‘Don’t ask,’ I whispered.
I would have done anything for some time alone with this man.
Marc’s eyes held mine for for ever. Then they glanced sideways, to the four children, who were all gathered round, watching.
‘Pooh! What’s that awful smell?’ said Marc, a master of distraction, his gaze sweeping around the assembled children. ‘Is it you, Kirsty?’ he sniffed in her direction. ‘Noooo … Is it you, Billy? … Uh uh. It must be Emmie? … No, it’s not Emmie! Then who is it? It’s not Olivia, is it?’
‘It’s Ben!’ shouted the children, jumping up and down, beside themselves with laughter. Ben, delighted to be the centre of attention, squealed and bounced on the soles of his feet.
Marc picked Ben up, turned him upside-down and sniffed his bottom.
‘Pwoar!’ he cried, making exaggerated wafting gestures with this hands. ‘This is not going to be pretty, Liv. Why don’t you go down and get yourself a drink and we’ll see you in a minute.’
‘All right,’ I said. As I left the flat the children were gathered round him inspecting the malodorous contents of Ben’s nappy.
fourteen
Banned from the buses (and our parents weren’t above searching our pockets, bedrooms and secret hiding places for cash to make sure we couldn’t get into Watersford), Anneli and I were forced to be bored and broke in Portiston. We did once try to hitch a lift into the city, but the first vehicle that stopped contained a large woman with a florid face in a flowery dress with dark sweat stains under the arms who asked us if we realized what we were doing was very dangerous and we might be picked up by a stranger in a white van who would do unspeakable things to us. The second vehicle was a white van driven by an exceptionally leery man with a large, slavering dog and a pornographic magazine in the footwell. So we gave up on that idea.
We had no money, so we spent a couple of weeks on the beach. There were days when it was warm enough to sunbathe, and then we would take off our Tshirts and jeans (the cut-offs had been confiscated, along with our bikinis and other offensive items of clothing) and stretch out on towels in our embarrassing regulation black school swimming costumes, trying to sophisticate the look with pink heart-shaped sunglasses we’d got free with a teen magazine. We rubbed Ambre Solaire into each other’s backs and legs. I recall that lovely, cosmopolitan, elegant smell, the delicious oiliness of our hands and the warmth of Anneli’s skin beneath my fingers. And then we’d lie, side by side, the only people on the beach, chewing Wrigley’s Spearmint and listening to Anneli’s portable radio, which brought the world to Portiston beach, and made us realize how much we were missing.
After a couple of weeks of this, we were so bored we thought we would die. We needed money and the only way to get money was to find a job. There were two places in Portiston that offered work to teenagers. One was the newsagent’s, which occasionally had vacancies for newspaper-delivery boys and girls. The other was Marinella’s. This being literally a stone’s throw from the beach, we got dressed and went in. After all, we reasoned, approximately half of Portiston’s teenage boys were resident there, even if they were so boring we wouldn’t deign to speak to them if they were the last boys on Earth.
Angela was a formidable woman. She had her standards and they were high standards and they never slipped. So when two gum-chewing, slightly grubby teenage girls in wedged espadrilles, jeans and cotton shirts tied above their belly buttons teetered in asking for work, she gave us the most scathing of looks and said, ‘Sorry.’
‘But there’s a postcard in the newsagent’s saying you want waitresses,’ said Anneli, pushing her heart sunglasses back on to her head.
‘And I do. But this is an upmarket establishment with well-presented staff.’
The implication was not lost on either of us.
‘We don’t always look like this,’ I said. ‘We’ve just come off the beach.’
‘Yes, Olivia, I can see that,’ said Angela.
We were crazy that summer, but not stupid. We went back to my house, knowing it would be empty, and took turns to bathe and wash our hair. Most of my clothes were either on my bedroom floor or scrunched up at the bottom of the wardrobe. It was impossible to work out what was clean and what was dirty. Fortunately for us both, Lynnette’s room was a completely different matter. She had a choice of long, formal-ish skirts and clean blouses, all neatly ironed and ranged on hangers. Anneli and I tried them all on. The clothes we didn’t like, or that didn’t fit, we simply threw on to Lynnette’s bed.
Very soon I was wearing a white cotton shirt with a collar and cuffs and a black skirt patterned with tiny daisies. Anneli was wearing a beige shirt with a ruff down the front and a shorter, pencil skirt. We were both wearing new, unsnagged tights from a packet we’d found in Lynnette’s underwear drawer, and Anneli, whose feet were the same size as Lynnette’s, had purloined a pair of flat, soft-leather pumps. We dried each other’s hair with Lynnette’s hairdrier and combed it straight and shiny. We put on a modest but effective amount of make-up. We pinned our hair off our faces with Lynnette’s kirby grips.
‘Now we look like waitresses,’ said Anneli as we stood, hand in hand, admiring ourselves in Lynnette’s mirror. Behind us was a scene from a war film: clothes strewn everywhere, drawers upturned, towels and cosmetics scattered about the place. But Anneli and I looked the business. We went back to Marinella’s and we got the jobs.
fifteen
Downstairs, the staff had closed the shop, pulled down the blinds and prepared the room for a party.
The tables had been pushed together to make one long table, which was decorated with white linen cloths, fresh flowers, yellow napkins and candles in glasses. Bottles of wine were distributed at intervals along the length of the table which was set for seventeen people, counting the baby. It looked less symmetrical than normal. That was because, without Luca, we were an uneven number.
I greeted Carlo and Sheila and their teenage children. Carlo is the conservative brother. He is completely different from the others, in looks and personality. He is the same height as Stefano, but heavier and fleshier. He doesn’t have the same bone structure as the others, his eyes rest on pillows of flesh, there is no clear demarcation between the end of his chin and the beginning of his neck, and his body is corpulent and flabby. Carlo works for the police in an administrative capacity. Luca used to say he was the man who sent tickets to people unfairly flashed driving at just over the speed limit on stretches of road where going just over the speed limit was the only sensible thing to do. Luca used to get a lot of speeding tickets. Carlo is a complete conformist. It is quite incredible that he, and the equally self-contained and repressed Sheila, a small, mousy woman who is a primary-school teacher and an unbridled disciplinarian, ever managed to conceive two children. The children have been, to date, models of good behaviour. Luca used to be convinced this would not last for ever.
‘Lauren might look like butter wouldn’t melt but she probably sells blow-jobs behind the bike sheds and when Andrew gets hormonal they’re going to know all about it!’ he had said at Christmas. I had reproached him, for the children are sweet and kind and much nicer than their parents.
‘Yeah, but come on, Liv, it’s unnatural for teenagers to be sweet and kind, they are supposed to be permanently pissed off and selfish,’ Luca said.
‘A bit like you?’ I said and squealed as he lunged at me. We were in the guest bedroom at Angela and Maurizio’s house in Watersford at the time. We were changing our clothes after the traditional family Boxing Day hike up to the cathedral. It was only four months ago. That was the last time, not counting the funeral, that the family was together.
‘Olivia?’ It was Fabio, standing before me wearing his normal, hard-to-read expression.
I gave my head a tiny shake to dislodge the memory of Luca, and smiled at Fabio, although I didn’t touch him. Fabio has some kind of disorder which makes it difficult for him to interact with other people. He doesn’t like to be touched except on his
own terms.
‘Hello, Fabio, how are you?’ I said.
‘Oh, huh, well, you know, um …’ said Fabio.
‘Am I sitting next to you?’ I asked.
‘Mama has made a seating plan.’
‘Of course.’
As if on cue, Angela clapped her hands. ‘Come on, everybody, find your places, hurry up now.’
There was fond laughter at Angela’s legendary organizational skills. Maurizio, at the end of the table, put on a Marlon Brando voice and complained that he felt like the Godfather. It was an old joke and it made things feel more normal.
I was placed at Maurizio’s right hand, and beside me was Stefano. Lauren was directly opposite with Nathalie to her left. Marc was on my side of the table but at the other end. I couldn’t even see him.
We said a quick grace, and were invited to pass round great platters of bruschetta, hand-made by Fabio. This large, lovely boy had been taken out of school at the age of seven because his teachers had classified him as ‘subnormal’, yet he was a genius in the kitchen. The senior features writer from the Watersford Evening Echo had once called and asked if she could come and do an interview with the man she had dubbed the ‘Rick Stein of Portiston’, and Maurizio had had to keep putting her off because he didn’t want her to find out the truth about Fabio. You could just imagine the headlines. Sometimes – often – I hated myself for all the little cruelties I’d inflicted on Fabio when I was a child.
I bit into a mozzarella-and-chilli bruschetta and tasted happiness. For a second I forgot myself and just enjoyed being part of the noisy family group around the table. Then Maurizio touched my wrist and I jumped back into my skin.
‘Sorry, Olivia, I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wondered if you would prefer red, or white?’
I looked up. From the other side of the table, Nathalie was watching me.
‘I’d rather just have water, Maurizio, if that’s OK.’
He shook his head. ‘No, today it’s not OK. I’m requesting the pleasure of a drink with one of my four favourite daughters-in-law. If you’re worried about driving home, you can stay here tonight.’
Nathalie pulled an expression which signified this would only happen over her dead body.
Maurizio had a bottle in either hand and was waving them in front of me.
‘Red, then, please.’
‘Good choice, darling. Good choice.’ Maurizio took my glass and filled it. ‘And may I say, Olivia, that you are looking particularly lovely today.’
I raised my glass to him. ‘And you, Maurizio, are as full of shit as ever.’ Nathalie heard that all right. I saw her wince but Maurizio chuckled and gave me a little hug.
I leaned round Stefano to raise my glass to Fabio, who was soaking up the gallons of praise being thrown his way from every corner of the table. At the other end sat Angela, composed and clearly pleased that the whole family had made the not inconsiderable effort to be there. She must have decided to ignore the fly in the ointment that was me.
The children soon forgot that this was a happy-but-sad occasion on account of poor Uncle Luca not being there, and as the wine flowed and the food was eaten, so the babble and chatter of voices around the table became louder, and everyone, even Nathalie, relaxed.
I was glad to be next to Stefano. He’s the intellectual brother, a tall, thin man with a big nose, a big smile and a big heart – definitely the most like his father. Stefano has a doctorate from the University of London, and due to our geographical proximity, Luca and I used to spend a lot of time with him, Bridget and the children. Bridget’s lovely too. Now a bit of a dreamer with short bleached hair and a nose stud, she used to be quite radical. She has pictures of herself as a student at Greenham Common protesting against the cruise missiles, and was arrested on numerous occasions for trying to protect trees from being chopped down, illegal immigrants from being deported, calves from being transported live, and so on. Stefano adores her, and she him, and the kids are lovely too. As wine was poured, and the waiting staff brought out little bowls of pasta in the lightest, most delicious sauce, Stefano and Maurizio paid me almost undivided attention, and in the enjoyable circle of their dual spotlights, I had no opportunity to remember, or to feel lonely.
By the time the meat was brought out, I was too full to even look at it, and just picked at the communal salad, dark green leaves polished with olive oil and jewelled with pomegranate seeds and slivers of orange; it was such a pretty meal. Then Stefano pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and asked me when I was coming back to London.
‘We miss you, Liv. You should come home,’ he said. Across the table I sensed Nathalie stiffen and prick up her ears.
I twirled a leaf around the prongs of my fork. ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘Anyway, the agency called this week. They’ve found tenants for the house. I’ve nowhere to go back to.’
‘So?’ Stefano shrugged. ‘Come and live with us. We’ll abuse you and treat you like an unpaid au pair, and you know how vile our kids are, and nobody ever cleans the toilet, ever, but we’d love to have you.’
‘You make it sound so appealing.’
‘Ah, come on, Liv. It’s a big house. You could have your own space. Your own share of the filth and squalor.’
‘Thanks, Stefano. I appreciate it, I really do. But I need to be up here for now.’
Nathalie was pretending to listen to something Lauren was saying but I could tell from the angle of her head that she was more interested in our conversation.
‘Sure.’ Stefano pursed his lips and nodded. ‘Sure, I understand. But at some point, Liv, you’ll have to draw a line under this.’
I looked down at my plate and nodded.
‘We understand that you have to grieve,’ said Stefano, ‘but there comes a point where living in the past becomes unhealthy.’
I drained my glass and helped myself to a top-up.
‘There are no happy endings for you in the past. You have to move forward, Liv. You have to look away from here. Get away from here.’
Nathalie’s eyes were like little fish darting this way and that.
Stefano leaned closer to me and spoke into my ear. ‘Come back to us, Liv. We’ll look after you. If you stay here, if you do what you’re doing now … well, it’s not helping anyone. Least of all Marc.’
My heart plunged. My mouth was dry. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing. I’m just … we’re just worried. Marc’s not coping. He keeps disappearing. He won’t talk to anyone. You remind him of Luca, he’s told us that. Having you so nearby is just making it worse for him. And you’re not coping either, baby. We’re worried about you both.’
Stupidly, embarrassingly, my eyes filled up with tears and overflowed at once. I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand. I shook my head and teardrops fell on the tablecloth.
Stefano put his cool hand on mine.
‘I tried to let go of Luca, but I couldn’t, I can’t,’ I said.
‘Perhaps you should try again.’
I nodded. I was beginning to feel claustrophobic. It was hot in the room, and somebody had turned the lights down and set up the karaoke machine and the disco lights at the far end of the room, next to the fireplace. Two of the grandchildren were sharing the microphone, doing exaggerated actions and belting out ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’, to the considerable delight of their cousins.
‘Sorry,’ whispered Stefano, covering my other hand with his. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
I shook my head. ‘No, no, you haven’t. Really.’
I heard Nathalie, clear as anything, say in an exaggerated whisper, ‘There she goes again – the dipso drama queen.’
Lauren, to whom this remark was addressed, flushed and examined her napkin.
I felt Stefano tense beside me. He leaned over the table and said quietly but distinctly, ‘Enough now, Nathalie. Leave her be.’
Later, as we cleared the table, Marc asked me what Stefano had said.
‘He thinks I should go back to L
ondon,’ I said. ‘Everybody does.’
‘No,’ said Marc. ‘You shouldn’t, you can’t, not now.’
‘He thinks that me being in Watersford is making it harder for you.’
Marc held my eyes. ‘You being in Watersford is the only thing that’s keeping me sane,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t leave me.’
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I won’t.’
sixteen
The professor’s office was on the ground floor of the history department. It was a large, high-ceilinged room that had probably once been a drawing room. There was ornate cornicing where the ceiling met the walls, and a chandelier caught and threw the sunlight beneath a huge ceiling rose. On the walls were pictures of Watersford throughout the ages. My eye was particularly attracted by a landscape which had been painted when the city was still undeveloped and sheep were grazing where Angela and Maurizio’s house now stands.
The professor, once he had shown me in, sat down beside a large, old-fashioned desk which was satisfyingly piled with papers and books. The floor was covered with papers and books too. There was a cork board propped against the desk, and that was pinned three-deep in messages and notes and to-do lists.
There was a second, smaller desk in the far corner of the room, next to one of three tall sash windows. A pile of faded cardboard files stood beside a dusty and bulky old computer.
I sat down, as invited, on a worn, squashy and immensely comfortable cracked-leather settee. There were unwashed mugs on the carpet, which hadn’t seen a vacuum cleaner in a good many months if the motes that danced in the light were anything to go by.
The professor coughed, rubbed his cheek and said, ‘Yes, well, um …’
I smiled, my hands clasped on my knees. I was trying my best to look like a real research assistant. The effect I was aiming for was intelligent and demure with hidden depths.
The Love of My Life Page 8