On the day of the party, Sam was up at the crack of dawn begging to go next door. Although Francesca was still showing me all the warmth of a barely flickering candle, she did at least have moments when she couldn’t resist Sam’s enthusiasm. Thankfully he managed to coerce her into playing a complicated ball game on the bit of patio Nico had kept plant-free for that specific purpose. Despite their banter being utterly un-PC, it kept him out from under my feet. ‘I could do better than you with one leg tied behind my back.’ ‘You’re a girl, you’re only good for a bit of splashing about in the pool.’
By two o’clock I couldn’t keep him at home any longer and we went round to help Lara get the food ready. Mum couldn’t have echoed my thoughts more accurately. ‘Cor! Didn’t realise we were having a tea party for the queen!’
Sam started gesticulating and mouthing ‘Where are the crisps?’ at me while Lara was looking in the fridge. I shooed him out into the garden to throw the ball for Lupo before the whispering became any louder.
I shut Mum up with, ‘This looks fantastic, Lara’, thinking that all the fiddly little vol-au-vents and little crispbreads with dobs of – what the hell was that? – Olive tapenade? Anchovy paste? – wouldn’t keep a bunch of marauding ten-year-olds going for long. I wasn’t sure the sundried tomatoes and goat’s cheese tartlets were going to be all the rage either. In my experience, the more doorsteppy the sandwiches, the better.
Unfortunately, Mum wasn’t reading my signals. ‘I reckon we get some cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks and a few proper buns going too – they’re bound to build up a bit of an appetite running around.’
Massimo came in on the tail end of the conversation, looking all sporty and tanned, like a youthful football manager. He glanced at the spread and said, ‘I’m with you, Beryl, this will be a wonderful starting point, but ten-year-olds are like locusts.’
Lara’s colour rose. She stuttered, ‘I thought you said not to do the rolls, burgers and sausages?’
Massimo took a theatrical step back. ‘No, I said we should do them. All these fancy bits will be great for the grown-ups though.’ He ruffled her hair. ‘Honestly, my darling wife, I think you get more and more absent-minded every day. It’s a good job I love you.’
Lara scuttled off to the freezer and started defrosting sausages in the microwave. She was smoothing her hands on her jeans, looking so hassled I wanted to cancel the whole thing and just take them down the park for a kickabout as I’d done in other years.
Massimo seemed oblivious to Lara’s stress, immediately raising mine by asking where Nico was.
‘He’s taken Francesca to another swimming competition. He should be back just after the party starts.’
Massimo frowned. ‘On a Sunday? Wasn’t he out with her yesterday as well? It wouldn’t have killed him to let one of the other parents give her a lift today.’
I wanted to say, ‘Hear, bloody hear!’ and tell Massimo that we’d had words that morning because, yet again, even though I now had a husband, I was still relying on my mum to help me. But I was obviously more 1950s housewife than I gave myself credit for, perhaps without the apron, but certainly with the loyalty that must not let a single word be said against the man of the house. ‘I know, but Francesca is still very unsettled and he has to put her first.’ I did feel that a huge cavernous cauldron of bubbling oil might open up beneath my bum to boil the hypocrisy out of me.
I half-expected Massimo to burst into a song from The Sound of Music in honour of my saint-like status but he just harrumphed and started issuing instructions.
He sent Mum off to the garage to fetch paper cups, motioned to Lara to put the oven on, then steered me out to the garden to show me all the games he’d set up. I was itching to rush back in and help Lara, but I forgot all about her for a second when I took in what a huge effort Massimo had made. I had to work hard not to burst into tears and fling myself on him. He’d nailed hoops onto the side of the house, filled a dustbin full of footballs, set up an obstacle course with jumps and beams and buckets, with a couple of brand new goal nets at the end. I’d pegged my expectations at a couple of cheapo footballs and a few cones to dribble round.
‘This must have cost a fortune, Massimo. You must let me know what I owe you,’ I said, trying not to look shocked at the huge outlay for one day. He must have spent hundreds of pounds. I started doing quick calculations about how much money I had coming in from sewing in the next few weeks, forcing myself to focus on what a great party Sam would have rather than how long it would take to pay it off.
Massimo laughed. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it. He’s a great lad and I just want him to have a brilliant birthday.’
‘Thank you. I don’t know what to say.’
He took both of my wrists and stared straight into my eyes, head on one side. ‘You don’t need to say anything. Sam’s a lucky boy and that brother of mine is a very lucky man.’
It had to be an Italian thing, this whole need to turn up the heat on emotions all the time, to dissect, comment and microscope on the detail of everyone’s relationships. I was beginning to see the appeal of Mum and her horror of public displays of affection. On our estate, men might take off a top of a beer bottle for you, but they wouldn’t get all touchy-feely unless they were planning on relieving you of a different sort of top later on.
We didn’t go without cuddles in our family but neither did we hang off each other like rucksacks. Touching any man who wasn’t my husband made me feel as though I was doing something I shouldn’t.
I waited a second before wriggling free, clocking Lara staring out of the window straight at us as I did so.
25
LARA
It was my own stupid fault. Of course I should have known a few silly little vol-au-vents weren’t going to be enough. Maybe I was losing it like my dad. No wonder Massimo preferred to stand in the garden with Maggie, staring into her eyes rather than prepare burgers with me.