Freja sat at the dressing table in her bedroom, frowning at the battered little treasure chest. A pile of misshapen paper clips, safety pins and hairpins lay in front of her carved wooden seal. The skin on her thumb was red and raw.
Three days ago, on returning from the Trevi Fountain, Tobias had shown her how to pick the lock on their apartment door using her bobby pin. She’d practised all evening until she’d been able to do it with her eyes closed.
The first lock mastered, she’d turned her attention to the little treasure chest. Every morning, she’d spent at least thirty minutes bending wire objects into new and hopeful shapes, poking them into the keyhole on the treasure chest and twiddling them about. It had, however, remained firmly locked. Even when she’d bashed the treasure chest against the marble fireplace. Even when she’d kicked it across the bedroom floor and called it two or three nasty names under her breath.
This morning, Freja was feeling calmer, more hopeful. ‘One last try,’ she sighed, pulling a bobby pin from her hair. She bent it into an innovative new shape and stuck it in the keyhole. Slowly but firmly, she twisted it to the right and felt the pin catch on something. ‘If only I can —’
‘I say, old chap!’ Tobias stood at the door. ‘That’s the treasure chest! The one that Clem and I dragged from —’ He stopped abruptly, ran his hand through his hair and tugged at his left ear.
Freja leaned forward, hoping he might continue.
‘Trying to pick the lock, eh?’ Tobias chuckled. ‘I admire your determination. You really are ever so much like dear Clementine. But it won’t work. It’s not that sort of lock.’
Freja blushed, bent the bobby pin back into shape and pushed it into her messy hair. ‘I miss Clementine,’ she whispered. ‘I just wanted to —’
‘Yoo-hoo! Ciao!’ A woman’s voice, Italian, called from the other room. ‘Have you forgotten me, Signore Appleby?’
‘Sì! Sì!’ cried Tobias, running back into the living room. ‘I had forgotten you! Completely and utterly!’
Freja crept to the door and peeped out. The guest was Nonna Rosa Esposito. Nonna Rosa and her husband, Enzo, ran Trattoria Famiglia, a nearby restaurant where the girl, the dog and the writer sometimes dined.
Nonna Rosa was old, short and plump. She had dark, soft eyes and grey hair pulled back into a bun. She stood inside the front door to their apartment, her hands folded across her white apron.
‘I forgot all about you, dear Nonna Rosa!’ cried Tobias. ‘You see, I am terribly absent-minded! Just yesterday, I made a pot of tea with oregano instead of tea leaves. And this morning, I washed my hair with toilet cleaner. It stung my eyes dreadfully, but I do think my noggin is looking very clean!’ He smiled and pointed to his hair, which looked as much like an overgrown mop as ever.
‘Sì! Sì!’ Nonna Rosa chuckled. ‘Absent-minded. It is because you are the writer. Writers are always — how do you English speak it? Bunkers.’
‘Bonkers,’ said Freja, then she blushed because she had spoken so loudly.
‘Ah, bella bambina!’ Nonna Rosa smiled, her eyes twinkling at the sight of Freja, who was dressed in red from head to toe — red skivvy, red skirt, red jumper, red tights and red gumboots. Sprigs of red berries dangled and danced around the hem of her skirt.
‘I have come to see if you would like to visit for the morning,’ the old woman said.
‘Alone?’ Freja whispered.
‘No,’ said Nonna Rosa. ‘The big, hairy dog will come too.’
‘Woof!’ Finnegan leapt to his feet and wagged his tail. Nonna Rosa was a good sort who always had a bowl of ravioli or a soup bone for a hungry hound.
Freja looked to Tobias for guidance, but he was staring at the ceiling, scratching his head with the point of his pencil. He’d already drifted away into the pages of his story writing. She looked back to Nonna Rosa.
‘Enzo is driving me crazy!’ cried Nonna Rosa, throwing her hands in the air. ‘He is so lazy. All day long, he slouches behind the bar, talking, talking, talking with his silly old friends. I need someone sensible to keep me company . . . someone to stop me from hitting him over the head with my frying pan.’ Her words were harsh, but her eyes were soft and smiling.
Freja took a deep breath. Be brave, she told herself. For Clementine . . . For Tobias. Nodding, she took Nonna Rosa’s plump, warm hand and left the apartment. Finnegan was right by her side, grinning and dribbling.
Trattoria Famiglia was dark, cluttered and cosy. It felt more like Nonna Rosa’s own dining room than a restaurant. The walls were hung with photos of her children and grandchildren and an enormous painting of the Pope. The beams across the ceiling were draped with bunches of plastic grapes, strings of fairy lights and clumps of real garlic.
‘Pah!’ grumbled Nonna Rosa, flapping her hand towards the bar. Enzo and his friends were drinking grappa, even though it was only ten in the morning.
Enzo was old, short and wide, just like Nonna Rosa. He had dark, merry eyes and fluffy grey eyebrows. The top of his head was bald and shiny, but grey hair grew in a frazzled fuzz around the sides of his head. As Freja walked by, he smiled and lifted his glass. ‘Bella Freja! Buongiorno! You are looking splendid today! Like a rosy red apple.’
Four old men turned on their stools, smiling. They all lifted their glasses and greeted Freja warmly.
‘Buongiorno!’
‘Ciao! Ciao!’
‘Hello, beautiful girl.’
‘Ciao, bella.’
But by the time they’d finished their greetings and drunk a toast to the beautiful child, she had vanished.
Overwhelmed by the rush of attention, Freja had crawled into a sheltered nook beneath one of the tables. She regretted it immediately and might have crept back out except that Finnegan had followed her, blocking her path.
‘Nonna Rosa will be cross,’ Freja whispered.
The dog licked her nose.
‘At least you love me,’ she sighed.
The dog licked her face all over, starting at her chin and working his way up to her forehead. He finished off with a deep, probing slurp to her ear.
Freja smiled. Finnegan always knew how to make her feel better. She lifted the edge of the tablecloth, stuck her head out and whispered, ‘Psst. I’m sorry for hiding, Nonna Rosa. I got a fright.’
Nonna Rosa shrugged. ‘Poor little bambina!’ she shouted. ‘I don’t blame you. Five ghoulish old men. They are a terrible thing to see. I would be hiding beneath the table with you, bella. If only I was not so fat. If only my old bones were not so stiff.’
She stomped towards the kitchen, tossing a second scoffing ‘Pah!’ over her shoulder at Enzo and his friends.
Freja and Finnegan crawled out of hiding and slipped through the door behind her.
For three hours, Nonna Rosa and Freja worked quietly side by side, chopping vegetables for soup, stuffing figs with mascarpone, kneading bread dough and making fresh pasta. Nonna Rosa gave few instructions, but taught a great deal. Freja watched and copied, and when she needed a little more help, Nonna Rosa used her plump, old hands to guide Freja’s in the way they should move.
‘We cook with our eyes and nose and mouth and these,’ said Nonna Rosa, wriggling her fingers in the air. ‘The recipes are not so important — you can read them or make them up! The secret to cooking something delicious is choosing the best ingredients and touching the food in just the right way.’
Freja held up ten long, flat strips of freshly made fettuccine.
Nonna Rosa pressed her fingertips to her mouth and made a kiss. ‘Bellissimo, Freja! That is the most delicate fettuccine I have ever seen. Tonight, when my customers eat their fettuccine Alfredo, they will think they have stepped into the finest restaurant in Rome! You already have a good touch with your clever little hands.’
Freja smiled and draped the pasta over a rod that hung along the kitchen wall especially for this purpose. She wiped flour off the tip of her nose and giggled as Finnegan licked his way across the tiles, from one side of the kitchen to the other.
‘Now,’ said Nonna Rosa, ‘I must take you home to the crazy writer before he misses you.’
This time, Nonna Rosa kept a reassuring grip on Freja’s hand as they walked back into the restaurant. The old men were still sitting where they had left them three hours ago, laughing and slapping their knobbly hands on the bar.
‘Look at them!’ scoffed Nonna Rosa. ‘Four silly old men perched on their stools, drinking grappa, eating walnuts and figs. Like a row of fat squirrels lined up on the branch of an oak tree. Useless! They think they are all so clever and amusing. If they were so wonderful to be around, their wives would not be sending them out, day after day, to my trattoria. The only time they go home is to eat their suppers and sleep. It’s not fair, Freja. It’s a cruel, cruel joke on poor, tired Nonna Rosa.’
‘Don’t listen to the old bat!’ said Enzo. ‘She’s just cross because she has no friends and I have many. She’s too grumpy. Gives too many orders. Nobody likes a bossy old goose.’
‘I like her,’ whispered Freja, pressing closer in to Nonna Rosa and her wide skirt.
Enzo tossed his tea towel over his shoulder. ‘Of course you like Nonna Rosa!’ he cried. ‘That’s because you are an angel. Just look at your golden hair — a halo of goodness. You are sent here today by God himself, to keep my nagging wife happy and to be her friend when no-one else will give the old bat the time of day.’
Nonna Rosa grabbed a breadstick from the nearest table and threw it at Enzo. He ducked behind the bar. The breadstick ricocheted off a bottle of wine and fell to the floor.
‘Woof!’ Finnegan pounced on it and gobbled it up.
The old men roared with laughter, rocking back and forth, clutching at one another’s arms to keep themselves from falling off their stools.
Slowly, cautiously, Enzo popped up from behind the bar. He slapped his hand on the counter, shouted, ‘Pazza nonna! Crazy grandmother!’ then burst into laughter.
And then Nonna Rosa and Freja joined in, laughing until tears ran down their cheeks.