Amore and Amaretti (25 page)

The chestnuts are here. Dotted around Florence are the braziers where they are toasted, then served in twisted cones of paper. Vito is telling us his preference when dealing with chestnuts: boil them in their shells with borlotti beans and a little bit of charcoal which, he claims, rids the chestnuts of their acidity. You then suck the flesh out of the shells. For the next month, he is explaining – clattering pots out of the dishwasher, hooking them up over the stoves, where they briefly swing – chestnuts are eaten with everything, and then you suddenly realise how sick of them you are. He talks about how rabbits become fat in this period by scraping the chestnut meat from their shells – which makes me briefly consider how delicious those rabbits might then be to eat.

One afternoon I make a dramatic departure from the kitchen in tears, due a combination of premenstrual tension and a reprimand delivered to Alvaro and me by Ignazio about our performance the previous Sunday lunch. (Gianfranco had been absent, Alvaro had been drunk, I felt that I had worked doubly hard to compensate and Ignazio had upbraided us both, furious, for the fact that we did not give Vito a hand.) I sit on my unmade bed feeling misunderstood and underappreciated and exhausted when there is a knock on my door. It is Vito, with a bowl of chestnuts for me to eat now while they are still hot. Feeling like a child, I eat the whole bowl in the dark, shakily, and cheer up.

A chi ha fame è buono ogni pane

All bread is good when you're hungry

At least one afternoon each week, I board the bus for Greve with my bag of laundry. I drift, browsing through postcards on the racks in the arcade, pressing my nose to the glass of Falorni's famous butcher shop, selecting a portion of cheese from the deli, sitting with a beer in the main piazza café. One afternoon Vito asks if he may accompany me. We stroll through the town, across a leaf-swirled stone bridge below which murky water stagnates, licking the
gelati
he has bought for us, not talking much. Then Vito completely astounds me: he asks me if I can give him ‘
un bacino
' – a little kiss. Memories of Lorenzo in Florence all those years ago come flooding back. I feel briefly frozen, stunned by my failure yet again to interpret human behaviour. Suppressing the shock and revulsion I feel, I laugh his question off, clumsy as a teenager, mumbling words to the effect of valuing our friendship. And, in the same way that my rejection offended Lorenzo, I can see I am wounding stupid old Vito, who seems to withdraw into himself. The companionable quality of the air has shifted, and we return to town and to the bus stop in a silence heavy with reproach. I feel utterly miserable – Vito beside me on the bus with head turned away seems to be throwing out waves of venom through every pore.

From that afternoon onwards, our relationship is for ever changed. In the kitchen, he neither looks at nor talks to me, thus setting the pattern for the remainder of my stay. I tell Alvaro about the incident and he finds it merely amusing, and yet he is never in the kitchen when, together and alone, Vito and I work in silence, brittle with tension and hostility. I wait for Vito to stab me. I begin to dread being on my own with him, especially when I am obliged to deposit my pile of sweet-making paraphernalia on the sink for him to wash. He begins to snarl and swear and crashes them into the sink, muttering audibly for me to hear about how pissed off he is with the mess I always make with my ‘fucking desserts'.

The violence in both his voice and his movements terrifies me. I actually begin to rinse the chocolatey basins, the custard-filmed saucepans and the sticky sides of spring-form pans before taking them over to his territory. It makes no impression on the contempt he spits at me, and I am finally obliged to pour the whole story out to Gianfranco. Unlike Alvaro, he takes it seriously, though I can see how the episode constitutes another source of anxiety for him. I seek hastily to reassure him, when it is really me who so desperately needs that reassurance from him.

I find myself beginning furtively to count the days. The days, turning seriously cool, turning cold, are bringing fewer and fewer customers. Gianfranco prepares for his hunting trip down south in the company of Cinzia's father. Pino, the butcher, will come and give Ignazio a hand – essentially, it will just be the five of us.

Each Wednesday I begin a diet, which lasts until Saturday evening when boredom or exhaustion compels me to cave in to the self-gratification of food. I am plump, or
‘in carne'
– meaty – as one of Gianfranco's friends remarked jovially one day, with spectacular insensitivity. Once again I retreat into novels in my little perch up by the stove, while the others slump in front of televised football matches. I had vowed not to exclude myself, but I have no control over the wells of emptiness inside me, the need to be loved, hugged and reassured of my loveliness. Everyone irritates me: Ignazio and his moodiness, stupid giggling Cinzia, inexhaustible Alvaro, the utterly contemptible Vito spitting out his loathing for me in the safety of an empty kitchen. The bantering they go in for reminds me of children, and I long to be in the company of sensible, intelligent, calm adults who discuss interesting things.

There have been visits, though too rarely this time, from dear Piero. One night he takes me to a Pugliese restaurant in Florence specialising in horse-meat dishes, and over fatty salami which nearly makes me gag, I make a brave attempt at describing my life positively. And with him I am able; with him, away from La Cantinetta, I am reminded how much it is all giving me. And that, like last time, the measure of my dissatisfaction there is invariably the measure of my self-worth. I wish I could always see it this clearly.

‘Italia sì
,
Italia no. Una pizza in compagnia
.
La banda di buco!'
sings Alvaro as he swings into the kitchen for evening service. Shortly after lunch he had disappeared, driving his Fiat Bambino down the hill to visit a friend and to ‘take two or three glasses'. He is visibly drunk. He sets up his workstation sloppily, pouring himself more wine, fiddling impatiently with the radio dial, pinching the fold of flesh around my waist as he passes behind me. My heart sinks: this has happened before and it means carrying Alvaro through the evening, double-checking every order that comes in, ensuring Ignazio stays well away, praying we have few customers.

From my side of the stoves, I watch him discreetly over my pots of bubbling pasta: so much about the kitchen is anticipating several steps ahead, and I find I am doing this for both of us. Quartering radicchio hearts to be brushed with oil then grilled, thinly slicing bread for
crostini
, dunking battered vegetables into the deep-fryer: these are the little side-jobs we generally share in a harmonious, unspoken system and which I now assume on my own. At the same time I am anxious to keep Alvaro happy, so I humour him as well.

Then Ignazio brings back into the kitchen a plate of eye fillet steak, which he describes as disgusting, a disgrace, inedible – and at this point the blurry drunken amiability turns savage. As Ignazio leaves, Alvaro unhooks the side of beef from the fridge and brings it over to the chopping block, presumably to saw off another steak, but instead, his face contorted, he heaves the entire thing into one of the big bins. Vito and I look on shocked. Ignazio has seen nothing and I am racing over to Alvaro, telling him that everything will be alright and that we can wash the meat and I will cut the required steak, and even do the grilling, if necessary. I have watched both Gianfranco and Alvaro do the mains so often – many of them involve merely reheating; otherwise it is a simple matter of grilling or frying – so I feel confident. Alvaro is insisting he is perfectly fine, and then he is on the floor, his clogs scrabbling to re-establish a grip.

This is a scene so farcical that I feel like laughing. If only the customers knew! If only Gianfranco would materialise at that moment! The enormous haunch of beef is still sticking out of the bin, enough Florentine steaks to feed thirty hungry men, and the head chef is in a comical sprawl on the floor, Vito and la Veeky in their mutual hostility unable to seek help from each other. Alvaro scrambles somehow to his feet, and the evening is able to continue, but my heart is pounding.

Amicizie e maccheroni, sono meglio caldi

Friendships and macaroni are best when warm