Tell Me Something (Contemporary Romance)

by Adele Parks

  I have no idea why Raffaella has a bee in her bonnet that the staff cannot be trusted on their own this particular Tuesday evening. We have a pool of three part-timers; all girls in their twenties, all exhaustingly beautiful and magnetic. They seem entirely trustworthy and capable and have managed on their own until about 9 p.m. on nearly every weekday since I arrived here. It's funny, I never see Roberto draft anything as prosaic as a rota but somehow Laurana, Gina and Alexandra all seem to drift in and out of the bar exactly as and when we need their help. Each one of them seems to understand the rhythm of the bar better than I do.

  When we arrive at the bar it's notably busier than usual.

  'Wow, this is encouraging for a Tuesday night. What's the buzz?' I yell at Roberto over the noisy crowd.

  'It's Valentine's night; it's bound to be busy everywhere. That's why Mamma wanted us both here. She knows that Italians make a fuss on Valentine's night.'

  But not my Italian, it appears.

  How could I have forgotten? I knew today was the fourteenth because I'm so familiar with my cycle and of course I know it's February but somehow the two facts didn't add up to equal Valentine's day. How is that possible? I am the last of the great romantics. At least, I always have been. I'm out of my usual routine. I have lost track of days before now, when I've been on holiday; I suppose being here is a bit like being on holiday, but without the sun and the fun – just with the bit about losing track of the days.

  Two thoughts hit me simultaneously. One: oh-my-God Alison has a Valentine date – unprecedented. Two: oh-my-God I haven't got a Valentine date – unprecedented. I mean, every year since Roberto and I met he has made such a big deal out of Valentine's day and today he hasn't so much as uttered a word of endearment.

  I glance around the bar and try to locate a bouquet of flowers stashed in the corner waiting to be claimed by me, but no such luck. There are countless bouquets of flowers, but they are all being closely guarded by their lucky recipients. It appears every girl in the joint is wearing new jewellery or nursing a box of chocs the size of a swimming pool.

  Roberto has already scuttled to the kitchen to check stock, or staff, or something. I chase after him.

  'I'd forgotten that it is Valentine's day,' I announce.

  'No problem, I wasn't expecting a gift,' says Roberto with a relaxed beam.

  I'm stumped. His reasonable demeanour in the face of my non-gift rather trivializes my fury in the face of his non-gift.

  'We haven't celebrated,' I point out.

  'Didn't you find the Bacci?'

  'I thought they were for – ' I don't finish the sentence. The tiny tube of chocolates seemed a thoughtful 'anticipating baby-news' gift but they are a lousy Valentine's gift. We sell them in the bar.

  'And you had the day off,' he adds.

  'But we haven't celebrated.'

  'We're busy.' He waves in the direction of the bar.

  'Too busy to say happy Valentine's day?' I ask crossly.

  Roberto walks towards me and takes both my hands in his. He brings them to his lips and kisses my knuckles. He keeps his huge, brown eyes locked on me throughout.

  'It's not a problem. Not to me or to you. I'm not worried that you forgot altogether it was Valentine's day.'

  'I'm worried,' I whine. I try to pull my hands out of his grasp but he holds them firmly.

  'I'm not, so forget it.'

  Roberto suddenly drops my hands, bends to pick up a crate of red wine and sweeps past me, back into the bar. I put my head in my hands and try to think clearly. I'm not sure what is distressing me the most, his tiny unimpressive gift or me forgetting altogether. I am an eternal romantic, how could this day have slipped out of my consciousness? Valentine's day is always such a big deal for us. One year Roberto bought me eight bouquets of flowers and had them delivered on the hour, every hour, to the restaurant where I was waitressing. Another year he flew us to New York and we ate oysters in a rooftop restaurant, although we couldn't really afford to do so. Everyone, even Alison, had to admit that the advantages of dating an Italian were transparent when it came to Valentine's day. This year – the Italian equivalent of a bunch of carnations bought from a garage.

  I pause for thought. We've been married six, nearly seven years. Is this it? The fatal seven-year itch. Are my years of being romanced over? I feel tears pinch my nose and I want to howl. I scrabble around in my handbag and dig out a tissue.

  Suddenly I feel a light touch on my arm.

  'Oh, hi, Paolina,' I say with little enthusiasm.

  'Join me for a drink?' she asks.

  I shouldn't, I'm supposed to be here to help, but sod the bar and sod Roberto, it's Valentine's day and the very least I deserve is a glass of wine. I sniff and nod. Paolina pulls a bottle of red off the shelf. I notice that she picks a very expensive one. I follow her as she weaves her way towards a table in the middle of the bar. I'd have preferred to hide away in a corner but all the cosy seats are occupied by loving, amorous couples. Paolina pours the wine into two glasses and then takes a sip.

  'Happy Valentine's day,' she mutters.

  'Yeah, right.' I think I'm in serious danger of betraying my raving disappointment at her brother, so I dig deep and manage to muster a polite enquiry. 'No date?'

  'No date,' she confirms.

  I wouldn't normally draw attention to the dateless status of any woman, particularly on Valentine's night, but Paolina is beautiful, clever, elegant, slim, etc., etc. I'm pretty certain that if she hasn't got a date tonight it's because she doesn't want one. I bet Paolina thinks the whole Valentine's day thing is just stupid. She's probably one of those women who complain that it's all a marketing ploy for the naive, and I bet she actually means it. I can't imagine Paolina ever feeling resentment and disappointment because someone downgraded the romance of the day to three chocolates in a tube. Yes, it must be lovely to be cool, calm and collected; totally in control of your own destiny and happiness.

  I bet if I was a mother I wouldn't care if Roberto had forgotten Valentine's day.

  'Sorry I haven't been around much since you arrived here. I've been meaning for us to have time together,' says Paolina, proving she isn't even thinking of Valentine's day. 'How are you settling?'

  'Oh, fine.' I'm not sure I sound that convincing. 'I'm glad it was dry today. There's nothing to do when it rains in Veganze. There are no shops large enough to hide in. No cinema to disappear into for an hour or so. The Brits do rain very well. We have central heating and lots of indoor, on-couch activities. Fitted carpets are no longer a mystery to me.'

  I pause, as I consider I sound very rude. But it's a fact that Raffaella's house is perpetually cold. The marble floors that I long dreamt of are icy, I hadn't expected that.

  'The rain runs in rivers through the streets, splashing over my trainers and making my feet dirty. I brought four pairs of flip-flops with me but seriously regret my lack of boots,' I add.

  Paolina looks at me as though I'm slightly slow. She abandons the pretence that this conversation is about anything other than Valentine's day and asks, 'What's the matter? Didn't you like the flowers?'

  'There were no flowers,' I reply grumpily. 'He gave me a tiny packet of Bacci. Three in a tube. Not even a box.'

  'But –' she looks confused – 'I saw Roberto buy them. A huge bunch of red roses. At least thirty, forty stems. They made me quite nauseous with jealousy.'

  'Really!' Excitement floods through my body. I beam at her.

  'Yes, this morning.'

  'The pig! Roberto is pretending to have forgotten all about Valentine's day.'

  I don't mean the pig bit. Thirty or forty stems! I mean, he's a prince. I feel dizzy with relief. I grin at Paolina and she generously throws back a beam. I don't dwell on her comment that she feels nauseous with jealousy; I'm sure she didn't really mean it. I bet he's going to present me with the flowers tonight. Maybe he's going to lay the stems across our bed; now that would be romantic. The chocolates were a ruse. I knock back my glass of wine and
then excuse myself.

  'I'd better get back to work. I have to do my bit tonight. Thirty or forty stems – how extravagant.'

  I dash away, leaving Paolina to finish the bottle on her own. I'm sure she can't mind. I bet she only asked me to join her in the first place to be polite.

  22

  I work the rest of the shift with a notable enthusiasm that surprises Roberto. As he's cashing up he pulls me towards him and gives me a hug. I drift into a fantasy about making love on a bed strewn with thirty or forty stems of roses.

  'Thanks for not getting in huff because I get you just an economical Valentine's gift,' he says. 'I'm really sorry. I'll make it up to you.'

  Nice touch. I nearly giggle. I resist an urge to poke him in the ribs and force him to admit that there's a huge bouquet stashed somewhere. I might as well go along with the surprise now.

  'I'm going to head off to bed, don't be long,' I say, and I wink in a not too subtle way.

  The roses are not strewn across our bed but that's OK, he'll be able to present them to me. It's not that I'm so shallow that my happiness can be bought with a bunch of flowers, it's more that disappointment and panic can be kept at bay by a bunch of flowers. My happiness would be secured with a Moses basket tucked in the corner of the room. I quickly tug off my smoky clothes and root through my suitcases until I unearth sexy matching bra and knickers. I check my legs, which are, luckily, fairly fuzz-free, and then I throw myself across the bed. For one Moses basket, step this way.

  Only ten minutes later I hear Roberto's footsteps on the stairs. He says goodnight to his mother and sister as I arrange myself into a welcoming 'tadaaar' pose; stomach in, boobs and booty out.

  Roberto strides into the room. He's carrying a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

  'Happy Valentine's day,' he smiles. 'Better late than never. Nice bra.' He puts the bottle and glasses on the bedside and then crawls on top of me. For once he doesn't fuss about taking off his shoes and clothes. The moment has been lost so often as I've waited for him to fold and put away. Roberto starts to kiss me. Between kisses he murmurs that he's sorry and he'll make it up to me. His kisses are familiar and wonderful but I gently push him off.

  'OK, a joke's a joke, give me the roses now. They'll need to go in water.'

  'What roses?'

  'The ones Paolina saw you buy this morning. Stop messing around or else they'll droop and then I won't shag you,' I say with a grin.

  For a moment Roberto looks disorientated; finally he says, 'Oh, those roses. They weren't for you.'

  'What? Well, who were they for?' I ask, stunned.

  'Mamma.'

  'Your mother!' I push him off me and scramble into an upright position. I grab my robe, not a sign of my modesty but a clue that I'm about to kill him and I think it's more fitting to be dressed for that.

  'She finds Valentine's day sad. She's a widow. I wanted to make her happy.'

  'She been a widow for nearly two decades,' I point out.

  'I just wanted to do a nice thing.'

  Roberto has moved to the edge of the bed and he has his back to me. I consider his excuse. Does being the most thoughtful and loving son on the planet make up for being a useless, crap husband?

  'So why didn't you do a nice thing for me?' I demand.

  'I didn't think off –'

  'Me.' I finish the sentence with an honesty that Roberto might not have managed. He blushes. 'You bought forty roses for your mother and a cheap packet of sweets for me. You are weird.' I spit angrily.

  I sink the glass of champagne he's poured. It's warm. We must have sold all the chilled stuff to couples who had planned to celebrate. The bubbles scorch my throat as though announcing they were an afterthought.

  'It's not weird to love your mamma,' he says.

  'Yes it is. Sort of. Well, no, not to love her but to buy her a better Valentine's gift than the one you get your wife. That's weird!'

  I'm probably yelling because Roberto is looking nervously towards the door and he keeps trying to put his fingers on my lips to silence me. I impatiently brush him away.

  'I'm fed up here, Roberto. You seem to think we are playing happy families but we are not. You shouldn't be thinking of your mother before me. I think it's a consequence of us living in her house. It's all mixed up. We should get our own place.'

  Suddenly, after only a pathetic couple of minutes of grovelling, his mood changes; he gives up trying to console me and turns angry. What is going on? Shouldn't he have to plead and beg for hours?

  'This is Italy. We do things different here. It is not weird to buy Mamma some flowers. This is Italy. Here we care for our parents.'

  He says Italy with all the pride and ferocity that a Roman Caesar would have used. I want to remind him that it's now a country with too many pensioners and a fucked political system but I stay silent. He's right, we are in Italy. Maybe I am missing something or making something of nothing. I don't know.

  Confused, I turn off my bedside light. Roberto sighs and then climbs into bed next to me. He tries to hold me but I bat his hand away; I do not feel in the least bit randy. I don't care if the warm champagne goes flat.

  'I truly am sorry. Tomorrow I will get you flowers. We'll go out for dinner,' he whispers.

  'Forget it,' I mutter huffily. 'But just don't let me catch sight of Raffaella's roses or else I won't be responsible for my actions.' I quietly steam as I imagine force-feeding the roses to Roberto, thorns and all.

  'No, you won't see them,' he promises.

  23

  I wake up in the middle of the night, a familiar stickiness between my legs. Weeping, I shuffle to the bathroom, clean up, dig out Tampax and then return to bed.

  I find I've disturbed Roberto; he's sitting bolt upright with the bedside light on. He doesn't say a word because he's said every one there is to say over the years. He holds out his arms, and despite being fed up about the roses I sink into him and cry quietly. My tears trickle on to his chest. The roses are nothing. Valentine's day is nothing. It's all nothing without a baby.

  We stay like this for just a few minutes. My tears, like his words, dry up quicker than they used to.

  'I didn't realize you were hoping for so much this month,' he says as he smooths my hair.

  'How do you mean?'

  'Well, I noticed that you not pack the thermometer or the ovulation kits when you came to Italy. I thought you were –'

  'What? Accepting it?' I pull away from him so that I can look at his face.

  'Not that, just –' Roberto lets his sentence trail away again. We rarely have the energy or will to finish conversations of this nature. A lot gets left unsaid.

  'I might not have packed the kits but I'm still keeping an eye on the calendar.' In fact I have been keeping my eye so firmly on my cycle I failed to note that February the fourteenth was anything other than the day I might or might not have a period. Is that healthy? I push the thought aside. 'OK, so the legs in the air didn't do the trick.' I reach for a hanky and blow my nose. 'We have to be brave. It's disappointing, there's no denying it, but my disappointment isn't gut-wrenching like it was month after month, year after year in England. I know things will work out here.' I briefly fling my arms around Roberto. 'I am sure with a blind faith that in Italy, the country of Romance, we will conceive without undue effort or intervention.'

  'That is illogical,' he says quietly.

  'No, no, it's not.' I insist. 'True love will prevail. The sun is bound to help, once it starts to shine. I read that. It was always unlikely that we'd get lucky straight away; house moves are stressful – everyone knows that – besides, we didn't actually have that much sex. The move, the initial peculiar bedroom arrangements, the funny hours at the bar – everything worked against us. There is no point looking back, we have to look forward.'

  What else can we do?

  24

  6 March

  In this past week the weather has taken a distinct turn for the better, as though spring has sprung. The morn
ings are bright and crisp, rather than gloomy and sodden; occasionally the sun makes a brief appearance. Bright beams splatter on to the cobbled pavements and glint cheerfully, promising that the summer I'd imagined is just round the corner

  By March my days have started to fall into a routine. My days are full, although not full of lengthy mealtimes and coffee-drinking in the piazza. I work two shifts in the bar (10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. until 2 a.m.) six days a week. The seventy-two-hour week is longer than the week I worked in the UK, and I'm privately concerned that the long hours are detrimental to my plan to relax and conceive. I tried to discuss as much with Roberto but he just said that the family business is a real concern and, as yet, the pregnancy isn't. I didn't speak to him for two days following this tactless comment, although I'm not sure he was aware that I was cross, he's so busy. He works even longer hours than I do, refusing to relax, even during the siesta. At first I was delighted to discover that the afternoon nap is still cherished. I'd assumed that would give Roberto and me the opportunity to slink back to bed, if the mood took us (and I was going to ensure it would, when necessary). Or – at the very least – that we'd be free to go for a drive and see more of the region. It hasn't really panned out that way. Roberto is so busy, he uses the siesta to visit suppliers and I read novels or baby books.