s all sorted! You go back to the restaurant and we will be in with you soon!”

  Timothy moved out to see who it was. He smiled when he saw her and raised his arm. “Hello, Maria! I haven’t seen you for a while. Are you keeping well?”

  Maria smiled back at him. “I’m very well, thanks.”

  “Good, good.” He held his shopping bag up for her to see. “I was just out at the chip shop for our supper. My mother’s not eating too well at the minute, so I thought a bit of fish and a few chips might perk her up.”

  “Good idea,” Maria said. She gestured back towards the restaurant. “I’ll leave you all to it and head back inside.”

  Maria went back to join her friends and then a few minutes later Leo came in on his own.

  She went over to him. “Is everything okay? Where’s Franco?”

  He was smiling but she could tell by his eyes that something was wrong. “Everything is under control,” he said in a low voice. “And Franco is fine – he came in by the back door.”

  Maria nodded. “What was it all about?”

  He shrugged. “It was some stupid teenagers thinking it was funny to tease poor Timothy and steal his fish and chips from him. Franco and I had to chase them away and threaten to call the police. We then had to check that he was okay walking back home.”

  Maria shook her head. “That’s awful.”

  Paul’s father came towards them now, and they stopped talking.

  “Tell me, Leo,” he said, beaming at them both, “when does Bella Maria run next? It’s one race I don’t want to miss. She’s the freshest little filly I’ve seen in a long time.”

  “Ah, thank you,” Leo said, taking his hand and shaking it. “Praise from such a man as yourself is praise indeed!”

  Maria left them chatting and was just going back to join Paul and Tony and Stella when she noticed Franco hadn’t returned to join the party. She went towards the swing door at the back of the bar which led into the kitchen. As she did so, Johnny, came out.

  “It’s okay,” he said quietly. “We have sorted him out in the back.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  He nodded. “He has a bad graze on his hand, so Vincent and I got the First Aid box out and cleaned his hand and bandaged it up for him.”

  “How did that happen?”

  Johnny’s eyes moved around to check that no one could hear them. “One of the thugs pushed him up against the wall and Franco hit him back, and then there was a bit of a fight.”

  Maria’s stomach churned. “Oh God! I had no idea it was so serious. Dad said that it had all been sorted and I thought it was just silliness. Is Franco okay?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Johnny said. “It’s bad-looking but it’s only surface stuff. Franco said your dad sorted it all out in the end. Two of them tried to take Leo on, but he squared up to them and soon sent them running.”

  “My dad?” Maria said. “But I was talking to him a few minutes ago and he didn’t say it was as serious as that.” She turned to look back and could see her father laughing and chatting with Mr and Mrs Spencer, the Maxwells and Diana. It then occurred to her that her father would do exactly that, even if something serious had happened, so as not to spoil the night for anyone else. He had often talked about how your staff must put their best foot forward when it came to serving the public. And that if even if the kitchen was on fire the staff must always act calmly, as though everything was perfectly okay.

  Chapter 20

  Diana towel-dried her hair and then pulled on her dressing-gown and went downstairs to make coffee and toast. She got a plate and knife from the cupboard and then went to the fridge for butter, thinking how markedly her life had changed in the last few months. And for the better. How different her mornings were, knowing she had Leo to look forward to at some point in the day – whether it was a phone call, or a night out at the cinema, or him just calling round to the house for a chat and a glass of wine in front of the fire. Ordinary things were now events and something worth looking forward to and talking about later.

  And, by some small miracle, the handsome, kind,
interesting Leo Conti seemed to feel exactly the same way about her. He told her that he looked forward to things unfolding every day, instead of planning to fill all the little empty gaps between work and Maria by joining friends for drinks or late-night card games . . . Maria, who he candidly admitted needed her father less and less.

  “She has school, friends, horse-riding, and now a real boyfriend to take up most of her time,” he had confided in Diana when they sat chatting for hours in her place after their first date together. “And of course that is the way it should be. I am not complaining, it is the natural order of things. I left Italy and my parents when I wasn’t much older than Maria. I have been a father and a mother to her since she was a young girl, and Mrs Lowry became her second mother and the restaurant became her second home. Between all those things, we tried to fill the big empty gap that Anna left. Of course we all knew that it couldn’t really happen, but we did our best and Maria is as good as any girl her age.”

  “Oh, she certainly is,” Diana said earnestly. “She is not only as good as but much better than any girls I know.”

  “Thank you, but I have to realise that she now does not need me so much. I must be there for her and look after her for another few years until she is fully independent, but I must help her learn to live her own life.”

  Since then, they had spent any evenings that Leo had off together. If Maria was out, they went to the cinema or theatre, or he came to her place for a drink or something to eat. And, if Maria was in, sometimes Diana came up to sit with her for an hour in the evenings, maybe watching television or discussing magazines, music or fashion. Maria often popped into Gladrags on Saturday mornings for a browse and a chat. Mrs Flynn’s voucher had been spent a while back, but it had introduced her to the rails of dresses and tops that Diana had sourced for her younger customers. On a couple of occasions when he was not working, Leo had made supper for the three of them, and, when it was Maria’s birthday, Leo treated the three of them, plus Paul, to a show in Manchester. And, recently, he asked Diana to come and join him mid-week for a late supper at the restaurant. All so very, very different from the routines they had before meeting each other.

  And each time they met up, they had confided more and more in each other. Diana had listened carefully when Leo confessed about his late-night drinking and the card games after work. And, although it had concerned her, she told him that altering his routine and finding different things to do at that time was the only answer.

  She had not been coy, and had said, “I’m very happy to spend as much of that time with you as you want, Leo.” Then, she had looked him straight in the eye. “But, if it doesn’t work out between us over the long term, I would advise you to find someone else to spend your time with, otherwise the drinking and the gambling will become the replacement for a real life.”

  “I know, I know,” he had said. Then he had reached for her hand. “These past few weeks I have been doing a lot of thinking, and I realise that I have been travelling down the wrong path since Anna died – and a lot of the time I have been travelling alone. And I cannot blame anyone else, because I had good friends who told me this and I would not listen.” He shook his head. “Even poor Maria. I feel very guilty about her because she has worried so much about me, although I think she knows deep down that I meant no harm. She knows I would give my life for her.”

  “Oh, Leo,” Diana said, “Maria worships the ground you walk on, and she is happy as long as you are okay.”

  “And I am determined now to be okay,” Leo had said. “For Maria . . . and for you.”

  Diana now brought her tea and toast over to the small kitchen table, to have it while checking her latest stock orders which she hoped would be delivered today or tomorrow. She had ordered from her usual places in Manchester which supplied the popular safe women’s lines in dresses, skirts and blouses, plus underwear and nightwear. She was particularly excited about a completely new line of clothing she had ordered as she hoped it would broaden her range of buyers. She had discovered it when she was visiting her cousin, Nigel, in Newcastle, when she and his wife Clarissa had gone shopping together.

  The visits to her cousin served several purposes. First, they filled otherwise empty weekends and, secondly, one of her favourite department stores – Fenwicks – was in Newcastle. On her last visit, just after she had started seeing Leo, she and Clarissa had taken a walk around the city since it was sunny, and they had discovered a fabulous new boutique called Love. Diana thought it was an amazing place, and before she had looked at any of the clothes, she had taken time to just walk around and appreciate the bohemian furnishings. She loved the fabulous chandeliers and the gilt-framed mirrors, the deep-buttoned, green-leather sofas, velvet chaises-longues and the tall oriental vases filled with peacock feathers. It looked so exotic and decadent – and deeply feminine – that it made her want to rush home and throw out all her modern straight-edged furniture and buy replicas of every item in the shop.

  Eventually, when she and Clarissa had finished mooning over the shop décor, she turned her attention to the rails of bright, ultra-modern dresses, skirts, tops and trousers.

  And it had been one of her lucky Saturdays because the owner of the shop – a beautiful Irish girl called Sarah Love – was actually working in the shop on that day. Diana had discovered this fortuitous news quite by accident when she asked the assistant who they got their stock from and found out she was talking to the both the owner ofLoveand the designer of all the clothes. Sarah had been more than happy to discuss her business, and when she heard that Diana had shops around Manchester and Stockport, she told her that she supplied a couple of boutiques in Manchester City Centre. Within half an hour Diana had bought herself three outfits, a bag and several belts, scarves and necklaces. She had then ordered a considerable amount from Sarah Love’s current stock for her own shops back in Manchester.

  It was only at dinner with Nigel and Clarissa that evening, when all the excitement over everything she had bought died down, that it dawned on her that she was going to have to find space to display all the new stock in La Femme and Gladrags. Reorganising the shops had taken the last few weeks and, after a lot of juggling around, she now had the perfect areas for her new lines.

  As she finished her tea, she also jotted down ideas for the window display for Gladrags. She told Elaine and the other girls that they really had to get the windows just right, as she was determined to bring in younger customers and trendy older ones, who she knew would love this new range.

  When she had finished breakfast, she tidied the kitchen and then went along the hallway on her way upstairs to finish drying her hair and get ready for work. It was then that she noticed the mail – a few brown and white envelopes – scattered on the mat at the front door. One of the white envelopes caught her eye, and her heart sank as she recognised the handwriting. It was Brian, trying out another tactic to get her to listen to him, since she refused to talk to him on the phone.

  She checked the other items – bills and adverts – and tucked the letter in her dressing-gown pocket. She had got halfway up the stairs when the door knocker sounded and, with a sigh, she turned and came back down. It was her next-door neighbour, Mr Singleton, explaining that he and his wife were going away to their caravan in the Lake District in a few days, and wondering if Diana would be so good as to feed Minnie their Persian cat as usual. Diana took the spare key he offered her, and reassured him that she would feed Minnie at her regular time and leave milk out in the evenings until they returned. Then, she ran back upstairs to get ready so that she wasn’t late for work.

  She spent the morning in the Didsbury shop, La Femme, helping Elaine and the girls out serving when needed, and when it was quiet going over ideas for the window displays and discussing better ways to organise the new smaller items like belts and scarves. In the afternoon she drove back over to Heaton Moor and went through the same process. During the break the girls all chatted about what they had been up to the previous night and, alt
hough Diana chipped in with comments about herself and Leo, she found she wasn’t inclined to give too much away. It was almost as though she might put a jinx on things by talking too much about the relationship.

  Around three o’clock Leo rang the shop and asked her if she’d like to come into the restaurant about eight thirty as they had a table due to a cancellation and by then he would be free to join her. She immediately said yes, and that she would be happy if he surprised her with something from the Italian part of the menu, which Leo was delighted to hear.

  She knew there was a feeling amongst women that it was best to play things cool and not agree to everything, as men like to feel they were doing the chasing but, at her age, Diana felt there was absolutely no point in pretending.

  Jane Freeman called into the shop later in the afternoon, interested in any news about Diana and Leo, but more anxious to talk about Stella. She was delighted to hear that all was going well with her friend’s romance, and had an air of being instrumental in bringing them together, although Diana did subtly point out that it was in fact Maria who had been the link.

  “Talking of Maria,” Jane said, lowering her voice so the other shop assistants couldn’t hear, “we were surprised to hear she has completely given up on her ballet lessons. We knew she had taken a term off to have more time for studying for her O-levels, but we presumed she would go back after the summer. Stella was quite upset about it as they’ve been going together for years.”

  “Well,” Diana said, “I suppose when girls reach a certain age they decide it’s for them or not. I gave my ballet classes up when I was fourteen.” She paused. “From what Maria has said to me, she has been thinking of dropping out for a while. When she had the break from it, she realised she has outgrown it. She said she was really only mediocre in any case and openly admits that Stella is much more talented and could make a career out of it.”

  Jane’s eyes widened. “Oh, yes,” she said in a weary tone, “it’s the one thing she certainly seems to be talented in and has always enjoyed, but recently she’s lost interest in talking about it and if you suggest that she needs to practise more it’s all-out war in our house. And now that Maria won’t be going to classes with her, goodness knows how it will affect Stella’s interest in it.”