Short story
The Next Table
Sorrento, August 1963
The first thing Ellie Jones noticed about Italy was the colour.
Not one colour, but all of it. The white of walls under sunlight. The blue of the sea glimpsed between buildings. The green shutters. The lemons in baskets outside shop doors. The red of tomatoes so bright they looked painted. Even the dust seemed warmer than dust at home, as though it had been lying there for centuries merely to catch the sun.
Cliff noticed the driving.
‘They’re all mad,’ he said, gripping the handle above the car door while their taxi swept round another bend with a confidence he plainly did not share. ‘Every last one of them.’
Ellie smiled at the window. ‘You said that in Naples.’
‘It was true in Naples.’
‘And Pompeii.’
‘Also true.’
In the back seat, Philip Jones pushed his spectacles higher up his nose and tried not to look as though the taxi made him nervous. He was thirteen, which meant that admitting fear was impossible, admitting wonder was nearly as bad, and showing interest in anything his parents enjoyed was to be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
Still, Italy had got under his guard.
He liked the boats. He liked the way the men at the harbour shouted across one another and somehow understood every word. He liked the little radios playing in cafés, the crackle of voices, the sudden bursts of music. He liked the old stones at Pompeii more than he had expected, though he had not said so. He even liked the food, once he had learned that refusing unfamiliar things only gave his mother a new opportunity to encourage him in public.
They were staying in Sorrento, in a modest hotel with tiled floors, a dining room that smelt faintly of polish and coffee, and a proprietor who seemed to know everyone from Naples to Salerno. Cliff had chosen the hotel after weeks of studying brochures and asking questions at the travel agent in Chester. Ellie had kept the brochures in a drawer afterwards, as though they were part of the holiday itself.
It was their first proper family holiday abroad.
Cliff treated that fact with the seriousness of a man responsible for passports, travellers’ cheques, timetables, luggage labels and the safety of his wife and son in a country where, in his view, no one had quite grasped the purpose of lanes. Ellie treated it as a gift. Philip treated it as something between ordeal and adventure, depending on whether he was hungry.
They had done the things British families did when Italy still felt like a larger journey than distance alone could explain. They had visited Pompeii with a guide who spoke careful English and moved too quickly through the heat. They had looked across the bay towards Vesuvius while Cliff explained what he remembered from a library book. They had sent postcards home. Ellie had bought a scarf from a woman who complimented her colouring in English so practised that Cliff suspected commercial strategy. Philip had eaten too much gelato and pretended not to feel sick afterwards.
That evening, the hotel proprietor asked where they intended to eat.
‘We thought we’d stay here,’ Cliff said, glancing towards the dining room.
The proprietor made a small, expressive movement of the hand.
‘You can. But if you go towards Torre del Greco, I know a family restaurant. Not for tourists only. Good food. Very good fish. The owner is Ricci. Dario Ricci. You say Signor Bellini sent you.’
Cliff looked doubtful. ‘Is it far?’
‘Not far. Worth it.’
Ellie had already decided.
‘A family restaurant,’ she said. ‘That sounds lovely.’
Cliff looked at her, recognised defeat, and asked the proprietor to write down the name.
They found it only after one wrong turning, two consultations with the written directions, and a conversation with an elderly man who spoke no English but pointed with authority. By the time they arrived, the evening light had softened and the day’s heat had gathered in the walls. The restaurant stood on a side street not far from the road, with pots of herbs near the doorway and a painted sign above the entrance.
Dario Ricci himself came to greet them.
He was broad-shouldered, dark-eyed, and full of welcome. His English was uneven but confident, and he seemed delighted that Signor Bellini had sent them, though perhaps he would have seemed delighted whoever had sent them.
‘Welsh?’ he said when Cliff explained where they were from. ‘Ah. Wales. Singing.’
Cliff smiled. ‘Some people do.’
‘All Welsh sing.’
‘Not all,’ Philip muttered.
Ellie gave him a look.
Dario laughed as though Philip had said something charming. ‘Then tonight you eat. Tomorrow you sing.’
The restaurant was already busy. Not crowded enough to be uncomfortable, but full enough to feel alive. Families sat at square tables covered with white cloths. A man near the wall was eating alone and reading a newspaper. Two women in black dresses spoke with their heads close together over a shared dish. From the kitchen came the smell of garlic, frying oil, tomatoes, basil, fish, coffee, and something sweet.
Cliff ordered drinks at the small bar before they went through to their table. A young man served him.
He was perhaps seventeen, though there was something in his bearing that made age harder to judge. He had dark reddish-brown hair, watchful eyes, and the sort of composure that made Philip, already awkward in his too-warm shirt and schoolboy spectacles, immediately conscious of his own elbows. The young man moved easily behind the bar, answered Dario in Italian, then turned back to Cliff in English touched with America.
‘Beer, signore?’
‘Yes, please. And a lemonade for the boy. Ellie?’
‘Just a small wine.’
The young man nodded and served them without fuss.
Philip watched him despite himself. He was not dressed like the waiters. He seemed less like an employee than someone who belonged to the place and had simply stepped behind the bar because something needed doing. A guitar case leaned in one corner near a chair. A girl about the young man’s age stood nearby, dark-haired and self-possessed, speaking to him in quick Italian. He listened without looking at her all the time, as though he could follow her by rhythm alone.
‘Philip,’ Cliff said.
Philip blinked. ‘What?’
‘Your lemonade.’
‘Oh. Thanks.’
The young man’s mouth moved in the smallest suggestion of amusement, not unkindly.
They were shown to a table near the middle of the room. It was not the best table, nor the worst. To Ellie, it felt perfect because it allowed her to look around without seeming to stare. To Cliff, it was acceptable because he could see the door. To Philip, it was mildly alarming because the other family’s table was close enough for him to be observed while eating spaghetti.
The young man from the bar joined that table a few minutes later.
There were five of them there. The young man sat beside the dark-haired girl, who had a clear, attentive face and a way of listening that made the rest of the room seem briefly less important. Near them sat a woman in her thirties, elegant, tired-eyed, with a beauty that did not appear to have asked anyone’s permission. Beside her was a girl of about thirteen, lively and slim, who seemed to be trying to coax a younger child into taking something from a spoon.
The younger child refused.
She was seven, perhaps, with long straight reddish-brown hair, brown eyes made brighter by fever, and the wounded dignity of a child who had been fussed over beyond endurance. A cardigan hung from her shoulders despite the warmth. Her nose was pink. Every few moments she coughed, then looked offended, as though the cough had behaved badly in company.
‘Poor little thing,’ Ellie murmured.
Cliff glanced over. ‘Cold, by the sound of it.’
‘In this heat.’
‘Children manage these things.’
Philip stared at his plate as the first course arrived. ‘Mum, don’t.’
‘I haven’t done anything.’
‘You’re thinking of doing something.’
‘I am eating my dinner.’
‘You’re looking.’
‘I’m allowed to look.’
The meal was wonderful. Even Philip had to admit it, though he did so by clearing his plate rather than praising it aloud. Dario came and went, explaining dishes, teasing Ellie into trying something she could not pronounce, clapping Cliff on the shoulder as though they had been acquainted for years. Cliff relaxed by degrees. Ellie glowed. Philip grew less anxious once he discovered that spaghetti could be eaten without complete disgrace if he kept his movements small and concentrated.
At the next table, the conversation moved around him in Italian, with occasional English from the young man and the older woman. Philip caught names without knowing where they belonged. Joe. Marietta. Chiara. Rosanna. Francesca. Dario called across to them once, and the young man — Joe, apparently — answered with a dry remark that made the older girl, Chiara, laugh.
Rosanna coughed again.
The woman, Francesca, touched the child’s forehead. Rosanna pulled back and muttered something. Chiara offered the spoon again. Rosanna looked at it with contempt.
Joe leaned towards her and said something quietly.
Rosanna glared at him.
Marietta covered a smile with her napkin.
Ellie could bear it no longer.
She put down her fork, dabbed her mouth, and rose.
Philip closed his eyes.
‘Mum,’ he whispered.
Cliff gave him a warning glance. ‘Let her be.’
Ellie crossed the small distance between the tables. She did not intrude far. She only bent a little towards the child and spoke gently, as she would have done to any child at chapel, school, shop or railway platform.
‘I’m sorry you’re feeling poorly. I hope your cold gets better.’
Rosanna looked up.
For a second she seemed surprised that a stranger had spoken to her in English. Then she straightened a little in her chair, gathering all the manners her family had ever taught her.
‘Thank you, ma’am.’
The voice was blocked by the cold, but the accent was unmistakably touched with America.
Ellie smiled. ‘What lovely manners.’
Francesca thanked her warmly. Joe watched without comment. Chiara whispered something to Rosanna, who sniffed and pretended not to hear.
Ellie returned to her table.
‘There,’ Philip muttered. ‘You’ve adopted someone.’
‘I have done no such thing.’
Cliff’s mouth twitched. ‘You did rather look as if you were about to take her temperature.’
‘Poor little soul,’ Ellie said. ‘So polite too.’
‘She’ll remember you forever,’ Philip said, with the solemn cruelty of adolescence.
Ellie laughed. ‘Nonsense.’
She looked once more at the child. Rosanna had sunk lower in her chair, tired now, her cheek turned against Francesca’s sleeve. Joe was speaking to Dario, one hand moving slightly as though marking rhythm or structure in the air. Marietta listened to him with complete attention, but every so often her eyes moved to Rosanna.
‘My little friend,’ Ellie said softly.
Philip groaned.
Later, when they left, Dario insisted on shaking Cliff’s hand. Ellie thanked everyone. Philip tried to disappear into his own shoulders, failed, and muttered goodbye to the room in general.
As they passed the next table, Rosanna looked up from beneath heavy eyelids.
Ellie gave her a tiny wave.
Rosanna, after the smallest hesitation, lifted her hand and waved back.
Then the door opened onto the warm night, and the Jones family stepped out towards the road, the hotel, the rest of their holiday, and the years in which that evening would become no more than one of Ellie’s favourite memories: the family restaurant near Torre del Greco, the handsome young man at the bar, the lively Italian girl, the beautiful tired woman, and the poor little thing with the cold who had said, ‘Thank you, ma’am.’
At the table behind them, Joe MacKail watched the door close.
Marietta looked at him. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘That never means nothing with you.’
Joe glanced towards Rosanna, who had closed her eyes at last.
‘The woman was kind,’ he said.
Marietta accepted that.
The restaurant carried on around them. Plates arrived. Glasses were filled. Dario laughed in the doorway. The sea air moved faintly through the open window.
No one at the next table knew that anything had happened.
After the Concert, 1983
The concert had not been one of the great public landmarks.
That was one of the reasons Rosanna had enjoyed it.
No vast hall weighted with expectation. No television cameras. No charity appeal, political delegation, industry spectacle or reunion rumour. Just a theatre in Manchester, full enough to feel generous, intimate enough for faces to remain faces, and warm enough by the third song that Rosanna had stopped measuring the room and begun singing to it.
By the encore, she had them.
Phil knew the signs. He knew when an audience admired her, when they were excited by her, when they were merely waiting for the songs they already knew. This had been different. They had followed the quieter numbers. They had listened to the spaces between lines. They had let her stand almost alone at the piano and had not tried to hurry her towards the louder songs.
Afterwards, in the private room of the hotel, she was tired in the way he liked best: not diminished, but unguarded. She had changed into black trousers and a loose cream shirt. Her hair, still carrying the stage in it, fell long and reddish-brown over her shoulders. Her voice was lower than usual from singing, and every so often she cleared her throat with a small apologetic smile.
‘You sound as if you should be put to bed with honey and lemon,’ Ellie said.
Rosanna laughed. ‘That would be very sensible.’
‘Then of course you won’t do it,’ Cliff said.
‘Probably not.’
Phil looked at his father. ‘You’re getting to know her.’
‘I have powers of observation.’
Joe, seated near the end of the table with a glass of wine he had barely touched, gave a faint smile. ‘You hide them well.’
Cliff considered that. ‘I’ll choose to take that as respect.’
‘Wise.’
Marietta sat beside Joe, elegant and amused, her attention moving easily between conversations. She and Ellie had been talking earlier about travel, though the subject had begun with shoes, become trains, and then somehow reached the problem of eating properly on tour. Cliff, who had spent much of the evening in sincere enjoyment and mild bafflement, had declared that the concert was excellent but that the backstage arrangements appeared to require military planning and divine mercy.
‘Mostly tea,’ Phil said. ‘Everything runs on tea.’
Rosanna gave him a look. ‘In Britain, perhaps.’
‘Everywhere,’ Ellie said firmly. ‘Civilisation depends on it.’
‘My mother would disagree,’ Rosanna said. ‘She thinks civilisation depends on coffee, olive oil and whether pasta has been cooked properly.’
‘Your mother is probably right too,’ Ellie said. ‘There may be several civilisations.’
Joe looked at Phil. ‘That is the most British concession I have heard this year.’
The talk loosened after that. Concerts led to touring, touring to hotels, hotels to holidays, and holidays to the years before any of them had known what their lives were arranging.
Cliff leaned back in his chair.
‘Italy was our first proper trip abroad, wasn’t it, Ellie?’
‘Yes. Sorrento.’
Rosanna looked up. ‘You went to Sorrento?’
‘Nineteen sixty-three,’ Ellie said. ‘August. Philip was thirteen.’
Phil groaned softly. ‘Must we specify the age?’
‘Yes,’ Cliff said. ‘You were at your most charming.’
‘I was not.’
‘You were hot, hungry, and permanently embarrassed by your mother.’
‘That sounds like thirteen,’ Rosanna said.
Phil turned to her. ‘Thank you for your loyalty.’
‘Always.’
Ellie’s face had lit with memory. ‘It was beautiful. I remember thinking I had never seen so much colour. We did Pompeii, Capri, Naples — though Cliff spent most of Naples convinced we were about to be run over.’
‘With justification,’ Cliff said.
‘We sent postcards home,’ Ellie continued, ignoring him happily. ‘And bought lemons, or things painted with lemons. Every British family in Sorrento must have come home with something involving lemons.’
Rosanna laughed. ‘Probably.’
‘There was one restaurant,’ Cliff said. ‘Not in Sorrento itself.’
Ellie pointed lightly at him. ‘That’s right. The hotel owner recommended it.’
Joe, who had been listening with polite interest, set his glass down.
Phil did not notice. Rosanna did.
‘Where was it?’ she asked.
Cliff frowned in concentration. ‘Near Pompeii, I think.’
‘Near Torre del Greco,’ Ellie said. ‘Or on the way there. Something like that.’
Rosanna looked towards Joe. ‘Dario had a restaurant near Torre del Greco then, didn’t he?’
Joe did not answer at once.
Marietta looked at him too.
‘Yes,’ Joe said. ‘For a while.’
Ellie smiled, delighted by the possible connection but not yet grasping its shape. ‘This was a family place. We only found it because the hotel proprietor told us. Lovely food. Dario, I think the owner was called.’
Phil looked up then.
‘Dario?’
Rosanna sat straighter. ‘Uncle Dario?’
‘Dario Ricci?’ Joe asked.
Cliff stared at him. ‘You know it?’
Rosanna laughed once, astonished. ‘Know it? Dario is my uncle.’
Ellie pressed a hand lightly against her chest. ‘Oh, how extraordinary. We might have eaten at your uncle’s restaurant.’
‘In August nineteen sixty-three?’ Marietta asked.
‘Yes,’ Ellie said. ‘Definitely August. It was very hot.’
Joe’s eyes remained on her now, steady and intent.
Phil saw that look and felt something in the room gather around it.
Ellie went on, unaware of the full attention she had drawn.
‘I remember one evening especially. There was a poor little girl at the next table with a terrible cold. I felt so sorry for her. I went up to her and said I hoped her cold would get better.’
Rosanna’s smile softened.
‘That’s strange. I had a similar experience.’
Ellie turned to her.
Rosanna touched the side of her glass, thinking back. ‘I was little. I had a dreadful cold, and an English lady came up to me and said, “I hope your cold gets better.”’
Joe’s voice came quietly from the end of the table.
‘English?’
Rosanna glanced at him. ‘Well, British. I don’t know. I was seven.’
Joe looked at Ellie.
‘Welsh, perhaps?’
Rosanna stared at him.
‘What?’
Ellie had stopped smiling.
Joe did not speak again. He let the realisation move where it needed to.
Rosanna looked from him to Ellie. ‘What do you mean?’
Ellie’s voice came out softly.
‘I think we could have met before.’
Rosanna’s mouth parted.
‘That was you?’
‘I think it was.’
‘No way.’
Ellie gave a little laugh, though her eyes had filled. ‘You said, “Thank you, ma’am.”’
Rosanna put both hands over her mouth.
Phil looked from his mother to his wife and began to laugh, not because it was funny, but because astonishment had to go somewhere.
‘You’re joking.’
‘No,’ Ellie said. ‘I remember. You were sitting with your family. You were wrapped up even though it was warm, and you looked thoroughly fed up with everyone fussing over you.’
Rosanna lowered her hands. ‘That does sound like me.’
Marietta laughed. ‘It absolutely sounds like you.’
Rosanna turned sharply.
‘Joe?’
Joe looked first at Ellie, then at Cliff.
‘I remember you from back then.’
Cliff blinked. ‘You remember us?’
‘Enough. You came in before dinner. You bought a beer, a small wine, and a lemonade.’
Cliff pointed at him. ‘You served me at the bar.’
‘I did.’
Ellie shook her head slowly, as if the past had walked into the room and taken a seat beside her.
‘That young man was you?’
‘Yes.’
Rosanna stared at him. ‘And you never said?’
‘I had no reason to be certain until now.’
Phil leaned forward. ‘Hang on. You remember Mum and Dad from nineteen sixty-three?’
Joe looked at him.
‘And I certainly remember you, Phil.’
‘Me?’
‘The moment I saw you in the hotel bar.’
Phil’s expression changed as he understood.
‘My interview.’
‘Yes.’
Rosanna looked at Phil, concentrating hard, as if pulling a face out of a sunlit room twenty years distant.
‘Come to think of it,’ she said slowly, ‘I remember you from then.’
Phil pointed at himself in disbelief.
‘You remember the little fat boy with glasses?’
Rosanna looked him up and down, utterly unashamed.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you look a lot better now.’
Cliff laughed first, a full helpless laugh that made Ellie laugh too. Marietta covered her face for a moment, shoulders shaking. Joe smiled into his glass.
Phil leaned back in his chair, one hand against his chest.
‘That may be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.’
Rosanna reached for his hand.
‘I married you, didn’t I?’
‘After a considerable improvement, apparently.’
‘Yes. Timing matters.’
Ellie was still looking at Rosanna, not as the singer, not as the woman who had filled a theatre that evening, not even as Phil’s wife, but as the child at the next table with tired eyes and a blocked nose.
‘My little friend,’ she said.
Rosanna’s amusement faded into something gentler.
‘You remembered me?’
‘Of course I did. You were so poorly. And so polite.’
‘I was probably being watched by my mother.’
‘That helps.’
‘It does.’
Ellie reached across the corner of the table. Rosanna placed her hand in hers.
For a moment, neither of them seemed ready to let go.
Phil looked at Joe.
‘Why didn’t you tell me? In nineteen seventy-three, I mean.’
Joe rested both hands around his glass.
‘Because you were there for work.’
‘And?’
‘And I wanted to know whether you were right for the work, not whether memory made me inclined to like you.’
Phil absorbed that.
‘Did it?’
Joe met his eyes.
‘A little.’
Phil laughed softly. ‘At least you’re honest.’
‘Not always immediately.’
‘Clearly.’
Cliff looked from one man to the other. ‘So when Philip went for that interview, you already knew he was the boy from the restaurant?’
‘I knew I had seen him before. Your faces confirmed it. His confirmed it. But people change in ten years. Boys especially.’
Rosanna tilted her head at Phil. ‘Some improve.’
‘You’re enjoying this far too much.’
‘I am.’
Ellie squeezed Rosanna’s hand again.
‘And all this time, I thought you were just a little girl in a restaurant.’
‘I was.’
‘And now look at you.’
Rosanna did not answer lightly. Perhaps she could not. She looked down at Ellie’s hand holding hers, then back at her face.
‘I did get better,’ she said.
Ellie’s expression softened.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You did.’
Around them, the room carried on: glasses, low laughter, chairs moving, the soft after-concert disorder of people reluctant to let an evening end. But at their table, another evening had returned whole. Heat outside a restaurant near Torre del Greco. A Welsh family abroad for the first time. A young man behind a bar. A child with a cold. A kindness small enough to forget and strong enough to last.
Phil lifted his glass.
‘To the next table,’ he said.
Joe raised his own.
‘To what sits there before we know its name.’
Rosanna smiled at Ellie.
‘And to Welsh ladies who are mistaken for English.’
‘British,’ Ellie corrected.
‘Welsh,’ Cliff said.
‘Welsh,’ Rosanna agreed.
They drank to that.
And twenty years closed, not like a door, but like a circle drawn at last around all the people who had been inside it from the beginning.