Page 26 of Daughter of Genoa (Escape to Tuscany)

When I went into the kitchen that evening to help Silvia with dinner, she gave me a knife and a board with some pieces of stale bread: the remains of various perished loaves, hoarded over several days.

‘Pancotto tonight. I’m sorry, Marta dear, but needs must.’

She knew that I hated pancotto: that hot mush of old bread and vegetables we ate whenever there were loaf-ends that needed to be used.

I always helped to make it and I always finished it without complaint, because I didn’t want to offend Silvia, and because turning it away meant no dinner at all.

But the texture made me want to gag, and I simply couldn’t be cheerful while I was eating it.

Today, though, I felt that nothing could ruin the happiness pervading my body. Not even pancotto.

‘That’s all right. It had to come round again some time.’ I sat down at the table and started to cut up the bread. Silvia sat opposite me and began to prepare the vegetables.

‘Bernardo tells me Mr X came past this afternoon,’ she said, peeling a carrot and setting the peel aside, as she always did, in a little pile to use for stock.

I nodded and kept my eyes on my task. Massimo and I had spent perhaps half an hour together, making love in taut and breathless silence, before he’d reluctantly said goodbye.

The goodbyes had gone on for a little while after that, and he’d finally left just a few minutes before Silvia arrived home from her meeting.

‘I shan’t ask you to tell me anything,’ Silvia went on. ‘In fact, please don’t. The less I know, the less I have to worry about. But by the looks of you, I’m assuming that it all went just fine and that you’re not going to be moping around the house any more. Is that about right?’

‘Yes,’ I said, and blushed to the tips of my fingers.

‘Then that’s an improvement. And it’s as well you have something that makes you happy,’ she added. ‘Heaven knows you deserve that. And so does he.’

‘He does. He’s a good man.’

‘Oh, I know that. He’s a thoroughly decent soul, for all he’s a bit of a charmer. That face!’ Silvia shook her head. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you couldn’t do better. And I like to think I have good taste.’

I thought of Bernardo’s quiet, constant care for his wife; his steadiness and patience. The tenderness in his expression whenever he looked at her. ‘You do,’ I said.

‘It’s just… oh, Lord, I do hate to interfere.

But you’ll take care, won’t you? Of your heart, I mean,’ she continued, before I could wonder whether I was going to hear another talk about respectability or worse.

‘I don’t think he’d do anything to hurt you, not for a moment.

Not deliberately. But it’s bound to be hard when you love someone who takes the kind of risks he does.

In fact, I don’t know what’s worse – the risks you know about, or the ones you can only imagine.

Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said as I looked at her, stricken.

‘I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not my place, not at all. ’

‘It’s fine,’ I said, trying to sound as cheerful as I could. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ But I was worried, of course, because she was right. Even in the warm haze of new love, I knew it all too well.

‘No, no, it isn’t fine, not at all. I said I wouldn’t interfere, and then I did. What must you think of me?’ Silvia shook her head and stood up, pushing back her chair. ‘Besides, I’m sure he’ll be just fine. I must nip downstairs and see to something, dear. I’ll be back in a moment.’

She turned and went out of the kitchen before I could try to reassure her again. Tiberio, roused from his sleep by the stove, stalked out after her.

*

By the time Silvia returned, I’d finished preparing the bread and chopped the rest of the vegetables for the hated pancotto.

I braced myself for a telling-off, but she thanked me profusely, added everything into the pot, covered it with water (‘We’d have a nice meat stock, you know, if we could’), set it simmering and then handed me a wooden spoon.

‘You stir this and keep stirring. All right? Just gently, mind – it’s not risotto.’

While I stirred the pancotto, Silvia talked to me, asking me what I’d read lately and what I thought of it, what I reckoned to Colonnello Buonasera’s last speech, and various other harmless matters.

I knew that she was being extra kind, and I wished I could tell her that she needn’t try to keep me distracted.

Her determined cheer was far worse than any amount of awkward silence.

But I felt wretched and ungrateful for even thinking it, and so I did my best to play along, answering her questions with all the goodwill I could summon.

‘You know, this can actually be a very nice dish,’ Silvia said, once the table was set and Bernardo had taken his seat.

She set out three bowls and started doling the awful stuff into them.

‘If I only had the ingredients to make my own pancotto, Ligurian style with garlic and oregano and cheese, then you’d see just how different it can be.

You might even find you enjoy it, though it’s still frugal food, of course.

But Bernardo’s had my pancotto plenty of times and loved it. Haven’t you, Bernardo?’

‘Hmm,’ Bernardo said. ‘Shall I say grace?’

Over dinner, I sat as quietly as I could while Silvia continued to talk.

She was bright-eyed, apparently set on making up for my and Bernardo’s taciturnity, and she regaled us with stories from that afternoon’s church council meeting.

Pastor Peyronel had made a stern appeal for donations from all those who could afford it.

Dr Rostan had been asked to speak to the youth group about the dangers of dancing, but had refused on the grounds that it was a delicate matter and should best be addressed by someone with a speciality in adolescent development.

In Silvia’s personal opinion, he simply didn’t want to do it.

But his reasons had been accepted, eventually, and the council had decided to send for a lady doctor from Turin who was known for giving brisk talks on such matters.

‘What’s wrong with dancing?’ I asked.

‘You have to be close together ,’ Silvia said, as if it were obvious. ‘It stirs up the passions.’

I remembered the dances I’d gone to as a girl – some quite lovely memories, in fact. Silvia definitely had a point. ‘I see.’

‘It’s very dangerous for the young, it’s true,’ Bernardo said. ‘They need a lot of guidance. Grown-ups, of course, can make their own decisions.’ I shot him a quick glance, but he was focused on his pancotto.

When we’d eaten and washed up and the evening was over, I went to my room and got into bed.

I hoped to find some trace of Massimo, some lingering scent of cedarwood or shaving soap, but of course there was nothing.

We’d had only a little time, and we’d had to be so quiet, so careful.

He could scarcely have left an imprint. But the memories were there, so fresh and vivid I could live them all over again: holding tight to him, stifling my gasps in his neck as he brought me to ecstasy; his mouth seeking mine, kissing me fervently as the world fell away.

I missed him. I had only just found him, and now I had to wonder where he was and what danger he might be in, and when – if – I would see him next.