With the sirens quieted, the scene was unnervingly muted as the medical experts worked. Kathleen stood to one side with Tad, his arm around her shoulder as they looked on.
‘Is he OK?’ she said, aware the words didn’t match the gravity of the situation.
‘I don’t know, Amy. Silly old fool. If only he’d taken it a bit more slowly on the way back up the hill. I was only joking when I kept telling him he was as fit as an ox. I should never have said it, should never have kept challenging him like that. Now look at him.’ Kathleen’s voice spiralled away into a wail, raw emotion lacing her words.
‘Not your fault – you mustn’t think that.’ Tad’s arm tightened around Kathleen’s shoulders as he spoke, and the older woman sagged against him. ‘What was he in such a rush about anyway?’
‘Dobbiamo andare subito,’ said one of the paramedics.
‘They need to move him,’ Tad translated as the paramedics fastened straps on the wheeled gurney on which Hugh now lay.
‘Portarlo all’ospedale.’
Nobody needed a translation to understand where Hugh was about to be taken.
‘Will he be all right?’ Kathleen said. ‘I want to go with him.’
‘Puo andare con lui?’ Tad asked. ‘Can she come with you?’
‘No. She must take a taxi. We gonow.’
‘Call Luca. He’ll bring you,’ Hugh said, a hand waving in the air for emphasis before it sank back onto his chest.
With the hospital destination noted and sirens blaring, the ambulance pulled away from Casa and for the first time since she’d met Kathleen, Amy thought the woman looked small and frail. She suddenly looked her age.
‘I don’t know Luca’s phone number,’ Amy said. ‘He’s the guy who took us to Monte Baldo that day. Do you remember, Tad?’
‘No way I could forget that day, Amy,’ Tad said, then he turned to Kathleen. ‘I’ll phone for a taxi.’
‘Thank you.’
As Tad dialled for a taxi, Kathleen gripped Amy’s arm, an unexpected urgency to her words as she said, ‘Talk to him, Amy. Tell him how you really feel. I have to admit I think Hugh’s absolutely right about that.’
* * *
A short while later, after they’d installed Kathleen into a taxi and dispatched her to the hospital, Amy pulled clothes from her case until she found it, then headed back downstairs with Nanna Gold’s recipe book in her hand.
Tad was in the professional kitchen, a loaf of crusty local bread on a board and a serrated knife beside it.
‘Do you fancy a slice of bread and butter?’ he said.
‘I’m not sure I’ve got much of an appetite, to be honest,’ she said.
‘I know it’s a bit random, but I think food is essential in a crisis, even if it is only a bit of buttered bread. With jam, if you prefer?’
‘Go on then. I’ll have a slice if you’ve got some strawberry jam,’ she said, a gentle frown on her brow.
‘It’s what we used to do when I was a kid. If anyone in the family had a problem, or – more usually in my case – something to own up to, Mamma always cut some bread and made us sit at the kitchen table. With something to eat, it takes the pressure off, you know?’
While he cut a couple of slices and buttered them, Amy slid Nanna Gold’s book onto the stainless-steel countertop.
‘Is that it?’
Amy nodded.
‘I thought you might like to look through it,’ she said, aware she was skirting the main issue – again.
Tad smiled, passed her a slice of bread on a small plate, then settled on a high stool, gesturing for Amy to do the same, and he began to leaf through the book. On the first page was a recipe for Yorkshire puddings.
