by Fay Henson
‘Thanks Joe,’ I said, ‘that was lush.’ I sort of jumped onto my tip toes to give him a kiss on his cheek, but instead I misjudged it and hit my head on his bad eye. I knew it hurt because his good eye was watering. I could’ve died I felt so bad, and all he did was told me he was fine.
‘What do you think about going to see where they’re celebrating the win and probably getting wrecked?’ Joe said.
‘Not probably,’ I replied looping my arm inside his as we started to stroll along again, ‘yeah, could be a bit of fun to join in.’
‘Hum, don’t know about that,’ he said, ‘but could be fun trying.’
So, we caught up with a noisy group of celebrators and cheekily followed along behind them until we eventually ended up at one of their hangouts, and where there were those long wooden tables and bench seats of which almost all were being occupied. It was still evident that they’d eaten as not all the tables had been cleared of their dirty plates, but amongst all their cheering and singing, the women from the kitchen were gradually getting on top of it all.
It looked to me that most of the teenagers were riding high on emotion while some of them and the older ones were getting rowdy from all the wine and beer they were buying from inside their hangout and taking to their tables.
For ages, I’d been really wanting to try that Mojito cocktail I’d seen so many people sipping through straws and when I was at that bar with Stefania the other day, I watched the barman prepare it. I was sure he used white rum, mint, ice, sugar and fizzy water.
‘Let’s get something to drink,’ I suggested to Joe.
‘Why not,’ he said, ‘gotta get into the spirit of things.’
‘Funny.’
We waited our turn amongst so many people, occasionally our feet getting trod on or we became separated moving out of the way for someone with a tray of drinks, until we eventually got served.
‘Oh Joe,’ I said, ‘try this, it’s heavenly.’ It was difficult not to sip gigantic mouthfuls of the Mojito cocktail through the black straw.
‘No I’m fine with beer, thanks.’ He put his hand up as a gesture he didn’t want to taste it, whilst he took a couple of long swigs from his glass.
We were fortunate that when we went outside again, that we were able to grab a couple of seats. Everyone there was so ecstatically happy that their club had won the Palio, I didn’t think they cared that we’d joined them, but what was a shame though, was that we both didn’t have one of their scarves to wave around and to feel really part of it.
Out of curiosity, I checked my phone to see what the time was; it was eleven thirty five and it was busier than ever with hardly any room for standing let alone sitting. I fancied another Mojito, so I sent Joe back inside whilst I sort of lounged across his seat so to guard it from being taken. I wasn’t afraid to go and ask at the bar, but what I was afraid of was being asked for proof I was over eighteen.
I spied Joe and his white gauze picking his way through the people and trying not to spill our drinks. I stood up and waved.
‘Over here!’ I shouted. My eyes met with a couple of noisy girls around my age, maybe a little older. Yup, we’re English, I thought. They both still had dark sunglasses perched on top their heads and they were wearing very short shorts with cut-off T-shirts revealing their brown tummies, and I couldn’t help noticing one had a belly button piercing shining under the party lights. I wanted to see what they were wearing on their feet, but I guessed it would have been bumper boots, the same as most of the others.
Joe joined me at the table again.
‘Can I take a picture of us please Joe,’ I asked very nicely with a cheesy grin.
‘I suppose so.’
I took out my phone and held it on the table in front of us. We moved in closer together and I pressed the button a couple of times. On the screen we saw those girls behind us trying to photobomb, so I turned the phone at an angle to avoid the annoying girls and took another.
By then, there was loud music playing so we had to more or less shout at each other which was quite exhausting.
‘You got a girl back in Bristol?’ I just came out with it and I think it took Joe by surprise too.
‘Um, no,’ he said, ‘you?’
‘A girl?’ I laughed.
‘A guy.’
‘I don’t think I’d be here with you if I had.’
Joe swigged back the rest of his beer then put the glass down on the table and got up, and I took a couple of gulps of the lovely Mojito.
‘I really need to find a toilet,’ he said, ‘be back soon.’ I watched him weave around people towards the bar area until he went inside.
People were coming and going with a never ending sea of faces. I sipped up the rest of the Mojito and all that was left was some ice and pieces of mint, so whilst I was waiting for Joe to return, I used the straw to stab at the ice and chop it up. And then I became bored and thinking he’d been gone quite some while, I stood up to see if I could spot him. Oh and that I did.
There he was, the very happy cat chatting quite contently with the same two girls who were getting on my nerves trying to photobomb us when I was trying to take the photo. Some good looking guys started speaking to him and that was that, he’d turned his attentions towards them and it looked like he’d totally forgotten that I’d been waiting for him, on my own, and unable to converse easily with anyone. And there he was all cushy talking Italian with the locals. That was it, I said under my breath.
16
Finally
My poor, poor head. Ever since the last time I threw up which was a couple of hours ago my head hadn’t stopped pounding. That time was horrible; as soon as I got in and laid down, the whole room went round and round.
And since then, I’d been on top of my bed and still wearing the clothes I had on all day yesterday, except for my sandals. They were over there somewhere near the window splattered with my sick that happened on my way back in the early hours of this morning; alone I might add, thanks to Joe.
The very thought of sick brought that horrid feeling rising up inside me from the pit of my stomach, again. I was breathing really deeply and trying to concentrate on nothing except for not throwing up, when all of a sudden I had to get myself off that bed, with my heart rate at some strange pace, fling the door wide open and hope that nobody was in the one and only bathroom along the hall. Then that weird watery and bitter sensation arrived at the moment I’d slammed the bathroom door shut and wow, up it came again. More pasta and bits. How could there have been any left, I wondered.
If that bidet thing hadn’t had been next to the toilet that had its lid down, I don’t think I’d have made it in time. I turned on the bidet tap and let the water wash away the stinky mess, but it blocked up the plug hole which meant I had to help it go down by poking it with something. Luckily I could reach for some squirty soap and washed my fingers really well afterwards.
I got up off my knees and hoiked myself up onto the toilet seat and sat there for ages waiting to see if there was some more coming. I prayed there wasn’t because my stomach muscles had been pulled so tight, I hurt when I moved and not only that; my head thumped and my throat was sore. But then like some kind of miracle, I actually didn’t feel sick anymore. Someone knocked on the door.
‘A momento,’ I called out.
I waited a few moments hoping that whoever it was had gone. I put my ear to the wooden door listening very carefully and decided that as I couldn’t hear any sound outside in the hall, it should be safe to leave the bathroom and return to the privacy of my room.
I sat on the side of the bed until I found the effort I needed to go and find the box of Tachipirina and take a couple, and then, after having only been lying on the bed for fifteen minutes, annoyingly, someone was tapping on my door.
‘Yes, er, si?’ I said.
‘Caylin it’s me, Joe.’ How did you get in, I thought.
‘Go away.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Why aren’t you still with those girls,’ I said, ‘or guys.’ Hearing myself say that, I thought it sounded a bit childish, but I didn’t care.
‘I don’t want to talk through the door,’ he said, ‘can I please come in?’
‘Nope.’
‘There’s something I want to tell you,’ he said, ‘please let me in Caylin.’
‘What do you want to say, that you’re off out with one of those girls or something?’
Joe went all quiet and I was holding my breath to see if I could hear him outside of my door. I knew it, I thought.
‘Caylin, I’m sorry about last night, um, this morning,’ he corrected himself. Then I heard him sigh and mutter something like, this is bloody ridiculous.
‘Last time I’m asking you, please let me in, come on, you’re being unreasonable.’ Oh get you, I thought.
‘Nope, you obviously thought you’d found better company last night.’
‘If you open the door we can talk about it.’
‘No we can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’ve got a headache, I need a shower,’ I paused, ‘what’s the time?’
‘Around eleven.’
‘Oh.’
‘You need to be somewhere?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘look, give me an hour, OK?
‘Sure, see you at twelve then, here,’ he said.
‘Bye.’ I dismissed him just like that.
Oh why did he have to turn up this morning when I was feeling really crappy.
Within forty minutes and with the help of the Tachipirina I’d coped with a shower and I’d even managed to clean up my sandals with some soapy water, which just left enough time for getting dressed and sorting out my face; I was on schedule. Literally just before I’d finished opening the window and tidying the bed, Joe was outside my door again which I then opened.
‘Afternoon,’ he said smiling at me, ‘how’s the Mojito head?’
‘Shut up,’ I said, ‘better.’
Joe noticed I was looking at the newspaper he was holding.
‘When I was walking past a newsagent this morning, a headline on the board outside made me stop,’ he said, ‘and so to double-check what I thought I read, I bought this newspaper, look.’
He laid the Corriere di Siena newspaper down on my bed.
‘You’re not going to believe what’s happened.’
‘Oh.’
On the front page were loads of photos taken yesterday of the Palio and on the right was another headline in bold letters. Joe was running his finger along the printed Italian writing as he was translating the words.
‘It says, young woman hit by taxi, dies,’ Joe read aloud.
We had to turn to another page to read the article.
‘Look at this photo.’
He turned the page for me to see the photo a bit better.
‘Oh my god, that’s Lula, isn’t it?’
Only recently I wanted to throw stones at her, or worse, but I hadn’t wanted anything really bad to happen to her.
‘God, it is her.’ I was more concerned about the girl rather than being angry with Joe any more.
‘It says that a witness said he’d recalled shouting to her to watch-out as she stepped into the path of the taxi but obviously she hadn’t heard and it was too late.’
‘That’s terrible,’ I said, ‘do you think that the ambulance we saw yesterday was the one called to help her? The one which was trying to get through the dawdlers?’
I felt gutted.
‘We wouldn’t know, but it could’ve been,’ he said, ‘cause I don’t remember hearing any other sirens.’
‘Me neither.’
‘Seems like the journalist has already found out quite a bit, I’ll try to translate it,’ he said. ‘Basically it tells us that she was Albanian and lived as we already knew, with an Italian. Apparently, she has a brother who is also here somewhere with his wife and young daughter.’
I went to say something when Joe put his hand up, gesturing for me to wait a minute.
‘It also says that she allegedly stole money to give to her brother and family to help them live in Italy as they didn’t qualify for any assistance from the government,’ he said.
‘Totally opposite to the help they get back home with all the freebies,’ I said. I remembered something Dad had commented on not long ago.
‘But now they’ve voted for the Brexit thing, there could be a lot of changes at the borders, so it might be difficult for foreign people to enter,’ I said, ‘I’m not really into politics.’
‘It’s a bit boring, I must admit,’ he said before looking back down at the article. He looked thoughtful.
‘This journalist couldn’t have cared anything about prying into the family business to get all this information; here’s a bit more,’ he said. ‘The brother was supposedly going out to work at various shift times so his wife believed he was earning the money he was taking home. He desperately didn’t want his wife to know that he didn’t get a job he’d applied for, only his sister knew.’
I interrupted.
‘You know, If I think about how the girl was with me, like hiding my All Stars and taking my makeup, it had to be she was envious of me as well as being scared if Vico should dump her for another girl meaning, the risk of losing somewhere herself to live,’ I said, ‘it figured now why she was all over him.’
‘You could be right there.’
‘And we heard the other day that Vico didn’t go much on the girl’s brother,’ I said. ‘I’m now wondering if he was an arrogant pig to her and used her for whatever and she put up with it just so she had a roof over her head.’
I picked up the newspaper and laid on my back holding the paper up to take another look at Lula. The photo must’ve been a passport or Identity Card photo.
‘And all the time she was stealing from him and other people,’ I said, ‘it wasn’t for herself, it was for her brother and his family.’
‘And then she goes and gets herself killed,’ Joe said, ‘wonder what’ll happen to them now, perhaps they’ll have to go back to Albania.’
I gave a sober nod.
I thought about that family of three and wondered how they’d cope without the girl and the money. I couldn’t bring myself to be angry with her any more, not now that she was dead.
‘I’d like to do something to help them, but what can I do?’
Joe sighed and shook his head.
‘I really don’t know, probably not enough for what they could do with.’
‘Something is better than nothing,’ I said. ‘I know, we could go to the taxi people and see if they’d be interested in donating some money.’
‘Whoa Caylin, I don’t think you should get involved with them,’ he said. ‘You know, there might be legal stuff going on because of what happened, they might be touchy if they’re being blamed for killing her, and it’d be like we’re pointing the finger at them too.’
‘I didn’t think of that.’
‘I’ve seen that people have raised money from something called crowdfunding on the internet,’ he said, ‘but I think it’s only for starting businesses.’
‘Hum.’
Then it just happened to come to me, and I was elated with the idea.
‘Got it, got it, listen to this.’ I sat up cross-legged on the bed next to Joe who at that point was lying on his side.
‘Wait ‘til you hear this,’ I said. ‘A sponsored head shave.’
Joe flopped over onto his back.
‘A what? No don’t worry I heard you.’
‘And at the same time, I’ll get rid of this black hair,’ I said, ‘and then I can find a wig similar to my original hair.’
I was so pleased with myself that I’d found the perfect solution.
‘There, that’s bang-on, we’ll raise money for having our heads shaved.’
Joe swung himself round so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed.
‘Did you say our heads?’
‘Si.’
‘No way.’
‘Si.’
‘Cor, I’d really like to...’ and he paused, ‘kiss you.’
‘You sure? I’ve been sick.’
‘Who cares.’
He turned round and gently pulled me down onto my back, and lying half-on half-off me, he put his lips onto mine. From that moment, I let go of the tiny bit of tension I harboured, and sensing his excited breathing, my eyes closed and I melted into his kiss for such a heavenly long time.
That was the nicest kiss I’d ever had. And how good it was not to feel I was expected to have sex afterwards, although one thing I’d realised, was that I wanted it to be Joe who took my virginity and I knew I was ready for him.
We were cuddled together with my head on his chest of where I could hear his beating heart. I scanned my eyes down towards his trousers where I could hardly miss his arousal, making me feel really giggly and tingly in places.
It was so strange, we both started speaking at exactly the same time.
‘Go on, Caylin,’ he said, you were first.’
‘No, you were.’
‘Ladies first.’
‘I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.’ That wasn’t entirely true.
Joe gave out an anxious laugh, which sounded like he was just about to blurt out something that would ruin everything between us; perhaps he was about to let on about someone back home.
‘Caylin,’ he said.
Please hurry up and tell me Joe, you’re making me nervous, I thought. I kept my head on his chest so he wouldn’t be able to see my expression when he broke the news to me.
‘Caylin,’ he repeated.
You’re killing me here Joe, I thought.
‘I’m a virgin.’
The moment I heard those words exit his scrumptious lips, I leapt up and bounced around ecstatically on the bed like an absolute loony. I just couldn’t believe what he’d just said, I was so relieved that it hadn’t been disappointing news and nothing at all what I was expecting. Thank you, I thought, thank you.