but with those wide innocent eyes, she has a way of getting what she wants. Like this holiday club! She’s begged to go because of all the craft and sports activities. So now school has finished, I said she could attend for three days each week. I can’t afford much more.’
‘If only handing out a gold coin would embellish the road to friendship with everyone,’ said Mary, thinking out loud. She bit into another pastry. Piquant plum flavours danced across her tongue, against the smooth backdrop of buttery pastry. What a change from her plain English cornflakes and milk.
‘You mean Dante?’ asked Natale, gently. ‘This road you talk of – trouble already?’
‘Sorry. Just ignore me.’ Inwardly Mary cringed at having been heard. ‘I’ve only been here a few days and expect too much.’
Natale raised an eyebrow. Mary had seen her do that to Lucia. It acted as an effective tactic to extract information.
‘I think I upset him, when I arrived on Sunday. I offered to pass him his drink and –’
‘Ah …’ Natale leant back in her chair. ‘I’m so sorry, mia cara, Maria, I should have warned you about his blindness. But Dante … he is so independent. And …’ She cleared her throat.
‘What?’
‘I feel you should know … Dante wasn’t that keen for you to be hired. He begrudgingly looked at all the applications we had but wasn’t happy when the rest of us chose yours.’
‘Oh. Do you know why?’ What could have put him off?
‘I don’t think he feels we need an English waitress again. He was even more fervent after listening to the Skype interview.’
Mary blushed. ‘Was his dislike personal?’
‘Dante reckons that the current staff’s command of English is good enough and that it would be better to hire another waitress who had fluent Italian.’ She sighed. ‘Dante knows best. That used to one of his tongue-in-cheek phrases before he lost his sight.’
‘Monday, he wasn’t in, and I wondered if he was avoiding me. When he got back he went scowling to his room.’
‘No. Dante is not like that. You are here now. He will make the best of it. And if he ever does have a problem, he will say it to your face. He simply went to visit an up-and-coming pizzeria that people are raving about. Every summer, in the middle of August, so about six weeks from now, a well-respected food critic called Signor Lombardi – or Signora, we don’t know – lists his top ten pizzerias in Rome. It is an important accolade that brings in lots of business from tourists. For five years we have featured, but last time had dropped to number ten. Alfonso sees this new place as the strongest competitor that could knock us out and that would be disastrous for our income. So Dante, he went to …’
‘Spy?’
‘Your word, not mine,’ she said and they both grinned.
‘But why should just one new pizzeria make a difference – there must be hundreds of such restaurants in Rome?’
‘It’s really grown in popularity and has some quirky unique selling points, apparently. We’re on friendly terms with some of the other pizzerias featured on the winning list and they’ve told us how they feel this new place threatens their ranking as well.’
‘So, was his bad mood because they really did make great pizza?’
‘He didn’t say much. Probably. The local paper did a piece on the place last week and raved. Dante is very protective of Pizzeria Dolce Vita.’
‘Okay. Now I feel stupid – thinking, as usual, that I was the cause of his upset and that the universe revolves around me.’
Natale laughed. ‘I think we all feel that sometimes – Lucia more than most! Whereas Dante, less than anyone I know. He’s always helping other people and rarely makes a fuss about his situation.’ Her tone softened. ‘It is almost two years since … since he went blind and he’s worked so hard not to be treated differently, and his condition has become normal to us now.’ Her eyes shone. ‘Once he’d set his mind to it, my brother learnt Braille faster than any student ever recorded at the local institute for the blind. Then he built up confidence walking around outside, with his cane. Finally he decided to get a guide dog, passed all the checks, and has had Oro for almost eight months now.’
‘Why wouldn’t he get a dog?’ Mary asked and blushed. ‘Sorry – showing my ignorance.’
‘Nessun problema. I didn’t know either, before Dante lost his sight. It is a big decision. You have to pay for food and vet bills – and the guide dog is a living, breathing animal that needs time and attention, like any pet, and a degree of routine. It wouldn’t suit certain lifestyles. Take one of his friends who travels the country doing computer training …’
‘For the blind?’
‘Si. There is a lot of great computer software out there, for the visually impaired, like text-to-speech applications that read out emails. And that’s the sort of lifestyle, moving around, that just wouldn’t suit a dog. Whereas our family set-up and Dante working from just one place, well, it is pretty much perfetto – although he still needs his cane if he is going somewhere unsuitable for a dog and if Oro is ill, like she was with a stomach upset a couple of months ago.’
‘It’s so brave. Venturing out of the house with just a stick. I can’t imagine having to do that.’
‘We are so proud, how he has turned things around – although my single brother says he only wanted a dog because they are great for attracting the attention of signorinas.’ She rolled her eyes.
Mary smiled. ‘Oro is beautiful so I’m surprised his plan hasn’t worked.’
Natale’s shoulders dropped. ‘To be honest, he isn’t looking for love. There’s been no one since that terrible night that …’ she gulped ‘… destroyed his heart as well as his sight.’ Her hands covered her face. ‘I never thought he would get over the shock. Dante’s so lucky to be here, you see …’ Her voice broke, as her hands fell away. She took a few moments. Straightened up. Wiped her eyes with her arm. ‘To be honest, we try not to dwell on bad memories. For Dante’s sake, it is important to just think ahead.’
Mary squeezed Natale’s hand. She should never have brought the subject up. So, hard as it was, as the day passed, Mary resolved to quell her curiosity, which nevertheless grew, hour by hour. What on earth could have happened? How could an accident have affected his heart? As a policeman, had he been injured whilst walking the beat? Yet the Rossi family’s past was none of her business. Privacy kept wounds closed. If anyone understood that, Mary did.
‘Service!’ called Dante for what seemed like the hundredth time and Mary hurried to the silver kitchen hatch. She’d started her shift at four and was slowly getting used to the restaurant’s bustle. The hubbub of customer chat. Rocco’s unfriendly stares over his glasses. She swallowed as Dante’s face remained expressionless. Mary needed to prove that having an English waitress really was an asset. Honestly, this wasn’t quite the start she’d expected, alienating two of the people she had to work with.
Oh, Dante had been polite enough. That first night he’d shown her around the house. Her bedroom was on the third – top – floor with his. From what Natale said, he must have been determined to prove he didn’t need the lowest one just because he couldn’t see. He made sure she was happy with everything in her room and then patiently explained the restaurant’s routine. However, he seemed to reserve his hot-chocolate voice for Oro or the family and smiles were few and far between.
No one else would have noticed something was amiss, as he’d patiently explained the menu and complimented her waitressing skills yesterday, but Mary could tell some sort of defence system had been put in place. She’d done it often enough herself, when being introduced to potential foster parents.
And Rocco … where had Mary gone wrong? Perhaps