by Anna Chillon
He folded his arms across his chest. “Are you taking the piss out of me Giada?” I had never heard him speak to me in that tone. He wasn’t joking. “I’ve known you since your Mum changed your first nappy, I took the first photo of you.”
I gave up brushing my hair. For some reason I felt uncomfortable that he had seen me nude, even if I had a nappy on. I turned around a bit disrespectfully. “But then you went away for years and now I’ve grown up.”
“It was only three years, and a long time ago. Now I’ll see for myself how much you’ve grown up. I can see that men have started to show an interest.”
“That is none of your business.” I replied, irritated.
He frowned at me. “From now on it is my business all right, therefore show me some respect, little Miss.” Your father has asked me to keep an eye on you as a favour and I gave him my word, so it would be better if you keep out of trouble while I’m responsible for you. Which means for the next two months.”
“You’re taking this too seriously.”
He furrowed his thick brow, dark like the moustache that framed his mouth. “I’d like you to take it seriously too, otherwise it’ll be me Aron takes it out on.”
He always shortened the name of my father Aronne like that. Before I was born, Vincenzo and Aronne had left for a coast to coast trip in the states on a small budget, without a car, and upon their return they were Vincent and Aron. The same as before but different inside.
And now Vincent, a man used to living alone and looking after himself, found himself suddenly in charge of a girl who had no intention of behaving herself. A real nuisance. I almost felt sorry for him.
“Don’t worry, as usual nothing happened, as nothing ever happens in my life...” I threw the hairbrush on the chest of drawers.
“You’re barely eighteen, what do you think should be happening?”
“Anything that would be remotely exciting.”
“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.” I noticed that he was gazing vaguely around the room at the shelf of soft toys and then the tags in the frame. I must have appeared very childish.
“You don’t understand” I blurted out.
“Maybe not you, but I understand Simon perfectly, I was a boy in my twenties too, once upon a time.”
“Yes, twenty three years ago.”
“I’ve got a good memory. And look at me while I’m talking to you.”
He made me sit down on the chair. I tried to keep eye contact but my gaze kept wandering to his huge nose right in the middle of his face. “Listen, we need to see each other often over the next few weekends. I think it would be appropriate, for a peaceful life, to reach a compromise. I’m just asking you to not do anything stupid and not just jump on the first available guy. I want your word that you will behave maturely.”
God, I much preferred when he took the piss out of me. This situation was a massive nuisance for us both.
“Does that mean that I can do the things that adults do?” Trying to smile maliciously, hoping to somehow get him on my side.
“En-Oh. No, absolutely not” He put his hands on the arm rests, his closeness pushing me to lean back in the chair. “Can you tell me what you have in mind, Giada?”
“Nothing. I would just like my parents, and now you, to let me live a bit, and why not, give me that chance to make mistakes.”
From his expression it was obvious that he didn’t like my answer, but I was saved by my Mum calling us from the stairs. “The coffee will get cold!”
I felt Vincent’s brown eyes holding me on the chair. “Aron didn’t just ask me a favour, he has given me the authority to discipline you. You need to know that I can ground you just as much, if not more than your Dad. I advise you not to do anything wrong while you’re on my watch, ‘mature woman’, or you’ll discover how strict I can be as a parent.”
As he left he gave the chair a push, sending me round half a spin finding myself in front of the mirror with a strange expression on my face, other than anger.
I was sure that something had just happened. Although I was alone in my room my heart was beating unusually. It was normal: I’d just found out about the free weekends and Simon had hit on me in my own bedroom, two reasons to make your heart beat faster. But now I knew it wasn’t that that had disturbed me.
That ‘something’ was the light breeze that had come so close it had tickled my skin, announcing the imminent arrival of a storm that would turn me upside down. I’d be shaken by the impetuous wind, hit by the hail, in the dark, blinded by lightening, slammed to the ground and blown into the sky. If I had only imagined I would’ve already started screaming.
Chapter 3
That afternoon I called Zoe and met her right away to tell her everything. She was excited, dubious, and a bit jealous of my almost kiss with Simon. We started to make plans that in reality were fantasies plucked out of thin air since we didn’t have the means or the acquaintances to host our pyjama parties, pizza parties or dressing up parties.
I had permission from my parents to invite Zoe to sleep over at our house, but unfortunately Zoe was grounded for saying that she had slept at mine one evening when in fact she had gone dancing to the coast with her cousin who’s in her thirties. Even though I hadn’t let it slip her Mum had found out and she was still serving her sentence.
Thinking of Vincent’s warning, I imagined that for me to go the coast could be another one of the ‘immature’ things that I needed to exclude from my parole. Nothing stopped me from sending Simon texts though.
He started off:
“Thanks for lunch. Gorgeous food. Gorgeous girl. Shame about the scumbag.”
Zoe was at school with me on Monday when we read his message at break time. She helped me to reply:
“Thanks for the company. Nice parents. Bad boy. Got anything for me?”
I actually didn’t want any more grass, I just wanted him, only according to Zoe thought I had to play a bit hard to get: pretending to be more interested in what he was dealing would have made me look less desperate.
The reply arrived immediately.
“I have what you want. In a hurry?”
“No. School, homework, I’m not going out. Rubbish. You?”
“Community service today. Tomorrow tourist day out at the old man’s office.” He was talking about his Dad.
I typed in a hurry. “Careful lawyer. Nay, accountant.”
“Go fuck yourself… with a bad boy.”
Zoe let out a little cry when she read it. I flopped against the wall and laughed up at the sky, surer than I’d ever been of one thing: Soon I’d lose my virginity with a bad boy. I just needed to make sure that Vincent didn’t interfere with my plans.
I was so naive, I didn’t yet realize a “bad boy” wouldn’t have just taken my virginity, but much much more.
The back and forth of piss taking with Simon carried on almost all week and as the weekend approached I got more and more excited.
Saturday morning at six I said goodbye to my parents as they left. Mum hugged me as if she was leaving on a spaceship to Orbit, and gave me hundreds of instructions. Aron was less dramatic; he gave me a kiss on the cheek and he reminded met to call Vincent if I needed anything, or him or Mum, for anything at all.
I watched them driving out of the gate, having bad thoughts. I’ll admit that I felt a strange sense of abandonment, but it was soon overcome by the idea of finding myself alone in the house, able to decide finally for myself when and what to eat, what to watch on TV, how long to spend on the phone and who to ask over. There was a massive range of freedom that adults tended to take for granted that now was all mine.
I went to school, when I came back I called Mum just to say hi. When I came into the house the silence in every room felt a bit strange. It wasn’t the same silence that there was when my parents were at work in Rome. It was a silent lack of control. I liked it.
I took one of Vincent’s beers from the fridge because I knew it was double malt, cracked i
t open and drank to the occasion. I had drunk about half when I felt my eyes fill up. I kept them wide open as long as I could until the tears streamed down my face wetting my lips. Again this feeling of emptiness that I couldn’t put my finger on. It was like being a piece of antique wooden furniture with a termite inside: from the outside you couldn’t see it, but it carried on dig, dig, digging until every now and then it popped out to then dive back inside to carry on the hidden corrosion.
Sprawled on the sofa, I held the bottle in one hand and the tag from a scarf I bought that day from the bus station in the other. I took the ticket off carefully, without breaking it, wrapped the scarf around my wrist and I tied it tight enough to stop the circulation, pinching the skin. I carried on drinking opening and closing my fist while I could feel pins and needles in my hand and it’d gone cold. It was satisfying on one hand, while on the other it made me think that I wasn’t totally normal.
A text arrived from Simon.
“Alone?”
“Alone.” I had trouble typing because I was losing the feeling in my hand.
“Guard dog?”
Vincent hadn’t shown himself yet. “In the kennel. Wanna…” I didn’t know how to explain it. He would’ve misunderstood the ellipsis, but that suited me fine.
“8.30 at yours. Mistake guaranteed,” he replied.
I had to think about really taking up smoking, maybe it would’ve helped me stop brooding so much. I tended to think a lot and dream too much, only my dreams weren’t the same as all the other girls. Often I thought about macabre things: my pink bedroom covered in blood and I read books about monsters and vampires.
I leant my head back on the headrest and attacked the bottle. The sound of the key turning in the lock opening the security bolts, made me sit bolt upright. The jolt had thrown beer over my cheek; I wiped it away and dried my eyes, searching for a place to hide the bottle. I put it under the table, where it only just fit.
Then I remembered the scarf and I tried to take it off pulling at the knot with my mouth.
Our lounge, with two sofas and arm chairs, a fireplace, TV and bookcase, faced the front door, So Vincent saw me as soon as he came in. I imagined that he would’ve rung the doorbell when he came to see me, instead he just used the keys as if he was in his own home.
I hid my arm in the most natural position possible, even though it was really starting to hurt a lot.
“Hi. Everything OK at school?”
Even my Dad wasn’t this predictable.
“Hi, Vincent. Do you want me to tell you about the art history lesson or chemistry?”
He hardly looked at me at all. He went straight into the kitchen.
Twisting my head around I saw him standing in front of the fridge, looking inside. Maybe his count wasn’t adding up.
He decided to get a beer and join me.
“What happens if you cover a floating candle with a glass?” He asked me, sitting in the armchair opposite.
“The candle goes out and the water rises.”
“You get an ‘A’ in Chemistry” he said.
“Maybe you mean physics. In any case I’d like you as my teacher” I replied half laying across the sofa. My intention was to make it look as if I’d been dozing.
He took a sip of ice cold beer and then leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I’m off to do a bit of shopping on my way to the studio. Do you need anything?”
“No, thanks. Mum’s left the fridge full.”
It was a cloudy day, with little daylight coming in the window. In the dusky light, Vincent scrutinized me and made a strange observation.
“Have you been crying?”
“No. Why?”
There was a strange silence that seemed dense with words.
“Looks almost as if you’ve got shiny eyes. You’ve got a tear here” He touched underneath his right eye.
“It’s because of my contacts.” I dried it off straight away without thinking what I was doing with my hand tied up in the scarf.
“I wear contacts too, but they don’t make me cry. It’d be best if you go and get a check up at the opticians.” His gaze fell to my wrist while I was trying to undo the knot. “What have you done there?”
I couldn’t wait any longer. “I bought it today, only that...” I bit my lip trying to pull the fabric apart, “It won’t come off.”
If I didn’t appear completely batty I don’t know what I did look like. He put his beer down, sat on the coffee table and leant over to take my hand. “Show me, I’ll help you.”
I looked exhausted, emotionally I was a bit. It was that tiredness that overcame me when I got the feeling that the future awaiting me was too much to bear. He was calm though, more so than usual.
I let him grab my arm with both hands; one held mine that was going cold, the other held the hot part where the scarf was pulling and my skin was pinched. He swallowed, his adam’s apple moving down and looked at me stock still with a serious expression on his face.
“What were you trying to do?”
“Oh nothing, just playing around.”
I went to pull my hand back, but he held it tightly, unexpectedly.
“You enjoy yourself playing like this?”
What kind of question was that!
And at that moment something very strange happened inside. For an instant I felt that I didn’t have to justify myself to an adult and for the first time ever I stopped hiding, I simply replied ‘yes’.
It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth either.
In that moment the pins and needles travelled through all my limbs, and then faded so quickly like the cloud that I thought I saw passing across Vincent’s eyes that he squashed with a blink.
He undid the knot without saying anything and gave me the scarf, but his foot hit the bottle under the table, almost knocking it over.
He picked it up reading the label. “Is this how you want to pass your time?” he said in an accusing tone.
“No. I want to spend it between parties, drugs and rock and roll.” I filled my cheeks with air like a puffer fish. “Na... I was just celebrating. Can’t I even drink a beer every now and then?”
“Budweiser” he declared. “Or buy your own Tennent’s.”
I laughed. “Oh, that’s how it is, is it?”
“Exactly, that’s how it is.” He smiled too removing a bit or the tension from earlier. “Adele said that this evening you’re seeing your friend Zoe. I’ve got a dinner tonight, but if you like, before I go out I could take you both somewhere and pick you up afterwards.”
He really was taking his parental role seriously. “There’s no need. Zoe’s grounded, you go to your dinner, I’ll do myself a frozen pizza and watch the TV without anyone making me miss all the punch lines.” Mum always did that, instead of listening she expected us to explain the story line while she did ten thousand other things.
My phone beeped with a new message. Getting up, Vincent looked at it as if it were a wild animal.
“OK, but I’ll pass by when I get home. No boys in the house, understood?”
“Yes sir.” I made a military salute with my hand to my forehead.
He smiled with the corner of his mouth. “Exactly. That’s how you need to behave towards me. And ‘as you wish sir’ would be acceptable too as long as you stick to the rules.”
“And ‘take a ride sir’?”
He quickly caught the cushion I’d thrown at him in protest. “That’s not OK. That’s insubordination and could cost you dearly.”
He lifted the beer out of my hand and put the cushion on my face. He didn’t place it delicately, but pushed it down, stopping me from breathing. I knew it was a joke, but feeling breathless I shouted into the pillow and grabbed his arm, strong and tense, his forearms bare and covered in hair.
I expected his jokes, but I wasn’t prepared for such a physical attack. When he took the pillow away leaving me panting with my mouth open, I was surprised by his show of force and my body’s reaction. My heart was
beating like a drum.
I stared at Vincent on top of me, realizing that I hadn’t ever really had a proper look at him. I discovered that the face that I thought I was used to was new, not even close to the beauty of Simon, but a collection of detailed features. He had a big nose with a little hump at the end, deep eyes, brown, speckled with black ink. Underneath his cheekbones his slightly scooped cheeks gave a look of severity together with his thick eyebrows arched towards the middle of his face as if he was always frowning. His skin tone was darker than mine, rougher and marked, and the rough beard, a little longer on his chin, seemed very bristly.
Sandpaper, came into my mind, this man is made of sandpaper.
Maybe that was why when he smiled he came across more menacing than amused. I’d known him all my life and thought I could distinguish when he was laughing just for the sake of it. However, in that moment he wasn’t even smiling; I waited for him to say something but he didn’t utter a word .
He gave me the cushion and jumped up reclaiming the bottle. He made a few steps glug, glug, glugging in one gulp till he reached the door.
“Are you sure you don’t need anything?” he asked holding the door in one hand.
Maybe asking him for a box of condoms for the evening wouldn’t have been appropriate.
“I don’t need anything, thanks.”
And you? I don’t know why that stupid silent question came to mind.
Once Vincent had gone I realized I still had the cushion in my hand. I put it over my face pushing it down until I couldn’t stand it any longer, trying to make sense of the feeling I had felt just before, similar to a shock. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t reproduce it. It just served to remind me of the message on my phone from earlier.
“Are you alone or in bad company?”
It was Zoe, she wanted to come and see me in the afternoon. To wind me up she’d used the same tone as Simon in her message the scumbag.
I replied and she joined me an hour later. We talked about school and Simon, our most popular subjects. We were both unsure about how I should react if he tried to have sex with me.
I couldn’t expect a long courtship: If I didn’t give him what he wanted there was a risk that he would slip out of my hands, on the other hand it wasn’t good to give in too soon and come across as too easy. Guys like him talked amongst themselves, they never kept their mouths shut, especially about the girls they slept with. It was a question that didn’t have an answer.