One Night in Italy Read Online Free PDF Page A

pink nose and halterneck top who was floundering for the right words. ‘Don’t worry, I’m English too,’ she said. ‘And we’ve got chocolate or vanilla ice cream.’
    The woman smiled gratefully. ‘Oh good! Thank you. My Italian is limited to say the least.’ She bent down to the little girl beside her who whispered into her ear. ‘And she’d love a chocolate ice cream, please.’
    ‘Coming right up,’ Sophie replied. ‘If you take a seat, I’ll bring those over in a few minutes.’
    She turned to the cappuccino machine, humming along with the radio as she set about the order. Other people might moan about bar and café work, but it reminded Sophie of being on a stage, performing to a crowd, particularly when the place was full and buzzing. If only you got a round of applause and a curtain call now and then, rather than measly single-euro tips, she’d like it even more . . .
    Still, working here had its compensations, not least being in sunny Sorrento, her own corner of paradise. Above the clatter and music of the café, you could just make out the high-pitched shrieks of seagulls down in the bay below, and she knew without looking that the usual collection of impossibly wrinkled nonnas would be sitting across the cobbled square doing their endless crochet together, their potbellied husbands animatedly setting the world to rights over tiny cups of espresso or a grappa at a table outside the bar. She knew the trattoria next door would soon be firing up its ovens and the warm air would be filled with the tantalizing scents of pizza and oregano, while the yachties paraded past, heading for Corso Italia and the designer shops. Girls with bare legs buzzed by on Vespas and car horns honked. Up above, the sun languorously traced an arc across the sky, casting golden light on the glorious old stone buildings.
    It was all so perfect. And she lived here! There wasn’t a single place in the world she’d rather be. Uncapping the Coke bottle, she found herself wondering what the weather was like back in Sheffield, and shivered as images of wet leaves, frosty mornings and chilblains sprang to mind. It was mid-autumn now, but still a balmy twenty-three degrees in Sorrento.
    ‘There we are,’ she said, as she took the tray over to the English customers. ‘Two cappuccinos, a Coke – is this for you? And one yummy chocolate ice cream.’
    ‘Thank you,’ the woman said, pouring Coke into the glass for her son. ‘What do you say, kids?’
    ‘Fank you,’ the boy mumbled.
    ‘ Grazie ,’ the girl lisped winningly.
    ‘Clever girl,’ her father said, ruffling her hair. ‘Thanks,’ he added to Sophie, ripping open a sachet of sugar and tipping it into his coffee.
    Sophie left them to it, but found she was clutching the empty tray to herself like a shield as she walked back behind the counter. She always felt extra judgemental about the British families when they came in – couldn’t help herself. This lot seemed okay, but you got some real horrors in affluent tourist areas like Sorrento: braying moneyed types who badgered their blushing, stammering children to order in Italian whether they wanted to or not; the ones you heard pushing, pushing, pushing all the time, never able to let their kids just chill out and enjoy their holiday.
    Parents like hers, in other words, who seemed to think that success was measured by the size of your bank account. It left you unable to ever quite shake off the feeling of being a disappointment, however far you travelled.
    ‘Waitressing in a café?’ she imagined her mother shrieking if she had the slightest inkling that Sophie was here. ‘What a waste of your education! All those years of private school – for nothing!’
    ‘Waste of your brain, more like,’ her father would thunder. ‘When you could turn your hand to anything you choose. Is this really what you want to do with your life?’
    Whatever! Was it any wonder she’d cut herself free, deliberately stayed away like a