Homecoming Girls (18 page)

At the side of the restaurant and set slightly back from it was a timbered cabin. There were clean curtains at the window, though it appeared to be unlived in. In front of it was a small overgrown garden with a neglected flower bed and parched grass in need of cutting.

Jewel stopped and stared and felt a whole range of sensations engulfing her. A pulse in her throat began to throb and she swallowed and licked her lips.

‘Clara,’ she whispered. ‘This is it. I’m sure of it.’

Clara gazed at her, but before she could speak they heard someone singing. It was a loud joyous sound, untrained but melodic, and they both turned their heads towards the restaurant, which now had its door open. Writing on the window in white chalk as he sang was a young thickset man with dark hair loose on his neck.

Jewel walked back towards him. She felt as if she were floating, trancelike, in a dream. Her childish memories battled with present-day reality and her breath quickened as she stood watching him. His profile was familiar. She saw a gleaming white shirt on broad shoulders, the sleeves rolled up to his
elbows, and as he lifted his arms to write she saw that they were muscular.

Clara stood beside her, wondering why her cousin was watching this man but remaining silent.

He either sensed their presence or saw their reflection in the glass because his singing ceased and he turned sideways to look at the two young women. It seemed as if he was about to give a merry quip and invite them into the restaurant; but he paused. Their faces were shaded by their bonnets and the parasols which they carried over their heads, but he saw that one was very fair. An Englishwoman, he thought; his mother always said that you could tell an Englishwoman by her skin: like apple blossom, she said. Delicate pink and white.

But the other one was different; not Chinese, at least not like Pinyin, who helped them in the kitchen. Pinyin had a round, moonlike face, with dark slanting eyes which twinkled constantly because of his sense of his good fortune in working for them; this small and petite goddess had sleek black hair coiled behind a slender neck, high cheekbones, wide dark impenetrable eyes and soft lips which parted softly as she spoke almost in a whisper.

‘Renzo?’

There was only one person who had ever called him Renzo. But he scarcely remembered her. She had been his childhood friend and they had spent every day of their young lives together. She had eaten at his home – the two rooms behind the bakery which his parents had run – and they had played in her garden next door. He had been devastated when she went away and had cried for days, until his father had said in his strong Italian accent, ‘Enough! Be a man. There will be many other girls to weep over in your life.’

But he had remembered his mother crying too, and not just on the day that Jewel . . .
that
was her name . . . had gone away, but on another day some weeks later.

Lorenzo took a step towards them. Bemused, he looked from one to the other, and then his gaze settled on the dark-haired girl and he said softly, ‘Jewel? Is it you?’

She smiled. ‘You remember me?’

‘Yes,’ he breathed. ‘I do.’

He took another step forward and put out both his hands for hers. She slipped them into his. Such small fragile hands, he thought, and her face – yes, a hint of the Orient. Had he ever known that?

‘I can’t believe it,’ he whispered and kissed her gently on her cheek and then on her hands. ‘You went away. Where did you go?’

Jewel could hardly speak and then only to murmur. ‘To
England; with Gianna, who adopted me. My father was dying, although I didn’t know it then.’

He nodded. Yes. That was why his mother had cried the second time, because the man next door had died.

‘Lorenzo,’ Jewel said, ‘I’d like to introduce you to my cousin Clara. Clara, this is my friend Lorenzo, from my childhood.’

Clara dipped her knee and put out her hand, and Lorenzo reluctantly let go of Jewel’s in order to clasp it and say how pleased he was to meet her.

‘Come inside, please,’ he said. ‘It’s too hot outside for English ladies. You’re not used to such temperatures, I’m sure.’

Indeed we’re not, Clara thought, as gratefully she sat down inside at a table spread with a white cloth, and mopped her forehead, whilst Lorenzo went off to bring a jug of cold water.

He poured two glasses and then sat across from them. He put his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands and shook his head, looking at Jewel. ‘I can’t believe it,’ he repeated. ‘I never thought I’d see you again.’

‘I have been back to America,’ she told him. ‘But not to California. My adoptive father, Wilhelm Dreumel, is American and has property in Dreumel’s Creek.’ When he shook his head as if he didn’t know, she added, ‘Above Duquesne? Mountain country.’

He still didn’t know and she went on to explain some of Wilhelm’s background and how he and Gianna had decided to live in England so that she could grow up with her cousins, Clara and Elizabeth, and get to know her English grandmother.

‘But,’ she went on, ‘when I came of age, I decided I wanted to come here, to visit the place where I was born and where my real father had lived . . . and,’ she hesitated, ‘try to find out more about my birth mother.’

Lorenzo pursed his lips. ‘I don’t remember her. I can just remember your father, but only vaguely, and there’s another man who comes here sometimes. Larkin,’ he said. ‘But I don’t
know the connection. Perhaps my mother knows. She seems to know most of what goes on around here.’

‘Your mother!’Jewel said. ‘Oh yes!’ She gave a sudden smile. ‘She used to feed me with pasta!’

Lorenzo laughed. ‘She feeds
everybody
with pasta. Would you like to eat? We shall get busy in about an hour, so . . .’

‘Yes, please,’ they chorused. ‘And some of that lovely bread we can smell,’ Jewel added.

His dark eyes twinkled humorously. ‘Her speciality! People come from miles around to buy her
pane
. She’s almost finished baking now. Just putting in the last batch of the day, then I’ll fetch her to meet you.’

Lorenzo went off to the kitchen to prepare some food for them, and Jewel looked at Clara. She could barely suppress her excitement and felt all of a quiver. Although she had wanted to find the place where she had lived with her father, she hadn’t dreamed that she would meet up with Lorenzo. He was a half-forgotten memory. Now she was buzzing with anticipation of what else might be in store for her.

‘He’s very handsome, isn’t he?’ Clara whispered. ‘And so – so amiable!’

Jewel nodded in agreement. He was indeed. The dark-haired, chubby little boy had grown into a handsome young man and she felt very strange when he gazed at her from his smiling eyes.

They heard him calling ‘Madre’, and a woman’s voice calling back to him. Presently he emerged again, bringing with him a short, stout, dark-haired woman, who was wiping floury hands on a cloth and speaking excitedly in Italian.

Jewel stood up. ‘Madre!’ she exclaimed. She had always called her that, following Lorenzo’s example and not knowing then, when she was a child, that it meant Mother.

Signora Maria Galli flung out her arms and embraced Jewel in a warm hug. She smelled of yeast and dough, of garlic and tomatoes, and as Jewel breathed in her scent so many memories came flooding back.

‘It ees so good to see you again.’ Maria laughed and cried
and dried her tears on the cloth, spreading flour over her cheeks. ‘Your poor papa! I ask him, please let you stay with me, but then the English lady come and he say that you go to England with her.’

Jewel wiped her own tears and said in a choked voice, ‘I did. I went to England to see my relatives and Mama – Gianna – decided that we would stay.’ She introduced Clara and she too was given a bear hug.

‘And now you ’ave come back,’ Maria said. ‘It ees good! Very good! Now you will eat some pasta and tell me everything.’

Lorenzo brought them each a plate of antipasti: ham, beef and salami, grilled artichokes, pungent and sweet red peppers, tomatoes with garlic cloves and fresh bread with a bowl of olive oil with basil. ‘Eat,’ he urged them, as they waited for their pasta to be cooked.

The restaurant began to fill up with customers and Lorenzo was kept busy attending them, although most seemed to be old friends who slapped him on the back, laughing and chatting as they drank wine poured from a carafe and rubbed garlic on their bread and dipped it into bowls of oil.

‘Is that what we do?’ Clara whispered. ‘I wondered what the oil was for.’

‘Yes,’ Jewel said. ‘I think so. I don’t know; if I ever did, I’ve forgotten!’

Lorenzo came back to them and sat down close to Jewel. He smiled at them both. ‘The bread is good, isn’t it?’ He broke off a piece and rubbed it with a garlic clove and then dipped it into the olive oil before popping it into his mouth. He grinned at Clara. ‘Now if you do the same, you will only be kissed by an Italian, or maybe a Frenchman who has been eating garlic too. Not an Englishman!’

Jewel gazed at him, and followed his example, but she drew in her breath as the pungent flavour hit her taste buds.

Clara looked at them both and laughed. ‘Well, I don’t expect to be kissed by anyone, especially not an Englishman, so . . .’ She tore off a corner of bread and ceremoniously did the same, with gasping consequences.

Lorenzo laughed and called out to some people at another table. Neither Jewel nor Clara understood what he said as he spoke in rapid Italian, but the men laughed back and one got up from his seat and came across to them.

He gave a courtly bow and, bending low over Clara, lifted her hand, murmuring
‘Buon giorno, signorina
’ and pressing his lips to it before bowing to Jewel.

Clara put her hand to her throat. She was astonished. How informal everyone was in this country! She had been kissed by James Crawford and now, even though only on her hand, by an unknown man. She swallowed hard and turned to Lorenzo for an explanation.

‘I told my friends that the English lady did not expect to be kissed at all today, so Federico volunteered.’ He frowned. ‘You’re not offended? It was meant only as a joke.’

Clara flushed and Lorenzo gave her a gentle smile and lifted his eyebrows. She was indeed a pink and white Englishwoman.

‘No,’ she said softly. ‘Not offended at all. Please tell your friend that I am charmed.’

Lorenzo translated and the men at the table roared and teased Federico. He put his hand to his chest and bowed again before returning to the table, where he was subjected to much banter by his compatriots. As they mimed hands on hearts and handkerchiefs mopping brows he glanced over his shoulder at Clara.

Lorenzo’s mother came to sit with them when lunch was nearly over and Lorenzo went to speak to his friends. Jewel saw that he was telling some of them about her for they were nodding their heads or raising their eyebrows. Then she saw a Chinese man come out of the kitchen and begin to clear away the dirty dishes from the tables.

Maria saw her glance at him. ‘That is Pinyin.’ She shrugged. ‘He works for us for a long time.’ She leaned towards Jewel. ‘Do you know that it ees because of your father that we are here?’

Jewel was puzzled. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Weren’t you always here? But with a bakery, not a restaurant?’

‘Si
, we were,’ she said. ‘We rented the store from your father. He owned this building and the one next door and the saloon.’

‘Oh,’ Jewel said. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Then,’ Maria went on, ‘after you had left, your papa, he send for us one day and said he was leaving the store to us in his will.’ She wiped her eye. ‘And the one next door. He was a good man. He saw how we struggled.’

So many things Jewel didn’t know about her father. How generous he had been!

‘We rented out the other one,’ Maria said, ‘and when the tenants left about ten years later we expanded.’

‘And started this restaurant!’Jewel exclaimed.

‘Si
. But we were halfway through the building of it when Lorenzo’s papa died. You remember him, yes?’

Jewel shook her head. She didn’t. She couldn’t ever recall seeing a man about.

‘Lorenzo was sixteen, very young to ’ave responsibility, but he is clever boy,’ Maria said proudly. ‘He got all his friends to give us help.’ She pointed to the table of young men, some of whom were preparing to leave. ‘Some of these here today. They help us with their own hands.’

As Maria was telling her story, Clara rose from her seat, murmuring ‘Excuse me’, and sauntered across to where Federico was standing with his hat in his hands, saying, she thought, goodbye to his friends. All the young men rose as she approached.

‘Miss Clara,’ Federico greeted her. ‘Federico Cavalli.’ He looked at her intently and gave a small bow. ‘I hope I didn’t embarrass you?’

She laughed. ‘No. Not at all.’ She had been slightly self-conscious, but she wasn’t going to admit it. ‘So you speak good English after all?’ she teased him.

‘No ma’am.’ He shook his head. ‘I speak American.’

‘I beg your pardon.’ She smiled. ‘Forgive me.’

‘Anything, Miss Clara,’ he said solemnly. ‘I could forgive you anything!’

She blushed as she saw the grins on his friends’ faces. ‘I thought you were Italian!’