Where Everything Seems Double by Penny Freedman (good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📗

a while; but instead of making us use this time together fruitfully the consciousness seems simply to weigh on us. We browse a bit over the friends we have left behind and I ask some desultory questions about her expectations for the coming term, but by the time we get to Euston we have been silent for quite a while, and we proceed in silence to meet Ben at our appointed spot. But it is not Ben who is there to meet us – or rather not just Ben. Ellie and Nico are there too. And they are all smiling. Nico rushes to hug me, Ellie gives me a quick peck on the cheek, and Ben, as he embraces me, whispers in my ear, ‘New Year resolution.’ My immediate reaction is to take this as an instruction to me – I am being enjoined to behave myself in the coming year – but he is smiling still, and I understand that his words are an explanation: Be nicer to my mother is Ellie’s resolution. I look at her again and see that she is carrying a gift bag, as are Ben and Nico. For me? My no-longer-expected Christmas presents?

Dizzy with the prospect of things looking up, I say boldly, ‘Do you have to dash back or shall we have lunch at Cucina Nonna?’

They accept with such alacrity that I realise that they were expecting something of the sort and it would have been a serious error not to have offered. ‘I’ll treat us to a taxi,’ I say. ‘Come on.’

Alessandro, the proprietor of this small Italian restaurant just round the square from my flat in Bloomsbury, is overjoyed to see us all, and comments (rather pointedly I think) that he has not seen all of us for a long time. While he is taking our coats and stashing Freda’s and my bags, he has a conversation in Italian with Ben, too rapid for me to understand, but I have the feeling that, man to man and Italian to Italian, Ben is explaining that there has been trouble among the women folk – ‘dispute tra le donne’. I may be wrong, but Alessandro gives an expressive shrug and then gives a quick, slightly anxious glance at me. He has reason to be anxious as I have form: David and I once had a disputa here that was ferocious enough for Alessandro to decide that we couldn’t be trusted to share a pudding. In the interests of harmony, he offers us complimentary prosecco ‘per il nuovo anno’.

While we are waiting for our antipasto misto I am given my presents – a copy of The Second Sleep from Ellie, a miniature rose plant, brought back from Italy, from Ben and from Nico a photo of his birthday party featuring him cutting into his cake with great concentration (this I take as compensation for my having been excluded from the birthday celebrations). I am genuinely pleased with all of them and everyone can be happy.

The meal is perfect, as always, we manage to steer the conversation off contentious matters, Alessandro beams beatifically on us all as we depart, and I walk with the family to the Tube, where we bid farewell with hugs and must seem, to the naked eye, like any normal family. I watch them disappear into the bowels of the Underground and then I walk home, trundling my suitcase like a tourist. It is already turning to dusk and the square feels empty and quiet.

Descending the steps to my front door, I feel as though I have been away for more than three days, though there is very little mail on the mat. I frugally turned the heating off when I left so the place has the damp chill of winter abandonment, and as I close the door I am enveloped in the deep silence of a place that is not expecting anyone else to enter it any time soon.