One Summer in Venice

by Nicky Pellegrino

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

This isn't a mid-life crisis OK? For a start I'm not old enough yet to have one of those. I'm calling it a happiness project. I've stolen an entire summer from my life and by the time it's over I plan to leave this place with a list in my hand. The ten things that make me happy, that's all I want to know. How difficult can it be?

They may be small things—a perfect cup of coffee, a day without rain—or bigger ones. It's still the beginning so how can I know?

Addolorata Martinelli knows she should be happy. She has everything she thought she wanted - her own business, a husband, a child. So why does she feel as if something is missing? Then when her restaurant, Little Italy, is slated by a reviewer, she realises that she's lost the one thing she thought she could always count on, her love of food.

So Addolorata heads to Venice for a summer alone, aiming to find the ten things that make her happy. Once she's found them, she'll construct a new life around her ten things, but will they include her life in London?

Release date: April 14, 2015

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 304

Sample

 

 

 

 

1

Looking back, I can see I was living life through gritted teeth. I had been for ages.

That’s not the person I am; just ask anyone. I’m the girl who turns up the music at parties. The noisy, laughing one you want to hang out with. At least that’s who I used to be.

Something changed me. Not growing older, not motherhood, not working such long hours – or, I don’t know, maybe all those things. It was as if I’d started shrinking, curling up inside myself, growing still and silent. Outwardly I must have looked the same; even acted it. Certainly no one seemed to notice.

‘Addolorata Martinelli, you have a dream life,’ my friends often said. They envied me, I guess. There were the single women who thought how lucky I was to have a husband like Eden, the childless ones who would have done almost anything for a daughter. And then there was the restaurant, Little Italy, that my father spent his life building up and gave to me when he retired. Anyone who struggles with an awful job or boss would envy that.

All I can say is that lives look different from the outside. Take Little Italy. For as long as I can remember, it has stood on a corner in Clerkenwell beside the street market. It is much bigger nowadays than it was when Papa started it and I’ve made a few changes: replaced the old canopy sheltering the tables outside, removed the stucco from the walls, exchanged the red chequered tablecloths for stylish plain ones. Still, you can rely on the food we serve. There are the same deep dishes of risotto, creamy and comforting, the peasant soups of pasta and beans, the rich Neapolitan ragu we simmer for hours. There is minestrone in winter, courgette flowers in spring. And there is always tiramisu, made fresh every day. You can definitely rely on that.

The problem is, people today want more than reliability. They’re looking for the latest thing: gourmet burger joints, Southern barbecue, raw food, small plates, pop-up this and that. Then there are the ones who used to lunch weekly with their clients before they lost their expense accounts, or worse, their jobs. And the customers that moved away or died or simply stopped eating out.

We still had enough regulars to keep us afloat, so I wasn’t making a loss, but the thought of it was what interrupted my sleep. Who would I let go? The sous chef whose girlfriend had just had a baby? The waiter who had been with me for years? The young cook short on experience but bursting with talent? So many of them depending on me … and I’m just one person.

Yes, I’m only one person, but since Eden hurt his back and had to take time off work, I’d been keeping up the mortgage, paying the bills. And then there was our daughter Katia, just turned twelve and already more like a teenager, full of small rebellions and big ideas. And the menagerie she insisted we have: the mice, the goldfish and the bloody terrapins. It was me that had to feed them all, deal with dirty cages and tanks.

That was the life I’d made for myself, so I’d been gritting my teeth and getting on with it. Hoping the restaurant would survive without lay-offs. Hoping somebody would fix Eden’s back. Really hoping the terrapins wouldn’t bite off one of Katia’s fingers.

I didn’t talk about it really. Better to swallow the words, try to be the old Addolorata on the outside, full of clamour and bounce. Wine helped; it was always a relief when it was time to pour the first glass. Half a bottle softened the edges; finish it off and I was almost me again.

No, I didn’t go for counselling or therapy; I hate that kind of thing. Besides, this wasn’t proper depression, just a lack of happiness. It wasn’t as if I was crying all the time, or struggling to do my job, or thinking of ending it all. I’ve known people who’ve suffered from depression. My last sous chef had a terrible time until her doctor got her on the proper medication. I remember once she said her life felt like a steep mountain she didn’t have the strength to climb. Things weren’t that bad for me, nowhere near. My problem was that I felt numb, stuck somewhere in a no-man’s-land of feelings, permanently dull. And I wasn’t sure I liked who I’d become. Still, I was getting through the days and weeks all right; I was managing. Right up until the day of Guy Rochester’s review.

Possibly you’ve read his column in the Sunday Herald. It’s terribly clever and not very nice. I’ve heard that lots of places have a photo of him tacked up where the waiters can see it. Him, Jay Rayner, Fay Maschler: a gallery of all the influential food critics so they can spring into action if one of them is spotted in the dining room; give them flawless food and service, and hope for a positive review. Not that it ever works with Guy Rochester. No matter how well he eats, he twists the knife afterwards. The man is famously savage.

It had been a long time since any of the major food critics bothered with Little Italy. The place was such an institution and there were plenty of flashy new joints with celebrity chefs to grab their attention. Now and then a customer might mention us on a website, but mostly they were kind. Bad publicity was one thing I wasn’t worried about at that point.

I guess he must have come in on a day when Frederico wasn’t working. Frederico is our head waiter and has been almost since Papa started the place. He’s way past retirement age but refuses to go, and I haven’t the heart to make him. Frederico loves Little Italy; it’s home to him. He still takes care of all the meeting and greeting, he wields the giant pepper­mill over your dish and lays a napkin in your lap. But what he does best is roam the dining room keeping his sharp eyes on everything. If Frederico had been here he would have recognised Guy Rochester and come straight to the kitchen to warn me.

And what could I have done? Possibly nothing at all. I like to think every customer gets the finest food and attention. There are off days in any kitchen but I would never send a plate over the pass unless I was happy with it. My father, Beppi, taught me to eat my way through every lunch and dinner service, tasting the sauces, testing the bite of the pasta and the Arborio rice, the tenderness of a side of beef or cut of lamb. He was rigorous and I’ve followed him in that if nothing else. Had I realised there was a critic in the house, perhaps I might have been able to lift my game a little, but not much. Had I known it was Guy Rochester … well, other chefs have thrown him off the premises, and I don’t blame them.

Somehow he managed to come and go without any of us ­noticing. The first we knew of it was when the review appeared one Sunday in spring.

In my house, Sundays are as tyrannical as any other day. There is no time for lazing round in bed with coffee and newspapers like other people do. Instead I’m up at the usual time, boiling eggs for Katia, shoving down a couple of rounds of Marmite toast to keep me going, and then I’m out the door for work.

Little Italy has its noisiest, happiest dining room on Sunday lunchtimes. Lots of the old regulars come in to eat after they’ve been to the Sung Mass at St Peter’s. That’s the day they like to bring in their children and grandkids to celebrate birthdays, name days or anniversaries and order their old favourites.

That particular Sunday I was running late. Katia was having a tantrum over her maths homework and needed help. Eden was claiming he’d had a bad night and had to catch up on sleep. I didn’t have a chance to flick through to the Eating Out section of the Herald to check who Guy Rochester had eviscerated this time.

I arrived at Little Italy to find things behind schedule there too. The atmosphere was tense and Frederico frowned at me as I came through the door. The sous chef and a couple of the others darted nervous sidelong glances in my direction as they worked their knives and chopping boards.

‘I know, I know, I’m late and we’ve got a heap of reservations and it’s all a mess.’ I plucked my apron from the hook and trapped my curls beneath a black cap. ‘Still, I’m here now, so let’s get on with it, shall we?’

Frederico gave me another look, this one more uncertain. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, just the usual family dramas, nothing to worry about.’

At the start of every working day, I look at the reservations. At Little Italy we still use a big leather-bound book – mainly because Frederico is distrustful of computers – and it’s my routine to open it and check how busy we expect to be.

That Sunday, to my surprise, several of the names on the list had been scored out with a thick black line. ‘So many cancellations today; that’s a bit odd, isn’t it?’

Frederico stared at me and frowned again, but said nothing.

‘Maybe there’s an outbreak of flu or something. Oh well, I expect we’ll fill up with walk-ins.’

Only we didn’t. In fact it was the quietest Sunday I remembered having for years. There was even time for me to leave the kitchen and do the rounds of the tables. Many of the customers were familiar faces, people who had known me since I was a girl, and it was a pleasure to stop and chat with them.

‘Are you OK, dear?’ a couple of the old-timers asked, patting my arm, smiling sympathetically.

‘Yes, just fine,’ I replied, wondering if I was looking paler or more run-down than usual.

Towards the end of lunch, as the portions of tiramisu were lining up along the pass, my phone rang. One of the rules I’m adamant about is absolutely no phones in the kitchen. I can’t have my team texting while they’re cooking; I need them to concentrate. But I must have shoved mine in a pocket as I was racing out the door at home and then forgotten about it.

‘Shit,’ I said, pulling it out. ‘Sorry.’

I had to answer because I saw it was my sister Pieta, and she knows better than to call me in the middle of a meal service unless it’s for something really urgent.

‘Hey, what’s up?’ I asked, pushing open the door that leads to the scrappy bit of back yard where we keep a few pots of flat-leaved parsley and woody rosemary.

‘Just ringing to check you’re OK,’ she replied.

‘Yeah, I’m completely fine. Why does everyone keep asking me that today?’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘Pieta?’

‘Oh hell, you haven’t seen it yet, have you?’ she said.

I patted down my pockets for cigarettes, then remembered I’d given up again. ‘Seen what? Pieta, what are you on about?’ I asked, irritated.

‘Where are you?’

‘At the restaurant, of course. It’s Sunday.’

‘But where exactly?’

‘Outside, wishing I was having a smoke.’

‘No one has said anything to you?’

‘For the love of God, Pieta, get to the point.’

‘OK, OK, but you’re not going to like it,’ she told me. ‘I mean you’re really not going to like it.’

‘Hang on a sec, then.’ I opened the back door and rifled through the pockets of the jackets on the hooks behind it until I found someone’s packet of Benson & Hedges. They were Lights but they would have to do.

‘Right, what’s happened?’ I asked my sister once I’d lit it and had my first gasp.

‘Guy Rochester has reviewed Little Italy in today’s paper,’ Pieta told me quickly. ‘Honestly, the man is a jerk. Has he ever said anything good about a place? I don’t think so. That’s the last time I buy the Sunday Herald. I’m boycotting it. Hey, Dolly, are you OK? You mustn’t take him seriously; everyone knows what he’s like …’

I think Pieta said other stuff, lots and lots, her voice going on, but I’d stopped listening. Dropping the cigarette, I catapulted back into the kitchen.

‘Who’s got it?’

Waiters froze and stared; the kitchen staff tried to seem busy. ‘Come on, you know what I’m talking about. The damn newspaper, one of you must have it.’

Nino, the sous chef, looked like he was going to be sick. ‘We thought you’d seen it and were just being really cool,’ he muttered.

‘No.’

He nodded towards his satchel, slung up on a hook beside his jacket. ‘In there,’ he said.

I took the newspaper outside, retrieved the cigarette, stuck it in my mouth and managed to revive it. Then I turned to Guy Rochester’s page and began to read.

 

They say you should never try to go back, that the past is another country. I should have listened. For in the cosy fug of my memories, one of the warmest places has been reserved for Little Italy. As a boy, this is where I was taken for supper the evening before I was driven back to boarding school. I was allowed to have whatever I liked – extra Parmesan, two desserts, even a little wine mixed with my water – and the owner, Beppi, always gave me paper ­packets of breadsticks to take away. As a boy, I loved that place. The food was smothered in tomato sauce as in any good neighbourhood trattoria; the stucco walls were ­covered in family photographs from the old days, the diners at the next table often chatting in Italian.

I should have been content with remembering. But something drew me back and my heart was broken. For Little Italy is like an old friend who has had a bad facelift everyone is too polite to mention.

Beppi’s daughter Addolorata Martinelli took over from him some years ago, and since then it seems she has been busy stamping her lack of character on the place. I might have allowed her the whitewashed walls, snowy tablecloths and standard-issue porcelain. Pared-back style is ubiquitous but hardly offensive. If only she had taken the same approach to the food – kept it simple and honest, the way it was in her father’s day.

But no, Ms Martinelli has done quite the opposite. She has taken beautiful ingredients and dressed them up with frills and furbelows. It’s as if she has travelled Italy snapping up food bling and now is tossing it about indiscriminately – a salmoriglio here, there and everywhere, a spray of breadcrumbs or crushed pistachios or both, an odd crunch in a roasted pumpkin risotto that may have been walnut. More is more at Little Italy. Every dish has an extra accessory or two that ought to have been removed. It is a stark place full of muddled flavours.

There are remnants of the glory years. I’m certain I recog­nised the giant peppermill that showered chunks of grit over my companion’s spaghetti with clams, and there were photos on the wall of Beppi as a young man. Sadly the new broom has swept away all the rest.

I could have forgiven Little Italy for not being the same. All of us change as we age. But I can’t forgive this thing that it’s become. If only I hadn’t gone back.

 

I finished reading and what did I do? None of the things you might expect. I didn’t shout or scream, dissolve into tears or storm out. For a moment I stood there, holding Nino’s copy of the Sunday Herald, then I went back inside and returned it to his satchel. I didn’t mention the review and no one said a word to me. We got on with the clean-up and prep for dinner service, mostly in silence.

In the dining room our customers were ordering coffee. The old Gaggia was screaming and whistling, handfuls of biscotti were clattering on to side plates, and waiters were ferrying back dishes scraped clean of tiramisu. Everything was exactly the same as every other Sunday. And yet it was entirely dif­ferent.

‘Addolorata, your sister is here to see you.’ Poor old Frederico; he looked like someone had died. ‘Shall I bring her through, or will you go to her?’

I hesitated. On the rare occasions Pieta popped in, we liked to settle at a table in the dining room and enjoy the chance to catch up. But today I wanted to avoid going back out there.

‘Bring her through, thanks, Frederico,’ I said, marvelling that there wasn’t so much as a wobble in my voice.

I suppose Pieta must have dashed out of the house and hailed a cab the moment she’d realised I’d gone silent on the phone. Still she was perfection. A coloured scarf knotted at her throat, her hair sleekly bobbed, red lipstick in place. Who in the world sat about their house looking like that on a Sunday afternoon? No one but my sister, surely?

I rubbed at my own shiny forehead. ‘Come out the back with me,’ I told her. ‘I need some air.’

We sat down on the doorstep, side by side, and Pieta handed me a packet of cigarettes.

‘I stopped smoking,’ I told her, opening it.

‘Mmm, yes, I know.’ She passed me a cheap plastic lighter. ‘You can always stop again tomorrow.’

Pieta and I spent much of our childhood sitting together on doorsteps. It was where we made daisy chains and coloured in our picture books. As teenagers, we smoked furtively when we were feeling daring. Then we grew up, and now Pieta led a clean and polished life, leaving the bad habits to me.

‘So?’ she began.

‘So,’ I agreed, and that’s when I let go, crying loudly enough that they might have heard me in the kitchen; so hard I couldn’t speak for a while.

Pieta took the cigarette from my hand, had a drag, coughed a bit and gave it back.

‘You know, Dolly, it seems hideous now, but it’s just a ­review,’ she said, all good sense and reason. ‘No one who loves Little Italy will pay the slightest attention to it, because, like I said on the phone, everybody knows what he’s like.’

I didn’t tell her about the morning’s cancellations, just like I hadn’t bothered to mention how often nowadays we had more empty tables than full ones. Pieta is such a success. She’s a top bridal designer, owns a chain of coffee bars and roasteries with her husband Michele, has two sporty kids and a shelf full of their trophies. I’m painfully aware I can’t match up.

‘Perhaps he’s right and I have ruined the place,’ I said dully.

‘Nonsense. You’ve changed things, but for the better. And what he said about the food … well that idiot doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t believe he ever did come here as a boy.’ Pieta was as angry as I’d ever known her. ‘It’s all complete rubbish.’

‘Yes, but what is Papa going to say when he sees it? It’ll be posted online. He may have read it already.’

My parents had kept a small place in London but spent most of the time at their villa beside the sea in southern Italy. I had thought my father would be bored living there, but he’d discovered what he referred to as ‘the interweb’, and, to my mother’s dismay, fast become obsessed.

‘There’s every chance he won’t, you know. Don’t you have to pay to look at the Sunday Herald’s site? Papa is far too thrifty for that.’

‘Someone will tell him about it, show him. And then he’ll be devastated.’

‘He’ll be angry,’ Pieta said thoughtfully. ‘He hates it when anything upsets us. But I’m sure he’ll think it’s as dumb as I do.’

‘He was beside himself when I had the stucco taken off the walls,’ I reminded her. ‘And he’s never really thought I cook as well as he does.’

Pieta laughed. ‘No one cooks as well as Papa; you know that. He’d be furious if they did.’

I stubbed out the cigarette and put my head in my hands. ‘I just want to run away,’ I moaned.

‘Yeah, me too sometimes.’

That surprised me. ‘Really?’

Pieta shrugged. ‘Everyone does, don’t they? We all have fantasies about escaping the rat race and living in a simple beach hut or a cottage in France. Michele and I talk about it all the time. We’d never do it, though.’

‘Why not? If you sold all your businesses, you could afford to. And if it’s your dream …’

‘Yeah, but would I want it to become reality? I can’t imagine walking away from everything we’ve got. Like you with the restaurant – it’s too precious. There’s too much of us all gone into it.’

‘I suppose.’

‘I know you feel rubbish right now, but …’

‘Stamping my lack of character on the place,’ I said, quoting the review bitterly. ‘Lack of bloody character.’

‘Clearly the man hasn’t met you,’ Pieta said.

‘He’d better hope he doesn’t. I’ll thump his ugly face if I ever see it.’

‘Ah good, you’ve already moved from grief to anger.’

‘What comes after that?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted. ‘But I imagine I’m about to find out.’

I leaned into her. ‘Thanks for coming over so quickly. I bet you were in the middle of something.’

‘Actually I was making a cake. It’s your nephew’s birthday,’ she said brightly.

Birthdays are one thing I love; I’ve always made a fuss over them. I bake treats, wrap gifts madly in layers and layers of paper so there’s not a hope of guessing what’s inside, organise games and costumes for the kids, cocktails for the parents. Lately I’d got so busy, all that had been scaled down quite a bit, but still I couldn’t believe I’d managed to forget this birthday altogether

‘Oh shit,’ I said to my sister. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been flat out and it completely slipped my mind. I must be losing it.’

‘That’s OK. I quite enjoyed the cake-making. It’s a red velvet,’ she told me proudly. ‘Michele promised to take it out of the oven, and I’ve already done the buttercream icing. So I don’t have to rush off. Perhaps we could go somewhere for a glass of wine?’

Pulling off my cap, I fluffed up my hair with my fingers. ‘I’d love to, but I ought to get home as soon as I can. Katia was messing up her homework when I left, and Eden isn’t in good shape.’

‘Is his back no better then?’

I shook my head. ‘Nope,’ I said shortly.

Eden is a builder. He’s always been super-careful on sites and projects, never had silly accidents like some of the other guys do. Then he spends money we can’t really afford on a snowboarding holiday with his mates and comes home with a buggered back. Despite months of physio, it’s never come right. In my bleaker moments I wondered if it was a useful excuse for him to avoid all the stuff he’d prefer not to do: working, washing dishes, cleaning toilets.

‘Come on, Dolly, just one drink,’ Pieta said. ‘Half an hour max. Those two can wait a little longer, surely?’

‘I guess so,’ I agreed. ‘But only if we go right now.’

Normally I’m happy to linger at Little Italy, playing about with new ideas in the kitchen or pottering round the dining room. But that afternoon I couldn’t wait to hand over to the evening shift and get away from the place and the doleful expressions of everyone in there.

‘Let’s head down to Soho,’ I suggested. ‘There’s a bar I’ve been meaning to check out.’

It’s not an especially long walk from Little Italy to Soho: twenty minutes at a brisk pace. But on the way we passed two of my brother-in-law’s cafés. They’re all fitted out in exactly the same way, with industrial concrete floors covered in jute, sacks of coffee and mismatched metal furniture. The smell of roasting beans hits you ten paces away, and they seem to be open and busy at all hours.

It’s difficult to believe that ten years ago Michele started out with just his father’s old shop. He and Pieta have worked so hard since then. Now there are people lining up for their cappuccinos and sugar-dusted pastries all over London.

My sister never talks about the money they’ve made, but there’s an ease to the way she spends it these days. She’s always suggesting mini breaks or lovely little places in the south of France. She means well – I guess she’s forgotten what it’s like to live on credit cards or borrow on the house to pay your staff’s wages. If she knew how things were for me she’d offer to help, clear my overdraft or give me a loan. But I don’t want that, just like I don’t want her paying our taxi fares or picking up the tab in restaurants.

‘So where are you taking me?’ she asked as we strolled down Old Compton Street.

‘A new hole-in-the-wall place that does small plates of northern Italian food – it’s had great reviews.’ I tried to sound ironic and failed.

Pieta took my arm and gave it a comforting squeeze. ‘I’d prefer it if we were celebrating rather than commiserating, but still, it’s good to be out with you. Hasn’t it been ages?’

‘Mmm, I guess.’

‘And I’m sure I’ll like northern Italian small plates, whatever they are.’

Pieta doesn’t get food. She missed out on whatever gene my father passed to me. She’ll skip a meal without noticing, and would live off egg on toast if it weren’t for Michele and the kids. As a result she is at least two sizes smaller than I am and looks great in whatever she puts on.

On balance, I think I’d rather eat. For me it’s always been the best reason I can think of to get out of bed in the morning. Even as a teenager I lived for the pork and fennel dumplings from my favourite dim sum place; for Vietnamese noodle soups fresh with herbs, foil cartons of oily Middle Eastern salads, and dense almond croissants from the French bakery up the road. I’d steal Pieta’s perfume, borrow her lipstick, cadge cigarettes from friends, and spend all my cash on delicious things. Often I’d bunk off school and go alone to eat in grubby places in Chinatown, or walk east to the bagel bakes and the Jewish delis where they sold lox and latkes. I even gave the eel-and-pie houses of Hoxton a go.

Food has filled my world ever since. I can’t explain why, but I feel edgy if I don’t eat well. Pieta would say I’m obsessed; I expect my mother would too. Only Papa understands, because he’s the same as me. Mostly. Where we differ is that he is a traditional man, happy with the way he’s always cooked and eaten, while I’m always keen to try the latest thing. And that’s why I’d brought my sister to this tiny, trendy place where the door was unmarked, the bartender liberally tattooed and the counter groaning with scuffed enamel plates filled with Mediterranean snack food.

‘You’re going to over-order, aren’t you?’ Pieta sounded resigned.

‘Probably … Here, you choose the drinks.’ I passed her the . . .