6
‘You do realise this won’t work unless you do some actual bloody cooking.’
Malcolm was all but shouting at Billie by the time Amy found them. In the doorway to a tiny boutique, and with a small cardboard bag emblazoned with the shop’s name in her hand, Billie stared at Malcolm as though he was unhinged.
‘I only popped out for a quick bit of retail therapy,’ she said. ‘After Amelia warmed up my credit card for me yesterday, I thought I should put it to use myself. Make sure she hadn’t broken it.’
Billie was smiling, but Malcolm’s frustration was palpable. ‘How the hell would she have broken it? If there had been a problem with the card she’d have told you, don’t you think?’
A group of moped riders passed by, the Vespas mewing their way up the cobbles, hindering Amy’s progress across the street. She wanted to get to Billie and Malcolm before the latter said much more, before he managed to annoy Billie. It wasn’t that Malcolm was out of line – Billie had told Amy she would be in her room getting ready for the first lesson. So, when there hadn’t been any reply from the knock on Billie’s door, or from a call to her mobile, Amy had deployed Malcolm to search the surrounding streets while she checked the rest of the hotel. Neither of them had needed to say it, but this was so typical of Billie. Typical enough for Malcolm to know better than to get wound up by it.
‘Jesus, Malc, keep a hold of the wisps of hair you have left, why don’t you?’ Billie said, shaking her head. ‘It’s not that big of a deal, is it? Tad won’t mind. He’s already promised to look after me.’
Amy paused. Tad had agreed to ‘look after’ Billie? It seemed Billie and Tad had covered a lot of ground during their last-minute late-night drink. The two of them, out on the town, while Amy had already been tucked up in bed. Alone. As usual.
She blew away a creeping sense of frustration, heading Malcolm off before he could retaliate to the comment about his hair.
‘There you are,’ Amy said, as though she’d spotted a naughty puppy hiding in the bushes. ‘Everything OK?’
Malcolm snorted a laugh at Amy’s enforced jollity, mumbling something about it being easier to herd cats. He might be right, but dealing with Billie was what they’d both signed up for, and like it or not, it had become a way of life for the pair of them. Bound together, an integral part of the Billie Forsythe-Rogers machine.
Amy took a breath and looked around her. The job might come with more than its fair share of frustrations, but how many people got to globe-trot, to stay in wonderful places like this – and get paid for the privilege?
Amy’s nanna had been firmly in the ‘glass half full’ camp. Even when it was clear she was in pain and losing her grip on life, she never once lost her positive perspective. At least, she hadn’t in Amy’s hearing. Perhaps some of it had been an act, especially towards the end, but it had been a convincing one. Amy had always done her best to take a leaf out of Nanna Gold’s book, to put a positive spin on everything. Even during the tough times when Billie was kicking off about something. Or when Amy had those choking moments when she wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing with her life, that what she truly wanted from it might be slipping past.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Billie said to her. ‘Malc’s got his budgie huggers in a twist about the time. I know I’m a bit late…’ She stretched her hands out in a conciliatory gesture. ‘Arrest me and take me back to Tad’s military school of cooking, why don’t you? I’m quite happy for him to court-martial me. Corporal punishment – is that still a thing? Tad with a cat-o’-nine-tails. Now that’s a thought.’
‘Dear Lord,’ Malcolm muttered.
Amy dragged in a deep breath. ‘I think the military did away with all that stuff centuries ago.’
Billie rolled her eyes. ‘I know they did. It was a joke. I wasn’t talking about a real one, I was talking about?—’
‘I know what you were talking about,’ Amy snapped. She ran a hand across her eyes. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit tired this morning.’
‘Me too. I’m not sure you understand how difficult I’m finding it to be here, with everything I’m going through with Kelly. It’s all right for you singletons. Life’s easy when all you have to worry about is yourself.’
Amy heard Malcolm inhaling a strange laugh. Because while Billie might be accurate in saying Malcolm was single at present, with an ex-wife and three teenage boys to look out for, Malcolm was a long way from being footloose and fancy-free. He was unlikely to say it out loud, but there was a strong possibility of him believing it was the other way around, that it was Billie who had no real understanding of what constituted an easy life.
It was probably as well that Malcolm’s inhaled laugh caught at the back of his throat and turned into a cough, stopping him from saying something he might come to regret. Instead, Billie said, ‘You’re lucky I’m willing to see this assignment through at all. Kelly wanted me to go see him. Talk things through. But I’m determined to get this article in the bag, without distractions.’ She tilted her head, looking at Amy as though she’d only just noticed her. ‘But don’t let me cramp your style, Amelia, where Tad’s concerned. Go for it. I mean, as we were chatting, he did mention something about preferring women with short hair, like mine, but I don’t suppose there’s any reason why he wouldn’t make an exception in your case. It would only be for a few days, after all. He does seem rather uptight about life, if you ask me; he probably doesn’t realise how desperate he is for someone to help him relax… Maybe he needs someone to give him a hand with that…’ Billie chuckled to herself, the hammering home of her own joke propelling her all the way back to Casa del Cibo and into the teaching kitchen.
‘What did we miss?’ Billie announced to the assembled group in the teaching kitchen, glancing from face to face as she wandered to her table at the front of the room, directly in front of Tad. ‘Huge apologies, Tad. Lost track of the time. My bad. Beat me later, if you want to.’
* * *
Tad did his best to ignore Billie’s inference, along with the hushed gasps from a couple of the ladies in the group, as he asked the late arrivals to wash their hands and caught them up with where the lesson had got to. The writer guy, Ron, chuckled openly, as he tracked Billie’s progress from the washroom, back to the workstation, watching her as she tucked her shopping behind her stool and cinched tight the ties of her apron.
The rest of the group had already completed their pasta dough; each green sphere was neatly wrapped in cling film and resting in the fridges. While they had been busy, Tad had made an extra-large batch, splitting it up so the late arrivals would have a ready-made lump to roll out in due course.
‘We’ve been making pasta,’ Tad said, trying to iron out the edge to his voice. ‘Later on, we’ll prepare the chicken and ricotta meatballs to go with the spaghetti. But first we’ll have a go at the dessert. Has everybody heard of zabaglione?’
Tad didn’t wait for anyone to answer; he wanted to claim back a sense of order into the disrupted lesson, get everyone focusing and back on track.
‘Or maybe eaten it? For anyone who hasn’t, it’s a delightfully light and frothy dessert made with only three ingredients – one of which is sweet wine.’
He paused, waiting for the customary grins and positive reaction to the mention of alcohol.
‘I always think all that foamy creamy stuff looks a bit like?—’
