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And she walked out to find that one of the tables for two had been set for them, rather than the big table where they usually ate. Cannelloni, breads, butter. Simple, thoughtful, she could tell he’d set everything precisely, had arranged the food on the plate the same way, with care.
‘Your mum has put a notice about me in tomorrow’spaper,’ said Sabrina to him as he handed over the dish of freshly grated parmesan. ‘I don’t exactly have a lot of details to give out, but it’s a start.’
He nodded slowly. ‘And if no one responds, what will you do then?’
‘The police, I suppose. I don’t know what made me initially think I might be in danger but I’m ninety-nine point nine per cent sure I’m not.’
‘Maybe it was your mind forcing you to take time out from whatever it was you left,’ said Teddy.
‘They’re odd, aren’t they, minds?’ said Sabrina. ‘Hiding things, distorting facts, telling you lies.’
‘It sounds to me as if you’ve maybe had a lot in your life that you never really worked through, Sabrina. Your mother, your aunt and uncle, your baby. They might have been a long time ago but if you never had help to heal, they’ve just sat inside you like unexploded bombs and… they eventually went off.’
What he said made sense. Maybe she needed to go back so much further than what had happened to her in the past two months, disassemble herself, restructure, like some of the companies she’d helped along the way. She remembered a sports shop on the brink of collapse. She’d had to strip it down to its basics, excise the rot rather than patch it up, pretending it wasn’t there like they’d done in the past, only to fail. But they’d succeeded when they’d rebuilt from the ground up.
From the ground up. Why did those four words make her think of happy Monday evenings spent with like-minded people in a fusty church hall?
‘You don’t have to go back,’ said Teddy. ‘You’re welcome to stay as long as you like… want… need to.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiled. She felt that, but she had to find out everything about herself. She needed to be the full finished jigsaw with the picture complete.
Teddy dropped his fork. ‘I’m putting this all wrong. Of course you have to go back. You have family, possessions, money, friends, your job to reconnect with. But you don’t have to stay there if you find you aren’t the right shape for that life any more, Sabrina, because…’ He couldn’t say it:you are the right shape for us. For me.It wasn’t fair to put that pressure on her. How could she tell what she wanted, until she was back where she belonged and in a more informed position to choose. ‘You know what I mean,’ he said instead.
‘I do,’ she said. She half-felt as if she were on holiday and the thought of going home brought with it the sort of depression that comes with the prospect of returning to a mundane, lesser existence. But people did go home and they settled back in their places, because that’s what life was like. That’s why people lovedShirley Valentineso much, because she lived the dream, but it was just a fantasy, a story.
‘Your mum asked if you’d call in on your way home,’ said Sabrina then, careful to sound as matter-of-fact as possible, as Marielle had asked her to.
‘What for, did she say?’
‘Nope, she just asked me to pass on the message.’
This lovely man had secrets ready to jump out at him from behind a corner too and she so wished he hadn’t.
‘Of course,’ he said, breaking into some bread. Would this be the last Sunday they spent together like this? Her being here had woken him up inside and he wondered if that had been fate’s purpose by bringing her into his life. That and giving him some great advice on the best way for his business to survive when Ciaoissimo opened up. Maybe that’sall he was meant to have of her, just a small but precious and transient gift.
‘This is delicious,’ said Sabrina, eating the last of the cannelloni.
‘I know,’ said Teddy, ‘because I made it.’
He smiled, a deep curve that made something inside her warm, and she wondered if she had been led here to make her realise that she should be cared for, that she was worth a man’s consideration and that, if she didn’t make someone smile like that, they weren’t the one for her. She knew, without a doubt, that if Teddy Bonetti had been in the other life she had left, her brain wouldn’t have been able to forget him.
When Sabrina left the restaurant after her shift, she turned down the lift home with Teddy, saying she wanted to take a walk but instead of going down to the beach, she headed up the hill to the estate where Cilla lived. She didn’t know the address, but she had picked up from Flick that her mother had one of the largest-style houses and a pretentious porch with sturdy Greek pillars, lording it above all the others. It wasn’t hard to find.
Sabrina walked up the drive, past the showy BMW parked there. She hadn’t been told what car Cilla owned, but strangely she had guessed that was what she’d have. She rang the bell and waited. Eventually a clipped voice came through the doorbell speaker.
‘What do you want?’
‘Can I talk to you, Cilla?’ replied Sabrina.
‘I have nothing to say to you.’
‘I’ll take up five minutes of your time only, but it will be the most important conversation you’ll ever have inyour life,’ said Sabrina. She was prepared to wait here for as long as it took to wear Cilla down into speaking to her. If her presence here was in any way responsible for all this upset, she would do her best to limit some of the damage before she left.
Surprisingly, she didn’t have to lay siege to Cilla’s house because the door opened and Cilla appeared. She was fully made up, but the thick layer of foundation couldn’t disguise her swollen eyes with the puffy bags underneath. She moved aside so that Sabrina could come in but it was clear that whatever Sabrina had to say to her had to be done standing up in the hallway.
‘Well?’ she asked.
‘I’m here to talk about Flick,’ said Sabrina.
