maggots are already heaving within! Paradise, my arse! Rather a Third World shithole inhabited by vicious, envious swine whose only thought is to try and drag me down to their own miserable level of insignificance!’
He breathed deeply for several seconds, then smiled at everyone seated around the table to indicate the utter futility of any such attempt.
‘And now Professor Edgardo Ugo dares to suggest that I do not know how to cook! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! What does he know about Italian food and culture? He’s spent so long locked up with his musty books that he’s no better than you foreigners! Him, challenge me to prove myself? Don’t make me laugh! He lives in an ivory tower, like all academics. He cares nothing for the bel paese, but me, I love it with all my body and soul. That’s why I have dedicated my life to making the immortal masterpieces of our Italian cuisine accessible to the people, so that our long, proud and unbroken tradition may continue for many generations into the future!’
He burst into totally sincere tears. Several of the journalists began to gather their things together and eye the door.
‘For him, it is all the head, not the heart!’ Lo Chef continued, drying his eyes openly, unashamed of his worthy emotion. ‘He is a thinker, but Romano Rinaldi is a lover! I COOK WITH MY COCK!!’
Delia had long since given up any attempt at translating this speech, and was now bustling around speaking to the departing journalists. Sensing the prevailing mood, Rinaldi switched effortlessly into his perfect English.
‘Ugo dares quarrel me? Well! Soon he gets his want! This bastard say I know fuck nothing, but he is in error, my friends. Tomorrow I demonstrate once and for ever to you here, to my public, and to the entire world, that I know FUCK ALL!!!’
In the lobby, Rinaldi pressed the flesh assiduously, with Delia keeping a cautious eye on the proceedings.
‘What I do now?’ he replied to an unasked question. ‘I walk! I inhale the air, I mingle with the people, I absorb the unique culture of Italy that lies all around, and I draw inspiration for the contest tomorrow. Buona notte a tutti! ’
He walked out and up the street, turned several corners at random, then crossed Via Rizzoli, stepped up under the massive nineteenth-century arcade, ignoring the nasal whine of a crouched beggar, and strode in through a door beneath a neon sign depicting two golden arches.
‘Give me a Big Tasty, a McRoyal Deluxe, a Crispy McBacon and five large fries,’ he told the girl at the counter.
‘Is that for here or to go?’
‘To go, to go!’
16
‘So apparently the whole thing’s fixed! It’s supposed to be a free-for-all followed by an impartial blind tasting, but the jury’s been rigged. They’ll know which bowl Lo Chef’s stuff is in and then vote for it whatever it tastes like. So I’m afraid your Professor Ugo is bound to lose.’
Listening to Flavia chatter away, Rodolfo wished that he could enjoy his sense of power more. Killers were supposed to, by all accounts. That was what made it all worthwhile.
‘He’s going to lose all right.’
His doomed girlfriend had already devoured her entire pizza, including the crusts, and was now digging into a hefty slab of one of the semifreddo pies from the glass-fronted cooler near the door.
‘Besides, Lo Chef has been told the list of ingredients in advance,’ she went on, blithely unaware of her imminent fate. ‘He’s already chosen a recipe and practised it over and over again, just like my sister used to do with her piano test pieces at the conservatory. Mind you, there was always a sight unseen as well.’
Rodolfo looked up from the slice of pizza he had been morosely nibbling at for longer than it had taken to prepare.
‘I didn’t know your sister was a pianist,’ he remarked in a stilted, stagey drawl. ‘Does she have a thing?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You know, a career. Sort of like a job, only more glam.’
Flavia finally displayed the first signs of sensing that something was wrong, although she couldn’t of course have imagined in her wildest dreams that she was about to be shot through the heart.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied guardedly. ‘We’ve rather lost touch.’
‘One always worries so much about these creative people. A gal’s reach exceeding her grasp-or is it the other way around? Soaring dreams brought crashing down to earth, the inevitable brutal awakening to the harsh realities of life, and all that crap.’
Flavia made a moue he would have kissed, had it not been time to pull the trigger and have done.
‘For my people, this is normal,’ she said.
The waiter appeared with an unmarked litre bottle and two glasses, all frosty from the freezer. This was the home-made liqueur that was a speciality of La Carrozza, pure alcohol flavoured with a mixture of wild berries, lemon and spices, which was left on the table without appearing on the bill, a tradition of the house for regular customers. The upper two-thirds of the contents were a very light pinkish-purple, while the swamp of macerated berries occupied the lower section.
‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’ Flavia asked. ‘You never talk about your family.’
Rodolfo poured them both a drink, knocking his back to brace his nerves.
‘Just a father. He phoned me today and we talked a lot, for the first time in ages. Maybe the first time ever.’
Flavia smiled warmly.
‘That’s nice. What did you talk about?’
‘Failure. Professor Ugo expelled me from his course this morning. But I’ve decided that he unwittingly did me a favour. Failure’s the key to everything. That’s what these post-modern wankers don’t realise, or won’t accept. For them it’s all relative. There’s no such thing as failure, only alternative interpretations. It’s all a state of mind. I believed that bullshit for a while myself, but now my eyes have been opened. I’ve definitely failed. Shame about my academic career, shame about you, but that’s the way it is. I just have a couple of things to take care of-this was one, by the way-and then I’m off home.’
Flavia sipped her drink.
‘Ah, home,’ she said, lighting a cigarette.
‘Yes, but my home is a real place.’
Flavia drained the liqueur, immediately poured herself another and then lit a cigarette. She sat smoking in silence, looking all about the room at the other clients, the hefty padrone who made the pizzas, the two waiters who looked like that American silent film duo.
‘I had to go to the university library today to return some overdue books,’ Rodolfo said mechanically. ‘I took the opportunity of consulting the index in the latest edition of the Times atlas. No Ruritania.’
He paused, still not meeting her eyes, but there was no response.
‘So then I went to a computer terminal and did an online search. Apparently it’s the name of a fictional country invented by some minor English writer as the locale for a trashy swashbuckling romance. The one you were reading when we first met, in fact. What you called your “Italian textbook”. But the fact of the matter is that Ruritania doesn’t exist.’
Flavia lowered her face to the filthy tablecloth as tears welled up in her eyes.
‘It does exist! It does, it does, it does!’
Rodolfo smiled in a superior way and shrugged.
‘If you say so. Of course, some people might say you were mad, but I prefer to assume that you’ve just been lying to me all along. And I don’t care to be lied to.’
He placed some banknotes on the table.
‘Well, I must be going. I’ve got a biggish day tomorrow. That’ll cover the meal and a coffee, should you want one. Addio.’
