The Food of Love (10 page)

Italian wasn’t very good at that point, and we found ourselves

asking for circonvallazione.’

‘Which, of course, means ring roads, not wedding rings,’ Laura

said. ‘Though we didn’t know that at the time. I had a dictionary, and I found that Buci di orecchini means earring, so I told her to try buci—’

‘Due buci,’ Judith said. ‘By this time I was sort of gesticulating with my fingers, miming putting on a wedding ring—’

‘A gesture that turned out to be open to misinterpretation—’

‘As we realised when we discovered that buci actually means

hole or piercing—’

‘But we were so relieved when he seemed to understand us that

we followed him downstairs to this sort of cellar. And it was only when he told us to get undressed that we realised he thought we

wanted piercings—’

‘In an intimate part of our anatomies,’ Judith finished.

Tommaso roared with laughter, and even Bruno managed to

smile.

‘So Laura chickened out and I had to go ahead on my own,’

Judith added. Tommaso’s eyes widened thoughtfully.

Bruno and Judith ended up playing Bohnanza, the bean

trading game, on the table in the back of the van while Laura read a book on art history. Bruno suddenly realised that he was having too good a time to feel jealous of Tommaso. And when, during

one of Tommaso’s more spectacular swerves, Laura gasped and

grabbed on to his arm for support, Bruno felt a great surge of happiness. What does it matter if I can’t have her? he thought. At least I can be with her. At least I can cook her a meal she’ll never forget.

They parked on a long strand of beach just below the harbour at

Santa Marinella, unloaded the boards and ran straight into the

water. The others were still in the sea an hour or so later when Bruno came out to begin the preparations for supper. First he

made a firepit on the beach, which he filled with charcoal and

aromatic vine prunings from a sack he had brought with him in

the van. Then he went in search of the menu.

On the harbour front there was a long, low wooden building,

unprepossessing from the outside, its function given away only by the rows of fishing boats tied up next to it, their decks still littered with glittering nuggets of ice, discarded crab shells, rolled-up nets and other fishing paraphernalia. On the other side of the building the surface of the road was coated by an iridescent sheen of fish scales where each day’s catch was loaded into vans. In the shade, an ancient fisherman sat and worked his way methodically through a pile of totani - red squid - beating each one with a wooden club to tenderise it.

Bruno’s heart quickened as he stepped inside. Now this is a fish market, he thought to himself.

It took his eyes a moment to adjust from the brilliant maritime

sunshine to the gloomy interior. Piles of fish rose on either side of him in the half-darkness and the pungent stink of fish guts

assaulted his nostrils. On his left hung a whole tuna, its side

notched to the spine to show the quality of the flesh. On his right, a pile of huge pesce spada, swordfish, lay tumbled together in a crate, their swords protruding lethally to catch the legs of unwary passers-by. And on a long marble slab in front of him, on a heap of crushed ice dotted here and there with bright yellow lemons, were the shellfish and smaller fry. There were riccio di mare - sea

urchins - in abundance, and oysters too, but there were also more exotic delicacies - polpi, octopus; arogosti, clawless crayfish; datteri di mare, sea dates; andgranchi, soft-shelled spider crabs, still alive and kept in a bucket to prevent them from making their escape.

Bruno also recognised tartufo di mare, the so-called sea truffle, and, right at the back, an even greater prize: a heap of gleaming cicale.

Cicale are a cross between a small lobster and a large prawn,

with long front claws. Traditionally they are eaten on the harbour front, fresh from the boat. First their backs are split open.

Then they are marinated for an hour or so in olive oil, breadcrumbs, salt and plenty of black pepper, before being grilled

over very hot embers. When you have pulled them from the

embers with your fingers, you must spread the charred butterfly

shaped shell open and suck in the meat’ col bacio’ - ‘with a kiss’ leaving you with a glistening moustache of smoky olive oil,

greasy fingers and a tingling tongue from licking the last peppery crevices of the shell.

Bruno asked politely if he could handle some of the produce.

The old man in charge of the display waved him on. He would

have expected nothing less. Bruno raised a cicalea to his nose and sniffed. It smelled of ozone, seaweed, saltwater and that indefinable reek of ocean coldness that flavours all the freshest seafood.

He nodded. It was perfect.

Bruno bought a sea bass, as many cicale as he could afford,

some oysters, a few tartufi, some clams, a double handful of spider crabs and one of the squid he had seen the fisherman beating

outside. He watched as the old man slashed the squid with his

knife, just once, then jerked the sac away from the tentacles.

Another movement of the knife and the long shapeless head was

gone. He plucked off the beak with a quick squeeze of his fingers, then rinsed everything under a cold tap, pulling the bone from the sac as he did so. ‘Prego,’ he said, handing the various parts to Bruno. ‘Buonaforchetta.’ The whole procedure had taken him just

a few seconds.

Bruno walked back into the sunshine, which was turning

redder now that the sun was low in the sky, and wandered down

the shoreline to where Gennaro’s old van was parked. He had lit

the fire before going to buy the fish; a plume of glassy smoke

crackled from the firepit. The others were still in the sea. He stood for a moment, gazing at Laura, her sleek figure outlined in a wet suit as she clambered over the waves with her board. As he

watched he saw her put an arm around Tommaso and pull him

towards her for a kiss. Bruno flinched, and turned his attention back to the meal.

This is for Laura, he told himself. From me to her, even if she

never knows it.

He spread a tarpaulin, found a stone to use as a chopping board

and set to work. He had brought garlic, courgettes, fennel and

potatoes with him from Rome, and now he busied himself peeling

and chopping. After a few moments his mind went blank and he

drifted into the semi-automatic trance that cooking always seemed to induce in him, looking up only when the long shadows of the

others fell across what he was doing.

‘Ah, Tommaso, you’re here. It’s nearly ready for you to start

cooking,’ he said respectfully.

Laura squatted down next to Bruno to look at his haul. ‘It’s all so beautiful,’ she breathed, picking up a clam shell in which red shaded through to orange, like a sunset.

Bruno glanced at her hair; wet, tangled from the sea and

crusted with salt. Her face, too, was daubed with apache-streaks of dried salt under each eye, and the cold of the water had raised the skin of her neck into little bumps where it was exposed above her wetsuit, like the tiny nodules on a sea urchin. He closed his eyes and inhaled. Just for a moment, he could taste her - her skin

rinsed with seawater, the salt in her hair …

‘You haven’t washed the squid properly, Bruno,’ Tommaso

said, tossing the shapeless polyp into his lap. ‘You’d better take it down to the water and clean it again.’

The squid, of course, was fine. ‘Sure,’ Bruno said, getting up.

‘What are you cooking us, Tommaso?’ Judith asked.

‘Sea bass stuffed with shellfish, and a mixed grill of marinated frutti di mare,’ Tommaso said proudly. ‘It’s very simple, but I promise you, you’ll never have eaten anything like this before. Pass me that knife, would you?’

Bruno had spent an hour or so back at the apartment teaching

Tommaso how to open clams. By the time he returned from the

sea with the squid Tommaso was in full flow, explaining how he

had been preparing this recipe since he was a child, giving orders, tossing shells in all directions, and generally making an exhibition of himself while Bruno quietly got on with the real work.

‘ Ueh, Bruno, you need to put some more flavours in that fish.

Chop some garlic, would you?’

‘Certainly.’ The garlic was for the potatoes, not the fish, which would be annihilated by its pungent flavour. Bruno made a show

of smashing some garlic on a stone, then quietly put it to one side.

His hands twitched helplessly as he watched Tommaso clumsily

stuffing the shellfish into the sea bass. Even worse, he saw that Laura was watching Tommaso, apparently transfixed by what he

was doing. He felt a brief, terrible stab of jealousy.

‘Now we simply put the fish in the dish …’ Tommaso was

saying. Bruno quickly passed him the bottle of wine, a cold, white Orvieto.

‘Thank you, my friend,’ Tommaso said, taking a long swig.

‘The fish,’ Bruno muttered. ‘It’s for the fish.’

‘And the fish needs a drink too,’ Tommaso said smoothly,

upending the bottle into the fish’s jaws.

Several more times Bruno had to intercede surreptitiously as a

flame got too high, or a piece of skin was left unoiled, but by and large - somewhat to his surprise - Tommaso talked a good game

as a chef.

When at last it was time to eat, Bruno watched Laura intently as she pulled the shellfish apart, cramming them into her mouth

with noisy expressions of delight, the buttery juices running down her chin, giving her skin a glossy sheen in the fading light. He loved the way she ate: without inhibition or guilt, sucking the

oil off her fingers with gusto, revelling in every new taste and unfamiliar flavour. He had seen so many elegant women at Templi

picking delicately at their food as if it was something dangerous, pushing it around their plates or fussily cutting it into dozens of pieces before leaving half of it untouched. Laura ate with genuine pleasure, and the pleasure she felt was echoed in his own heart.

‘You eat like an Italian,’ he said to her sincerely.

‘Is that good?’ she asked with her mouth full.

‘Si. It’s the only way to eat.’

‘Actually, I eat like a pig. Always have done. My mother

despairs of me.’

‘What are the herbs in this, Tommaso?’ Judith wanted to know.

‘Er,’ Tommaso said anxiously, looking at Bruno.

“I can taste fennel and oregano,’ Laura said, screwing up her

face. ‘And something else. Ginger?’

Bruno nodded surreptitiously at Tommaso.

‘Well done,’ Tommaso declared. ‘Fennel, oregano and ginger.

Laura, you are exactly right.’

Bruno’s heart swelled with pride. There had been only the

faintest whisper of ginger in the sea bass. Even a professional chef would have been hard-placed to identify it. Laura’s palate

was untrained and untutored, but she had the tastebuds of a true aficionado.

When the last cicala had been pulled from the embers and

devoured, and the discarded shells lay hissing in the fire, Tommaso passed round a joint. As the sun slipped beneath the sea and the sand started to get a little chilly, they pulled the surfboards up to the fire and sat on those. Soon the only light came from the glowing embers. For a long time nobody spoke. In the cab of the van,

even Tommaso’s Blue Oyster Cult compilation was finally, mercifully, reduced to tape-hiss and silence.

Laura leaned back against Tommaso. ‘I’m stuffed,’ she said

dreamily.

‘Sono pieno come un uovo,’ Bruno murmured.

She smiled at him. For a moment his eyes smiled back, then his

gaze slid away shyly. ‘What does that mean?’ she asked.

‘It means “I’m as full as an egg.”’

‘Italian is such a beautiful language.’

‘American sounds pretty good too.’ He wanted to add, ‘when you speak it’, but he couldn’t. Tommaso could say it - not just because she was his girlfriend: Tommaso could pay anyone a compliment and make it sound, if not sincere, then at least charming

and funny. Only if he, Bruno, said it would it sound like a corny, desperate pick-up line.

‘Sono pieno come un uovo,’ Laura repeated.

‘Hey, Laura,’ Tommaso said. ‘Tell Bruno what your first Italian

date told you to say to anyone who got fresh with you.’

‘Well,’ she said, considering, ‘there was “Cacati in mano e

prenditi a schiaffi.”’

Tommaso laughed uproariously. ‘Take a shit on your hands

and then smack your own face,’ he translated. ‘What else?’

‘Uh - “Lei e’ un cafone stronzo, vada via in culo.”’

‘Excellent. “You’re a piece of shit, so get back up your own

arse.” We’ll make a Roman of you yet. Any more?’

‘“Guar done ti sorella e allupato ti bagnasti.”’

‘That’s harder to translate,’ Tommaso said, shaking his head.

‘It’s something like: “It turns you on to watch your sister and

me.” But there’s no English word for guardone. It’s like voyeur, but stronger. Someone who’s afraid to fuck, so he watches other

people.’

Bruno felt an awful moment of self-disgust. That’s me, he thought. A watcher.

“I was sure I was being polite,’ Laura said. ‘It sounded so beautiful.’

‘What do you mean? It is beautiful, and it is polite - for a

Roman.’ Tommaso put his arm around her shoulder. It was the

signal Bruno had been waiting for.

‘I’m going for a walk.’ He got to his feet, his heart heavy.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Judith said quickly. She reached out a

hand to him. ‘Pull me up?’

As Bruno pulled her upright, Judith came a little further into

his arms than he had been expecting. He suddenly realised that,

while he had been thinking about Laura, her roommate had evidently been considering the possibility of a romantic encounter