She pushed her empty bowl towards the centre of the table. ‘Mmm. Please.’
Franco uncorked another bottle of limoncello and poured Lucya second glass. ‘This time, before you drink, you swirl the glass like this. It release the aroma.’
Lucy sniffed.
‘It smells good,sì?’
‘Sì,’ she replied, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.
‘You must try this ricotta cheese, Lucy. It is the best,’ said Matteo.
‘I shouldn’t really. But if you insist.’
She felt a small pang of guilt. Was it her fault that her requests for smaller portions had been ignored? No one in Naples seemed to care about putting on extra pounds. Besides, to refuse their hospitality would have been disrespectful. So, purely for the sake of Anglo-Italian relations post-Brexit, Lucy selflessly ate and drank enough to feed and water a small village.
Chapter Seventeen
Lucy’s eyes flickered open, thechuff, chuff, chuffof helicopter blades whirring above. Her world was beginning to spin out of control. Where was she? She lifted her thumping head and fell back down, the floor rising up to meet her. Her mouth was dry. She reached for the glass of water on the bedside table and sent it crashing onto the tiled floor.
Slowly, painfully, images of the night before filtered through her woozy brain.
She hadpromisedherself she would only have one glass, maybe two, okay, maybe three max, though she’d really tried to limit it to two. But the limoncello had tasted so cool and clean, the glasses were teeny-tiny, and it was Christmas after all.
Four glasses and six Baci Perugina chocolates later, she’d staggered to her bedroom, feeling not so much drunk as relaxed and merry – merry enough to give an off-key rendition of ‘Volare’, despite not knowing the words. She cringed at the memory.
But this was no time for toe-curling reflection; despite the mozzarella factory being closed, the teashop had attracted so much interest in the run-up to Christmas, that Lucy had boldly suggestedopening on 26th,which also happened to be a very special day for Stefano: La Festa di Santo Stefano.
Elena and Dario had tickets to take him to see Napoli v Roma, in celebration of his name day.
‘You can’t run the teashop on your own today of all days,’ Elena had said.
‘Nonsense. It’s Stefano’s big day. I’ll be fine. I promise.’
‘But—’
Lucy pressed her finger against her lips. ‘Shh.’
One hand grimly holding her head, the other grabbing anything and everything in sight in an attempt to stay upright, she stumbled to the bathroom, the thought of all those mince pies and brandy butter making her stomach churn.
Despite the cold she flung open the bathroom window as she did every morning, and stood under the steaming water, drinking in the ocean, shimmering in the watery sunlight.
Once she’d showered, she wriggled into her tartan kilt, breathing in as she yanked the zip. What was it Alfonso had said over yesterday’s lasagne? ‘Pasta doesn’t make you fat – if you eat the right amount.’
Great. But how much pasta exactly was ‘the right amount’?
‘Food is life,’ he’d continued, lobbing another generous helping onto her plate. ‘It feed the soul, no?’
‘Since you put it like that…’ she’d heard herself saying, feeling a look of greedy anticipation flash across her face.
He was right; food should be all about community and celebration, not guilt and calorie counting. This New Year there would be no fad diets or wasted gym membership.
Lucy glanced at herself in the mirror. She was beginning to prefer her curvy figure to her boyish one and, thanks to her healthydiet and the sea air, her ‘peely-wally’ complexion now had a healthy glow. After decades of hating her freckles, she was learning to embrace them at last.
She shimmied along the hallway in time to the music blasting from the kitchen radio, a brightly coloured parcel held above her head. She tossed it high in the air.
‘Felice Onomastico,Stefano! Happy Name Day!’
Stefano jumped up and caught it, a broad Nutella-toothed smile plastered across his face.
