He had listened rapt, envying her, and picturing his own young life of thrift and hardship, the stuff of nightmares.
‘I would wake and start cooking early in the morning with my nonna; she’d trust me with a sharp paring knife and let me help prepare food on a long wooden table with a thin plastic tablecloth nailed to the wood underneath. I can picture the floral print, which faded year on year, bleached by the sun’s rays.’
‘It sounds idyllic.’ He meant it.
‘Oh, it was!’ She’d leaned forward and kissed his forehead. ‘I’d spend the day running wild with my cousins. Laughing and singing! We’d play among the vineyards, idle in the piazzas, and eat sweet soft gelato before returning home as the sinking sun set the sky on fire.Home,to sit at that same long wooden table where politics, art, farming, music, local gossip, taxes, opera, love and loss were heatedly discussed by my extended family!’
‘I would have loved to have seen it.’ He’d felt almost melancholy for the life she described; a life devoid of dust-free surfaces, crystal serving bowls and accent lamps in shades of teal. A life where he could wander bare chested in the sun, wearing battered espadrilles and letting his stubble grow into a beard if he felt like it, completely unconcerned with ‘standards’. ‘I like the sound of the freedom of it all,’ he’d confided, only willing to give away this small hint that he sometimes found his life to be a little constricting, no matter how blessed.
‘It was certainly that.’ She had run her finger over his shoulder, her touch enough to make him shiver with want. ‘The conversation, no matter how loud, only ever the background to the main event – eating. We’d roll up our sleeves, secure a napkin at our necks, lift the spoon and tuck into vast bowls full of garlicky, homemade pasta with soft bread to dab up the remnants of the complex tomato sauces. God, Bernie, I can still taste them now! Those sauces made to Nonna’s exacting standards. They were beyond compare, multi-dimensional and, like the finest wines, carried high and low notes, sweet and savoury aspects, varied textures that made my tongue sing! These sauces are my food heritage and I have to confess, despite all my years in the kitchen, I can only dream of replicating them. It was all about the food, yes, but it was more than that; love floated around us, bound us and held us fast in a nest thatwas safe, warm and comforting. I still dream of it – those moments, the smells, the sounds, the taste of that fairy-tale life.’
‘I’d like to go back with you one day,’ he’d confessed, a moment of honesty before the complexities of their situation and the realities of life caught up with his tongue. A moment when he’d let himself imagine the Tuscan heat on his skin, the feel of her skin next to his with the scent of olives and lemons filling a stone-floored room with a grand bed and shutters drawn, putting the room in shadow while they lay and laughed and loved ...
These were the days, the memories, that filled his dreams, his quieter moments. Her voice, now firm, brought him back into the present, as she slammed another pan on to the range.
‘I get that you had to give a speech, Bernie. Of course, you did. I was prepared for it. I imagined it. I settled on something touching, funny even, and then a clink of glasses as you cut the cake. But that’s not what happened, the words you used ...’
Bernie felt a flutter of nerves as he tried in vain to remember exactly what he had said. Unluckily for him, Gianna was about to remind him. It made him cringe.
‘“You had faith in me. You loved me.” That’s what you said. That’s what you said to her in front of everyone. In front ofme!’ The crack to her voice was hard to hear.
‘Yes, I know, I ...’ His thoughts whirred as he tried to come up with something that might placate the voluptuous woman he so adored and at whose bosom he found warmth and comfort.
‘Those words haven’t left me, Bernie. I haven’t slept, chasing them around my head like a movie on a loop.’
He watched as she reached for a large ceramic bowl and into it she grated a soft, pillowy mountain of Parmesan, before adding a long grind of coarse black pepper. His mouth watered. She pulled fresh fettucine from a wooden rack where it hung in pale strips and set it to boil in salted water.
‘I have cut and diced your words every which way, trying to figure out why they lodged in my heart like daggers, and I got it. Last night, just before the sun came up, in the darkness, I lay there, and I figured out why.’
‘Why, Gia?’ He felt the rush of adrenaline, wary of what she might say next and knowing it would be hard to hear. Her tone so cool, her hand out of reach, it felt like the beginning of the end and that thought was almost more than he could stand. He very much liked his life with her in it. He had come here with the explicit intention of getting the food and to apologise. Ending their affair had not been on his mind.
‘Because I have had faith inyoufor the last seven years. Faith that you would keep your word and that the future was ours. That we would be together, somewhere new. A fresh start. I never doubted that you meant it and I have thought of it every moment we have been apart. Standing here at this stove, lost entirely to dreams of you and me, together. I believed you. And as for love ...’ She paused and transferred the pasta from the boiling water into the cream and butter mixture bubbling on the stovetop before scooping up the grated, peppery Parmesan and sprinkling it generously over the top. Gently, with a spatula, she folded the mixture together before adding a heavy splash of the pasta cooking water. She stirred and stirred until what lay in the pan was a glossy, cheesy sauce-coated pasta that he could have dived into, mouth open wide. ‘I can see, Bernie, that to say “I love you” is something that’s easy for you. I thought you were sincere. I thought you loved me as I love you.’
‘I do! I spend every minute I can in the driveway at the side of the house, making out to prune that damn climbing rose bush, calling you, texting you, listening to your voice. Those moments when I stand in all weathers, making even the smallest amount of contact with you are the very best part of my day.’ He felt a risingsense of panic at the thought of losing this woman whose affection sustained him, nurtured him and made him happy! ‘I do love you, Gia and wecanbe together, we can! I’ll do it. I’ll tell Winnie and you tell Carlo, and we can just pack a bag and go!’
‘Go where?’ she snickered, as she loaded the hot, steaming pasta into a container and sprinkled it with fresh, rough-chopped, flat-leaf parsley, sealing it tight.
‘I ... I don’t know. I ...’ He floundered, thinking of the hurt it would cause Winnie, the pain he would be inflicting on Lawrence and Cleo, on Cassian and Domino, all of whom looked up to him, the head of the family. And he pictured the little red face of his baby grandson, the newest member of the Kelleway clan. ‘I don’t know,’ he repeated and was stunned to realise he was close to tears. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt like this – not tearful, tears came often – but never this lost, alone, bereft at what was to come. ‘I don’t know.’ It was both an admission and a realisation that this was their ending.
‘I don’t know either.’ Gianna handed him the box. ‘I hope your daughter enjoys this and please tell her congratulations.’
He put the box on the counter and grabbed at her, pulling her into him. He closed his eyes, committing to memory the feel of her soft form against him, her scent, a drawing feeling in his gut for all he was going to miss, all he was going to be denied.
‘We can’t do this, Bernie, not anymore.’ Gianna spoke with her eyes closed as if this might make it easier. ‘I mean it. My mind is made up.’
‘How? How do we just stop? Seriously,’ he breathed against her neck, holding her against him, ‘you do something to me ...’
‘We’ve been lucky, Bernie. After all these years for us to still feel the same level of attraction, but enough now, enough ...’ She let the thought trail, her smile forced as if this were inevitable. Neverbefore had she spoken these exact words and certainly not with such resolution.
‘I don’t know what I’ll do without you, Gia.’
‘You’ll figure it out.’ She kissed his cheek. He could feel her tears on his skin.
He caught her wrist. ‘When the woman you love is in distress or pain, you feel so helpless.’ He shook his head.
‘I’ll be okay. It’s just going to take time for me to adjust. But I survived before you and I will survive after. It will help that I know you are a fraud, Bernie, a big old fraud.’
Her accusation bothered him. ‘I do love you, Gia! I love you! And if things were different ...’
