Learning to Love

"Am I?" I was actually feeling very much a man, and it was good to have her tell me so, just to confirm my feelings. I kissed her and we rolled together and made love once more before getting out of bed and showering.

As we left the hotel I took her hand. "Come with me."

"Where are we going?" Maria asked as I led her to where I and noticed a cab setting down passengers. I signalled the driver just as he was about to pull away from the kerb. We slid into the back seat and I gave him my address. It was a short ride, no more than ten minutes and this gave me time to compose myself for what was about to happen.

"Where have you been?" Mother didn't disappoint. "And who is this," a quick look down her nose at Maria, "person?"

"Mother, I would like you to meet Maria, I work with her."

"It would appear that you do more than work with her."

"Mother," I took a deep breath and launched into what I had to say. "I have been working with her for the past six months in her parents' café." Another breath. "I have dropped out of University and I'm going to pursue a career in the restaurant trade as a Cook and work my way to become a Chef."

It took a minute or two for this to sink in, and then came the expected explosion. "WHAT!" She screamed at me. "Have you gone completely out of your mind? Is this what I have devoted my life for? Is this what I have sacrificed any happiness that I might have expected out of life to achieve? I wanted you to get the best education that I could afford and you throw it all away to work in some second rate café with this, this, slut?"

"Maria is not a slut."

"You have obviously been with her all night, so she's a slut."

"Mother! How dare you talk about the woman that I love like this!"

"Doesn't that beat all? Now your in love with her and the next thing you will tell me is that you want to marry her. Over my dead body you will!"

"If that's the way that you feel about this then so be it. There is nothing that you can say to me that will change my mind, and before you scream at me again, isn't this exactly the same conversation that you had with your father when you told him that you were going to marry my father?"

This stopped her in her tracks, for a short time. "That's a completely different scenario. I was planning to marry an academic against his wishes, an academic, not some waitress or whatever she is, working in some," pause for the belittling effect, "café."

"Mother, what I'm about to say will probably upset you, and for that I apologise in advance. For all of my life you have belittled my achievements, and you have made me feel guilty and inadequate, and told me over and over again about the sacrifice that you have made for me. And I believed you to the point that I had no self-confidence at all, I was the victim of every bully in school, and that included the teachers, and I never had the courage to stand up to them. I was never able to reach my full potential because I never had the confidence to go after what I wanted to do. It was always about what you wanted me to do. I had to work hard just to please you, but you never gave me any praise when I had achieved that. You made me feel inadequate even when I got good grades. You may in your own way, love me, but did you ever once tell me that? You made my life miserable, but since I have been working with Maria I have found love, real love, and I have had my achievements recognised, I have been encouraged to chase after my goals, I have been encouraged to become a man. It is this man that is going to tell you something that you should have been told twenty years ago. Mother, get a life, go out there and find yourself, make friends, do things that you want to do rather than that you feel that you have to do. Go and make peace with your father, and maybe, just maybe, when he sees you he will welcome you back into the family that you walked away from all of those years ago."

"How dare you speak to me like this." She glared first at me and then Maria. "I suppose that you put him up to this." She said to Maria.

"No, I did not. I had no idea that he was going to come here this morning, that he was going to bring me here. Having said that, I am very proud of him for doing this. He has shown himself to be the man that I knew that he could be, the man that I love."

"Love, love? You are much too young to know of love."

"How old were you when you first met Dad?"

"That was different."

"How was it different?"

"I don't know, it just was."

"Mother, you are being irrational. Go and talk to Grandad and patch things up with him. And then go and do something different, go on a cruise, go shopping for new clothes that are in fashion, not last years disposal fashions. Get out of this house and live, really live." I put my arm around Maria. "Maria and I are just about to venture on a life together." Her arm went around me and she hugged me to her. "We want to remain friends with you, to support you in whatever you want to do with your life. The last thing that we want is to watch you continue to wallow in self pity."

For once Mother was speechless. "Mother." Maria said. This brought a sharp reaction from her, but she resisted the urge to say anything. "What I would like is for you to come to our café and dine with us and my mother, get to know this other life that Mal has embarked on, get to know the people who see so much potential in him, who encourage him to achieve that potential. We promise not to poison you."

Mother actually chuckled at that. "I suppose that I will have to, I'm never going to change his mind, am I?"

"No. We will see you at 7:00 at Café Frangelico, formal dress not required." She smiled and kissed my astonished mother on the cheek.

As soon as we arrived at the café we knew that something had happened.

"Where have you been?" Maria's father was angry, and he was not alone, a man that I was soon to learn was Antonio's father was with him and equally angry. "I find you sneak out of the house last night and do not come home. You dishonour you father and make Antonio's father very angry, because you are meeting this boy for jig-a-jig. I have warn him what will happen if he no leave you alone. Men are on their way to teach him lesson that he no forget. As for you young lady, you must go to Antonio and beg him to forgive you and hope that he will still marry you."

"I will not marry him Father, he is not the man for me."

"How can you say this?"

"Because he likes little boys, he is, how would the Australians call him, a Poofter. I will not marry him, never."

"What is this you say, that he is a fairy?"

"Yes, and he likes them young, he will make a good Priest."

"You shut up you face. You no speak like this."

"Giuseppe, you listen to me." Giovanna stood in front of her husband. Maria is not to marry Antonio, she is in love with Malcolm and she is to marry him."

"You not tell me what she do, I am you husband, and you tell me nothing."

"I tell you everything. I'm no longer married to you, I want to divorce you."

"If you want this then you will have to sell this café because I take half of this business."

"You cannot do that."

"Why you tell me I can no do this?"

"Because I no longer own it."

"What you mean you not own this business. Your father give it to you, and there was no money owing on it and now you say you not own it. How can this be?"

"I will not tell you this, it was mine to do whatever I want with it, and I no longer own it. You go to our house and pack your bags with your clothes and leave. You take just your clothes, everything else stays."

"We see about this, I go to see Lawyer about this." He went.

"You no longer own this? What has happened?" Maria asked.

"I have signed the title over to you two."

"Where did you get an idea like that?"

"One day this man, a professori I think he said, came to speak to me about you. He had spoken to you about your future and you expressed that you were happy here with us. He came to see for himself what attracted you and we got to talking. I told him that I wanted to divorce my husband but would not do it if my husband wanted half of this café. It was his idea for me to sell the business to you and Maria so my husband has no claim on it, You owe me one dollar, by the way. I did this for you, but I also did it for me. I wanted to get him out of my life and at the same time give both of you something that you can call your own, to do with as you wish, together. I presume, just by looking at you, that everything went as you dreamed last night."

"It went better than I dreamed it would. My man and I went to see his mother this morning, and he told her that he had dropped out of University to pursue a career in this café."

"She took it pretty much as I imagined she would at first, but then she calmed down a lot. She is coming here for dinner this evening." I said. "Maria and I will make a special dinner for her. We want you to stay here and work with us, you know too much of this business for us to let you walk away from it."

"I will stay for as long as you like me to stay, but I will also be looking to do things that I have not been able to because of this business. I want to travel, to go to Tuscany where my family was from, just to feel the life that gave birth to this café, eat the food that we make here, drink the wines. I might not like it as much as the food and wine here in Australia, but then maybe I will."

"You do whatever you want with your life and we'll be happy for you, just as long as you are here when the children arrive."

This brought a sharp expression from Giovanna. "What aren't you telling me? You made love for the first time last night, you are on the pill, it is impossible."

"Yes, it is impossible now, but it will happen in the future. Now we must make everything perfect for Mother."

Gino prepared a Lasagne to die for, it was ready to go into the oven as soon as Mother arrived and would be perfect. I was a little dubious at first, given Mother's lack of experience in anything more exciting than very basic meat and three veg, but I changed my mind when I tasted the béchamel sauce that he used, it had a dash of mustard to raise the intensity of an otherwise bland sauce, while at the same time took some of the intensity out of the meat sauce's chilli. Giovanna made a Tiramisu that was so much better than the commercial crap that is served up in some restaurants.

The café was spotless, there were table cloths on the tables, the condiment dispensers were polished brighter than they had ever been, wine glasses, reflecting almost as much light as a mirrored disco ball, sat in wait for the finest wine that we could find. I still had this nagging feeling that our perfection would still not be good enough.

"Don't worry," Giovanna said as I flicked in imaginary speck of dust from the clean table cloth, "She will not say anything if she knows what is good for her. Go help Gino."

She was punctual. She came into the café and stood just inside the door taking it all in. Maria hurried to her. "Welcome to Café Frangelico. Would you come this way."

"No, I'm waiting for someone, he's parking the car." The door opened and an older man came in. "Maria, dear, I would like you to meet my father Sir Giles Thornleigh, Father, this is Maria, the young lady that your grandson has fallen in love with."

"Forget about the Sir Giles, it's just plain Giles to family, or you can call me grandad or something like that." He took her hand and then kissed her on the cheek. "I have heard a lot about you, about how you have enticed the boy away from a career in Law and into the restaurant trade. I wish to hell that I had the guts to have done something like that instead of bloody Law."

"Father! Language, please."

"Gloria, we are here for a celebration of sorts, don't be so stuffy for once in your life."

They were seated and Giovanna came over and was introduced. "We have prepared a dish for you this evening that I am certain you will enjoy. We have several excellent wines to choose from." She handed Grandad the hastily prepared wine list. "All of them will compliment the meal. For dessert we have a Tiramisu made from the same recipe that my grandmother passed down to my mother, and she to me. If you like it, I will hand the recipe down to Maria."

Grandad chose a wine and Giovanna went off to get the bottle.

"Where is my grandson?" Giles asked.

"He is in the kitchen preparing the food. I will get him."

Maria and I came out of the kitchen with the Lasagne and placed the plates in front of them. "Malcolm, I could never understand why your mother chose to burden you with that name, I dumped it at the first opportunity and took my second Christian name instead. Malcolm, I have been following your life, from a distance, not because I wanted to, but because my daughter chose that, and I must say that I was surprised to hear that you had dropped out of Uni. When I heard the reason I just had to investigate. I spoke with your tutor who filled me in on the details and I have to tell you that I approve. I know that I have a reputation as something of a superstar in the legal profession, but that was a defence mechanism, a lucrative one I have to admit, to help me make as much money as possible with the least effort. I never liked the thought of so many uncaring people controlling the destinies of so many people. A good Lawyer cannot afford to care for his clients, it distorts his reason and his ability to deal impassionately with the case."

This was something that was never taught in Law School, it was all about how wonderful the legal profession was, and the people who chose it as a career.

"And then your mother goes off and marries a second rate Lecturer, who just happened to have had a reputation for taking advantage of the most naive of the female students and bedding her. When his wife kicked him out, he chose Gloria to marry, knowing that she would not say anything about his philandering. In a way I was pleased when he died, and would have welcomed her back into the family if she had come to me, but your mother is stubborn, I know, she got that from me, and I have waited for years for her to come to me. I understand that I have you and your Maria to thank for this."

We were busy and, although we had taken on another waitress for the night, we were run off our feet. Gino and I were flat out keeping up with the orders and as soon as one table was vacated I was out there clearing up in preparation for the next customers and taking the dishes out to the kitchen and into the dishwasher. Maria and I took whatever opportunity presented itself to stop by the table and talk with Mother and Grandad. They stayed until after the last customers had left and we had cleared all of the tables.

"This is a gold-mine, do you realise this?" Grandad said as he drained the last of the second bottle of wine. "Have you given any thought to going up-market, to catering for a more exclusive clientele?"

"We prefer it this way," Giovanna said, "if we give the customer better food than he pays for, he goes away happy, but if he pays a lot more for it, and it doesn't meet his expectations, he goes away unhappy and tells his friends. In this trade a good reputation is worth a lot of money, but bad reputation costs more."

"An interesting way of looking at it, and I have to agree with that. Food, and wine, are very subjective. Take for instance that Lasagne, it was not what I was used to, and expected, it was better, at least I thought so, but another diner might have thought differently. The meal is exactly the same but the result is different and, while some of my acquaintances will agree with me, they will probably say nothing, but if I told them that I thought that it was rubbish, you can be sure that they would spread the word, taking my opinion as gospel."

"I'm glad that you liked it." Giovanna said. "I'll tell Gino."

"I understand that you may have some problems with your husband." He asked Giovanna.

"I don't think so, what I have done is strictly legal and cannot be successfully appealed."

"If he gets a good Lawyer he can appeal the transfer of title through the court system right up to the High Court, that will place the transfer in limbo for a long time."

"But this will cost money, he has none."

"Does he have access to your personal or this business account?"

"He has no access to my personal account and I have to countersign any transaction that he wishes to make from the business account."

"I suggest that you transfer the business account either to Maria or to a Holding Company so that he has no claim on it. If you have any problems, I am offering my services, free of charge, to you. If he tries anything we'll screw the bastard to the wall."

"There is one thing," I said, "He has made threats against me personally, do you think that we should take out a restraining order in case he or Antonio's father or any of their friends try anything?"

"Good thinking, go to the courts in the morning, when you speak to the Clerk of the Court, mention my name and tell him that he should grant it as a favour to me."

I could not believe that this man who I have only met on a couple of occasions, and who has been effectively alienated from me by my mother, should be doing this for me, for us. It must have been some reunion between him and Mother."

"He is a good man, your Grandfather." Giovanna said after they had left. "Now we must go home, we have much to do in the morning before we open up."

I went home with Maria and Giovanna, I had to protect them, at least that was my excuse, not that I needed an excuse. I was feeling comfortable as a part of this family and there was no thought of me sleeping anywhere other than with Maria. "Don't stay awake too long you two, we have a busy day ahead and you must realise that now you own the café, you will have to do most of the work that I usually did."

"And I thought that you were a slave driver." I told Maria. "You have nothing on your mother."

Making love to Maria was better than it was last night. I was no longer scared of failure, and I had the confidence that enabled me to control our lovemaking. Maria held me after we had reached the point of exhaustion. "Darling, I love you very much, and I am loving making love with you, having you caress me, and when he is inside me I feel that I am in Heaven. A week ago I could not have dreamed that it would be as good as this."

"Maria, my beautiful Maria, I am this good because of you, and because I have learned, for the very first time in my life, what it is to love."

We had only just fallen asleep when the front door bell rang. We heard Giovanna walk past on her way to answer it. There was a mumbling of voices and a short time later there was a tap on our door. "Maria, Malcolm, it is the police, they want us to go to the café, there is a problem."

"What sort of problem?" I asked as I scrambled into my clothes. I was beyond caring that a halfway decent pair of nostrils would pick up the scent of our lovemaking. Maria scrambled into a tracksuit and sneakers and followed me to the living room. "What has happened?"

"Someone has tried to set fire to your café. A police patrol spotted a couple of man acting strangely in the alley behind the café and called it in. When reinforcements arrived the men were just about to set a rubbish bin alight. The amount of accelerant in it would most likely have caused a massive explosion and, because they were still in the immediate vicinity of the bin, the might not have survived. We did them a favour, but they might not thank us when this gets to court."

"Do you know who these men are?"

"One of them claims that he is the owner, and was responding to an alarm call out."

"He is not the owner, he might have been married to the owner, but has never been the owner. The man is, or was, my husband. He has just found out that I want to divorce him and that he has no claim on the business as part of any divorce settlement. He is angry enough to do something stupid like this. The other man is probably a friend of his whose son was promised to Maria. The son is gay and doesn't want to marry her, and she definitely doesn't want to marry him, but the two fathers cannot accept that and have made threats against Malcolm here, who is Maria's fiancé."