It was a bright and sunny winter morning when we started out from Geneva, en route to a holiday in Italy. We aimed at attending the Pope's Christmas service in St Peter's cathedral in Rome. First stop, Milan. We should be there by lunchtime, my father said, packing us three women – my mother, my best friend and me – into the VW Golf, our bodies and heads nestled into warm acrylic blankets. It was high winter and freezing even through the car heating system, a portent of heavy snowfall later in the day. The road to the Mont Blanc tunnel was clean and clear, typically Swiss in its well-ploughed lanes, regulated traffic and well-behaved drivers. Through the mountain and out again, we were in Italy. The snow came down heavily, the roads packed down with ice, cars skidded on their snow tyres across the narrower, unpatrolled tarmac and no snowplough was in sight. Very Italian, we all laughed.
Reluctantly unwinding ourselves from our warm cocoons, my friend and I got out of the car to kick snow from the wheels, and found ourselves sliding over the glassy surface. Clinging to the door handles, stripping off our mittens to manage the small hooks, we managed to strap snow chains on to the tyres, hoping to prevent skidding any more than we needed to. The two of us got back into our nest of blankets and huddled together for defrosting, sticking our hands directly against the hot blast from the radiator vents. My father drove on, neatly navigating the slope onto a bridge. The car turned…and kept turning. We stopped a hair short of the concrete side rail, broadside on the road, all of us breathless and silent. Unlocking his hands from the steering wheel, to the orchestration of Mama's prayers and concerned questions, Papa slowly straightened the Golf and drove on.
It took us all morning to get to Aosta, ski capital of the area. It was packed out with people, cars, buses and ski shops, all barely visible in the windblown snow. We sat in slowly stewing silence, wanting to be fed and bored with the incarceration. Milan seemed a long way away, too far for lunch, at least. Finally pulling up at an auberge, we unkinked ourselves, stepping gingerly on to the ice and snow, holding on to the car, each other and the walls of the inn. Inside, a wall of warmth pulled at us, sending funny shivers into our shoes as we melted gently into the carpet underfoot. Shedding jackets and scarves, we found a table and sat down. Since it was already so late in the afternoon, there was little choice of food. When I found nothing that I would have liked was available, I threw an unreasonable tantrum, shooting myself in the foot by ordering a seafood risotto without thinking about it with my usual gustatory finickiness.
It arrived, neatly plated, steamingly hot and very fragrant. It was supremely tempting, with a wonderful air of fresh herbs, cheese and fish that were practically flapping, even in landlocked Aosta. As the waiter set the deep-bowled plate in front of me, I pushed my chair back and squeaked in alarm. The rice looked perfectly done, fabulously scented, deep pink shrimp, snow white fish, bright green peas and golden orange carrots winking at me from within in. The problem? Leering into my face with all the appeal of dead earthworms was an array of tentacles, neatly arranged around the plate in a pretty garnish effect. My parents, annoyed with my spoilt brattishness, watched with a certain adult serves-you-right air, while my friend leaned over and used her classes in animal studies to good effect by pointing out just where the suckers had opened their widest when the creature was dipped into boiling water – or whatever was done to it.
It was a long lunch. By the time we got to Milan, it was dinner time. All grouchiness had faded into exhaustion and we wanted nothing more than our beds. Which were four floors up in the pensione we were booked into, which had no elevator. Lugging our cases, trudging upwards, we found beds and collapsed….
(To be continued….)
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