Amore and Amaretti (30 page)

I love the little Sant'Ambrogio markets and yet I have never located them with ease. They are in the Santa Croce end of town, a part of Florence that seems untroubled by tourists. I enjoy the getting lost, the chancing upon little back and side streets and
erboriste
and bookbinding shops, which have probably been operating since the sixteenth century. Nearly everywhere I go in Florence brings back a certain period of my Italian life. This particular area resonates with the snug existence Ignazio and I spun together in our Via Ghibellina apartment, of the dark winter evening when I discovered I was pregnant.

Then there is the Institute where I enrolled to do my course in Italian before meeting Gianfranco. And later, when I was extravagant and took Ignazio to dinner at the Enoteca Pinchiorri. I pass the barber shop where I ran that morning when the shower water inexplicably stopped as I was massaging conditioner into my hair. And there is the corner bar whose barista always designed perfect hearts in the cream of my cappuccino. Here, finally, is the beginning of the market. Stalls and trestle tables run neatly up both sides of a pavilion which houses the cheeses, breads, small goods, meats and poultry. It is here I have come to find Antonella and her brother and their cheese shop.

We all see each other at the same time. Their matching brown eyes widen in surprise, and then pleasure, and we rush to embrace. They are wearing white smocks. Carlo's hair is tipped with grey and Antonella looks strikingly beautiful, like her mother. We are all talking at the same time, but somehow the information is conveyed: Cesare is well but in jail, Antonella has hooked up with Carlo's oldest friend, they both have teenage children. We marvel at the passage of time, at the fact that everything changes, and at the end we agree to meet for dinner at the villa in several days' time. I do not ask why Cesare is in jail. I remember how tall he was, how his black lustrous hair flowed down his back, his impenetrable eyes and missing teeth and a sort of showy Sicilian arrogance. It was bound to have been drugs.

Tale il padre, tale il figlio

Like father, like son

One morning I am in the villa kitchen locating the various bits of equipment I require for cheesecake baking, slipping soundlessly between the chefs and taking small sips from an espresso Ignazio has made for me, when a voice I know well roars greetings from the passageway. We are all surprised. Giorgio Sabatini, son of my old friends Vincenzo and Claudia, is standing in the doorway, his face breaking into a broad grin as he enfolds me in his bear-like arms. He has become so like his father that I almost expect to see him dressed in the same enormous denim overalls dear Vincenzo habitually wore. Instead he is speaking to me in his softly accented American English, telling me how happy he is to see me.

Giorgio and his friend Pete are in Italy briefly, mainly to visit Giorgio's mother. Vincenzo had died the previous year – it seemed incredible that life could be extinguished from that robustness, from such a hearty appetite for living. Claudia and Vincenzo had been so tremendously loving and supportive of me throughout the tortured phases of Gianfranco. The times I had stayed with them had been reminiscent of time spent as a very young child at my grandparents' place.
My afternoons spent drinking home-made wine and grappa with Vincenzo and eating Claudia's exquisite biscotti while we discussed life issues constituted tracts of happiness in a period otherwise fraught, anxious and lonely. And Giorgio, as ebullient and generous as his parents, I had always adored as well.

He is splashing Vernaccia into a wine glass, draping prosciutto onto chunks of bread, talking, eating and drinking all at the same time. Not only did he lose his father, but also his lovely American wife – the reason he moved to Florida where he still resides – the mother of two teenage daughters he now rears on his own. And yet he is asking me about my life, pouring more wine, preparing another sandwich, laughing with Pete and joking with Ignazio, his exuberance spreading throughout the kitchen. He has come to take delivery of Gianfranco's sports car, which up until this moment I had not known existed. With customary magnanimousness, Gianfranco is lending Giorgio and Pete the car for the several days they will spend in Tuscany.

And thus, two hours later when the cheesecake has been extracted from the oven and Giorgio and Pete have finished sitting under the pergola eating pasta and drinking more wine, I am climbing into the car with both of them, bound for San Gimignano. This is the sort of spontaneous, unexpected behaviour I rarely permit myself: a heady risk-taking quality I find both terrifying and liberating. I feel San Gimignano is a little wasted on me, having explored it that damp day a week previously with William, but Pete has not been there, so down the autostrada we tear, discussing politics and war.

We do not end up in San Gimignano anyway. Suddenly, Giorgio decides it is Certaldo that he would rather show us. The Renault curls and coils up winding roads until we arrive at the base of this medieval hill town. We park and proceed on foot, stopping at bars for shots of Vernaccia to fortify our climb to the little castle at the very top. A girl in a long black dress is sitting on a stool singing Renaissance songs, her long fingers sweeping across the strings of a harp. I stop, transfixed by the scene. Here, in this soft moist afternoon with the infinite powder-grey sky rolling across the fields, the courtyards and cool stone passageways and staircases of the castle, this fragile music playing to a handful of people in a timeless ancient town, I feel churning in me a sharp hot joy, a blend of being blessed and being lucky. We sit for a long time listening to the music, and then we explore the castle and take photos.

We return to the car via another visit to another bar, and then we are off again, streaking through a countryside turning dark with dusk. We end up at Artimino, a gracious and glorious restaurant in another hill town, where I had been taken years before by Gianfranco. Giorgio is greeted like royalty by the maître d', who sweeps us to a table and brings us spumante and menus. We dine richly and extravagantly, and we drink a lot. Giorgio insists on paying for everything, before setting off on the long journey back to San Casciano to deposit me home.

There is a moment when Pete had gone for a walk to digest, somewhat, our lavish feast, and Giorgio is reminding me of the morning he came to visit me in the little Osteria del Guanto apartment where Gianfranco and I were living at the time. As soon as he begins the memory, I know exactly what he is talking about, a morning after a night when Gianfranco had failed to come home at all and I had spent the night sleepless and sick with worry. When Giorgio arrived, I simply poured it all out. It was the first time we had ever had an intimate, confiding conversation. I was so bruised and fragile, it was the only sort I could manage. I had not forgotten it – Giorgio's infinite gentleness, his explaining about Gianfranco's impossible character, his soothing smoothing over. And he has never forgotten it, either. I am enchanted by the significance with which we have both endowed it, and deeply touched. Giorgio also tells me repeatedly how seeing me this time has been so wonderful and somehow made more sense of this particular visit to Italy for him, a little serendipity. Of course, I feel that, too.

Silvana and I are in Florence, doing the stores. We have barely been off the bus and she is already wheeling me into designer shoe shops, already slipping her small high-arched feet into teetering stilettos. I am wishing I had dressed more smartly; beside Silvana, I always feel somehow drab and homespun, especially when I observe the deference with which the male shop assistants attend to her. She looks so expensive, too, in her short silk jacket and tapered, tailored trousers and her jingling gold jewellery. She settles on two pairs of shoes and we are off, bustling along the narrow footpath that leads into the centre, stopping frequently so she can point out a pleasing window display.

I am already sick of hearing my voice offering up a range of variations on the theme of
‘sì, è bellissimo'
and privately wondering if, after all, an afternoon spent watching Silvana buy shoes will be much fun. She whisks me into her favourite dress shop and I feel the fabrics flutter insubstantially between my fingers while I digest the prices. And this is only the beginning – she wants to cover Via delle Belle Donne and Via Tornabuoni, two of the most expensive streets in Florence, and so I abandon myself to fantasy, soon becoming inured to trousers which cost the equivalent of a small car, evening dresses worth more than my annual salary. After a while, a skirt costing almost €700 seems like a bargain. We walk for miles, miles, miles, and Silvana's collection of carrier bags increases while my solitary one contains a bottle of contact lens solution and a packet of arty postcards to send home.

Eventually we collapse into chairs at Giubbe Rosse in the Piazza della Repubblica. Waiters materialise immediately and hover around Silvana with menus. She orders tea and I a glass of wine, and we sit for half an hour as the evening creeps in. We have arranged to meet Gianfranco and Paolo for dinner at a seafood restaurant called Vittoria and, when we feel we have recovered a little energy, we set off again.

We are early, already settling in at a large round table in the formal, brightly lit dining room, when in limps Paolo. A little later, Gianfranco arrives and introduces Nadia, the dark-haired woman he had been sitting beside at the table of Moldavian call girls the previous week. Silvana and I nudge each other under the table; we whisper that she does not look a day over eighteen. Yet there is Gianfranco solicitously steering her into a chair, his hand on her knee, explaining something to her, lighting her cigarette. Cigarettes are about all Nadia consumes throughout the evening.

The festive process has begun, platter after platter of seafood dishes brought to our table, presumably ordered by Gianfranco, but Nadia is not eating any of it. She is sipping a Coca-Cola and I am conscious, suddenly, of how relaxed and ebullient I am. I am shrieking with laughter at something Silvana is telling me and serving myself too quickly. I feel flushed and jolly, a sharp contrast to Nadia, who barely speaks, whose face keeps lapsing into sullenness. I have asked her several questions about herself – where she is from, how long she has been in Italy – and noted how limited her Italian is, which only reinforces my increasing sense of confidence. At a certain point – at the insistence of Gianfranco – a special plate of chargrilled hunks of bread, snowy mozzarella balls and sliced tomato appears for the woman in the seafood restaurant who will not eat seafood. Nadia toys with it, lights another cigarette, smiles bravely at Gianfranco, carves off a small portion, and sips her Coke.

And there in a rush I recognise her. I see myself twenty-two years ago, sitting beside a man with whom I am utterly, blindly in love, and all around me swirls vibrant conversation I can barely grasp and my stomach has closed to the prospect of food. I am in love and prepared to put up with everything which is incomprehensible and difficult, not least the boisterous, exuberant man beside me who has already tired of ensuring I am entertained and happy. I see how far I have travelled, and how much I pity her, Nadia, the journey ahead.