by Adele Parks
I glare at him. 'We have to get our own place.'
'We can't afford it.'
'We can, we'll use our savings.'
'That's money we need for the bar refit.'
'Who says so?' My voice squeaks with indignation. I gawp at Roberto. This is becoming impossible. Why won't he listen to me? I hope to God that he'll see sense. I reach towards his hand but he pulls back and picks up the menu.
'Do you want cake?'
The Italians, men and women alike, enjoy cakes in a way that puts me in mind of a time I never knew in Britain; an innocent pre-world war time. I've often watched them, at about four or five in the afternoon, dress up and wander to Panifico Pasticceria to choose a slice of heaven. I've noticed that it can take an Italian an hour to eat just one slice of cake. They savour every morsel and it's a delight to watch, quite different from the greedy gobbling that you see at Gregg's bakers back home. The Italians know how to celebrate food, and life becomes a party every afternoon because of that. I love the way they buy packages of freshly baked pieces to give to friends on Sunday mornings. The gifts are not dumped in greasy paper bags but presented in cardboard boxes which are adorned with masses of twirling colourful ribbons. Today I cannot be distracted. Even by cake.
'Do you know, the worst of it was that she implied she had not only a right to do this terrible thing to me but that she had your blessing too!' I groan.
'Believe me, Elizabeth, she tell me she is going to clean our room but I had no idea she would throw out your clothes.'
'Of course I believe you.' Although I find it depressing that we are in a position that he has to protest his innocence over such a bizarre incident. 'It was the way she called you "my son" throughout. Mio figlio, mio figlio. She always does that. It's so annoying.'
'I am her son.'
'You are also my husband but I don't call you my husband all the time, I call you Roberto.'
'It's a language thing,' says Roberto with a dismissive wave of his hand. 'What you call it? A language barrier.'
'It's certainly something to do with territories,' I mutter ominously.
'OK. Maybe,' he concedes. 'But the fact remains I have been her son longer than I have been your husband; maybe it's habit. In another thirty years you will forget my name and only describe me in terms of how I relate to you.'
'No, I won't.'
We wait. He's hoping the conversation is closed, I'm wondering how I make my way into a trickier one. I take the bull by the horns. We're not in Spain but still the metaphor seems relevant enough.
'This morning I got a letter confirming the appointment date to see the fertility specialist.'
'This is horseshit, Elizabeth. I tell you I will not see an IVF doctor. I will not do it.' Roberto slams his fist on to the table. The espresso cups leap off the saucers and land with a clatter. A fork falls on to the ground.
'Why not?' I yell back with exasperation. 'Is it the fact that it's not a guaranteed method? Are you worried I'm going to be disappointed? I know there's no certainties but I'd rather try than not.' Roberto stays silent. 'Just tell me, just talk to me. I don't understand why you won't even discuss it. Is it the health risks? To me? For the child?' He moves his head a fraction, not necessarily in response to what I am asking, more of an exasperated shrug.
The warm sun is stroking my cheek and luckily catches my tears of vexation and self-pity before Roberto notices them. The waiter comes and clears our table. He looks at me in an increasingly familiar, mildly chastising way and asks why I haven't eaten much of my lasagne. I assure him it was delicious but that I'm full. The truth is my throat is constricted with tension and I can barely swallow. He offers me three alternative dishes. Each time I have to disappoint the concerned waiter and insist that I've eaten enough. Finally, he tuts and walks away, shaking his head, looking as though I've just kicked his puppy. I feel an overwhelming sense of being a massive disappointment. And not just to the waiter. Normally I'm amused by this excessive concern, which is always shown by waiters when a plate is returned anything other than licked clean. On one occasion a chef came out of the kitchen to ask me why I hadn't finished his Sicilian artichoke fettuccine. Today I find the concern overwhelming, almost intrusive, and can barely stay civil. Roberto and I sit in a gloomy silence and I begin to wonder how long we can both endure it.
Roberto stands up and casually tosses his wallet on the table. 'I need to pee, pay the bill –' then as an afterthought – 'please.'
His wallet is as familiar as my own purse. I bought him it for our last wedding anniversary, which was approximately a million years ago. From the outside the wallet looks like a straight, smart, regular wallet; inside there is a cartoon illustration of a buxom, blonde beauty drawn in the style that was popular in adverts in the nineteen-fifties. The tongue-in-cheek twist always raises a smile. The leather feels warm and comfortable under my touch. Automatically I root through, looking for euros, barely noticing the contents of the wallet as it is so familiar to me: credit cards, notes, a photo of me, condom.
Condom?
I freeze. The shock of such an alien item snuggling in Roberto's wallet slaps me so viciously that I can almost feel the angry sting on my cheek. Why does he have a condom in his wallet? Stupid question. I don't suppose he's planning on filling it with water and dropping it from the clock tower. We've never used contraception, obviously.
In the cruellest moment of my life so far, I simultaneously understand two things. Roberto is definitely sleeping with Ana-Maria. There is no longer any margin for error or self-delusion. And secondly, he wants me to know that this is the case.
53
There is not a fraction of a second when I doubt where I need to go now. My only concern is that he won't be home. I hammer on his door, I know his timetable inside out and know that he will have stopped teaching at 12.15 p-m., but maybe he hasn't come straight back to Veganze, maybe he's gone away for the weekend. I pray this isn't the case and pound my fists with an unseemly desperation against the dark wood. Just as I'm about to run around the back of the apartment to check if his car is parked up, Chuck pokes his head out of the window; he looks concerned that I'm some sort of life-threatening lunatic. It's true to say I am out of my mind. He lets me in and I leap up the stairs two at a time; the door to his apartment is open. He's standing there, waiting for me, looking anxious and wary.
'Roberto is having sex with Ana-Maria,' I pant. I'm not used to exercise; legging it across the piazza and around to Chuck's has cost me.
'Right,' Chuck says hesitantly. I study his face. Did he know? Had he guessed?
'I suppose everyone in the town has put two and two together before I have,' I say carefully. 'The difference being, I didn't want to know,' I add.
'I'm sorry,' he says sincerely.
I push him back inside his apartment and slam the door closed behind us. I place my finger on his lips.
'You have nothing to be sorry for.'
His lips feel like warm plump cushions under my fingertips. He doesn't brush me away, instead he gently touches my cheek and while the touch is feather-light I feel pinned down, almost tied to him. Suddenly I know certain things quite clearly. I know that Chuck has been my best friend since I arrived here, my only friend, much more than a friend. I know he doesn't want babies but right this second that doesn't matter to me, my marriage is a decaying mess. I need to feel love. I know I want to kiss Chuck.
I kiss him. He kisses back. Carefully at first, eyes open and staring at me, but quickly he ups tempo and starts to kiss me long and hard. His kiss is burly and dark and overwhelming. Deeper and more adult than I was anticipating. His kisses feel as surprising and exotic as my very first kiss but as sexy and confident as I could have hoped. We kiss forever. He kisses my lips and my jaw, my cheeks, my eyelids, my ears, my neck. We lose track of time and just roam. The kissing is all-consuming; the anger, pain and humiliation that I have endured today, and for months, sluice away and I find it impossible to think of anything other than Chuck's lips. Until he eventu
ally yanks his T-shirt over his head in one rapid, impressive movement, then I think about his body. His torso is beautiful. I knew he had wide shoulders and golden skin but who could have guessed at the tightly defined abs? And who would have known that a tiny sprinkling of freckles would make me melt.
Unexpectedly all that has gone before this is shadowy. I begin to believe that other kisses and other men, even Roberto, were in anticipation of this. And all the words Chuck and I have exchanged, and all those we've failed to articulate, seem unessential. We're stripped and left in an open silence; exposed by our want and need of each other. Embarrassingly, my knees buckle with the enormity of what is inevitably going to happen next between us. I wobble but I don't want to stop it or even delay it a moment longer. We fall towards the floor, not even bothering to make it the few extra metres to the sofa or bedroom.
I notice the floorboards are dusty; a tiny spider scuttles out of the shadows, across the hall and then once again out of sight. The sun is flooding in through the sitting room window, and it cascades in a stripe across the hallway; Chuck has not pulled the shutters. The warmth fills the air. It's not pleasant, it's cloying and sweaty, but I don't care. I don't need silk sheets or candlelight for this. I can hear traffic buzzing and tooting and voices laughing and shouting in the distance. It seems like the right music to me, more real than even the blues ladies who normally accompany my romantic and amorous moments by crooning out a sad or dreamy ballad.
It's frenzied and fast and startling. Chuck's lips tangle into mine and we're kissing so deeply I can't tell us apart. I inch up my skirt and yank at my tiny panties, he grapples with his flies and then almost instantly sinks into me. There's no uncomfortable pain, no shock. My body accepts him as though it's been waiting for him. And maybe I have. I gape at him and he stares back. We hold each other in that look and never lose sight of what we are doing and who we are doing it with. Not for a second. It feels astonishing. It feels crucial. It feels true. He's grunting and quivering and I'm moaning and shaking. We sound like the animals we are and I feel whole.
Of course the spirit of the sex means it's over in minutes. The urgency and unexpected nature dictated as much, but I feel released and fulfilled in a way that I'd stopped believing was possible. Our sex was not about making babies, it was not about fury, or revenge, or fear, or duty.
Which leads me to the question, what was it about?
The same thought must be nagging Chuck too, because as he goes to find tissues for us both he calls back from the bathroom.
'I need to know, Elizabeth, just for the record so to speak. Do you want me because you want me? Or do you want me because you are angry with your husband?'
I stand up and run to my lover. I throw my arms around him and push my body close up to his, not caring if my pretty summer dress becomes sticky with his love.
I hold his face in between my hands, look him in the eye and admit, 'When I saw the condom in Roberto's wallet I felt shocked and exposed but I was surprised to find that a big part of me felt relieved. I have wanted you for months now. I'm not angry with Roberto. I'm grateful to him. I get it now. This is the first favour he's done me in a long time.'
54
I don't want to stay in Veganze for a moment longer than necessary. The idea of hiding in Chuck's apartment is only appealing until I realize that there would be a point when I'd have to leave, or worse, I might be rooted out. Chuck says I'm not to panic. He runs me a deep bubble bath and tells me to enjoy a soak. I'm touched that he's remembered that one of my many grumbles about living with Raffaella is that she won't allow anything other than showers, as she insists it's a waste of hot water. Showering is my preferred daily method of hygiene, but sinking into a deep, creamy bath is something I love to do at least once a month by way of winding down. This is my first bath since I got here. As I wallow in the sensation of bubbles popping around me, Chuck packs a bag and makes a few calls.
Without discussing it, we are both aware of the impossibility of my going back to Raffaella's to pick up any of my things, although the chances are I'd probably find the lot stacked against the bins once again. Even so, I can't risk the horror of the rows that would certainly ensue. Of course those rows must come, but not yet. As if reading my mind, Chuck says, 'We'll buy you anything you need.'
'I don't need anything. I don't care,' I tell him firmly.
I probably should be more concerned than I am about the turn my life has taken in the last hour but for some reason I cannot summon the required hysteria. Oddly, I feel that everything is as it should be; which is impossible, isn't it? My husband is having a long-term affair with his first love, I'm an adulterer, I'm homeless and I own nothing other than the clothes I stand up in, at least temporarily. How can this be as it should be? And yet it is. As I slide into the car next to Chuck I know I have everything I need right now.
We decide to go to Venice. I feel it will be my first time, because the visit with Ana-Maria and Roberto was not pleasurable and anyway it's now exposed as a farce. As Chuck and I drive, we chatter. Not about what has just happened or anything enormous at all, but about the things we've always chattered about when we travel side by side. We talk about the landscape, what's on the radio, our families and the things we'd like to do when we get to our destination. We do not talk about Roberto and Ana-Maria or even our loving. Neither of us knows what to say about any of that just now. The urgent loving on his hall floor recedes and yet is ever-present. I feel a live current zap between us and we are now connected in that ethereal, elusive and permanent way lovers are. The fact that our relationship is in every other way unchanged is a source of total joy to me. I've always believed that true lovers are best friends. Roberto and I have continued having sex for months after we stopped being friends. That sad reality blisters my mouth like an acidic wash.
This time, Venice is everything I hoped it would be. This time I don't feel rushed or pressured, I feel free and overwhelmed. I understand why, for centuries, writers have agonized over finding just the right words to express satisfactorily the splendour and uniqueness of the city. This place is a one-off. Even in late May when temperatures are rising and tourists are teeming, Venice has a wistful, fairytale quality that astounds me. It's rather odd that the reality of Venice on a sweltering, congested day doesn't disappoint me. I'm excited by it. So many things in Italy have not been as I imagined they would be and I have resented that. But I had not imagined that the shops in Venice would be full of flashing plastic gondolas or that there would be incongruous lines of cheap, nylon football shirts running the length of the Rialto – and I don't mind. They don't blot my romantic notions because I've never had a romantic notion about Chuck and me being in Venice. Our magic can't wear thin because he is unexpected. I wanted him but as a married woman I never seriously entertained the possibility of having him. So every moment we have together is a delicious surprise.
Roberto let me go. Or chucked me away. Depending on your viewpoint. It doesn't matter. The outcome is the same. I'm free to be, rather than to dream. A unique freedom.
We spend a lazy afternoon initially wandering around San Marco, the heart of the city. Surprisingly, I still do not think about Roberto and Ana-Maria, or Raffaella, or the bar. I have spent months agonizing over these individuals; I find I don't have any more energy to devote to their latest atrocities. My head can't take the weight of the situation on board. Instead I breathe in the moment. I enjoy the cafe orchestras and laugh at the cooing pigeons landing on people's shoulders and outstretched arms; I jump when they fly low past my head. Already fat, the pigeons scrounge food like church mice, continually scratching the pavement with their tiny claws. I marvel at the constant traffic of waiters serving alfresco diners. Plates and glassware chink, people chatter, laugh, whistle and shout. It's boisterous and chaotic but it's alive.
Without my noticing it happening, Venice becomes slightly calmer and cooler and is slowly bathed in an indigo light as the orange glow of the sinking sun fades and is replaced by a cr
isp and confident moon.
'What next?' asks Chuck. It's a big question. Somehow I understand that he doesn't just mean ice-cream or cola?
'Sod it, I haven't thought about next.'
We have exhausted San Marco and we've wandered through the backwaters and boatyards of the quieter districts. We've ambled around the eastern district, Castello. A place that smelt of hard graft, a place whose charm comes from the fact that it is lived in. We've strolled to the south and stumbled upon the bohemian-chic Dorsoduro, which is crammed with artistic treasures, and then we've sauntered north. We've paused in the peaceful atmosphere of Cannaregio and marvelled at the delightful off-the-beaten-track churches. I particularly enjoyed them because, like me, Chuck is happy to have a quick look, buy a postcard and then move on. Mum and Dad would always squash any enthusiasm I had for a place by lingering an hour over every statue of Mary.
We've spent most of the early evening in the shaded narrow corridors but it's only now, when the moon is up, that I feel my first shiver. I lean my elbows on the iron railing of a bridge and gaze out on to the canals, enchanted. Chuck hands me the zip-up top we bought earlier and I pop it on.
I watch as middle-aged, affluent tourists drift by on gondolas. We've resisted the cliché. It's possible to enjoy the stars glistening in the navy sky without shelling out the hundred quid. Besides, as I haven't even got my handbag with me, Chuck has paid for everything today from the delicious lunch to the bird-feed for the pigeons in the square. There was a truly odd moment when he bought me the zip-up, knickers and a toothbrush. The familiarity between us is like that of a six-month relationship and yet we'd shagged for the first time only six hours before. I might have expected that him picking out panties for me was going to seem a bit peculiar, but the weird thing was, it wasn't peculiar at all. Our sudden intimacy seems balanced and appropriate.
'I think we need a drink,' he suggests.