Amore and Amaretti (32 page)

Silvana and I discuss how long it will be before he tires of her. There is a rare evening when we are at a table together and I am struck by a look of such sullen, peasant poutishness on Nadia's face that a headscarf materialising suddenly would not have surprised me. Yet presumably something is working, despite Gianfranco's look of customary ill humour.

The night when Giorgio drops me off after dinner at Artimino, I let myself into the apartment and come face to face with Nadia, looking wretched.

‘How are you?' I ask gently.

‘He's not speaking to me!' she whispers, and my nastiness drops away at once. I feel like saying to her, ‘Leave this man; he will never make you happy – this is what he does, this unspeakable ostracism. Leave before you become even more attached.' Instead, I smile soothingly and tell her not to worry, that he is a moody man and will snap out of it soon. I could not save her, even if I were a better person.

Aiutati che Dio ti aiuta

God helps those that help themselves

Ignazio meets me at Beppe's bar, clicking briskly across the cobbled square in a wide-legged suit shot with silk. He looks beautiful, miniature, and I am feeling gorgeous in tight white flares and my new pink floral jacket. My last night in Tuscany and we are going to dinner together at La Tenda Rossa. We have spent a little more time together, perhaps, than have Gianfranco and I, but this is our first ‘date', an attempt the previous week by Ignazio for me to meet his five-year-old daughter having failed when we both decided the arrangement was too logistically complicated.

The entrance is disappointing – it is a low building like a motel. We enter a hushed room filled with palms and vast vases of flowers and a Korean waiter glides out of the shadows to conduct us to our table in the dining room; each immaculately set table has a piece of sculpture laid across it. There are only two other couples dining, but I am noticing the Liberty print stool between our chairs, the exquisite napkin holder and the silver under-plates. The waiter brings us tall, stiff menus (mine, naturally, without the prices) and returns to splash out translucent prosecco into our glasses. A gracious footnote on the menu begs the extremely valuable guest to bear with the possibility of a delay, which may seem long but is because
‘noi cuciniamo solo per Lei'
– we are cooking for you personally.

I order cream of asparagus with scallops and Ignazio the duck pâté. Six seared molluscs arrive in a puddle of bright green, their faint smokiness bleeding into the delicacy of the asparagus. Ignazio's rich and buttery pâté arrives accompanied by a neat prism of berry-flavoured jelly and a tiny glass of Sauternes. Classical piano ripples through the room and the three waiters flit soundlessly, administering to the six diners.

Ignazio and I are arguing about Florence in undertones, and then moving onto the subject of his daughter. I bring up my abortion, willing him to tell me that I was the love of his life, but instead he is restrained, as stuffy as this formal setting, as if dictated by it. I feel like shouting, drinking too much, snapping my fingers, but behave beautifully. This is, after all, his treat.

My pigeon arrives in a sticky pool of port, ineffably tender meat falling apart on a pillow of cloudy polenta. Ignazio's lamb medallions are scented with chestnut honey, and we are sipping a mellow Percarlo red in our candle-lit corner. When he slips outside for a cigarette, I jot in my notebook about the stuffy and overblown nature of the restaurant and decide that, despite the gorgeous flavours on our plates, such modern, clever food in a contemporary setting is what Italian restaurateurs manage less well than they do peasant and traditional. It lacks the sublime old character I love so much. When Ignazio returns, we share a delicate soufflé of Brie in a swirl of honey chunked with caramelised apple and crunchy walnuts, and I agree we need more alcohol. So after he has paid the formidable bill (discreetly out the front as I finish my dessert wine), we head off in his car looking for an open bar.

The only one we find is in the Piazza Beccaria and we sit with margaritas at a dim, sticky table and, finally, we begin to talk. We talk about the couple we once were, and the relationship we once had, and I see Ignazio's eyes glitter with tears. He is telling me the loveliest things I only ever dared to dream he might, and in doing so he seems somehow to be validating that period in our lives and making it sacred. In the car afterwards, he turns to me suddenly, halted at traffic lights, and covers my mouth with his perfectly formed Cupid's lips, then whispers in my ear what a shame it was we had not stayed together, what a shame we did not last. The sweet ease of closure I feel spring up inside me has finally come – eighteen years later, but it is there.

Silvana, whose birthday it is, is gloomy about her weight, so in the cool interior of Nello, on my last day, orders crostini with prosciutto followed by meat simmered in broth and spinach. I feel appalling. I have barely slept, my head faintly ringing and stomach uneasy. At Silvana's insistence, I order
panzanella
and grilled porcini; Paolo chooses a veal chop.

At Gianfranco's flat that morning, I had discovered to my horror a complete absence of water. I washed myself ineptly with three bottles of mineral water but still feel, sitting beside gleaming, glowing Silvana and neat, elegant Paolo, as if the previous evening's rich food, dessert wines and cocktails are somehow seeping through my flesh.

My
panzanella
(bread salad) strewn with fresh basil leaves is like eating mouthfuls of summer, but halfway through the porcini, charred and a little smoky on the outside, I am struck by nausea. Our conversation lacks its usual gossipy, trivial exuberance. Paolo eats quickly and seems less expansive than usual, and I have begun to worry about missing my Florence to Perugia train.

Outside the restaurant we hug each other affectionately, and then with long strides I am covering the downhill streets that lead to the villa. It is as if summer has begun. In the big kitchen, one chef is stuffing suckling pig, while the other is showing Nadia how to clean artichokes. I sit out in the little courtyard on the stone wall looking in, waiting for Ignazio, who has offered to drive me to the station in Florence. Nadia has a long white apron bound around her slender waist and seems quite comfortable at the chopping board, her fingers snapping outer layers of artichoke with confidence. I wryly muse if her love affair and resulting culinary apprenticeship will transform her life the way it did mine. I wish her luck, first silently and then into her ear when I say goodbye.

Back at Gianfranco's apartment, Ignazio and I are loading my luggage into his car – my too-much luggage; how could it have expanded so much? – when a four-wheel drive squeals to a halt beside us. Gianfranco has driven back to say farewell to me and, in spite of Nadia's face through the darkened windscreen, I lean closely into him, firmly encircle him with my arms, thank him for his hospitality and friendship, murmur regrets about how little I saw of him.

‘Ring me from Perugia,' he urges, and I promise to do so. Then Ignazio and I drive away through the curves and loops of the Chianti countryside, heading to Florence.

Bacco, tabacco e Venere riducono l'uomo in cenere

Wine, women and tobacco can ruin a man

If it had been fifty years separating our last encounter, I still would have recognised Raimondo. I know only one person who walks in this particular way – quickly, with short steps and solid purpose, heeled boots tapping – and only one person who, impervious to seasons and fashions, wears a suit and a tie. Today the cravat is bright-red silk with a matching pocket handkerchief, a jacket and the signature moustache even more cartoon-like than ever. We fly towards each other at the entrance to the station, exclaiming over each other's youth and beauty. In fact, sitting beside Raimondo in his little Fiat I can see that he has aged, though handsomely. He is thicker-waisted and grey-haired, and I calculate that he must be over sixty now.

Negotiating the vehicle up the curling hill road that leads to town, he is talking about his restaurant, his ever-increasing popularity, and finally his problematic adolescent son. We have too much to tell each other, and each bend we turn through a medieval town is almost as conducive to nostalgia as Florence. I am now hearing about Natasha, Raimondo's Ukrainian girlfriend. He is treating the subject with caution because, even though it is eight years since our beloved Annamaria died, he is aware of the depth of our friendship. Raimondo punctuates our conversation with bursts of song and toots of horn and invective against every inept driver on the road, and miraculously finds a spot to park within minutes of narrow Via Ulisse Rocchi and his restaurant.

Vecchia Perusia is unchanged. There is still the gracious antipasto table forming the centrepiece of one small room, still the pale prettiness of Franca, the chef, through the kitchen pass. A giant woman greets us – the famous Natasha – her eyes flicking swiftly over me and her handshake restrained, then Raimondo is drawing me into the tiny washing-up space behind the kitchen and slopping white wine into two glasses. We toast each other and drink. Raimondo is doing the same thing with his eyes that he always did around Annamaria, a her-against-us look like some naughty schoolboy, and we laugh together in cosy complicity.

I had never lived or stayed long enough in Perugia to cultivate friends; Raimondo is the only person I know. With so little time here, I am content just to roam and drift in the same unstructured semi-purposeless way I did in Florence. I am staying at Annamaria's apartment in town, sharing space with Natasha and Lidia, a surly Latvian teenager who is the restaurant dishwasher. Raimondo commutes between town and the
casa colonica
on the outskirts where he lives with his difficult son. Natasha sits at the kitchen table swathed in a masculine dressing gown, sipping tea and explaining to me how the washing machine works – almost palpably, I feel the memory of Annamaria and me drinking and talking and laughing at the same table. I miss her shockingly.