Fiorentini's,
67 Strand Road,
Derry
BT48 7BW
HAD she lived, my mother would have been 96 this past week. But she didn't. She got as far as 85 when, seemingly cruising to her century, she was beaten by a delivery that came out of the back of the bowler's hand.
Alive one Thursday; dead the next. She died the day the John Lewis sale started. I remember seeing the sign in the shop window and wondering how people could be fooled by the bargains to be had. There's always a hidden price to pay.
There was a plan for her to move to Ireland to live with us here. She often said she would, but whether it would ever have happened is another matter. She lived in Liverpool all her life and, although she often spoke of wanting a new start, she was perhaps too attached to the familiar rhythms of her life, the sofa where she sat and did the crossword, the garden she tended, the church she attended every morning, helping in the sacristy, grumbling about the priest, bringing home the flowers left behind after funerals.
My mother was not one for the finer things in life. Possibly she felt she didn't deserve them. More likely, circumstances left her ill at ease in grander places, and she was more at home within the ordinary, with plainer fare, with people who offered instant understanding and unquestioning empathy.
Whenever her birthday came round, I would ask her where she wanted to go. Her answer was always the same – a café on the A565, the road north from Southport, close to where my sister used to live. Surrounded by flat fields and market gardens, it was a converted service station, the obsolete pumps still standing on the forecourt, sheltered by a canopy still bearing the fuel multinational's logo. Nothing grand here, neither venue nor menu, which she would consider carefully and then always choose the cheese and onion toastie.
Students queue outside Guapo next door for their Sunday cure. We enter Fiorentini's instead, where we have our pick of tables guarded by sentries of ketchup, vinegar and salt, standing to attention on the easy-wipe vinyl cloths.
It is not quite empty. On one side of our table, a woman sits alone, unsmilingly working her way through a bowl of ice cream, while, nearer the window, three generations of one family sit: the children overfaced by the giant battered fish in front of them; the grandfather, not yet as old as my mother would have been, unperturbed by the towering knickerbocker glory he has ordered. Between them sits one woman, mother and daughter, content just to have a coffee.
The decor is yellow. Italian scenes – paintings, photographs, plaques – hang on the wall. From the speakers comes Con te Partiro.
My toastie is just as you would make yourself. Opposite me, my daughter sits, hurrying through her sausage and chips, anticipating the ice cream that will follow. The chips are fine, though need more time in the fryer. The sausages are not the best, but they are more than good enough. The fish here is excellent.
The ice cream is vanilla, the only flavour they do here, served in a sundae glass. The toppings available are many. My little girl has chosen chocolate sauce and sprinkles. She gobbles down the wafer. The chocolate sauce and ice cream lipstick her mouth in light brown. She will take home the little cocktail umbrella fully intending to keep it forever. It will be lost by bedtime.
Six years old. My mother never saw her. A shame; they would have got on. My mother, reserved in the way of pre-war women, would have shown deep love not in smothering hugs and frequent kisses, but in winks and smuggled chocolate and secret smiles and constancy. My daughter would have learned from her the names of birds and flowers and how to solve anagrams. My mother would have tried to make her a Liverpool fan, rather than an Evertonian.
Fiorentini's is wrapped in déjà vu. It's familiar, undemanding, reassuring, accepting, solitary. Melancholy? A touch, maybe, though smilers still call in for rainy-day 99s. It is a fixture, though fixtures may be subject to change. Had my mother made the move, Fiorentini's would perhaps have become a favourite. But she left it too late.
The bill
Cheese and onion toastie £5.00
Sausage and chips £5.70
Vanilla ice cream £4.75
Total: £15.45
Telephone 028 7126 0653
