She’d cooked in that restaurant for forty years. ‘Bella Julietta,’ she said to me over and over. She was dismayed—she told me through the waitress—that Pisa’s once-noble squares had been trashed by the students. But she was delighted when I told her, again through the waitress, that though, yes, many of Pisa’s charms were faded, I’d had perhaps the best food ever in that city. And that her coniglio alla Cacciatora, a rabbit stew with sweet small olives and a tangy pomodoro sauce, was the best meal of the lot.
I was back at the Keanu lookalike’s bar. ‘The light is very intense in Pisa. Very different to the other side of the country,’ I told him. ‘I was in Ravenna before here. The light is definitely softer over the other side.’
‘Which is more beautiful, Ravenna or Pisa?’
I told him Pisa, but I lied.
‘Florence? Do you like?’
‘Not really.’
He looked troubled.
‘Too many foreigners. When I’m in Italy, I want it to sound like Italy. Florence sounds like America, so many Americans! I know that my not speaking Italian is contributing to that whole not sounding Italian thing. I get that it is hypocritical. But this is why I don’t like Florence. It’s Rinascimento Disneyland.’
He laughed heartily at this.
‘But perhaps I should give Florence another chance. My head was in a bad place when I went there.’ It was true. One of the reasons I was not fond of Florence was one woman’s refusal to give me any table, let alone an outside one, at lunchtime because I was on my own. But it was my mum’s birthday, the day I missed her most, and only a couple of months after the magazine debacle. I was in an awful headspace. Sometimes our impression of a place can be greatly coloured by what is going on inside our noggins.
‘You must. Perhaps we can go there together. I will show you the lovely there.’
‘Well, I would love you to show me the lovely.’ I was beginning to have a silly little crush on Keanu. Not that I was looking. He just made me go a bit girly.
I hadn’t found my Pisan gelato shop, but my, there was some good eating there. In one day but over several visits to Salza dal 1898, one of the oldest bars in Pisa, I had enjoyed a really very okay gelato and also a schecherato, a black coffee shaken deliciously with ice and sugar and poured frothy into a cocktail glass. I had an excellent occhi di bue cookie with the schecherato also. And in the evening a glass of prosecco, accompanied by potato crisps, olives and little sandwiches, all of which came for the price of the drink. How was I not the size of a house?
I went for a ride around Pisa, admiring squares and churches. It actually did have some loveliness, here and there, and green too. The big green of course, was the Campo dei Miracoli, where perfectly kept grass tied the leaning tower, baptistery and cathedral together. That cathedral, mamma mia, it is an extraordinary space. I was far more impressed with it than that tower. But hardly any of the Pisan churches were open to the public, which didn’t help the city’s image at all. I did find some enchanting corners of this secretive little city. But it hid its gems, curling around them protectively for the most part, keeping them for locals. Lovely. Confounding though. It was as if it was saying, here you go: here is our Duomo and our leaning tower. The rest, this is only for us.
Some places, it is easy to find their centre. In Venice: San Marco. In Ravenna: Piazza del Popolo. In Roma, well, for my money it’s Piazza Navona. In Padua: Prati. In Verona: Piazza delle Erbe. I was curious to know what it was in Pisa. It was not the Piazza dei Miracoli. That was too, too touristy. I had yet to get a sense of locals there at all. There was a wonderful space, Piazza Cavalieri, flanked by Medici-era buildings but it was a thoroughfare, a crossroad for seven roads without even a roundabout. Quiet roads, fortunately. But if they put a big grassy island in the middle for people to congregate and let the traffic flow around, it would be brilliant.
Really quite confounding was Pisa.
*
Keanu was one of the sweetest handsome guys I had ever met.
I asked him about gelato. He recommended a shop called Coppelia on Piazza Cairoli where there is a statue by Leonardo da Vinci’s son, Pietro. ‘Very good gelato. Artigianale. Some gelato good but no good for you. This is natural. Good for you.’
Well then, it would be rude not to.
‘My favourite is pignolo.’
‘What is that, pine nut?’
‘No, nut is nocciolo,’ he said firmly. ‘Do you like fruit or cream?’
‘What’s with the hard questions? I like both.’
This perplexed him, as much as the idea of the island of the gay. You were one thing or another apparently, fruit or cream. ‘You go try pignolo.’ He motioned in the direction of the gelateria, which was not far away.
I discovered there that pignolo was indeed pine nut. It didn’t appeal. I ordered limone and fragola, my classics. I came back towards my bike, which was near the Keanu bar and saw that Keanu had sat himself down at the table I’d vacated. With a flourish, he motioned me over to sit down again.
‘This is not pignolo.’ He motioned at my ice cream. ‘Allora.’ He was very disappointed.
‘Excellent though,’ I said through a decidedly unladylike slurp of the artigianale goodness.
‘My name is Mario.’ He said it like he was singing opera.
I introduced myself. It was about time. We’d been talking every day for quite some time now.
‘Where is Romeo?’
Had I been cursed with this bloody name? I was beginning to wonder. ‘It’s another very good question, Mario. Dov’è indeed.’
‘Romeo is in Australia?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Have you met Romeo in Italy?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Well, I could have.’ It was true. I could have had any number of romantic assignations if I’d followed through on looks or heckles. Or perhaps, dinners. But that was not what I was looking for. And I wasn’t looking any more anyway. But if I was, I’d be looking for special.
‘In Australia …’ he began, and then he gave me the third degree about living there.
The next day I bought a book written by a Pisan local that contained cycling tour itineraries. Perfect. I got on my bike and followed one that appealed and in the process found an incredible church, San Francesco, and it was actually open. It is one of the most remarkable spaces I have ever seen, a fat rectangular T-bar cavern topped with six chapels and with the choir as the cross bar. It is dark and stripped back, yet rich in features such as a long walkway of tombstones, the remains of a mural by Giotto and vividly-coloured stained glass and bricks that resonate with centuries of worship. Outside there is a walled garden. It has grey gums in it. There was the strong smell of eucalyptus and crickets chirped in the heat.
Home.
I could hear traffic in there yet it was so peaceful, a very meditative place. I cried in there, purely because I was moved by that kind of beauty. But I was also asking God to help me trust in my newfound clarity. I knew, however, that the ultimate demonstration was not asking that. Trust was giving thanks, and believing in those thanks, that what you sought already was.
I did say a prayer again, for the partner that I would have one day. I knew I would find romantic love again. He could be someone like Mario, young, handsome and Italian. Someone that stunning was possible for me. This crush thing, I liked that; it meant I was willing again to be open to possibility. It had been nearly four years since I had felt anything for a man, now I was letting my head run with this Mario business. I was enjoying it. I hadn’t had a pointless crush for ages. I hadn’t allowed myself to. I was heartened by it for a number of reasons. I completely knew this was not reality. It was pure play. Usually, by now, at even the slightest twinge of crush, my head would have had us married and divorced and the whole box of complications to go with that, thus defeating the purpose of a crush. This could actually have been the first pure crush I had ever had.
It gladdened me on another front. I was basking in Mario’s beauty
rather than judging myself badly against it. I loved that there was something about him that I found a reflection of myself. And I loved that I was allowing my sense of romance even a touch out to play. It felt safe. Silly, but not ridiculous. Unlikely, but not impossible.
I was no longer threatened by my own emotions. I trusted myself to let them out for a spot of fun. And let’s be honest here: after a few years without a boyfriend, it was high time I got my flirt on again.
It was, that day, also my dad’s birthday. I chose to remember something nice about him, his goodnight cuddles, a hilarious, warm, spicy-smelling mix of affection and tickling. That beard was a riot. Him trying—I was also choosing to remember that. He took Erin and me to the Royal Melbourne Show every year for a number of years after my parents divorced. On one of those outings, we deliberately wandered away from him then followed him around while he looked for us. What strange children. And he took great care with Christmas presents. We were odd, wilful little girls and I think he liked our company because we were. God, he would be ninety or something now. I still thought of him in the 1970s with all his crazy grooviness and rugged he-manliness.
He’d like to be remembered like that.
Later on his birthday, sitting in the Pisa botanic garden I thought I saw a white dove. It flew into the sun and landed on the roof of a nearby mandarin-coloured mansion. I was on a garden bench in a revelry of grief. Grief for him. I cried deep, hot, sad tears, and I felt like I was shifting some eternal sadness, a sadness of lifetimes, as if I was strong enough now for it to pass through.
I heard a voice say, ‘It’s time. The sadness that has been holding you back, it’s time for it to pass.’
I watched the rooftop that dove flew onto, hoping to see it again, but all that came off there were brown and grey pigeons. And I thought: a pigeon is a white dove, only with different pigment. That white dove, it was everywhere, a layer of ordinariness away from its true nature of magnificence.
I recognised that in me. I was taking my layers off to reveal my magnificence. Yes, time to let this pass.
In the evening, I rode down the north side of the River Arno heading west. There is a street called Viale delle Piagge that runs along the Arno and a strip of park, with the trees and reeds that naturally would have run all the way along once upon a time. In places, when you look across the river through the wild trees and grasses towards ancient rows of houses, you could be in another century, save for the TV antennas.
It offered a new perspective on Pisa. Air, space and green. Air and space. At last.
19
Leaving Italy
’Tis to create, and in creating live
A being more intense, that we endow
With form our fancy, gaining as we give
The life we imagine, even as I do now.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto III
Lord Byron sold off his possessions and chartered a boat, upon which he would take medical supplies, ammunition, horses and a few good men to Greece. He had fancy uniforms made and took meetings on the terrace of his ocean-view villa, studying maps and reports from Greece. There was of course, that classic Byronic vanity to it.
Relations between Mary Shelley and Lord Byron had been terrible since the deaths of Allegra and Percy Shelley. But Mary put that behind her when the time came to farewell Byron. On 13 July 1823, she stood with Teresa as she watched a tender take the poet, Teresa’s brother and six others out to the Hercules, the vessel that would transport them to the Ionian Islands.
But he was already gone, from Teresa and from Italy. His mind and soul had been turned towards the east for months. And though Italy would always be intrinsic to his legend, and he intrinsic to its Romantic history, Lord Byron, the poet and Continental lover, had chosen a new life, albeit, and unbeknown to him, a brief one.
Did Lord Byron choose well in going to Greece? For the Greeks, yes. And so for the part of him, the man who ‘hath no freedom to fight for at home’, the answer was yes, too. For those who loved him, the answer was ambiguous. The heart breaks at loss. But true love allows the object of its devotion to do what it must do.
Goodbye is never easy, though, especially for true love.
Have I mentioned how good the food is in Pisa? I seriously had some of the best food of my life there. Seriously. The cooking was earthy and fresh and alive. It felt good for you. I thought that maybe one day, I would take a villa in the countryside not far from Pisa and come into town only to eat. But I would probably come every evening. At a garden trattoria called Al Signor Mimmo, out the back of my palazzo, I had a Livornese fish soup. It was strange soup (though not as strange as Luciana’s zuppa di te) because it was almost solid. It was beyond chunky with bread and massive bits of fish, whole squids and things. There was an Irish couple at a table next to mine who ordered it and split it and the woman went all po-faced and miserable before refusing to eat it and turning away like a three-year-old. That soup was blood-rich with tomato and the seafood was one second away from still being alive. I thought it was delicious. ‘It was too strong for us, we’re not used to it,’ her husband said apologetically to the waitress as she took it away. This is why you get bland food at tourist places.
I went to Lo Stuzzichiere to write for a while and drink coffee, went for a swim at the indoor pool—where I had to compete with about a million virile young Italian men who fancied themselves champions. I ate lunch, and felt the need for a nap. Then I got woken up by the garbos. So I yelled out the window at them—which was fine because they had no idea I was yelling at them, nor what I was saying.
Pisa might have been rough, but the Pisans were generally fantastic. There was a brilliant cast of regulars at Lo Stuzzichiere, which, by the way, meant The Teaser. There was a petite signorina who was a dead ringer for Pat Benatar and she was definitely la stuzzichiere herself. There was a loud-talking crazy guy who without hesitation marched up to people and bellowed at them merrily. Everyone brushed it off; it was so everyday for them. There was a pair of broody, black-wearing, very Hollywood indie-beauty lesbian students, with pale skin, jutting cheek bones and messy hair. Their relationship was played out for the rest of us to watch. They smoked and sulked, smouldered and smooched. A young, teetering-heeled tart with a heart was very taken with a boy living in the apartments above the café. Every morning she came and buzzed his door. Every day he ignored it. So every day she stood there, yelling his name for five minutes or so, before settling onto the stoop to wait it out. And every day, he eventually came down and let her in. There was a pair of brothers, one of whom was blind and mentally impaired, the other his devoted carer. The sightless boy would feel his pastry and cappuccino to negotiate it to his mouth and break into spontaneous giggles before yelling, ‘Ciao, buongiorno!’ to anyone who approached and sometimes just to the world in general. Such inspiring joy he had.
There were market stalls down the main drag on the north side of the river most days. One of them sold Sicilian dolce, but also these great rice balls filled with a rich tomato, meat and pea sauce. They were crumbed and fried. They called them arancini, a name derived from the Italian word for orange because of their resemblance to the fruit. But they were more delicious than any orange I’d ever met. The young man who sold them to me began with the ‘bella donna’ before asking me where I was from. The Australia answer was met with raptures of approval. The answer of ‘single’ to the question of ‘are you married’ was met with the jubilant suggestion that the two of us should get hitched and settle in Australia. ‘Si,’ I said, ‘Giovedi, te e me, chiesa di San Francesco, pomeriggio.’ Thursday, you and me, the church of Saint Francis, in the afternoon.
His mate behind the counter laughed along.
‘Cambio, per favore,’ I said, laughing myself. My change, please.
‘One kiss! Only one kiss!’
‘Cambio, you crazy Italian!’
Everyone was laughing now.
Next door to Lo Stuzzichiere was a Halal butcher. He sliced chicken breasts
for me on the spot and carved off nice steaks from an eye fillet. Well, I say on the spot. Because Italian butchers do things on demand, you can wait for half an hour to be served as they lovingly prepare cuts for the people in front of you and carry out their duty of exchanging gossip and asking how everyone is. For those of us brought up in the supermarket culture, it can be excruciating. But there’s no point carrying on about it. I stood patiently for twenty minutes with only one customer in front of me, which gave me time to look at what was in his refrigerated counter and join in some of the chit chat. ‘What are those round things?’ I asked, pointing to some plump, veiny dumplings of flesh.
‘Guess what they are.’ The butcher was highly amused.
‘Oh my God, they are, aren’t they?’
‘What do you think they are?’
My face screwed up involuntarily, like the Irish lady’s at the restaurant. ‘What is the Italian for bull’s testicles?’ Testicoli di toro, for the record.
‘You like to try?’
‘Are you out of your mind?’
The butcher was delighted. ‘They are delizioso! You come to my house, my wife cook them for you. She cooks them with breadcrumbs.’
‘Though everything tastes better with breadcrumbs, and though I would love to come to your house, if you serve me bull’s testicles, I will have to kill you.’
Enormous amusement I caused in the butcher shop.
On my last Sunday morning in Pisa I went to Salzi café for my coffee, and possibly the finest cornetto crema in Italy. I got custard over one side of my face when I bit into it. That’s the result you want when you bite into a crema.
Sunday morning in Pisa is extra low-key because the students are all sleeping it off. I had a lane to myself at the swimming pool. As I cycled from the pool to my apartment I felt again that unfamiliar, yet completely comfortable peace which had descended on me. Like coming home. Here is what it was composed of: faith, trust, knowing, patience, health, love (of life, self, immediates, God in all guises), creative fulfilment, material comfort and hope. And optimism. I once thought I had hope and optimism, but I saw now that in reality what I had was a yearning for any life but my own, to be anywhere but here and now. And a fervent belief that if I just kept willing it to do so, life would change.
Me, Myself and Lord Byron Page 20