Page 2 of All Mine
The Bistro had leaded windows and a brick frontage. Its roof was low, and already she could imagine the ambience inside, all cosy nooks and candlelit corners and beamed ceilings. She had looked up its menu online– minute steaks, frites, coq au vin. It might be another restaurant, but it wasn’t direct competition to what she had planned.
Hers would be a traditional Italian restaurant, cooking the food passed down her family for generations. The recipe written by her grandmother’s hand and the ones typed and printed painstakingly by her mother. The food of her childhood, her family, her past was going to be the path to the future.
As she looked, a man appeared and leaned in the doorway of The Bistro, observing them. Even from here she could see that his jeans were just the right sort of tight across his thighs and his light blue shirt fit in all the best places. A tea towel was hooked into his belt and hung from his hip. A waiter? The manager? She found herself straightening her spine slightly, lifting her chin. Conscious of his eyes on her, she wondered if he liked what he saw too.
‘Ahem.’ The estate agent cleared his throat loudly beside her, but Isabella ignored him.
The man opposite nodded at a blonde woman as she passed, called out something that made the woman laugh. Then he leaned on the door jamb and watched them again. It was an obvious surveillance. A moment later, somebody inside called out and he straightened himself to his full height. Before he went, he lifted his hand in a wave, and she felt a smile nudging her mouth upwards as she lifted hers in return. Okay, okay. So, she’s not allowed to touch but it’s always good to have something nice to look at.
‘Right, I’ll leave you to it, if you’re sure I can’t help you inside?’
Gotta love a trier, and this guy was persistent. But he wasn’t to her taste. She flicked her eyes to the empty doorway across the square again. He would be much more her type of snack. She shook herself. What was she thinking? She finally had the keys to her future in her hand; this was no time to be lusting after a good-looking stranger.
‘I’m fine, Mr Reynolds, thank you.’ She crossed to the door. The biggest key slid easily into the lock and turned with a pleasing clunk. As she opened the door, he called out once more.
‘What’s it going to be called then, Isabella? This restaurant?’
She smiled a real smile this time, dazzling him.
‘Tutto Mio,’ she said.
He frowned in confusion. ‘Tutti. . . ?’
‘Tutto Mio,’ she repeated. ‘It means all mine, Mr Reynolds. All mine.’
She stepped inside.
The darkness inside the restaurant was a shock after the brightness of the late summer sun on the square. The boarded-up windows barely allowed any light through, and Isabella was impatient to see all the potential that had made her certain this site was the one. She swept her hand along the wall until she found a light switch and then flicked it on, chest banging with excitement.
There it was. Illuminated by a few spotlights and a hanging fluorescent whose days were numbered. In all its dirty, broken glory: her restaurant.
The main dining room was spacious enough to seat sixty easily. Maybe more if she changed the seating configuration for certain celebrations, but she’d built her business plan on sixty to be sure. A pile of mismatched plastic tables and chairs were stacked against the far wall; they would all have to go. Formica tabletops and school chairs were definitely not going to fit the design she had in mind.
Bold floral wallpaper had peeled in an arc from one wall, revealing some rather flaky-looking plaster. The carpet made a tacky sound as she turned in a slow circle in the middle of the room, imagining how it might look in a few months’ time.
She wanted an eclectic aesthetic. Something that reminded you of home cooking and was familiar and relaxed. She wanted to encourage diners to linger around the table, feeling no pressure to leave, watch them order another bottle of wine or chat over coffees. She envisaged wooden tables that you might find in your mother’s kitchen. No stuffy tablecloths or placemats. She imagined chairs with cushions, brightly coloured salt and pepper pots. Tiny vases on every table filled with the spoils of local hedgerows or seasonal bunches of daffodils or snowdrops. She saw a bookshelf for lone diners, with today’s paper and a range of books to browse over a solo meal. She saw a games cupboard for those with young families to play snakes and ladders or Connect 4 between courses. She pressed her eyes shut for a moment and could almost hear the low-level laughter and conversation of people to come. She opened her eyes again to the harsh reality of it, but the smile stayed on her face.
She made her way through to the kitchen. The building had most recently been a café, although it had been closed now for the best part of two years. The facilities were probably perfectly functional, but Isabella knew she had to upgrade for Tutto Mio. A catering standard oven was already on order and should be arriving in about a month’s time, to fit into a new sleek and hygienic area for food preparation, as well as a large area for refrigeration and freezers.
Everything had been budgeted for and itemised, many times, but the scale of the investment still flipped her stomach. Infuriatingly, it also brought to mind Daniel’s face, his eyebrows bunched together in doubt, forehead furrowed under his floppy blond hair. She shook the thought away, but she could just imagine what he’d be saying now, in the oh-so-slightly patronising tone of someone who thought she couldn’t or shouldn’t do this. The lines about how ‘restaurants are tricky businesses’ and ‘it might be safer to invest’ and ‘we need to focus on one business at a time and obviously it makes sense to prioritise mine’, as well as the unsaid line ‘as you might not be able to run yours in a few years, when the babies come along. . .’ Well, screw him. And he never believed in this dream anyway. It was always hers.
She’d wanted this for as long as she could remember. When she met Daniel at university, it was one of the early ‘big’ conversations they had, when they first dared to tell each other about their ambitions for the future over late-night vodka and Cokes. She was studying business, purely to ensure she ran her future restaurant right. She had already completed summer school cookery courses and had the requisite certificates. She knew already the food she wanted to serve: the same as she’d enjoyed as a child, a teenager, a young woman, at her mother’s table. She told Daniel all of this and his eyes widened as he told her it would be amazing. Because she was amazing, he said.
Somewhere along the line, though, that dream had been overtaken by Daniel’s own. His university placement evolved into a full-time offer, and they moved to London after graduation for him to be near his swanky office, all glass windows and views of the Thames. Isabella took a marketing job, which used her business degree, but didn’t get her anywhere nearer to where she wanted to be. But Daniel’s long hours brought in the big bucks which funded the deposit on their first house and paid for a honeymoon in St Lucia. Whenever she mentioned the idea of the restaurant, he changed the subject. Besides, he said he always loved coming home at the end of the day and knowing she’d be there. She couldn’t begrudge him that; she loved it too. He’d throw his coat on the banister and call her name as he came in the door. He’d kiss the back of her neck as she chopped vegetables or marinaded meat for their dinner. He’d smell of the city, the tube, the night air, and he always said that she smelled like home. She sighed. It still stung.
She brushed the counter clean of debris and jumped up to sit cross-legged on top. Now was as good a time as any to tell the world what she was up to. She’d been quiet socially for months, not updating on Instagram or keeping up with her old crowd. Divorce always split friends down the middle anyway, and the only people that mattered were her university friend Jesse and her cousin Gabriella. She knew they’d stick by her no matter what.
She’d kept her head down, too hurt and embarrassed after what happened. She felt as though she was under a spotlight, that people were talking about her, which of course they were. That’s what happens when you catch your husband having an affair. One that he’d been having for several years. Half of their married life, in fact. How could she have been so blind?
She could still remember picking up his phone to book a restaurant for that night and seeing the message pop up. The explicit message that called him Danny, when Isabella was the only person she knew that ever called him that. The message that made it clear that she shouldn’t bother with date night, as Daniel was obviously already having his cake AND eating it too. Deep disappointment and humiliation shot through her, knowing that her marriage was going to end in such a such a clichéd way. A wife finding proof on her husband’s phone. Because of course, she scrolled back. She found others, some equally sexual and some– even worse– loving.
When they first separated, Isabella was so heartbroken that it had been all she could do to get out of bed. Gabi turned up on the doorstep and moved into the spare room without being asked. She gave Isabella space when she needed it and hugged her when she didn’t. She forced Isabella to see her parents on Sundays so that they didn’t worry. She accompanied her on the tube to get her to her desk three days a week. On her work-from-home days, Isabella still rarely got out of her pyjamas, but Gabi made random food concoctions she saw on TikTok and they ate together in front of the TV. Isabella avoided all other contact apart from Jesse, who rang her every night and told her men were no-good shits. And he should know. She left phone messages from other friends unanswered. She cried in bed and in the bath and the front room with the hollowness of the house and her heart. Gabi replaced the tissues.
After a while, her feelings started to change. She was embarrassed Dan had cheated on her and angry she was the one to lose the entire life she’d built up. They had been the poster couple from their university group, the ones that fell in love in the first year and married straight after graduation. Jesse had got drunk on champagne and told her he wanted ‘one just like Daniel’. They were the ones that bought a house and worked hard and saved money. They were the couple that were planning a family, a future. How dare he take all of that away from her? She still wanted it– and him– for many months afterwards. Even if he was an arsehole. She couldn’t help it. He’d been her arsehole.
She’d come a long way in the nine months since signing the divorce papers, and now, here, in her restaurant, she finally felt strong enough to start spreading the word. She was back. She pulled out her phone and activated Instagram. New account.
A few moments later, she shared her first post from Tutto Mio, albeit with a ‘new Italian restaurant coming soon’ type of holding caption. But she would add to her profile over the coming months and had major plans for the launch already. She wanted to use her social media expertise to create buzz and attract locals and those willing to travel for a good meal.
