Well. At least she had a parcel. Clutching it like a miser, she went back into the house and sat down. She recognised the wobbling antique handwriting and the sunny stamps; they had arrived on every birthday card of her childhood. It occurred to her, for the first time, that of course it must have been her grandmother who chose and wrote those cards, took them to the little ufficio postale and sent it safely on its way, in good time. Huh.
She realised very quickly why he had sniffed it.
Inside, carefully wrapped, she found treasure.
There was Barilla pasta and Mutti tinned tomatoes, straight from the store. Carefully wrapped in straw was a tiny pot of homemade tapenade scented with everything good. There was a jar of tomatoes her grandmother had dried herself on a corner of the little sunny terrace where it was too hot in the afternoon but glorious at any other time of day. A big hunk of parmesan, and, instantly recognisable from the second she’d picked up the box – the smell of it pervading everything, overpowering and absolutely enchanting and something that had probably perfumed the entire Mount Polbearne postbag (Janka did indeed complain about being expected to deliver it; head office had regrettably replied that unless it was a fungus that was likely to explode they were unable to intervene in this instance) – a large brown truffle.
She buried her nose in it; it was extraordinary. Deep and rich and heavy with scent; to be used sparingly and stored carefully, otherwise it would contaminate the entire rest of the house and, quite possibly, the street. She immediately fetched a tupperware container, and sealed away her treasure carefully.
There was more. Local sea salt, and even some potted basil so she could grow her own, although what could possibly thrive in the harsh rocky salted sand of her new home and survive the brisk westerlies she couldn’t imagine. A jar of plump shiny black olives, a twisted vine of garlic which would have smelled amazing if they hadn’t been pushed sideways by the truffle and a bottle of exquisitely good first-press olive oil.
She pulled them out carefully. It was amazing. The one thing her grandmother could have done for her right now that was as close as could be to putting her arms around her and giving her a hug. She glanced over at the Skype window, but her nonna wasn’t in view.
She smiled ruefully at her nonna’s bossiness. It genuinely did hurt her that she wasn’t eating properly.
She thought of her dinner for that night – a stodgy and not very appetising ready meal, with microwave noodles and almost certainly not enough vegetables – and sighed. It had been so long. The joy she had always found in making food.
‘SO!’
The voice from the laptop startled her. She sat up. It was Nonna, of course, returned from her siesta.
‘I got your parcel!’
‘I see!’ The woman was grinning broadly.
Glancing behind her, Marisa saw all the tins laid out on the countertop.
‘It must have cost a fortune to send.’
‘Yes, it ate in very heavily to the money I had to spend on designer clothes for the Christmas ball at the Duke of Lombardy’s.’
‘Aren’t you a little old to be sarcastic?’
‘Oh yes, you go to so many balls.’
Marisa grinned. It was strange. Her grandmother was as snappy as ever, but somehow, she’d got used to it. She wasn’t so freaked out any more. She thought about Anita and what it said in the book. Repeat the thing you’re scared of . . . until you’re not so scared. But talking to Nonna was easy. It was everything else in the world that was difficult.
‘Well. Go on then!’
‘Go on then what?’
‘Tell me at least you have an onion.’
‘If you think for one second I’m going to cook with you standing there shouting at me, you are very wrong about things.’
Her grandmother folded her arms.
‘I will watch and not say anything.’
‘That is not possible for you.’
‘It is completely—’
‘See, you’re at it.’
Nonna made a zipping noise with her mouth and sat back with her arms still folded, pulling a cardigan around herself, even though Marisa had looked at the weather forecast and it was a balmy twenty-six degrees in Imperia that morning.
She moved self-consciously towards the countertop and dug out one of the rather ageing onions she had ordered online when she’d first moved, thinking optimistically it would get her cooking again. It had not, when it came down to it, and they had sat there in the dark cupboard beside the sink, like a reproach.
She selected one of the knives from the holder. They had never been used. Everything here was so new.
‘What kind of knife is that?’ came from behind her.
‘I don’t know. Ssh!’
‘Well, you can’t cut anything with that knife.’
Marisa sliced through the onion, far away from the tips, just as her grandfather had shown her, long ago, to avoid crying.
‘That’s too far down to cut an onion! You are wasting half an onion.’
‘I am going to hang up now,’ said Marisa.
‘But you can’t do this alone!’
‘Well, I’m going to give it a try.’
‘Just put me on mute.’
‘But then you look like one of the muppets.’
‘Do not be rude to your nonna.’
‘I think Un posto al sole is just starting.’
However much fun shouting at her granddaughter was, it wasn’t worth missing Un posto al sole for, and Nonna, sniffing, backed down.
‘I won’t be far away.’
‘I’ll call you if I forget what pasta is.’
‘So young and such a smart mouth.’
Chapter Twenty-one
Marisa felt briefly guilty that her nonna had gone to all the trouble of sending so much food and was now being denied the pleasure of shouting at her as she cooked it.
But somehow, even just setting the oil sizzling in the brand-new pan was helping to make her feel better. It was soothing. She added some pretty music, kept quiet so she couldn’t be accused of double standards.
While you were chopping, it almost didn’t matter that you were far away from home, stuck somewhere you were too scared to leave, held prisoner by grief. When the knife was so sharp it nearly took your fingers off, when the oil was gently heating in the pan, sizzling quietly, and gradually, without rushing, the onions starting to softly melt, no rush. When all of that was going on, nothing was too bad.
Next she grabbed the garlic, which was a gentle purple round the base, cracking the papery shell with the flat of her knife, breathing the scent in deeply. She chopped rather than mashed the garlic; it was in wafer-thin slices which would gently colour in the good oil.
She felt her breathing slow as the delicious scent hit the air, and opened the bottle of Valpolicella, the last thing, carefully tied up in bubble wrap, that her nonna had put in the box, and set it to warm next to the pan.
Next she pulled out a large pot, boiled the water for the pasta, adding plenty of salt, then gently stirred the tomatoes and fresh basil and even more salt into the pan with the onions, giving everything time to gently blend together. So simple, but with good tomatoes – and these were very, very good tomatoes indeed – there was nothing better. She dug up a little grater from one of the cupboards for the rough hunk of parmesan.