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‘Oh, well. So far, so standard. What can you remember about it?’
‘It was quite small, with a long counter and metal tables and chairs. They sold cigarettes, as well, and lotto tickets and so on. There was a TV in one corner, usually showing news or sports.’
‘A typical Italianbar tabaccheria,’ Marco says.
‘Yes. It wasn’t Granny’s usual kind of place, not really. We’d have breakfast or an aperitivo or a plate of pasta for lunch. She knew all the regulars. They loved her and she must have loved them. They called her Rita, which I thought was hilarious because nobody else was ever allowed to call her anything but Margaret. Not even my grandfather, apparently.’ My throat is tight. ‘I didn’t really understand at the time, and I didn’t ask questions. I just accepted that this was part of her world. And now I can’t ask her about it because she’s dead. I know that’s a stupid thing to say. But I keep wanting to phone her up, and I keep having to remember that I can’t. It’s like there’s some part of my brain that hasn’t caught up yet.’
Marco takes my hand. He does it so naturally that for a brief, wild moment I imagine turning to him, kissing him, breathing in the scent of limes and soap and warm skin.
‘It’s all right,’ he says. ‘It’s hard when you’ve lost someone.’
‘It is.’ I fix my eyes on the stone crest over the door of the house opposite. I’m lonely, I tell myself. Just that.
‘Can you remember anything else? What about the people who ran it?’
I take a deep breath. ‘There was a couple – they must have been about her age, so I thought they were ancient, of course. He was called Giuseppe and she was Maria.’
Marco snorts. ‘Really?’
‘I know. But those were their names. Mary and Joseph.’
‘Don’t tell me. They had a son.’
‘Ha! I’m not sure, actually,’ I say. ‘Their children were grown up. They did have a grandson called Niccolò, who used to help out sometimes. He was a student. I thought he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.’
‘I’m starting to see why you can’t remember much else.’ Marco squeezes my hand. Oh, God.
‘Hey, I was a teenager. I had priorities. Anyway, Maria and Giuseppe were lovely people, I remember that. Otherwise… well, it was such an anonymous place. Like you say, just a typical Italian bar. There really wasn’t anything to tell it apart from a million other places.’ An image flashes into my mind of Niccolò standing at the till, his fringe flopping into his eyes, and a framed photograph behind him. ‘Well, there was one thing. But it’s probably standard, too.’
‘Tell me,’ Marco says.
‘There was a picture on the wall. A framed photograph of a car.’
‘A car?’
‘Yes. I think it was a racing car.’
‘A racing car?’ He lets go of my hand. I try not to look bereft. ‘Like a Formula One car?’ He’s typing on his phone, looking really quite excited about it.
‘I suppose it must have been.’
‘Was it like this?’ Marco leans over and shows me a picture. One of those terrifying, low-slung, high-tech cars, red and black and alien-looking.
‘Definitely not. It was old-fashioned, nothing like that at all.’
‘Okay, classic models.’ He’s scrolling now. ‘How about this?’
This time it’s a shiny car with leather seats and a big, arched radiator at the front. It looks like it belonged to a 1920s gangster. ‘No, a bit more modern than that. I don’t know how to explain it, but it looked… really weird, actually. Made-up. Like something out ofWacky Races.’
‘Wacky Races?’
‘You know, the cartoon with the racing cars and the laughing dog. Maybe you didn’t get it over here.’
‘La corsa più pazza del mondo! I used to love that.’ He’s scrolling again. ‘Okay, what about this?’
And he shows me the car. The exact car. It’s vivid blue, and it looks like a melted cigar tube. ‘That’s it,’ I say. ‘It looked just like that.’
‘Seriously? I only picked it as a joke. That’s the Bugatti 251,’ he says, as if this should all be perfectly obvious.
