by Zoë Folbigg
‘Hi darling,’ she said in a soft barely Scottish roll.
Nancy paused from her task in hand and looked up with expectant eyes. Maria returned to the hob to stir her saffron risotto.
Olivia kissed her mother on both cheeks and slung her bag and keys down. ‘I didn’t know you were coming for dinner.’
‘I didn’t know you were,’ Nancy said, with a raised eyebrow. Half schoolmarm, half playful.
‘Oh Mammas this is Daniel – he’s from England.’
Dan-i-el.
‘Daniel, this is Nancy, Mamma Una, and Maria, Mamma Due – who you met.’
‘Hi.’ Daniel gave a bashful wave from the doorway.
Nancy stood up, charmed and softened by the man at Olivia’s shoulder, even though she didn’t like the English much. She put a hand on each of his arms, as if to hold him in place while she stood on tiptoes and kissed each cheek.
‘Where are you from?’ she asked. Nancy did like to talk to Brits in Milan, just to show off how she had ended up living there, how she could speak the language and knew the city inside out.
‘Near Cambridge.’ Daniel smiled politely, before putting a fist to his chest to clear his throat. ‘But I live and work in London.’
‘Delightful,’ Nancy said with a stringent smile.
‘Come!’ said Mamma Due, beckoning Daniel to the hob. ‘Stir this, we need a strong hand to keep this risotto going.’
‘Mamma!’ Olivia protested. ‘Papa didn’t ever stir the risotto! We’re tough enough.’ Although she knew Maria was just trying to take the edge off Daniel’s nerves.
‘Let me get that.’
Olivia took Daniel’s backpack off his back, slid his jacket down his arms, and put them on a kitchen stool. He rolled up his sleeves and looked for soap at the sink.
‘Here,’ Maria pushed it along the worktop and appraised him as she watched him wash.
‘Oh my god, it smells stunning, Mrs Messina!’ sighed Daniel, returning to the hob and inhaling warm aromas of saffron, shallots and marsala that made his stomach rumble. Maria studied him as if he were trying out for a job in the kitchen.
‘You’re hungry,’ was her conclusion.
‘Erm, well…’ Daniel was hardly skin and bones. ‘This is enough to make anyone hungry.’ Truth was he was starving. All day he’d been too nervous about meeting Olivia to eat.
‘You’ll stay for dinner.’ It was a given, but Maria was just making sure he knew he had passed his test.
‘Thank you, I’d love to.’
There was an air of excitement as Daniel stirred sweet saffron stamens into carnaroli rice, grateful to have something to focus on when he knew he was under scrutiny. Maria and Nancy were so pleasantly surprised to have company, they made a conscious effort to not look at each other. Olivia hadn’t socialised much since she’d been back in Milan. She would meet the odd friend from a meeting, or have coffee after work with some of the other atelier staff. She hadn’t even mentioned she was seeing a friend this evening; they’d assumed she’d gone to the mall. It was pure luck Maria had felt like cooking something welcoming and bountiful.
Nancy picked up the zester again and continued to scrape it against a plump lemon, as Olivia pressed two glasses against the fridge door to get some icy water.
‘So, how do you two…’ Nancy asked, trying to sound blasé. She shook the peelings into a small bowl for Maria. Nancy wasn’t a cook, but she was a doer, and liked to help with the little jobs while the two of them were gossiping in the kitchen.
‘From London,’ Daniel said, relaxing his shoulders as he stirred and inhaled. Each inward breath sent anticipation to his stomach, making him feel more and more at ease among the women in the kitchen.
‘From travelling.’ Olivia countered, wanting to give Daniel a better chance. ‘New Zealand, right?’ she said, looking at Daniel, knowing perfectly well that it was.
‘And Australia…’ they both chimed, then laughed nervously.
Nancy and Maria looked from Olivia to Daniel and back again, entranced by the unusual turn the normal spring day had taken and the bashful, handsome man standing at the hob. Olivia was unusually lost for words and wanted to break the tension.
‘Come on, I’ll show you around,’ she said, pulling Daniel by the arm like an excited puppy.
‘Taste it!’ Maria insisted, handing Daniel a pink enamel teaspoon.
Daniel looked at Maria and smiled as he scraped a teaspoon of jewelled risotto up the inside of the thick pan.
He felt very self-conscious and scrutinised, but weirdly comfortable. This was the hearth, the home he had always hankered for. He tasted the risotto and looked at Maria.
‘Delicious.’
Maria almost swooned.
‘You can go now,’ she said, clutching a tea towel to her heart before shaking her hands to shoo them away.
Olivia picked up Daniel’s backpack and jacket and her soft leather bag and slung them on a chaise longue in the hallway.
‘First, I’d better wash my hands again.’
*
After she had tried (and failed) to get the last of the fabric dye off her fingers, Olivia returned to the living room, where Daniel was looking out of the long tall door that led to the balcony terrace.
‘Such a cool view. Such a cool city.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Olivia said proudly. ‘I’ll save that for last. Come on…’
First Olivia showed Daniel the stitching room – a room that would once have been another bedroom, but ever since Alessandro and Maria Messina bought the rundown relic in the early 1970s and did it up, and the children they hoped for never came, it was Maria’s room, for pattern-cutting, toile-making, fabric-chalking and stitching. It was the room Olivia had sought comfort in after the summer of 1998 and the room where she felt most comfortable. A large workbench occupied the middle with two sewing machines on top of it and another at a low wood-and-wrought-iron sewing table by the window. Faceless mannequins stood in different states of undress, and a large plastic mat was laid out in one corner, held down by what looked like pots of paint.
‘Wow, is this where your mum works?’
‘Yes,’ Olivia said as she raised her chest and drew the curtains closed. ‘Less so now she’s retiring, her eyes aren’t as precise as they used to be. More and more of those are mine.’
Daniel looked at the half-formed dresses on half-formed dummies. Some wore frothy layers, some had unfinished sequin embellishment. All were fashioned out of black tulle and netting. He didn’t know what to call it but they looked like high-drama shapes harking back to another era, forming an army around them. Perhaps they were unravelling, but it very much looked like progression.
‘They’re amazing,’ he gasped self-consciously.
Daniel didn’t feel qualified to comment on fashion, he didn’t know much about it – but he knew that what Olivia was creating was spectacular, as he dragged his fingertips through a sea of black sequins that were scattered across the workbench.
‘This is very much my own stuff – not what I do in town. I’m doing more dye-work there.’ She held up her stained hands. ‘It’s quite traditional where I work. But these are just tiny ideas – my ideas – starting to form.’
‘They’re big ideas,’ Daniel said, looking at the magnificence of the mannequins. ‘You’re very clever.’
Olivia smoothed her hair behind her ear as her long lashes swept onto her cheeks.
‘My mamma is very clever. She created some works of art in here.’
Daniel stood back and took in the room where Maria was entrusted to keep the early secrets of Versace and Etro; the evolutions of Missoni and Prada. It was the room in which she stitched early prototypes of Dolce & Gabbana’s Sicilian widow dress in the mid-1980s, as well as projects for herself: cinched-in skirts that augmented her large bosom, party dresses for Olivia, trousers and shirts for Nancy. ‘She’s the best,’ Olivia whispered in delight, before closing the door. Daniel was struck by how an only child could seem like par
t of such a big extended fashion family. ‘But my clothes seem to have somewhat taken over. Oops.’
Daniel looked at her in the darkness of the lofty hallway, their noses almost touching, his heart pounding.
‘Come on, I’ll show you the rest.’
They walked along the tiled floor where bedrooms with dark wood furniture – mahogany bureaus and marquetry chests of drawers – juxtaposed with the clean lines of sleek beds, modern artwork and high, light walls. Olivia showed Daniel her bedroom, with dresses hanging from every possible space on the high picture rails, like ghostly patrons at the opera. They peeped into Maria’s room and saw the double bed she still only slept on one side of. The guest room had a single bed under the window, where Nancy sometimes stayed if she’d drunk too much to drive or cycle home, and next to it a plush bathroom and the dining room that was saved for special occasions.
Back in the living room with bookshelf-covered walls, an old record player set deep in its wood console and a large flat-screen TV, Olivia took Daniel’s hand.
‘Here…’
With her free hand, Olivia cranked open the handle on the balcony door and stepped out onto the noise of Via Tiziano below. ‘Mind the plant pot,’ she cautioned, as she led Daniel out onto the wrap of the terrace.
‘Shit!’ Daniel gasped, appreciatively.
At one end of the balcony they could see into the apartment’s slickly lit kitchen. Nancy was getting plates out of a cupboard while Maria was checking on the veal shanks in the oven, pushing her hair back with a mitt. Olivia and Daniel peeped in, looked at each other and laughed like children playing spies, each silently wondering what the mammas were saying.
At the other end of the long thin balcony and the edge of the Messina villa was a side street dividing their building from the next set of buildings. They looked down at a moped waiting to turn right, and Olivia squeezed Daniel’s hand before letting go and sweeping her arm towards the lights of the city.
He hoped his palms weren’t too clammy.
‘I give you, Milano!’
‘Incredible! You grew up with this view?’
‘The San Siro is… that way,’ she said, pointing westward. Daniel pictured himself walking around the press room, tunnel and stands earlier in the day, gathering quotes, team news and a feel for tomorrow night. It had filled him with a fizz of excitement, the anticipation of the game. The anticipation of meeting Olivia Messina in Sempione Park later that afternoon, with little knowledge that tonight his vantage point would be even more wonderous.
‘Piazza del Duomo is… that way. But you can’t see it.’ They looked inwards, into the apartment, where Nancy was now setting the table at the far end of the living room, much to Olivia’s relief. The dining room would be too staid, too terrifying, for their guest tonight. As they watched her, thin scarf elegantly tied around her neck, sweater over a shirt and tailored trousers, Olivia and Daniel gave the conspiratorial giggle of children knowing the adult couldn’t see them, and wanted to kiss each other, although neither said it.
‘Allora, dinner is ready!’ hollered Maria, towards the hallway, as she carried a pot into the living room. Daniel and Olivia stepped back into the apartment and its aromas of meltingly soft stew, mostly wafting above the black cloud of Maria’s buoyant hair. ‘Ah! You’re there!’
‘Anything I can do?’ asked Daniel, clearing his throat.
‘Yes, you get the risotto, it’s settling on the hob.’
‘I’ll get it,’ Olivia chipped, almost skipping into the kitchen.
‘Wine, Daniel?’ asked Nancy, taking glasses out of an elaborate armoire made of marquetry wood and glass.
‘Yes please, just the one thanks.’ He had stories to final read and file.
Nancy took a chilled bottle of white out of its freezer sleeve and opened it with great pride and flair, while Maria and Olivia went back and forth to the kitchen for the risotto, vegetables, and the focaccia for soaking up the juices.
‘You came on the perfect night,’ Nancy said discerningly – playing her outsider cards to her favour so Daniel would have an ally, while also enjoying her authority as an ex-pat. ‘This is Milanese cooking typified!’
‘Oh really?’ Daniel enthused, pulling his seat out and rubbing his hands on the thighs of his jeans.
‘Yes, although we usually eat this with polenta,’ Maria clarified.
Olivia poured iced water from a jug.
‘Maria, you must have had a sixth sense we would have company,’ Nancy joked. ‘She’s a good witch that one,’ she added with a wink.
*
Throughout dinner, the mammas fussed over Daniel, ensuring he had enough stew, risotto, asparagus and wine, while Olivia sat opposite him, drinking Orangina from her wine glass, grateful to see him, and to her mothers for asking all the questions she loved hearing the answers to. Nancy asked Daniel about his job at The Guardian; about the upcoming General Election that Daniel assured her would be another socialist landslide; what the British press thought of Italy’s own recently re-elected prime minister.
Maria asked Daniel whether he had ever been to Italy before and he told her once, to Lake Garda, as a child, falling even deeper in love with it during Italia ‘90 as a teenager. Maria asked whether Daniel had seen much of Olivia in London and he answered diplomatically. That period was still much of a mystery to Maria, and she wondered what Daniel had been privvy to.
‘It’s a brutal city,’ Nancy said dismissively, as if London had spurned her too.
When Maria didn’t understand the turn of conversation or a phrase, Olivia and Nancy would translate for her, and vice versa if Maria was trying to explain something to Daniel, who she couldn’t stop looking at, as if a rare creature had stepped over their threshold.
Daniel had never sat at a dinner table that felt so unlike home – dinners at the Bleeker house were brief and transactional. Or the television was often on and the family bonded over football, rugby union, Popstars and The Royle Family while they ate sofa suppers. Yet he’d never felt so comfortable somewhere so different.
As Daniel helped Olivia clear up the plates, and Alessandro’s grandfather clock ticked 10.30 p.m., he realised he had to get his stories sent back to the office in London. He asked Olivia for an adaptor and sat at the table finishing off his work, so he could send them over to Lloyd on the sports desk. The pre-match banter. Selection dilemmas. How Milan was being taken over by Bayern and Valencia fans. Soundbites and vox pops from some of them ahead of the final.
Maria and Nancy took their glasses to the sofa to watch the news while Olivia joined Daniel at one end of the dinner table, flipping through colour and fabric swatches while she tried to work out something in her head and he pressed send on each story.
The two of them worked comfortably in peace until midnight, when Nancy heard the chime of the grandfather clock.
‘Is that the time? I’d better be off.’ She offered to drop Daniel back at his hotel near Milano Centrale train station, and Daniel took his cue.
‘Yeah, I’d better get back, big day…’ he said, closing the lid on his laptop and shovelling it into his backpack with his notebook, Blackberry and pens. He handed Olivia her adaptor and gave a shy, ‘Thank you,’ as if they were back to square one. Olivia wasn’t so hesitant.
‘It’s OK, Mamma, I’ll take him on my scooter.’
‘Are you sure?’ interjected Maria, stitching on the sofa, although the dimly lit room was playing havoc with her eyesight. Her niece in Syracuse had recently given birth to a baby girl, and Maria was embroidering the name ‘Valentina’ onto a bonnet. ‘It is late.’
‘Mamma, I’m almost 26! It’s fine,’ Olivia brushed.
Nancy seemed less worried, and would rather Olivia were out with Daniel than sitting at home on her own.
‘She’ll be OK.’
Nancy put on her blazer and picked up her handbag.
‘I’ll leave you lovebirds to it then,’ she said with a soft and rolling Edinburgh lilt and a glint in her eye as she
kissed her daughter twice. Olivia didn’t even seem embarrassed. She was just at peace. Nancy kissed Daniel goodbye too.
‘Wonderful to meet you,’ she said, squeezing his arm. ‘See you soon, no doubt.’
Nancy called to Maria on the sofa while Olivia dug out her helmet and a spare from a concealed cupboard in the walls of the hallway. ‘I’ll drop a card for Valentina tomorrow, and a little thing to go in the parcel. I’ll be off!’
Nancy waved and left the apartment while Maria waved from the sofa, put down the bonnet and removed her glasses.
‘Ah, here it is, should fit you, it was Papa’s!’ Olivia said, pulling something out from the cupboard. Daniel wondered if there was any point in wearing the beige and brown vintage helmet, but he took it all the same. It felt like an honour.
‘You’ll be careful, won’t you?’ pleaded Maria, as Olivia grabbed her keys.
‘Non preoccuparti, Mamma, tornerò presto!’
‘Come here,’ Maria said to Daniel, pulling him into her bosom. He blushed. ‘Thank you, Daniel, you have certainly been a beautiful house guest.’
‘Thank you for dinner, it was delicious.’
‘Do come again,’ she said hopefully. ‘And you—’ she released Daniel and pointed at Olivia. ‘Come home safe.’
‘Cosa certa, Mamma.’
Olivia blew Maria a kiss before slinging on her jacket and helmet.
‘Ready?’ she said as she skipped downstairs. Daniel put his bag onto his back and remembered the sensation of Olivia sliding it off him in the kitchen earlier, her imprint still travelling his spine, as he watched her spiral down the stairs, her silver pumps sparkling on each marble step.
‘Ready.’
*
In a parking bay outside Daniel’s unremarkable business hotel, close to the rather remarkable Centrale train station, Olivia put her Vespa on its stand and took her helmet off, shaking out her hair as Daniel got off the back.
‘That was fun!’ Daniel laughed. The ride through the midnight traffic had been exhilarating as he clung to Olivia’s waist, simultaneously shielding her and holding on for dear life.