Page 44 of A Place in the Sun
I can feel frustration in him, matching mine. It’s creating hot energy between us, drawing us closer, like magnets.
‘But it can’t survive on charity alone. More and more people are relying on La Tavola, and we can’t exist onwhat we get from Alfonso’s shop. Money is short and rent has to be paid. And he is selling up. He’s finding it hard to run the shop and look after his wife. He wants to retire. But without his donations, and without any money, I don’t know how we’ll keep going.’
‘Whose money is short? Yours? You’ve been financing this?’
‘Like I say, it started as a thank-you, after I arrived here, but La Tavola has taken on a life of its own. It needs more than I can give it now.’
‘But you can’t walk away?’
He shrugs. ‘I won’t leave yet. It gave me everything I needed when I needed it. I’m back on an even keel now. At some point, though, I may want to move on. But I don’t think I can keep La Tavola going for those who still need it.’
‘There must be a way to save it,’ I find myself saying, for all the people who rely on it as a place of safety and sanctuary as much as they do for the food.
He frowns. ‘If only I knew how.’
‘There has to be something you can do.’
He looks straight into my eyes, and I feel something shift, as if I’m walking over quicksand.
‘Nothing scares you, does it, Thea? Not falling-down houses, in foreign countries, with leaking roofs, nothing.’
‘Everything scares me, Giovanni. You and I both know how scary life can get. That’s why I can see howimportant La Tavola is to the people who need it. There must be a way to save it.’
He’s running his hands through his curly hair and then throwing them up in despair. ‘Do you think I haven’t tried to find one?’
‘What’s the alternative, Giovanni? Where will Caterina go? Alessandro and Enrico, Giuseppe, Francesco and Alfonso, whose only respite is the time he spends here on a Sunday. You were there when I needed you. Still are.’ We look at each other and something shifts in me again, like sand, swirling and creating patterns. I want to hold on to it and also to push it away.
‘La Tavola is there for you, not just me.’
But something inside me speaks differently.
Luca is running down the hill with Pietro. ‘Mum, the mayor was in La Tavola! He says La Tavola will have to be sold! Mum, you can’t let it happen!’
I look at Giovanni.
‘As I say, unless I can find a way to make an income to run it, I’ll have to hand back the keys. The mayor will sell it, like this house, to someone who wants to commit to staying here.’
‘Can’t you open it as a restaurant, make it earn its keep and buy it?’
He shakes his head. ‘There aren’t the customers here. If there were, others would be doing just that.’
‘Mum, you must help!’ Aimee begins to cry. ‘It’s justlike when Dad died and the restaurant went. You can’t let La Tavola close.’
Suddenly everything is rushing back at me. The restaurant closing. The people I had to let go.
‘But,’ I say, gesticulating and feeling every bit Italian, ‘I don’t know how!’
‘Yes, you do!’ says Luca. ‘You ran the restaurant for years, even after Dad died.’
I really don’t want to go back to that world.
I look at the children’s faces. ‘Okay, okay. If Giovanni wants my help …’ I’m trying not to let myself think that the strange feeling inside me is anything but nerves at finding something to help here ‘… how about we meet at La Tavola once you’ve finished here for the day? We should call a meeting for anyone who has an idea about how we can save it.’
‘Grazie,’ he says, getting back to work.
In the garden I can hear the goats bleating …
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