‘Hey! Why tears?’ Carlo put down his tea and walked over to his wife.
‘I’d better ...’ Daisy walked over to her locker to retrieve her hat, scarf and bike lock, trying not to listen, wishing she were somewhere else. It felt intrusive and embarrassing all at once.
Carlo placed his arms around his wife. ‘Don’t cry,bella.’
He spoke with such sweet concern it was like a knife to her heart. She could only imagine someone talking to her in that way.
‘I think ... I think I’m tired,’ Gianna stuttered.
‘It’s been a long month. A busy one. We’re up fifteen per cent on this time last year.’ He nodded, as if this fact alone should be enough to lift his wife’s mood.
Daisy understood a while back that whilst Carlo was motivated by the rise in their bank balance, it didn’t seem to be the same for Gianna, whose face lit up not at the sound of the till, but at the wows and gasps of delight that filtered back into the kitchen when food was presented and tasted.
‘I’m a little emotional. I was just thinking, Carlo, about the day we might stop, about when it will be the right time to shut up shop and go home.’
‘We are going home!’ He rattled the keys in his hand and laughed at her tired mumbling. Daisy thought it was both placatory and a little condescending. ‘We’d be there a lot quicker if we weren’t stood here chatting.’
Gianna shook her head. ‘No, I meanhome.’
Daisy tried not to listen, tried to open the fiddly padlock on her locker that often took a while to budge, tried to merge into the background, hum ...
‘I know my mother has been dead for decades, but just the memory of her kitchen with her in it ... I can’t explain, but it makes me so sad!’ This recollection was apparently enough to encourage the next bout of tears. ‘Sometimes it’s as if I lost her only yesterday and not all those years ago.’
Daisy could understand that; she too found that despite the situation she lived with, sometimes just the thought of her mother’s depression was enough to pull the rug from under her. And each time it caught her off guard, this torrent of grief and loss for the life they once lived had the power to knock the wind from her lungs. She wondered if it would ever stop, hoping in some way it would, and yet taking solace from the strength of feeling which meant she still cared deeply for the woman who was in there somewhere.
Gianna continued, ‘I’m ... I’m thinking a lot about sitting in the sun, growing our own food, taking slow walks, afternoonnaps – all the things we’ve spoken about for so long. I feel like it’s time.’
‘Don’t cry,tesoro mio, don’t cry!’ Carlo leaned on the stainless-steel countertop and folded his arms across his chest. ‘Wouldn’t you miss the restaurant?’ He looked around and Daisy knew he spoke for himself.
Finally, Daisy’s locker sprang open, she grabbed her scarf and hat and slammed it shut, wondering if maybe Gianna had forgotten that she was there.
‘I’d miss some of it.’
‘Daisy.’ He smiled. ‘You’d miss her.’
They both looked over at her and Daisy felt her heart sink a little at the thought of them not being around ...
‘Oh yes, I’d miss you, our little Daisy Daisy.’
I’d miss you too. Please don’t go anywhere, she thought, as saying it out loud felt like too much, as if acknowledging it might make it possible.
‘But the swollen feet, aching back, varicose veins and tired bones? No, I wouldn’t miss any of that. I think I’d like a rest. I think we’ve earned it. I mean, wouldn’t you like a change, Carlo? Aren’t you tired?’
Daisy felt conflicted; she desperately wanted to dash out and hurry home, but to leave them in the midst of such a discussion felt a little rude. She watched Carlo look around at the racks stuffed with pots and pans, the ten-litre bottles of olive oil, the bread baskets, shiny fridges, and the vast burner hob on which his wife created magic. His reply was slow in coming.
‘I too am sometimes tired, but then I try to imagine who I might hand the place over to, who would hold the keys after us, or maybe it would close altogether, become something different entirely, and then I think about all the years and all the hours andhow hard we have worked to get to this point and my heart breaks that it will come to an end.’
Daisy knew it would break her heart too.
‘Yes.’ Gianna followed his gaze, and Daisy could see how it felt easier somehow to talk about anything in the half light. ‘But if we always look at it like that, we will never stop. Never. We’ll keep working all the hours God sends until I collapse at the stove, and you carry me out in my apron, or you fall down in the restaurant with a tray of tiramisu in your hand!’
‘Would that be such a bad thing?’ His short snort of laughter told her that he spoke only half in jest. Gianna, however, didn’t laugh.
‘It would be a bad thing for me. It would mean I never made it back, and we always said’ – Gianna swallowed the catch in her throat – ‘we always said we’d work hard, save up, make a life, and then go home. Go home to sit in the sun, to spend time with our families! That was the plan.’
‘We did.’ He nodded. ‘But plans can change.’
‘They can.Iknow that better than most,’ she answered a little sharply, and Daisy, not for the first time felt a little intrusive.
