‘Cream and chocolate for breakfast? You’ve swerved a coronary, only to immediately encourage a real one,’ Kathleen said.
‘We’ve also spent a week indulging ourselves with the finest of cuisine, no holds barred, and you’re nit-picking over a spoonful of cream? If we’re talking about being greedy, I have one word for you, Kathleen. Savoiardi biscuits,’ Hugh said, attacking the cake with a fork.
‘That’s two words,’ Kathleen said, but with a smile on her lips.
‘Anyway,’ Hugh said, ‘Now I’m not dying – not yet, anyway – I should finish telling you what I wanted to say yesterday, Amy, when I was so rudely interrupted by that terrible woman, and then by my dodgy internal system.’
‘Something to tellme?’ Amy said.
‘Well yes, you, and Tad – anyone who is interested, I suppose. It’s something I’ve kept to myself, up until now, but I don’t think keeping things secret is a great plan for someone advancing up the Grim Reaper’s to-do list in the way I am. Anyway. Long story short – time’s ticking and all – I wanted you to know that I own Casa del Cibo. It was ours – Brian and mine – so now I own it outright.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Kathleen said.
‘I’m the one with hearing aids, not you! This place is part of The Cactus Trust – Tad will already know this much – but he won’t know that it was my idea to set up the trust when Brian and I turned forty. Brian was a whizz on the stock market – back then you could make a killing if you knew what you were doing – and he did. We were set for life. After a few trips to Italy, we began looking at the possibility of investing. And because I love food – best chocolate cake I think I’ve ever eaten, by the way – I decided we should buy a cookery school, continue to run it as such, but the profits would go into the Cactus Trust. Our way of doing a bit to help young gay men who had fallen on hard times or had fallen foul of the system while also enjoying ourselves. Win-win – isn’t that the phrase?
‘And back then it was rough being “one of us”,’ Hugh mimed inverted commas with considerable disdain. ‘The number of young men we met over the years, hard and prickly on the outside, but soft and easily damaged underneath that aggressive exterior – well, the “Cactus” part of the name suggested itself. And the need for support continues. If people like us – like me – if we watch from our ivory tower and do nothing, well, that’s worse than those people who continue to refuse to believe that people even have the right to be gay.’
Hugh grinned as he surveyed his audience. ‘I’m rather enjoying this. Maybe I should get a box and stand on it to pontificate. I think I’d be good at it.’
‘Or maybe you should get on with it,’ Kathleen said, but Tad noticed she was listening intently, as they all were, her arms folded gently across her lap, her gaze sharp and concentrated.
‘Quite so, Kathleen. Anyway – the point of telling you all this is simple. It doesn’t much matter what Billie Forsythe-Rogers writes in her newspaper article, Tad. Casa del Cibo will continue to thrive, as will The Cactus Trust – I have more money than I could ever need, and I will make sure of it. Tad – your job is secure – as far as I’m concerned you are the best chef we’ve ever managed to recruit to run this place. So, my parting gift to you is security, here, for as long as you want it.’
Tad frowned, trying to absorb the information. Regardless of his bullish determination not to be worried by Billie’s future actions, he’d be lying if he didn’t admit he’d been worried.
‘I… Thank you, Hugh – I don’t really know what to say,’ he said.
Hugh waved a hand at him. ‘Just don’t say you want to leave. Not for a while, anyway. And it should be me thanking you – excellent week, all things considered.’ He turned to Kathleen. ‘Right, old bird. Time to go, don’t you think?’
Kathleen bristled at his terminology, then nodded as she checked her watch.
‘And you two,’ Hugh pointed at Amy and Tad in turn. ‘You look completely exhausted, the pair of you. Which I’m hoping means all is rosy in your garden?’
Kathleen backhanded him. ‘Hugh, have you got any kind of filter system between your brain and your mouth? Like I keep saying, leave the kids alone.’
Tad grinned, glanced at Amy and took her hand in his. ‘Apart from the fact she’s leaving today, yes. Everything’s very rosy.’
‘She’ll be back,’ Hugh said, clambering to his feet. ‘Right, where’s Luca?’
With the cookery school fully booked for the following week – a state of affairs Tad hoped wouldn’t be too badly affected by Billie’s article – Hugh and Kathleen had decided to stay a few days in Bardolino while he recuperated and they finalised their travel plans. Luca was collecting them in his luxurious sedan to transport them in style and Hugh asked Tad if he would be so kind as to wrap what was left of the chocolate mousse cake for him to take.
When it was time to say goodbye to Amy, Malcolm displayed uncharacteristic subtlety, taking his seat in the transfer van while Tad and Amy took some time together on the steps of Casa del Cibo.
‘Haste ye back.’ His final words to her while they hugged had Amy smiling, even though her eyes glinted with tears.
‘Don’t go anywhere,’ she said. ‘Hugh’s right – I’ll be back. And not in aTerminatorway.’
Eventually he had to let go of her hand and allow her to climb into the van. He stood watching until the vehicle disappeared round the corner and the moment was broken.
Three weeks on, and that moment was still vivid in his mind. But today was the day he’d been anxious to reach, and had dreaded, all at the same time. Tad had to juggle his espresso with the enormous wadge of folded paper he was carrying as he made his way to a free table with a view out over the lake. He supposed he could have taken the Sunday paper back to Casa del Cibo, could have hidden away with the nerves he was having trouble keeping under control. Instead, he’d decided to face whatever came next with a decent view to look at, should the words prove difficult to stomach.
Even though he and Amy had been in regular contact since she left, video-calling one another most days – she had remained unnervingly cagey about what Billie had finally decided to include in her articles about Casa del Cibo. She’d kept telling him not to worry, and he knew life wouldn’t end if Billie insisted on giving him a bad review, but that didn’t make his palms any less slick as he riffled through the various sections of the paper in search of the glossy lifestyle magazine holding the long-awaited article.
Billie’s photo was on the cover – a shot of her taken by Malcolm only a matter of yards away from where Tad now sat – a glorious smile on her extremely photogenic face. The woman looked every inch the glamorous media darling, and Tad had to steady himself with a sip of coffee. Was it the smile of an assassin, or was the expression mirrored by the article itself?
As if the anticipation wasn’t already doing sufficient damage to his blood pressure, Tad flicked through the magazine, unable at first to locate the article at all. He stopped, set the magazine down, had another sip of coffee and tried again. This time he found it easily, but was still unsure about reading the words, instead taking in the photos on the double-page spread one at a time. Billie showing off the filo tart with figs she’d made on the second day, another bright smile on her face, with thriller writer, Ron, and wife, Laura, visible in the background but blurred as Malcolm had suggested everyone else would be. A wide-angled shot of the teaching room, inset with a small photo of the outside of Casa del Cibo. Photos of Riva and the lake, one of the photos Malcolm had taken at the summit of Monte Baldo with Billie’s arm through Tad’s and the most glorious view in the background.
Sweat prickled in Tad’s armpits. Was the fact he was included in the photos a good or a bad sign? Giving himself a metaphorical kick up the backside, he focused on the words. Before he could read more than the introductory paragraph detailing the name of the cookery school and the fact it was located a few minutes’ walk from the shores of Lake Garda, his phone bleated for his attention. A message from Amy. A flutter somewhere in his chest made him grin – the effect she had on him was so intense.
