The Food of Love (35 page)

programmed into your phone!’

‘Ah. It was, yes. But Marie has wiped all my old numbers from

my card.’

‘An accident,’ Marie shrugged.

‘Damn. So what do I do?’

A girl roared past them on a scooter, helmetless, her dark hair

flowing out in her own slipstream like a cape. Automatically,

Tommaso turned his head to look. When his gaze returned to the

others, Marie slapped his face, once, very hard. Tommaso continued, as if this were barely worth remarking on, “I guess Carlotta

could tell you her number.’

‘It’s like training a dog,’ Marie explained under her breath to

Bruno, seeing his puzzled expression. ‘Carrot and stick. That’s the stick.’

‘What’s the carrot?’

She smiled and patted her breasts.

“I see,’ Bruno said. ‘Tell me, do you know about the cupboard?’

‘I’m the only girl in the cupboard now.’

‘Nice work, Marie,’ he said, impressed. ‘And the accident with

the phone numbers … ?’

Marie shrugged enigmatically.

‘Will you two listen to me?’ Tommaso complained. ‘It’s a good

idea. We phone Carlotta, she tells us where Laura is.’

‘Except we don’t have Carlotta’s number.’

‘Maybe not, but we know a man who does.’

Bruno looked at him quizzically. ‘Dr Ferrara,’ Tommaso

explained. ‘Remember? My backer, who just happens to think the

sun shines out of my culo?

But when they called Dr Ferrara, they discovered he was out of

town.

‘We’ll just have to look for her ourselves,’ Marie decided.

‘Where does she like to hang out, Bruno?’

He shrugged. ‘Art galleries, mostly.’

‘Then that’s where we’ll look.’

‘Art galleries?’ Tommaso looked pained. Marie poked him in

the ribs.

‘Yes, art galleries. And don’t think you’re not helping, because you are.’

There are over five hundred art galleries in Rome. By the end of the day the three of them had succeeded in visiting twenty-five.

‘This is hopeless,’ Tommaso groaned. “I have to work this

evening and I’m already exhausted.’

‘I’ll come and help in the restaurant,’ Bruno offered. ‘It’s the least I can do.’

Tommaso looked stern. ‘OK - but remember, my customers

have come for pizza, not fancy cooking.’

Bruno would have laughed if he hadn’t been so worried about

finding Laura. ‘So what are you telling me? That I mustn’t get too creative?’

‘Exactly. We do Margherita, Marinara, Romana and Funghi.

Our motto is: you want anything else, you eat somewhere else.’

‘That’s fine by me. I’ll just do what you tell me,’ Bruno promised.

While

Tommaso delighted his female fans by kneading the dough

in swooping, flamboyant gestures, spinning it like a lasso or tossing it from hand to hand, Bruno concentrated on quietly adding

the toppings. It was undemanding work and he was able to let his mind return to the problem of finding Laura. He knew she went

to a gym but he couldn’t remember which one, and in any case he

guessed that you couldn’t hang around gyms all day watching the

customers. What was left? Bars, he supposed. He realised he had

absolutely no idea where Americans hung out in Rome. He lifted

his head, thinking that there were bound to be some Americans in the crowd waiting for pizza. He would ask them where he should

search.

He looked up, straight into Laura’s eyes.

There was a group drinking beers near the entrance. Laura was

standing with a bottle in her hand, blowing across the top of it absentmindedly as she listened to something one of her companions was saying. Then she looked up, saw Bruno staring at her,

with Tommaso standing next to him, and her face darkened. She

said something to the person next to her and turned towards the

door.

She’s going, Bruno thought. She’s going and I’ll never see her

again.

He leaped on to the counter. The crowd, thinking this was

part of the show, roared their approval. Bruno jumped down the

other side and tried to force his way through. It was impossible.

They were packed too closely and, because anyone in a white

jacket could be distributing pizza, they were trying to get closer to him, not give him space. He pushed and shoved but it was like

trying to swim through treacle, and he made no headway.

He had an idea. Turning back to the bar, he got up on the

counter again. This time when the crowd roared he simply fell forwards on to their hands as if he were stage-diving.

For one awful moment he thought they were going to let him

fall, then he felt himself bouncing back up again, carried aloft towards the back of the room on a moving conveyor belt of hands.

Of Laura, though, he could see no sign.

Running out into the street, he thought he saw a figure hurrying round the corner. He ran after it. Yes, it was her: she was

walking fast, her head down. He shouted but she didn’t hear him.

Then a taxi with its light on came towards her and slowed as she waved at it, and she was climbing into it, and though he sprinted after her as fast as he could, he was just one more yelling Italian in the driver’s rear-view mirror.

He had lost her.

Wearily he trudged back to II Cuoco. My one chance, he thought, and I blew it. And even worse than that thought was the knowledge that she had seen him and turned away. She hadn’t even

wanted to talk to him.

‘Bruno?’

He looked up. ‘Oh. Judith.’

‘It was you. I thought it must be.’

‘When you saw Laura run away, you mean?’ he muttered. ‘Yes,

I think I’m the only person who has that sort of effect on her.’

She was silent for a moment, then she said, “I wouldn’t be too

sure.’

‘You mean there are others? That’s some consolation.’

“I probably shouldn’t say this,’ Judith said slowly, ‘but she’s

been talking about you a lot since they came back from their trip.’

‘Saying what?’

‘Nothing in particular. Just talking. But a bit too much, if you know what I mean. I think that’s why she doesn’t want to see you, Bruno. Because it’s too late to turn the clock back. Why make

everyone miserable by talking about how much better things

could have been if you hadn’t been such a dickhead?’

‘I’ve got to find her, Judith, please. You’ve got to tell me where she is.’

“I don’t know where she is right now. But I know where she’ll

be tomorrow. There’s a restaurant called Templi—’

“I know it.’

‘There’s a big dinner there tomorrow night. Everyone who’s

still here from the course is going, and all the faculty as well. To celebrate our last night in Italy.’

The next morning Bruno made his way to the restaurant at the

top of Montespaccato and asked to see Alain Dufrais. When he

was taken to the great chef’s office, he asked for his old job back.

Alain smirked. “I knew you’d be back. Your own establishment

is making pizza now, I hear.’

‘Yes,’ Bruno said meekly. He didn’t tell Alain that he hadn’t

been working there for some time.

‘Well, I’ll think about it. Come back in a week or so.’

“I need the job immediately.’

Alain raised an eyebrow. ‘You haven’t got any more reasonable

while you’ve been away, have you? I can’t just take on another chef at the drop of a hat.’

Instead of replying, Bruno reached into his pocket and took

out a little flask and a small package wrapped in foil. He unstoppered the flask. Silently he held it towards the other chef’s nose.

Alain’s nostrils flared. He took the tiny container, dabbed a few drops of the hundred-year-old aceto balsamico on to the end of his finger and touched it to his tongue. His eyes closed, and for a few moments he seemed incapable of speech. Then he said,

‘Remarkable.’

Bruno unwrapped the one remaining white truffle. There was

no need for Alain to hold it to his nose. The smell gushed into the little office, flooding every corner and cranny, saturating both men’s brains with pleasure, like bread soaking up oil.

‘How much do you want for it?’ Alain said hoarsely.

‘Nothing — so long as I can cook with it, here, this evening.’

‘Done,’ Alain agreed, quickly resealing the truffle in its foil to preserve the precious aroma. ‘But you can’t be a chef de partie - I already have every station covered. You’ll come back as a junior, or not at all.’

Like Alain, the other chefs assumed that Bruno had returned to

Templi with his tail between his legs. Hugo Kass, in particular, lost no time in putting him in his place.

‘Go and chop those chillis, chef.’

‘Yes, chef.’

‘Now dice those onions.’

‘Yes, chef

Somebody laughed. They understood what Hugo was doing: if

Bruno wiped his eyes while he was chopping the onions, the chilli would get in them.

Bruno chopped the chillis and the onions, then washed his

hands and walked over to where Hugo was preparing a ferociously

complicated gratin of crabmeat and pink grapefruit. Without a

word, Bruno picked up a crab and began to copy the other chef’s

movements.

‘What are you doing?’ Hugo Kass enquired icily. Bruno didn’t

answer. He simply worked faster. By the time Hugo had finished

his first crab, Bruno had already moved on to his second. Hugo

snarled and concentrated on what he was doing. But Bruno had

already finished his second crab and was reaching for a third.

Unlike the duel the two of them had fought the last time Bruno

had worked here, this was a hopelessly uneven contest. Beads of

sweat popped from Hugo’s forehead as the heat of the burners

combined with the humiliation of being shown up. With an oath

he reached for a sharper knife, and in doing so dropped his crab on the floor.

There was silence in the kitchen. Bruno calmly walked away

from the counter and made himself a space to work between two

of the other chefs. He knew that Hugo would not be troubling

him again. But Bruno had more important things to think about

now, such as what he was going to cook Laura.

Meanwhile, outside a little bar off the Viale Glorioso, Gennaro the barista was humming happily as he dismantled the engine of his van. Bruno appeared to have fixed it up with tractor parts, and

Gennaro was keen to see whether any of them could be fitted to

his Gaggia to help in his quest for ever-increasing amounts of

pressure. Some of them, he thought, looked very promising

indeed.

Like Bruno, Kim Fellowes and Laura were getting ready for their

big meal at Templi. But while Bruno was chopping, dicing, peeling and sifting, Kim and Laura were washing and dressing.

It was a particular ritual of Kim’s that he liked to dress Laura himself. She stood naked in his apartment in front of the mirror as he pulled a red chenille dress over her head, then slowly brushed her hair so that it fell against the collar.

‘This dress is kind of heavy,’ she murmured, half hoping to

persuade him to change it for a lighter one.

‘But it makes you look like a Botticelli princessa,” Kim said,

standing beside her. He put his hand on her stomach, feeling the gym-toned hardness of it through the cloth. ‘And it’s not as if you have to wear anything underneath.’

She smiled at the reflection of his own smile.

‘Besides,’ he murmured. ‘This evening is going to be special.

You’ll want to have looked your best.’

“I know. I’ve been looking forward to it.’

‘That’s not what I mean, Laura.’

‘And of course, it’s the last night. Last time either of us will see all the guys.’ For Kim was leaving Rome, too, off to take up a

plum appointment at his old college.

“I didn’t mean that either.’

She shot him a puzzled glance. He closed his eyes for a

moment, as if wondering how much he should tell her, then said,

‘In my pocket is a ring.’ He touched the side of his dinner jacket.

‘An exact copy of the one in Michelangelo di Merisi’s portrait of Mary Magdalene. I had it made up specially by the head jeweller

at Bulgari. I thought you’d like to know now, so that when I say something later you’ll be prepared. I know you’d hate to be so

overcome by surprise that you’d spoil the perfection of the

moment. And believe me, I’ve arranged everything so that it will be perfect.’

‘Kim, what are you saying?’

“I simply want you to be prepared for something special to

happen tonight, Laura. But when I do say a few words, later, will you do me a favour? I’ll speak in Italian, and I’d appreciate it if you’d do the same. It will sound so much better, and I want

everything, every tiny detail, to be just right.’ The doorbell

buzzed. ‘There. That’ll be our transport.’

‘You ordered a taxi?’

‘Not exactly. Like I said, everything about tonight is going to

be special.’

He had booked a horse and carriage; and waiting in the back of

the carriage was a bucket of ice and a half-bottle of champagne. As he helped her on to the seat, it was all still sinking in: her last night in Italy, in Rome, was also going to be the night that Kim proposed to her. It was so unexpected that she felt completely

stunned.

As the sunset turned the church towers orange, a flock of doves

wheeled over Santa Maria de Trastevere. ‘Next week it’ll be back to stressed-out Americans, psychotic panhandlers and Don’t Walk

signs,’ Laura said.

‘How ghastly. Let’s not think about it.’ Ghastly: that was a

word he was using a lot these days.

Suddenly the cart lurched and came to a stop. A tiny Fiat van