- What’s Yours is mine
Tanino was enjoying a bean soup when the doorbell rang. Melina sprang up from the table, scuttled down the corridor and answered the door.
“Hello, Rosanna, my love,” Tanino heard her say. It was their daughter, who lived in the flat below.
“Hello, Mum. I need to borrow a screwdriver from Dad.”
Tanino groaned. He would have to get up and fetch the screwdriver out of his toolbox, right in the middle of his meal. Also, if Rosanna needed a screwdriver, she probably had to fix something and needed his help.
He dropped his spoon in his bowl and started heaving himself up from his chair, when he heard Melina say, “I’ll go and get it for you.”
Surely she didn’t even know where he kept his toolbox. But Tanino was curious to see how long it would take her to come and ask him, so he sat down again.
A few seconds later, he heard a clanging of metal and then Melina’s voice.
“Here you go, darling.”
“I don’t need the whole toolbox, Mum. I only need one screwdriver.”
Goodness gracious! Melina had found his toolbox and was giving away the whole thing! Surely she’d come and ask him first. Again, he was curious to see how far Melina would go before she thought of consulting him, so he fought the impulse to run to the door and reclaim his most treasured possession.
He heard the tinkling of small metal items, then Rosanna’s voice. “Here, this one should be the right size.”
“Is something broken? Do you need your father to come down to fix it?”
Now Melina was even offering his services without asking him.
“No, thanks. Michele can do it. He wouldn’t like Dad to step on his toes.”
Trust Melina to get him on the wrong side of his son-in-law!
“I’ll bring the screwdriver back as soon as we’ve finished,” Rosanna said.
“No need. Keep it, darling.”
Tanino’s eyes almost popped out of his skull. His wife was giving his stuff away!
“Thanks, Mum,” Rosanna said.
He should be the one to be thanked!
As soon as Melina returned to the table, Tanino harrumphed.
“That was Rosanna,” she said.
“I know. And you’ve given her my screwdriver without asking me.”
“Did you need it?” she asked, looking genuinely surprised.
“That’s not the point: you can’t give away stuff that’s not yours.”
“We’ve always said that what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.”
“Except my toolbox. Didn’t you see my initials carved on the lid?”
“So what? My initials are carved on your wedding ring but that doesn’t make it mine.”
Tanino didn’t know what to say. Melina swallowed the last mouthful of her lunch, got up and began to clear the table. Tanino was still a little stunned so he wasn’t in time to grab a hunk of bread before she cleared away the bread basket.
***
Melina couldn’t help it. If anyone asked her for anything, she would give it to them. She’d take the food out of her mouth if someone asked for it. And, as she viewed Tanino like an extension of herself, she would take food out of his mouth too. She knew that it wasn’t right, but she just couldn’t help herself.
And now she was so sorry to have given away Tanino’s screwdriver that she went to the hardware store to buy him a replacement.
“Signora, you’re the second person to ask for a screwdriver in the last half hour. Which type and size would you like?”
Up until that moment, Melina had thought that all screwdrivers were more or less the same.
“Which one do you recommend?”
The man snorted with laughter.
“Signora, it’s not up to me. It depends on what you need it for.”
“I don’t know: it’s not for me, of course,” she said, a little offended. “If you’re not going to help me choose, I’ll have the same as the one you’ve just sold.”
“I’m not sure that I have another one.”
The threat of a shortage only made Melina keener.
“I want that one and no other.”
The man rolled his eyes and plodded to the back of the shop.
“You’re lucky: two millimetres slotted, the last one.”
Melina felt very satisfied. Such a sought-after screwdriver must be better than Tanino’s old one.
On the way home she also bought the ingredients to make arancine. Cooking one of Tanino’s favourite dishes would complete her atonement.
When she got home, he was out. She immediately put the rice on the hob and the mince in a pan to make the sauce for the filling. Then she rolled the rice around the meat filling and coated the balls in breadcrumbs before deep-frying them in batches.
Arancine were as much work as risotto, Bolognese sauce and French fries all wrapped in one, and that was why she rarely cooked them.
She was frying the last batch when the doorbell rang.
“Dad sent me to give you this back. He has just bought himself one,” her grandchild told her, handing her back Tanino’s screwdriver.
“Thank you, darling. I’m cooking arancine. Would you like one?”
“Yes!” Valentina exclaimed with sparkly eyes.
Grandma and granddaughter then went to the kitchen, where Melina chose an arancina that was warm but not too hot and gave it to Valentina.
“It’s delicious!” the child said, munching away.
Melina’s heart leapt with happiness and she put six more on a plate.
“Take these home. You won’t ruin your appetite if you have two each as a starter. So long as you promise that you’ll still eat whatever meal your mum has prepared.”
“Mum is still at work. Dad is cooking.”
Melina added more arancine to the plate. In such an emergency…
“Thank you, Grandma,” Valentina said with a huge smile.
“Melina, what you’re doing isn’t fair,” Giovanna, her next-door neighbour, called from the door of Melina’s flat.
“What have I done?” Melina replied.
“You fry arancine with the door open and now the entire building smells delicious. What are we going to do when our husbands come home and find that the smell isn’t coming from their flats? They’ll be very disappointed.”
“Oh no, we don’t want disappointed husbands!” Melina made another plate of arancine and thrust it into her neighbour’s hands. “Here, my dear, take these home.”
Giovanna made a little show of refusing—but without putting the plate down. Melina insisted and Giovanna quickly accepted.
It was only when Melina was alone again that she suddenly remembered the batch still sizzling in the pan. She rushed to the kitchen but it was too late: the last arancine had been fiercely browned.
Melina pulled them out of the oil and put them aside. This batch would have to be for her.
She had just finished laying the table when the doorbell rang again. It was Valentina with an empty plate almost as big as a serving dish.
“Dad says if you have a couple more arancine we’ll make it a meal and he won’t have to cook.”
“Sure!”
Melina filled Valentina’s plate without leaving any empty space.
“Wow, thank you so much, Grandma!” Valentina popped an arancina in her mouth—which Melina instantly replaced—and left.
Melina looked at the table. The only arancine left were the burnt ones. She imagined Giovanna serving her husband a plateful of perfectly cooked arancine while Tanino crunched on charcoal balls.
And there wasn’t even enough for her!
She sat down and put her head in her hands. Then the lock of the front door clanged. Tanino was home.
“I came up in the lift with our neighbour and I bet him that the smell was coming from my flat. He said no, it must be from his flat. And I won,” Tanino called from the hall. “It’s arancine, isn’t it? Yummy!”
“I’m not feeling very well. I’m going to bed,” Melina said and retreated to her room.
***
Tanino only agreed to sit down to lunch without Melina after she profusely assured him that she wasn’t unwell and only needed a little feet-up time.
Arancine, on the other hand, were just what he needed. He had been to the hardware store to replace the screwdriver and had found that the size he needed was sold out.
The arancine would cheer him up. He lifted the fly-cover.
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