Lolo closed his eyes and pulled his lips together, then opened his eyes and said, ‘You know I hate waste, Guido. Doesn’t matter what it is; I just hate to see anything lost or spoiled.’ Brunetti nodded to tell him to go on.
‘That’s what happened with Manuela. She was a sweet, lovely kid. I didn’t see her often, maybe five, six times when she was growing up, when she was at Demetriana’s place. And then suddenly, when she was about fourteen, fifteen, all I knew about her was what Demetriana told me, that she had “problems”, the kind that are never defined.’ He waved a hand in the air. ‘You know how it is when people use that word when they talk about the people close to them: it can be anything: drugs, anorexia, bad friends.’
Brunetti kept his face impassive as he heard his friend read off a list of his own deepest fears.
‘And then it happened, and she was in the hospital, and when she came out, she wasn’t the same.’
The waiter appeared, and Lolo paid him, waving away Brunetti’s offer to contribute. ‘We don’t talk about her, Demetriana and I. Nothing’s going to change. Ever. That’s the waste; her life was tossed away, and nothing’s ever going to change. So there’s nothing to say.’
‘And if anything happens to her mother?’ Brunetti asked.
Lolo thought for a long time, perhaps trying to assess how much he should tell Brunetti. Then he said, ‘She’ll have to stay with her grandmother or her father. Demetriana’s more than eighty, and Teo has a new wife and kids. So I imagine she’ll have to go somewhere. To a place.’ He got to his feet, as did Brunetti.
Outside, in the campo, they exchanged another bearish hug, then Lolo turned back towards San Marco, and Brunetti went out to San Zaccaria to get the vaporetto.
12
Dinner passed quietly. Raffi had gone out for a pizza with Sara Paganuzzi, who was back after a year studying in Paris. It seemed to both Brunetti and Paola that Raffi spoke of her with less enthusiasm than previously. Perhaps it was only Raffi’s nervousness with the beginning of a new academic year, with three new professors and the necessary adjustment to their habits. It could just as easily be the fading of first love’s intoxication: he and Paola could do no more than stand and wait.
Chiara filled the gap created by her brother’s absence by asking her parents if they would let her go to London the following summer with a friend from school to work as a waitress in the restaurant of her friend’s uncle. ‘What do you know about being a waitress?’ Paola, who had been taking part in the conversation from the stove, asked.
‘I know that you’re supposed to serve from the left,’ Chiara said right back, then added, ‘though you always serve me from the right.’
Paola had just turned towards her husband and daughter to bring them their farfalle with radicchio and gorgonzola. She stopped and set the two plates down on the counter beside her and raised her head to address the Spirits of Offended Motherhood. ‘I serve her from the right,’ she said in an entirely conversational voice. ‘From the right, did you hear? While waitresses are supposed to serve from the left.’ She folded her arms and leaned back against the counter. ‘I hope that means she’s recognized that I am not a waitress, but her mother, who gave a three-hour lecture on The Rape of the Lock this morning, after which she sat in a committee meeting for two hours to discuss changes in the pension system for professors at the university.’
Knowing that she had their interest, she looked at them and then returned her attention to whatever Spirits might be circling in the air above them. ‘The universities I’ve attended have failed miserably to prepare me to be a waitress, and thus I’ve gone through life serving from the right. Perhaps I do this because it saves my having to walk around my daughter – who is sitting at the table and waiting to be served – and then return to serve my husband. Who, I might add, is similarly engaged.’ Then, to remove any doubts either one of them – or the Spirits – might have about what Brunetti was doing while sitting there, she explained, ‘Waiting to be served.’
That said, Paola turned and picked up the two dishes and approached the table. From Chiara’s right, she set down the dish, then Brunetti’s, after which she walked back to the stove to prepare her own plate of pasta.
Chiara looked at her father, who held a finger to his lips, enjoining silence. He pointed at his face to tell Chiara to leave it to him to take care of things.