*
When Elena heard the knock on the door she assumed it must be Sasha. She was already regretting phoning during term time, and bothering him with her problems. It would be just like him to drop everything and try to help. She stopped packing and opened the door to find Gino standing there.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said as he embraced her. ‘I just wanted you to know that I’ve handed in my notice, along with five of the kitchen staff and three of my waiters.’
‘You mustn’t do that, Gino. I don’t want to be responsible for you all being out of work.’
‘Most of us realize we wouldn’t have survived too long with that bastard Tremlett. And in any case, my motives aren’t entirely pure, as I’ve already been offered another job.’
‘Who with?’
‘Matteo Agnelli.’
‘The enemy!’ said Elena, laughing.
‘No longer. There’s an old Italian saying: My enemy’s enemy is my friend. But Mr Agnelli only offered me the job on one condition.’
‘And what was that?’
‘That you’ll come with me.’
‘And Betty?’
‘I’m sure he’d agree to that.’
‘But where would I live?’ asked Elena. ‘Because there isn’t a flat above Mr Agnelli’s restaurant.’
‘You can always come and shack up with me until you find your own place.’
‘But what about your partner?’
‘He’d only object if you were a man,’ said Gino. ‘So, are you willing to cross the road and join me at Osteria Roma?’
‘You should have been christened Coriolanus,’ said Elena.
‘Corio . . . who?’
*
Sasha had to admit that losing both one’s job and the roof over one’s head could certainly be described as an emergency. He only wished he’d known about Gino’s proposal before he got on the train. But he’d been left with no choice once the operator told him his mother’s phone had been cut off. He spent a sleepless night on Gino’s sofa, and took the first train back to Cambridge the following morning. He had to fork out almost a pound on a taxi to make sure he arrived at the police station at 8.54 a.m. A young constable took him straight through to Detective Sergeant Warwick’s office, and not an interview room.
‘Miss Hunter has withdrawn her allegation,’ said Warwick, once Sasha had sat down.
‘Please tell me Charlie hasn’t been to see you.’
‘Charlie who?’ asked Warwick innocently. ‘No, it was a simple piece of detective work that caused Miss Hunter to have second thoughts. We were able to point out to her that your fingerprints on the fire escape stopped at the second floor, and as she also claimed that you left her room within minutes of stealing the file, it’s difficult to explain why it took you five and a half hours to get back to your college, unless of course you were tucked up in bed on the floor below.’
‘But the college porter, Mr Perkins, wouldn’t have been able to confirm the time I returned to college, because he was fast asleep.’
‘Turned a blind eye, would be a more accurate description,’ said Warwick. ‘If you’d been seen coming in at five-thirty in the morning, he would have had to enter your name in his log book for breaking college regulations, and then you would have needed to explain to the proctors where you’d been all night.’
‘So has Fiona got away with it?’
‘Not entirely. Miss Hunter has been cautioned for wasting police time. Frankly, I’d have banged her up overnight if her father hadn’t had a word with the chief constable. Still, you’d better be off, as I understand you have a busy day ahead of you.’
*
‘As you know, Elena, I’ve wanted you to join me for some time,’ said Mr Agnelli, ‘but you made it clear that there was no point in asking while you were still working for Mr Moretti.’
‘And there still might not be any point,’ said Elena.
‘My previous offer still stands. I’d make you head chef, and I can promise that you’ll never see me in the kitchen. I’ll double what Mr Moretti paid you, and you’ll also receive ten per cent of the restaurant’s profits. But you’d have to find your own accommodation.’
‘And can Betty join me?’ asked Elena. Agnelli nodded. ‘And will Gino be the ma?tre d’?’
‘Yes. I’d already agreed that with him. Is there anything else you were hoping for?’
After listening to Elena’s final request Mr Agnelli said, ‘I’ll need to think about it.’
‘It’s a deal breaker,’ said Elena, repeating Sasha’s exact words.
*
When Sasha left the police station, he ran all the way to the Union, where he found his campaign manager trying to explain to a voter where the candidate had been for the past forty-eight hours.
‘The voting’s already started,’ said Ben, after Sasha joined him at the bar and told him the latest news. ‘We haven’t got a moment to waste, because Fiona’s been telling everyone you’ve spent the past two days in a police cell. You’ve got to admire her nerve.’
‘Not to mention her timing.’
‘Pity Warwick didn’t lock her up for the day. That would certainly have helped our chances. But we can still win.’
They began to work the room. Several members shook Sasha’s hand warmly, while others turned their backs on him – one or two of whom he’d considered supporters, even friends. He tried to speak to everyone who hadn’t yet voted, even if he knew they had no intention of backing him. It was clear that some people still believed Fiona’s story, or wanted to, while others admitted to him that their own fingerprints might well be on that fire escape. Sasha didn’t stop until the last vote had been cast at six o’clock, when he joined Ben and Charlie at the Union bar. Fiona’s supporters occupied one side of the room, while Sasha’s filled the other half.
‘When will you find out the result?’ asked Charlie as she sipped a lager.
‘Around seven,’ said Ben. ‘So not long to wait.’
Ben’s prediction turned out to be wrong, because it was nearer eight when the retiring president, Chris Smith, entered the bar and made his way to the centre of the room, a single sheet of paper in his hand. He waited for complete silence before he spoke.
‘I would like to begin by explaining why we’ve taken so long to announce the result. Three recounts were required before the tellers were able to agree on the outcome. So I can now tell you that, by a majority of three votes, the next president of the Cambridge Union will be . . .’
19
ALEX
Vietnam, 1972
Alex read the letter a second time, before he showed it to his mother. Elena wept, because she knew exactly what her son would do.
‘If only we’d gone to England, this would never have happened,’ she said, and couldn’t help thinking they’d climbed into the wrong crate.
Many young men who were reading the same letter that morning would already be on the phone to their fathers’ lawyers, or paying a visit to the family doctor, while others would simply tear up the draft, hoping the problem would go away. But not Alex.
Elena wasn’t the only person who cried. Addie begged him to at least try and get a deferral, pointing out that as he was in his final year at NYU, they would surely allow him to complete his degree. Although she cried all night, Alex wasn’t persuaded.
He still had one pressing problem that needed to be solved before he could pack his bags and leave home. His eleven stalls were now making a handsome profit, and he certainly didn’t want to sell any of them. But who could run his burgeoning empire while he was away? To his surprise, it was his mother who came up with the solution.
‘I’ll give up my job at Mario’s, and Dimitri and I will take them over until you come back.’
No one raised the subject of what would happen if he didn’t return.
Alex happily accepted their offer, and on 11 February 1972 he boarded a train for Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to begin an eight-week course of basic training, before being shipped out to Vietnam.