by Anna Chillon
“He left after almost an hour,” Tim explained, keeping his hands in his pocket and squashing the cigarette but on the asphalt.
An hour? How many things could they have done in an hour?
I swallowed back the tears that were threatening to emerge from one moment to the next and I carried on flicking angrily through the incriminating evidence.
“Is that enough for you?” Simon snorted.
I escaped from the circle they’d trapped me in. “But you didn’t see him go to bed with her,” I sounded pathetic, the tone of my voice and what I was saying, even to my own ears. Who was I trying to kid?
Tim rolled his hands in his pocket, shrugging his shoulders. “I suppose we would have needed to follow him into the house for that.”
“Or at work,” I murmured between my teeth, almost to myself, but I was heard.
“What kind of work does he do?” He gasped.
I sighed heavily, forcing myself to answer. “He makes photographic books for models and dancers.” If that’s what you could call them.
“I’ve changed my mind: I don’t want to be a footballer anymore.” Zoe wacked him on the head and he grabbed her around the waist. “Ah come on!”
She responded with a little hug, but then broke off because the talk was serious. “That girl looks about our age. Doesn’t that tell you anything, huh?”
It told me a lot of things, none of which were good and in particular reminded me that Vincent had expressly thanked God for never having children, right in front of me. There weren’t many valid reasons left for him to be spending time with her.
“I think Simon’s right,” my friend said, “he’s a certain age and he’s got a weakness for young girls.”
She said it with a certainty that seemed to challenge me to declare the opposite, but I could no longer argue. They’d managed to deal a hard blow. To see him at dinner with someone else, free to meet him during the week, in secret and with such affectionate behavior, was to receive, as they say ‘a kick in the balls.’ And it had happened because I’d blindly trusted him, and ending up getting hurt.
God, give me one plausible reason, please: tell me I didn’t do this to myself, but above all to my family, for nothing.
The tag from a rug of six hundred and fifty euros was on my bulletin board, but it was too late, I couldn’t take it back as a stupid mistake and get my integrity back, especially not morally. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed two fingers between them at the base of my septum. I controlled myself for a moment, turned and walked through the car park. “Let me think.”
“Where are you going?” Zoe asked.
I reached some grass and leaned with my hands against a poplar, my head was spinning it was so full of thoughts.
Breathe... breathe... fuck the breathing!
Simon followed me and Tim held Zoe back from doing the same. “Let's just leave them alone,” he told her.
I felt wrapped up from behind. Simon's hug was painful simply because he wasn’t Vincent. At the same time, he comforted me as if it were a tiny foothold in an enormous torrent.
I bent my elbows grasping his arms. “I have to give him the benefit of the doubt, Simon,” I said, crying. “Maybe you're right, and if so I’ve been a stupid idiot, it's all my fault.” I collapsed on the turf and he came down with me.
“It's not your fault he’s taken you for a ride.”
“But I have to hear it from him.” Seated on the grass, I remembered that barefoot night on the edge of a road, when a wolf was anxiously trying in vain to make me understand how sharp his teeth were. “I'll talk to him this Saturday, he'll have to explain himself.”
Simon sat down at my side, close enough to press his arm against my shoulder. “What are you going to do if you find out that you're not the only one?”
Pensive, I pulled up a blade of grass, rolled it around my finger and thread it between my fingertips until I felt the burn. A drop of blood escaped and I quickly hid it, wrapping my hands in the bottom of my sweatshirt.
Hiding that, like so many other little secrets that only my lover had been able to understand, I looked at the sky.
“If that’s the case, it will be over between us,” I said, feeling small and more lost than I’ve ever felt.
Chapter 13
The suspicion tainted my week. My mind scrolled through the hours spent with Vincent in search of any suspicious behaviour or words. There were so many details that I hadn’t thought anything of at the time, but now they fuelled my doubts. I remembered the messages that Vincent occasionally received on his mobile, the dinner he was supposed to be going to the evening he caught me with Simon, and the friend invited out to celebrate I don’t know what... was it her? The girl with the blue ring? Were there others, all young like us?
I was afraid the answer wouldn’t please me at all.
On Wednesday, when he came to see my father, I felt so bitter that I decided to hide. I locked myself into my room pretending to study, going out of my mind, and ended up making tiny black biro holes up my arm.
A couple of hours later, I heard Dad come out of the office and say goodbye to his friend. I couldn’t resist any longer, I rushed to the window, taken over by a need to see him that was stronger than any anger.
He crossed the garden on the cobblestones, came out of the gate and stood beside the streetlight looking up at me, as if he had telepathically felt my presence.
We looked at each other for a long time, my face remained expressionless. Vincent squeezed his eyes and realized something was wrong. I was an open book for him, even at a distance.
There was no goodbye, not even a nod, he just turned around, put his hands in his pocket, and walked home.
Shortly after his bedroom light turned on, my mobile vibrated the arrival of a message that violated the midweek silence imposed by him.
“What do you really need now?” He’d written.
“I need the truth,” I said.
His reply came instantaneously. “Wrong answer. Stop thinking about it. Stop making up lies and go to sleep.”
***
Saturday took ages to arrive, yet it still caught me unprepared. Coming home from school, I was so keen to see him that I found myself willing to accept any miserable explanation that would allow me to stay with him. I had stooped that low.
I hadn’t even worried about my appearance. I still had my plaits in, chipped nail varnish and a two day old T-shirt. I burst through the door, leaving it to close itself, dragging my feet.
He wasn’t there.
I went up to go and change and found him in my room. He was lying on my bed, legs crossed and arms folded behind his head, with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. With his mature appearance he was so out of place in the young girls pink bedroom... he had one of my teddy bears, a pink pig, against his chest. I think he was sniffing it.
At his feet was a neatly folded man's white shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons, one of his, and a pair of my purple panties.
“Have you been looking through my drawers?” I accused him.
“Put them on,” he said dryly, following me with his eyes.
He knew I was angry, that something had happened, and he didn’t care at all. Above all, he knew how much I wanted to obey him and how much my pride tried to stop me.
A sick desire filled the air between us before I managed to answer, “Why don’t you put them on?”
He stretched out an arm placing the pig on the bedside table and patted him on the head twice. “How about I put them on you.”
He shot up and in a couple of strides reached me, grabbing my arms and forcing them above my head while he tried to take my top off.
“You can’t do this!” I wanted to cry because as he’d caught me, my body had responded: my nipples hardened, a liquid heat spread through my belly and a long tremor went through me.
He pushed me blindfolded, my knees slammed against the bed, and then his weight made me lay down.
“We’ve only got two days,�
�� he grunted. “You can decide to be a good girl, undress and wear what I've prepared for you. Or you can decide to make me angry, waste time, and argue about whatever stupidity has entered your mind. One way or another, I assure you that by the end of the day you will be wearing that stuff.”
I remained shirtless, while my limbs were giving way to the wreckage and to Vincent, who was preparing to undress a limp body, deprived of its dignity. He paused at the forearm, turned it over and noticed the marks: where I’d pressed too hard with the biro, the soap had washed off the ink, but not the small holes.
He kissed them, scratching them slightly with the freshly trimmed goatee. He stroked his thumb over them and became more reasonable, laying his forehead against mine and taking a braid between his fingers. “Talk to me, baby. Or it will end that I’ll really make love to you, before you get the chance.”
“I'll make love,” I’d never heard that expression. It was beautiful, I wish he'd said it to me before I felt taken for a ride.
“They’ve found out about us,” I said, folding my arms across my chest, feeling dirty and indecent, because in spite of everything I didn’t think I would’ve stopped him if he hadn’t asked me for an explanation.
“Who?” He asked, standing up.
“Simon, Zoe and her boyfriend, Tim.” I also got off the bed, grabbed one of the tops from the chair nearby and put it on. “Simon saw us kiss in the car last Friday. On Tuesday Zoe asked me to go home with them and they showed me the photographs because they were worried about me. I couldn’t deny it.”
“And you wait until now to tell me?!” He roared like a lion.
“If I'm not mistaken, it's your rule for us not to talk during the week. And now it changes? Niccolò knows too and he doesn’t care.”
“Niccolò isn’t a stupid kid, he knows how to mind his own business.”
“Oh, my friends are stupid just because they’re young, and yours aren’t, just because they’re your age?”
Vincent sighed drily, putting his hands on his hips. “No one else should have found out before Aron, I can’t allow him to find out from a third party. I kept the secret because you asked me to, but I should never have agreed. I can’t pretend with your father anymore, I'm not good at this, he’s always asking me what’s up. He just needs to look in my eyes to see I’m hiding something. It can’t continue like this. Aron has to know.”
With incredible timing, his mobile started to ring like an obsession, it almost seemed to be screaming. He looked at the display for a moment and answered turning his back on me. He took a few steps away from me.
“Yup! ...When? ...Still?” The slight dilation of his nostrils was the only clue that leaked on his face. “I'll be there right away.” He hung up. “I have to go,” he told me, pulling his car keys out of his pocket.
I opened my arms astounded. “Go where?”
“I'm sorry, baby. I'll be back as soon as possible and we’ll continue our discussion.” He approached and bent over to me looking for a kiss.
I avoided his kiss. “Are you going to her?”
“Who?” He asked impatiently. “I don’t have time now, Giada.”
“Not for me, but you have for her. I saw the photographs of you Tuesday night, I know you’re seeing someone else.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I'm saying that my ‘stupid friends’ followed you and Simon brought me the photos of your romantic dinner with her.”
“They followed me? Really?” he frowned, not angrily, but sad disbelief. “It must have destroyed him that he didn’t get to fuck you... and you were worried he didn’t like you.”
He jangled the keys in his hand, then gripped them in his fist. “Wait for me at home,” he said calmly, before turning and leaving my room.
I ran after him down the stairs, grabbing his shirt and punching his shoulders. “Did you say you love her too?”
He turned to grab my forearms and shoved me against the wall with a thud that took the breath out of my lungs. He kept me there. “It has nothing to do with you. And I never touched that girl in the way I touch you. I thought that I had already told you that I haven’t been with anyone else since you. Trust me for once, instead of blindly believing what your friends think they’ve seen. They even saw me kissing you. Do you think they understood something? Or did they just point the finger?”
“Tell me then,” I begged him, ready to go down on my knees, anything to find an antidote to my doubts.
“I can’t now.” He held my neck still with his fingers. His lips were met by my panting, and rubbed tyrannically against mine. He got the kiss he wanted, but I didn’t return it. “Wait for me here. I'll come back as soon as I can,” he repeated.
He ran down the rest of the stairs and rushed out like a tornado, running... to her.
***
I’d waited all week to see and talk to him, but he didn’t hesitate to leave without an explanation. Who was wasting our time together now?
I wandered around the house, nibbled at a sandwich, took a shower, but after an hour, at two o'clock in the afternoon, he still hadn’t turned up. I sent him a message but got no answer.
It was a beautiful day outside, sunny with spring in the air, inside the house it seemed that the walls didn’t want to shake off the winter. I put my iPod in my ears and I found it still on that Vasco song I heard when I went to the studio.
‘Ti ho pensato sai... stasera
ti ho pensato poi... la sfiga
mi ha telefonato lei per prima
non ho saputo dir di no
lo sai che storia c'era[3].’
No, I didn’t know that there was history, because he was so impenetrable and didn’t want to tell me anything. Just trust him and wait at home, like the little dog Simon had said I was.
But Simon was wrong.
I opened the front door wide, the light blinded me forcing my eyes closed. I put my sunglasses on and walked. I walked three or maybe four miles to the main road, and stopped when I realized I was at the football pitch. There was a game in progress, a few spectators were scattered on the steps at the other side of the field. And I, for a change, just wanted to cry.
I dried my eyes frequently and followed the ball from one lad to another; so young, so athletic, so simple. So ‘bland.’
I was cheering for both teams. What counted was having a good scream.
The sky clouded over a little and my mobile started to ring: it was Vincent. I refused the call and put it on silent mode. It continued to vibrate in my pocket at intervals of fifteen seconds more and more insistently, as if my lover could even protest through a mobile phone.
At the end of the game I clapped, I didn’t even know who’d won. Not me in any case.
Meanwhile the shadows of that lazy afternoon started to lengthen. Evening was drawing in and the lights were illuminating the pitch more than the setting sun. Another match began: I’d never spent so long watching football. To pass the time, I mounted the fence along the path towards the changing rooms and walked along balancing as I’d enjoyed doing with Zoe. But then my stupid eyes filled with tears again, I lost my vision and concentration, my foot missed and I fell off trying to curb the fall as best I could.
I’d scraped my hand, my jeans saved my calf from the rugged wood of the fence; all in all I managed not to hurt myself too much, and found myself sitting on the floor. Fortunately the spectators were all on the other side of the field, maybe they hadn’t even noticed my presence.
As I whistled at the sight of the blood, I picked up my mobile that had slipped out of my pocket and noticed that ‘Simon’ was flashing on the small monitor.
I answered, trying to use a casual tone.
“Hi, Simon.”
“Hi Giada. Where are you?”
“At home,” I said, not wanting to risk him coming to meet me. I didn’t want to see anyone.
“Really?” He seemed in a hurry.
“Yes... no. Not really, it’s that, you know, I talked to him in
the end and wanted to be on my own for a bit.” I looked around. “You’re not here as well are you?”
“Where’s here?”
“Here in the field, to watch the match. You sound weird...”
I heard the sound of friction, a protest, and then a peremptory voice that replaced Simon's. “Stay there and don’t move!”
“Vincent?” He’d ripped the mobile out of his hand. He knew that I would’ve answered a call from Simon. It had been a smart move to find him and use him to locate me. “Leave me alone, I decided to go out. You left, why couldn’t I?”
“Son of a bitch, Giada, don’t move from there! Do you understand me?!” More than stay put, his tone of voice made me want to run away as fast as my legs could carry me. I had palpitations already.
“I’ll come too,” I heard Simon in the background.
“No. Don’t come, you've done enough damage putting these ideas in her head...” I couldn’t hear anything else, the phone was already a long way away from his mouth and then I got cut off.
The call log showed nineteen missed calls, all from Vincent. Five minutes later I saw him looking for me amongst the spectators. God, he was angry, and I’d dare to say scared too.
I walked towards the opposite side, first with a normal stride, then getting faster and it was then that he saw me. So I started running and so did he.
I wasn’t a footballer, or an athlete, so as I got past the pitch I was already out of breath and I had to slow down. I stopped, panting, clinging with one hand to the fence, my heart in my throat from the effort, and because I could see him coming.
He reached me and stopped, bending forward with his hands on his knees, breathless. He’d run twice the distance I had in the same time, the fear that I’d escaped him had given him wings. He wasn’t throwing all the insults in the world at me just because he was getting his breath back.