But from the second the bakery shut at four till they reopened at six, there was a palpable sense of anticipation in the town, and plenty of daytrippers furious they had to wait about till later, till the ovens stopped producing bread and cakes and moved on to pizza instead.
‘We still need repainting,’ said Polly. ‘We should do something with a pizza theme.’
‘I am not sure that’s wise,’ said Marisa. ‘I think the grey is nice.’
They had tentatively agreed to work together for a couple of months and see how things went before formalising their agreement. Marisa didn’t think that with such a tiny population – about 1500 souls all in – they could possibly sell that much pizza five nights a week to make them sustainable, but Polly pointed out how many visitors they got, and also, they were quite shocked to discover, an astonishing number of people would happily eat pizza at least once a week, or even more often.
‘At least it’s the very best kind,’ said Marisa, fulfilling another order for the Gillespies, whose myriad small boys at least burnt it off charging up and down the hilly streets of the town looking for cats to frighten or grockle children’s sandcastles to stomp on.
Plus, of course, the second-homers, who tended to bring large house parties full of people and were more than delighted to find what was essentially a super posh all-natural ingredients gourmet pizzeria on their doorstep. Huckle pointed out to Polly that this was making things worse instead of better and she had agreed with him without actually knowing what to do about it.
Marisa now worked a couple of hours on admin for the council, paid part time, made up a new batch of sauce every day, then at five headed down to the bakery to work like a demon until nine p.m., when, to the horror of the drinkers in Andy’s bar, they did last orders, causing a massive last-minute scuffle. Andy was relatively good-natured about it, given they were cutting into his fish and chip business, but more tourists was more tourists for everyone, and so in the end he couldn’t really complain. It was long hours – but it was, amazingly, working.
Chapter Fifty-two
Marisa’s strange new hours meant that even though she was coming and going – quite happily, on that same route – she didn’t see Alexei at all, which was probably quite useful after the hideous embarrassment of their dinner.
He hadn’t been in for pizza, which was a mystery because she had, quite despite herself, ended up meeting almost every single person on the island as there was no one who could resist at least trying it, and once they’d tried it, they normally came back for more, except for Mrs Bradley, who thought it was foreign muck and didn’t say exactly those words but looked like she might every time she asked Polly in a very enunciated fashion for BATH buns and EMPIRE biscuits, and said, ‘I’m sorry, but . . . does it smell like garlic in here or is it just me? Goodness. Garlic in a bakery, I can’t get my head round the new-fangled way of doing things at all,’ and pretended to laugh.
It did produce another problem, though: once she got home at ten, she found herself still too geed up and unable to sleep and would watch television, drink tea, try and email friends she’d been out of touch with for far too long – and stay up till one in the morning or so, then sleeping in much longer than usual as her work day had turned topsy-turvy.
Except, of course, every morning Alexei would be welcoming students and performing scales by eight a.m. or so, clanging into her early morning woozy dreams.
Well. Serve her right. But even though she was embarrassed about her drunken night, she thought one thing might work – tell him he could play in the evenings. If she did it right . . .
It still felt insulting: I’m not here in the night any more so play as much as you like. But that seemed all right, didn’t it? She couldn’t do much about the mornings, but she could at least improve something. A little bit.
Anita was surprisingly insouciant about it.
‘I thought you’d have a view,’ said Marisa suspiciously. Anita beamed.
‘Marisa,’ she said. ‘Look at you! You’re going out to work every day! Three months ago you couldn’t leave the house. I asked you to do a tiny thing every day, and you took it and ran with it more amazingly than I could ever have expected. I almost never fix anyone . . .’
She swallowed and realised she’d obviously gone too far.
‘I mean, it’s very difficult often for people to get over certain stubborn anxiety issues. Some of them really bed in and people find it very difficult to overcome them.’
She couldn’t stop smiling.
‘But you – look at you. You’ve made friends. Created interpersonal relationships . . .’
‘Yes, a really bad one!’ said Marisa. ‘That’s what I need to talk to you about.’
Anita’s eyes danced. ‘I’m not that kind of therapist, I’m afraid. I’m signing you off.’
‘What?’
‘You have a job, a functional life, a social life, your family . . .’
Marisa frowned. She didn’t have her whole family, not at all.
‘Look at you, not even panicking at me telling you I’m leaving,’ said Anita, still exuberant.
Marisa realised she was doing what Alexei did when you told him something: listening to it, letting it sink in before forming a reaction. She swallowed hard.
‘I . . . I think. I think maybe I can manage.’
‘Terrific,’ said Anita. ‘I have a bloody parents’ night. I think you’re my last bit of good news for the day.’
‘But first,’ said Marisa, ‘note or knock on the door? What should I do?’
Privately, Anita thought Marisa should fling open the door and jump on whoever lived next door regardless of what they were like, drawing the line only at actual murderers.
But giving a professional opinion was what she was paid for, and the correct professional opinion in this situation was to smile, and say, ‘Marisa. You are ready to decide that for yourself.’
Chapter Fifty-three
Marisa still preferred being in the kitchen to facing front, and it helped her, not having to face anyone. But it couldn’t last for ever, and as the weeks went on and spring turned into summer, she couldn’t help but start to very shyly smile at a few regulars here and there. Polly didn’t push her, was careful and gentle with her, and their friendship deepened day by day.
Polly liked, too, the way the children had taken to her. It seemed a cliché to think of her doing particularly Italian things, but Marisa didn’t ever mind the children in the kitchen, as long as they stayed well clear of the ovens, and was happy to make them wash their hands and put on their little aprons, whereupon she’d give them a job to do and supervise them carefully. There is no quicker way to most mothers’ hearts than someone taking their children seriously.
And she was tidy, which was useful. And they both liked listening to the same nineties musical radio station which also helped as they could occasionally have a quick vogue round the back kitchen when Polly was on the edge of total and complete collapse.
Gradually, slowly, Marisa got on nodding terms with the Kuelin family, who were delighted with the ability to feed all the children once a week without it taking an hour and people throwing things at the wall; Samantha and Henry the second-homers, who liked to badger her about what local ingredients she got from Italy and talk about stuff like terroir and, while obviously being very annoying, were so genuinely and intensely interested in how she made her food the way she did that she ended up opening up to them completely, and ordering the precise strain of her grandmother’s tomato plants for them.