When in Rome

by Gemma Townley

  “Right,” she says crisply, standing up to go. “Is that everything?”

  I can’t work out what’s going on. Didn’t I explain myself properly? Doesn’t Candy realize what I’m saying?

  “Candy, look, I know this is bad news, and I’m sorry to be the one telling you, but how can you be so calm? Aren’t you worried about the baby and stuff? Don’t you care what an utter shithead Mike has been? What he’s done to David?”

  I’m so angry I feel myself wanting to take out my frustrations on Candy, to make her react, to make her cry. Not exactly mature, I know, but it’s been a tough day.

  Candy stares at me long and hard and then looks down.

  “There is no baby,” she says flatly.

  No baby?

  “Since when? Candy, what happened?”

  “What happened,” she says slowly, “is that I wasn’t pregnant after all. Wasn’t ever pregnant, actually. I thought I was—I missed two periods and felt really bloated. And when I found out that I wasn’t, I couldn’t bear it. I thought that if I could just keep everyone thinking I was pregnant, then everything would be fine. Mike would marry me . . .”

  A small tear is wending its way down Candy’s cheek. I try not to feel pleased that she’s finally upset.

  “It looks like even a real baby wouldn’t have done the trick anyway,” she says.

  “You’re well shot of him,” I say quietly.

  Candy nods. “And you’re welcome to him.”

  Me? She still thinks that I’m going to Spain with him?

  “Candy, he’s not going to Malaga with me. This is not about me and Mike. There’s someone else.”

  Candy looks up sharply.

  “Someone else? That’s impossible. Who?”

  “I don’t know. Some bitch that David works with. She’s stitched up David and now she’s running away with Mike.”

  Candy looks me up and down as if she’s trying to work out whether to believe me or not. Evidently she does, because after a few seconds she looks down and smiles.

  “I shouldn’t think he’ll get very far.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” she says, looking me straight in the eye, “that I rang the airline this afternoon and canceled the ticket. The eight-thirty flight to Malaga will be leaving without him. And without this . . .” Candy reaches into her bag and brings out Mike’s passport. “Without this, I don’t think he’s really going anywhere. Do you?”

  Her smile breaks into a real grin. Tears are still rolling down her cheeks, but she has a glint in her eye. “I’ve been pretty stupid, haven’t I?”

  “You and me both,” I agree.

  “I can’t believe I fell for him,” Candy sniffs. “After all those evenings telling you he wasn’t worth it.”

  “I thought you had just told me that so you could have him to yourself,” I say, half joking and half accusingly.

  “No! Oh my God, Georgie, I would never do that! I mean, I did fancy the pants off him, but I really didn’t mean to be so two-faced. I only let him move in with me because he said if he could just move in with me for a little bit he’d get himself together . . . he said that you two needed a clean break, you know, so that you could get over him properly. . . .

  We both start laughing. It sounds so ridiculous now.

  “So he didn’t leave me for you?”

  “I resisted him for at least two weeks,” Candy smirks. “And then, when I finally gave in, I was so guilt-ridden I couldn’t call you or see you or anything. I only called you the other week because Mike said he’d seen you and I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything else to it. David adores you and I couldn’t bear the idea of you letting Mike screw things up, except that I couldn’t say anything because David had said not to say anything about me and Mike. And then when I told you I was pregnant, and you kept talking about Mike, I just lost it.”

  “Candy, I’m so sorry. God, we’re both total suckers aren’t we. And Mike isn’t even a good kisser.”

  “Mike? God, he’s awful! And you know he’s started to dye his hair?”

  We both convulse in giggles, then Candy puts her coffee down.

  “Georgie, I haven’t had a drink, a proper drink, in an awfully long time. You don’t fancy one, do you?”

  “I would love that. Let’s drink a toast to our abysmal taste in men and to us being proper friends again,” I suggest.

  Candy smiles and stands up.

  “Not abysmal,” she says. “David’s one of the few good ones.”

  I feel a lump in my throat appear as I follow her out into the street.

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  ABC Amber LIT Converter v2.02

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  It’s 10:30P.M . My answerphone is flashing. Ready for the worst, I press Play on the machine and sit on the edge of the sofa.

  “Georgie, are you there? It’s Mike. Pick up the bloody phone. I need to talk to you.

  “Georgie, what the fuck is going on? Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  “Fucking call me.

  “Georgie? Do you think this is funny? Don’t be an idiot—pick up the phone. I know you’re there; they said you weren’t in work today . . .”

  I turn up the volume of the television and go to the kitchen to get a bottle of wine. I’m already pretty drunk, but getting drunker seems like a pretty good idea right now. Candy and I made our way through about five gin and tonics earlier and nearly got kicked out of the pub for being so rowdy—very unlike Candy. But now I’m back and I’ve got to face the music.

  I don’t know how much Mike knows—it depends how much Vanessa has pieced together really. To be honest, I was hoping that he’d have been arrested or something by now, but it seems he’s still very much around. At least he won’t be able to go to Spain and David will be okay. I just never want to see him again.

  I open a bottle of red, and notice that it’s Bulgarian. I can’t help checking the vintage to see if it’s a 1999. I realize that I have never asked David whether he made that whole thing up about the Bulgarian wine to save me, or whether it’s really true. I wonder if I’ll get the chance to ask him.

  The phone rings, startling me. I’m tempted to answer—what if it’s David—but decide that it’s more likely to be Mike, and leave it to be answered by the machine. Sure enough, Mike’s voice soon comes ringing out of my answerphone. He’s trying to sound all friendly, but I can hear the bitterness in his voice. “Georgie, if you’re there, please answer the phone. I didn’t get that package you were sending me. You know I’m relying on you, don’t you? Look, give me a call, okay?”

  I decide enough is enough and pull the telephone out of its socket. Then I turn off my mobile for good measure. Frankly, they can all go hang, I decide. What I want right now is a nice hot bath.

  I wake up to a loud ringing noise. I open my eyes slowly and try to get my bearings. Okay, so I’m not in my bed, I’m in a lukewarm bath and my skin is all wrinkly. As for the noise, well, obviously that’s the doorbell. Dammit, can’t a girl get just a little peace and quiet?

  I stagger to my feet and my head starts throbbing as I pull on a robe. That’ll teach me to drink gin and wine in the same evening. What was I thinking?

  The door buzzes again and I hear Mike’s voice call my name. Anger wells up inside me—just who the hell does he think he is? Without thinking, I pick up the intercom. “Sod off and leave me alone,” I say loudly. “Just leave me bloody well alone. You are a pathetic bastard.”

  I want to add “and me and Candy both hate you, so there,” but figure that I don’t really want to sound like a fifteen-year-old.

  “Georgie. Where’s the fucking disk, Georgie?”

  Mike’s voice is slurring—evidently he’s been drinking too. He’s also shouting, all his sentences peppered with expletives. I’m not usually too worried about what my neighbors think of me, but I’m going to have to lay low for a while after this.

  Mike moves away from the intercom. “Open the fucking door,” he shouts.

  I run to the window and open it wide. Looking down I can see Mike two floors below, sitting on the pavement, a bottle in hi
s hand.

  “They’re all wankers, Georgie, you know that don’t you. You think you can trust someone, and what do they do? Take your passport, that’s what. She took my fucking passport!” He starts to laugh maniacally.

  “Mike, just go away, will you? I don’t want to see you again. Ever.”

  I start to put the window down again but am jolted by the noise of glass smashing. Mike has thrown his bottle against the wall.

  “Fine. You don’t want to give me the disk? I’m going to come up and get it.”

  He starts making an attempt to climb the wall up to my flat. I grab a large ceramic vase my mother gave me for Christmas last year in case I need something to defend myself. Okay, so a ceramic vase may not be the most fearsome of weapons, but there’s nothing else at hand.

  “You do know how much I hate you, don’t you?” I shout down at Mike as he feebly attempts to climb up the drainpipe leading up to my window. “You are the most pathetic creature that ever lived. I know all about you stealing money from people, and about Vanessa, too. You even got me to carry your money in through customs for you, you total bastard.”

  Mike’s attempts to climb the wall are coming to nothing. He jumps up several times and clings on to the drainpipe only to slide straight down again.

  “Oh come on, you’d have done anything to get in my trousers,” he shouts, giving up on the climb. “You’ve never stopped fancying me, have you? Never got over the fact that I just couldn’t give a fuck, did you? Well, I hope you’re happy with David. Boring bastard David who wouldn’t know how to seduce a fucking prostitute.”

  I throw the ceramic vase down toward Mike. Not near enough to hit him, but near enough to make myself feel a bit better.

  “David, boring?” I shout. “Mike, you obviously have no idea how utterly sleep inducing you are. And if you think that I fancy you, well, you can bloody well think again. Why do you think I faked feeling sick in Rome? It was so I didn’t have to kiss you, let alone sleep with you, you pathetic shit!”

  I am getting into my stride with this insult hurling, and look around for another object to throw out of the window.

  Mike looks very agitated. “Are you fucking throwing things at me? You don’t want to throw things at me, Georgie.” His voice is menacing now. “Bad things happen to people who really piss me off. The prick who nicked my Zip disk for instance—know what happened to him? No, well, you wouldn’t, would you. But he won’t be bothering me or anyone else again. Got friends, you see. Theydeal with things like that.” Mike has given up attempting to climb up the drainpipe and has sat back down on the pavement again.

  “You mean your Italian friends?” I say sarcastically, picking up a bowl full of potpourri.

  “Family,” Mike corrects me. “Italianfamily .” He laughs. “Now, let me into your flat or I am going to break your fucking door down . . .”

  But before he can finish his sentence, we are both blinded by lights. I put my hands over my eyes, and as they adjust to the brightness I see ten, maybe twelve men in police uniform appear out of nowhere and surround Mike. He tries to kick out at one of them but fails miserably and is led away into one of three black cars that I hadn’t even noticed were there. A young man looks up at me.

  “Sorry to trouble you like this. There won’t be any more bother this evening,” he says brightly, then nods and gets into one of the cars.

  I stand at the window, dazed, and watch the cars drive off. Were the police there all the time? How did they know Mike was here? God, what did they hear me say?

  Within a few minutes the road is quiet again. I would think that I’d imagined the whole thing if it wasn’t for the smashed bottle and the broken ceramic vase, which I’m now going to have to replace so that my mother doesn’t give me a lecture about being clumsy. But just as I’m about to shut the window, I hear a noise below. I look down and my heart skips a beat when I see that it’s David approaching.

  He stops a few yards away from my front door and surveys the scene. He looks at the broken vase and the smashed bottle, then slowly looks up to my window. Our eyes meet and we stare at each other for a moment or two. I can hear a cat yowl in the distance, but otherwise there is complete silence.

  “Thank you,” he says. “For the disk. For getting it back.”

  “You’re welcome,” I reply. It’s a cool, still night, but I can feel that my face is red and hot. I want to ask David up, but something stops me. I feel awkward, like someone at the end of a first date, not sure whether the other person really likes them or not.

  “They got Mike then,” I say, not sure whether or not this will be news to David.

  He nods.

  “And Vanessa?”

  “Oh yes,” says David. “We had serious doubts about Vanessa and were waiting for her to trip up. Quite tidy, the way it all finished.”

  “Is that . . . is that why you didn’t want to introduce us in Rome?” I ask tentatively.

  “Exactly,” says David, and then there is silence again.

  I want so much for David to come in, to take me in his arms and tell me everything is okay. But it’s not as simple as that, I remind myself. And anyway, he doesn’t seem to want to come up.

  There’s a long pause before David speaks again.

  “Georgie, I need to know whether you still have feelings for Mike,” he says slowly. “I need to be able to trust you.”

  “Trust me?” I say incredulously. “After everything I’ve done today, you need to know if you can trust me? David, I’ve had Mike here this evening threatening me with his bloody Mafia friends because I gave Jane that Zip disk. My mother and I broke into his flat to get it and my stepfather wrote off a car so that we didn’t get caught. Of course you can trust me.”

  “That was very sweet of you, Georgie,” he smiles. “I’m sorry. But you must admit, you have caused me a bit of strife in the past few days.”

  I take a deep breath in. It would be so easy now to make up with David, to give him my usual cheeky grin and say I’m sorry. To admit that I’ve been a bit silly and that I should just listen to him in the future and not be so impetuous. But I’m not going to do it.

  “David, do you know why I took the disk?”

  David sighs. “You thought you were helping me, I know. But come on Georgie, you believed Mike—the very person I told you not to see.”

  “Exactly! David, just listen to yourself, will you? Youtold me not to see Mike? I’m your girlfriend, not a child. Why didn’t you just tell me what he was up to instead? You even told Candy not to tell me about her and Mike, so I had no idea what a liar he was. David, you are a wonderful boyfriend in so many ways and you are truly a great lover. But you can’t treat me like a little girl! Are you really surprised that I end up doing stupid things when you don’t ever let me know what’s really going on?”

  David looks up, dumbfounded.

  “Are you trying to say it’s all my fault?” he says incredulously.

  “No, of course not,” I sigh. “What happened is all my fault. But you do need to take a bit of responsibility. What I’m talking about is us. If there is an us, that is. If there’s going to be an us . . .” I pause for dramatic effect. “I just think that you need to change the way you see me. To tell me what’s going on instead of treating me like a child and shielding me from everything. I need you to take me seriously . . .”

  My voice trails off as I look at David’s face. He looks shocked. Oh God, he probably can’t believe that having put him through hell I’m now having a go at him for not trusting me. Am I being unfair?

  Suddenly gripped by fear that I could be screwing up yet again, I decide to shout down to David that I was completely in the wrong and that he probably had really good reasons not to tell me about Mike. But before I can open my mouth, I notice his face changing. He still looks serious, but now he’s looking at me as if he’s seeing something he hasn’t seen before. I couldn’t be sure, but I almost think he looks a bit proud.

  “You’re saying there may not be an us?” he says softly, so softly that I can only just hear him through the night air.

  “Well, no, not really,�
� I shrug. “But it got you to listen, didn’t it?”

  “I’m sorry, Georgie. Really and truly sorry. I thought, well, I thought it was up to me to protect you. I didn’t realize I was shutting you out. I just . . . I didn’t want you to know about the horrible stuff I get involved in. Could I . . . could I maybe come in so that we can talk about this with some, well, privacy?”

  I nod and walk over to press the intercom buzzer. I push it several times, but I can’t hear David opening the door.

  “It’s open,” I call, walking back to the window, but David isn’t on the street anymore. I lean out of the window to see where he’s got to, and to my amazement I find that he’s climbing up the wall. He is shinnying up the very same drainpipe that floored Mike.

  “David, what are you doing?” I call excitedly. “You’re insane!”

  “Not insane, Georgie, but perhaps a bit stupid,” David replies, grabbing onto the wall for a better grip. “I thought I was doing the right thing keeping the truth from you. I didn’t want you to worry, and if I’m absolutely honest, I probably didn’t know you really cared about it. But Georgie, the last thing I wanted was to lie to you. I just didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily. Plus, I knew you had feelings for Mike and I thought you might think I was making the whole thing up.” He swings his legs onto the top of the first-floor window.

  “And you’re right. I mean, about me,” he says thoughtfully, pausing to change his grip. “I’ve been thinking that I need to make some changes in my life.”

  “Changes? You don’t need to change,” I say gently. “You’re pretty much perfect as you are. Just, you know, tell me stuff. Don’t keep secrets from me. David, be careful won’t you . . .”

  I’m half hanging out of the window now, terrified that he’s going to fall.

  “No, I do need to change,” says David through gritted teeth—his head is now level with my windowsill. I hurriedly move my planters into the flat. “I don’t want to spend so much time at the office anymore. Jane has booked me on a course in ‘delegation’ and I’m going to really try.”

  I grin. I can just imagine Jane telling David exactly what she thinks of his delegation skills.

  “You see,” David says, pulling himself into my sitting room, “I haven’t had a holiday for a very long time. Rome made me realize what I’m missing—what we’re missing. And if I’m going to take a long holiday, well, I need to be able to delegate. To trust the people working for me.”