Marisa grinned. ‘We’re having toast?’
‘What is wrong with toasts?’
‘Champagne and toast?’
She thought about it.
Well, Maybe . . .’ she said.
‘Not just toasts!’
He jumped up and opened his fridge and pulled out a little glass pot of white stuff. Then he grabbed some grass-like shoots and a pair of scissors. He put these down on the table.
Then finally, reverently, he pulled out a tin and a tiny mother-of-pearl spoon.
Marisa’s eyes went wide.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Is that what I think it is?’
He held it up to one of the lights. The gold tin shimmered.
‘Da, of course,’ he grinned. ‘My friends they do not forget me.’
He shook the large tin of caviar happily.
‘So! We have smetana! We have toasts! We have . . .’
He looked at the chives balefully, then waved his hands, as if the concept of even trying to learn the word would be for ever uninteresting to him.
‘Green thinks!’
And reverently, he opened the tin.
‘I think I should tell you,’ said Marisa, ‘I haven’t tried caviar before.’
His eyes were completely startled.
‘But you are cook! You care about food!’
‘I know, I know,’ said Marisa. ‘We don’t really eat it in Italy. And . . .’
To say that she had always thought it looked weird and slimy seemed frankly a ridiculous thing to say. What a coward she was.
She heard that little voice inside her head calling herself a coward and clamped down hard on it. She was not being a coward tonight.
‘And?’
‘I . . .’
She felt herself go pink.
‘No reason. I was a bit squeamish about it.’
‘I do not know this word. You mean squashink of eggs?’
‘Something like that,’ said Marisa.
‘Okay. It is okay to squash them. There are no babies inside eggs. Just like chicken egg. But much much much more delicious.’
He deftly spread the white stuff – sour cream – on the thinly sliced toast, snipped off a few ends of the fresh chives, then dolloped a large amount of the tiny black marbles in the middle of it. Then he proffered it to her.
‘Um,’ said Marisa.
‘Is very, very good with Champagne.’
Marisa took a swallow of her drink. The Champagne was so delicious. Alexei was watching her and she found herself giggling and unable to steel herself to eat.
He held up his hands.
‘Ah, no. I have got it wrong for Marisa. Always I get it wrong for Marisa.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I play too loud, I shout, I do not say good morning, I get cross with you.’ He looked at the floor. ‘I do not always haff words for you, Marisa.’
His voice had gone very low.
‘And the language I speak you do not hear.’
He glanced at his piano.
‘And the language you speak we do not share.’
With this he looked at the food. Then he looked back at her sadly.
‘I wish I knew how to talk to you, Marisa.’
Marisa was suddenly flaming-red, embarrassed and confused and completely at a loss. This wasn’t in the CBT handbook. Nothing like this. Nobody had ever spoken to her like this before, ever.
In utter confusion, she popped the toast straight into her mouth before she could think of another thing.
The saltiness of the fish contrasted with the sharp creaminess of the sour cream, the fresh shock of the chives – and of course the bread was Polly’s from the bakery, so even the toast was absolutely perfect. Her eyes shot open.
‘Well,’ she said, looking completely shocked.
Alexei had been staring at the floor after his long speech but now he looked up at her.
She swallowed, covered her hand with her mouth, went to take another bite.
‘This is . . . this is amazing,’ she said.
His face cracked into the broadest grin and he immediately started spreading more sour cream on the toast, and heaving big lumps of caviar with the tiny, delicate mother-of-pearl spoon.
‘Yes!’ he said, pouring her more Champagne. ‘It is wonderful!’
‘Oh, that was good,’ she said, after half the caviar tin had been devoured, and Alexei had looked at it regretfully and Marisa had said, yes, but think how happy you will be tomorrow that you left some and he listened to that and nodded at the sense of it, and they refilled their glasses, and she sat back quietly on the sofa, her shoes off, her feet tucked underneath her.
His eyes were thoughtful, watching her. ‘You are always so quiet.’
‘I am so quiet because all the voices in my head were shouting at me at once all the time, any time I tried to do anything. I didn’t have room to make my own noise.’
The Champagne had loosened her tongue. But it was also that way of his again; the easy slow way he had of tilting his head, of listening and weighing and measuring every word he heard. Perhaps that was being a musician, she thought; having very strong listening skills so that you heard not just the words but the spaces between the words.
‘I was trying to hide from the voices that were so loud . . . that told me every day about everything I couldn’t do and every way in which I was failing and no good and . . .’
She looked into the glass.
‘Well, it never worked. And I am so sorry I was so cruel about your music. It felt like something else shouting at me. Even though I know it wasn’t.’
He looked at her. ‘It must haff been so hard for you.’
‘What do you hear in your head?’ she asked. ‘Genuinely curious.’
He blinked. ‘I do not think of it.’
‘No,’ said Marisa. ‘I suppose healthy people never have to.’
He was playing with the tiny mother-of-pearl spoon in his huge hands, turning it over and over as he contemplated the question in his slow way.
Then he grinned suddenly and she noticed he was tapping the spoon on the table top.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I suppose I think in my piano. So! If I hear thunder I think, well, crash crash that is Rachmaninoff, and if I hear rain I think well Debussy is here, he is playing in the raindrops, and when I hear a police car I think, well, modern music is full of challenges . . .’
Marisa looked at him. ‘I like you,’ she said simply.
‘That is good,’ he said. ‘Truly or because I live next door?’
‘Truly,’ said Marisa. She laughed. ‘My grandmother wants to meet you.’
He looked from side to side.
‘She is livink here? She is even quieter than you? She is in cupboard?’
‘No!’ said Marisa. ‘We Skype. Like, a lot, like most days. She’s in Italy.’
‘Oh!’ He nodded. ‘I hear you one night! Talking.’
He smiled rather roguishly.
‘Is much noise. You must stop. I write note.’
Marisa stuck her tongue out at him. He raised his arms.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘She can meet me. You want her to meet me? Now?’
‘It’s late! In Italy it’s very late.’
Mind you, thought Marisa, her nonna stayed up half the night, she knew that already.
‘I want your babushka to approve. Is important. Family.’