Our hotel was in the via Elisabetta, on a corner, and its top storey almost collided with its opposite neighbour’s. It was a simple place, with hard beds, white cotton covers and a tiny niche in each bedroom that housed a plastic statue of the Virgin, which we had been warned not to touch. ‘I dare you, I dare you,’ cried Marty, my roommate. Marty was going to be beautiful. She came from a better-off family and her wardrobe was extensive. She was contemptuous of me and, because I feared her, I accepted her dare and hung the door key off the Virgin’s plaster hand.
Later that night, I lay and listened to the traffic snarl past and waited for Marty to go to sleep. When I was sure that she had, I slid from under the rough sheets, crept over to the Virgin and removed the key. Mother of God, forgive me. I knew not what I did. Where had I read that? In the half-light, jeering Marty slept, almost like an angel.
The via Elisabetta ran through the Trastevere district from San Pietro in Montorio, past the piazza Santa Maria and down to the river. The Trasterine reputedly have loud, hoarse voices, drink lots of coffee, eat maritozzi for breakfast and spaghetti cacio e pepe for supper. (I had done my research.) It was an area that traditionally had absorbed foreigners and nonconformists. From ancient times, it had understood diversity and the quirks of different peoples.
Ecco.
It was a serpentine street, coiling down to the river Tiber but, by the end of the second day, if you had blindfolded me, I could have led you to the laundry, or to the shop that sold pictures of Christ, heart exposed, surrounded by roses, lilies and flowers of the field. I puzzled over the cards, which seemed to me intemperately vulgar, and as to why Christ had appeared to have had open-heart surgery.
Walking south from San Pietro, the first stop had to be for a café ristretto at Nono’s to brace you for the walk to the river. (In penance, Marty treated me to one.) Long before you saw the water, you sensed its flow and heard its ancient sounds, but before it came into sight, the via Elisabetta widened and flared into a modest square, flanked by the pinky terracotta-coloured buildings. In the centre of the square was a fountain: a stone youth with a drawn sword guarded a woman in flowing robes, who wore a crown and balanced a pot on her shoulder from which the water gushed. The pot had a pattern of bees engraved into it.
Here, I discovered the Café Nannini, run by the family. In the morning, Signora Nannini presided over a magical machine that produced an elixir called coffee, which was nothing like the coffee I knew but was topped by foam over which lay a drift of chocolate. In the afternoon, Signor Nannini took over. In halting Italian, I asked him about the fountain in the middle of the square, which seemed rather ornate for such a modest square. ‘Why the bees?’
‘Barberini bees. A Barberini gave the money for the fountain to be built. A long time ago.’
‘E la donna?’
‘She is the wife of the king of the gods. A woman who suffered because her husband liked the pretty girls.’
I remembered the frozen stone face. ‘Wasn’t being wife to the king of the gods enough?’
‘It is nature.’
Lucy Honeychurch and Jane Eyre did not help me in this matter. Hoping for enlightenment, I inspected the face again, but I did not find any.
‘Rosie,’ said Nathan, as I dumped my book bag on the sofa in the sitting room that evening. It fell over, spilling its contents. ‘Rosie, we must talk.’
He had his back to me and was gazing out of the french windows into the garden. He had not changed out of his office suit, his third favourite one in dark grey with the faintest red stripe running through the material. The cut flattered him, and I urged him to wear it more often.
Nathan sometimes issued imperatives. They meant nothing. I was late, tired, my feet were wet and it had been a trying day. ‘Sorry I’m late. Minty was ill and I had to cope. I expect you’re hungry. I’ll just change my shoes.’
‘Now…’ He sounded strained, my energetic, thrusting, ambitious husband.
I went over to him, slid my arms around him and laid my cheek on his shoulder. ‘All right. Go on.’
Then, he turned round and pushed me away. He looked me straight in the eye. At least he did that. His were alight with an excitement and dread I could not place. ‘This is not a good talk.’
Chapter Five
I couldn’t explain it – I never could when he did it: Nathan went absent. He simply folded his mind into a secret place and disappeared inside himself. It was a habit of his, and it was particularly noticeable when he was nerving himself for a confrontation at work.
‘Not one of the children?’ I demanded, with the flash of fear that always lay waiting.
‘No, nothing to do with them.’ Nathan appeared to be in need of something to do with his hands, and he stuffed them into his pockets. It was the gesture he had used when he demanded that I marry him. Then, his pockets had practically disintegrated from tension and imperatives – ‘Say yes. Now.’
He began to speak, thought better of it, and tried again. ‘Rosie, we’ve been happy, haven’t we?’
Words can be spoken, they can be written in Gothic script, they can be sung, and we all agree to agree on what they mean. Yet their real meaning is in how they are said.
‘Haven’t we?’ With astonishment, I realized that Nathan had pronounced those words with finality. Alarm and bewilderment began to grate in my stomach. I replied. ‘Yes, we have.’
‘First of all, I want to say that I have been happy with you. Very, very happy. Despite my not being your first choice, so to speak.’
‘Nathan…’
‘Let’s establish it, I have been happy. Despite… everything,’ he muttered.
‘What are you talking about?’ I stared at him, and comprehension crept in. ‘You’re not on about that again? I can’t believe you’re still going on about a love affair that… Everyone has a love affair before they get married. You can’t possibly imagine… or think…’
‘Only because you do.’
‘I don’t. I promise I don’t.’
‘Oh, come on, Rosie. We know each other well enough. The truth?’
I swallowed. ‘I suppose I do, very occasionally, think about Hal, in a remote way, but only to remind me of how happy I am and how much I love you. Occasionally, I think, what if, but only if we’ve had a row. It’s harmless, foolish stuff. Why are you bringing this up? What’s happened?’
He grabbed my arm, and his fingers bit into the flesh. ‘No regrets?’
I smiled up at him, tender and committed. ‘You know there are not.’ ‘You silly,’ I added. ‘You know how grateful I am, what you mean to me. The children, the house. Our life. Us.’ I touched his lips with a finger, outlining their shape, gently, softly. ‘Why don’t you go and have a bath, Nathan, and I’ll get supper?’
It was not quite true about the regrets. No life, or decision, is possible without a few, at least I don’t think so. But I kept mine private, those memories of being careless and ignorant – not even Vee or Mazarine knew about them. Certainly not Nathan. Regrets are a tool that should be used only as a last resort. Anyway, they bore people.
Nathan’s fingers dug deeper into me.
‘Do you think you could let go my arm, or at least not hold it so tightly?’ I asked.
He released me at once. ‘There’s no easy way to say this, Rosie, so I’ll say it straight.’
But he did not. The words drizzled into silence, and he swung back to his contemplation of the garden in which he took no interest. At last, he drew an audible breath and said, ‘I’ve found someone else.’
The shock hit me like a hammer. ‘What?’ I groped for the sanctuary of the blue armchair. ‘What did you say?’
‘I’ve found someone else, and I’ve fallen in love with her.’ Nathan turned to face me. ‘I’m sorry. I’m very, very sorry.’
I said the first stupid thing that came into my mind. ‘You can’t have done. I would have known.’ He shrugged. I tried again. ‘I don’t believe you.’
He shook his head
as if to say, ‘Don’t. Don’t make it worse.’
I struggled to concentrate. Affairs happened to other people, not to Nathan and me, a happily married couple. I plucked at a thread trailing from the arm of the chair. I always insisted on sitting in the sun by the window and the original bright Delft blue of the chair cover had faded over the years to the softest powder.
‘Listen to me.’ Nathan sat down opposite me and hunched over his knees. ‘I have found someone else, and we need to talk about it.’
I looked down at my hands. I have been told they’re nice, with long fingers, and that the simplicity of a heavy gold wedding ring sets them off to advantage. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Look at me, Rosie.’
I did so, but I was concentrating on my chest where my heart was banging in an unfamiliar fashion. ‘I don’t understand,’ I whispered. He gave me a long, pitying look, and the blood drained from my cheeks. ‘You seemed perfectly happy, Nathan.’
His silence told me another story, the real story. He had been happy because of someone else. I returned to the observation of my hands, which suddenly seemed thin, worn and breakable, the tiny lump on the ring-finger joint more noticeable. I made an effort to pull myself together. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’
Nathan climbed wearily to his feet. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘No, it isn’t. Should I be cracking open the champagne or something?’
‘Rosie…’
The sensation in my chest crescendoed, and I felt sick. I leapt up and fumbled my way to the bathroom where I hung over the basin and stared at the taps. Nathan was never unkind. Careless and preoccupied sometimes, yes. A man who craved much from his work, and went to pains to obtain it, yes. Determined. Predictable. That was what I loved about him, and needed from him. But he was never cruel.
Little by little, I was forced to face the conclusion: if those judgements were correct, Nathan must mean what he said.
After a few minutes I felt steadier. I drank some water from the toothmug, which tasted of mint, wiped my face, and braced myself to confront Nathan, who was hovering in the doorway.
‘Are you all right?’
‘What do you think?’ His question was crass, and made me angry, which was the easiest to deal with of the many feelings that surged through me. Disbelief, hotly pursued by terror, then, stalking through dark, unmapped thickets, rank humiliation.
Nathan placed a hand on my shoulder, and inspected my face. He gave a faint, guilty smile. ‘I thought for a moment you might do something stupid. But you mustn’t, you know, not over me.’
‘I thought that was the point, Nathan. If you love someone you’re prepared to do something stupid.’
‘We have to talk. Properly’ He took my hand and led me along the landing and down the stairs. I tried to snatch it away but he held on tight. I was dragged behind him, my feet slipping on the treads. ‘You’re telling me that you’re having an affair and you want me to go over the fine print with you? Would you like advice on what underwear to buy her?’
‘Shut up, Rosie.’
We blundered back into the sitting room where Nathan tore off his suit jacket and flung it down. He grasped the back of the sofa, took a breath – the speech pose. We should discuss the paper’s circulation. Nathan often practised on me when he required advice and input. Don’t patronize. Be clear.
I said, desperately, ‘Nathan, we could forget this conversation. We need not go on.’
He was taken aback and muttered, ‘I prayed it wouldn’t come to this.’
‘Obviously not hard enough.’ I heard a sharp voice, and it was mine, and I hated it.
‘The stupid thing is, I need help and I can’t ask you.’
I sat down in the blue chair and plucked at the stray thread. Blue was the colour of life: the lapis used by the master painters I had seen in Rome, the cerulean of hot skies, the metallic gleam of a duck’s wing, a vein twitching under skin. ‘No, you can’t ask me for help.’
That had been a rule in our marriage. We never talked about it, but we understood: if one was in trouble, the other came to help. He helped me. I helped him. We helped each other.
Again there was a silence. Eventually Nathan cleared his throat. ‘You have every right to be angry’
Angry? Bitterly so, that Nathan had been so stupid to tell me. Married people did fall in love with others, and out again. The trick was to be very clever and very secret about such a predicament, and I would have expected Nathan to be very clever and very secret and to have starved his love until it died from lack of nourishment. ‘Why have you told me? It w-wasn’t necessary’
‘Rosie, you haven’t understood.’
‘No, I haven’t.’ But then I did. I forced myself to raise my eyes. ‘You want to leave home? You want to leave me? You can’t. There are the children to consider.’
‘The children are twenty-two and twenty-four. They can handle it. Lots do.’
‘It doesn’t matter what age they are.’
He shrugged with unfamiliar emphasis, and I noticed a feather of grey hair above his ears. Nathan would have noticed it, too, for he kept a rigorous tally on the signs of decay.
‘But why do you want to leave? Surely we can get over this… episode. I wish – I wish you hadn’t told me but I’m not blind, I know these things happen. Things happen under the surface all the time, every day. Nathan, trust me. We can get over it.’
It was true. I was not stupid. Love had many forms, and assumed different shapes at different times, sometimes glorious, sometimes terrible, always necessary. It was a question of believing in it, and fighting for it, and the necessary bit sometimes meant sacrifice, precisely because everything could change. Just like that. With a couple of sentences. Yes, Nathan and I could find a box, pile in any lies or deceit, shut the lid and go on. The act of will was the crucial thing, the factor that pulls the messy tendrils and mistakes back into order.
He paced up to the french windows and back again. ‘For some time now I have been thinking about milestones and of how we’re getting older.’
‘Nathan, you’re only fifty-one. Anyway, it isn’t the point.’
But it was the point.
He stopped in his tracks. ‘It is and it isn’t. I need freedom, space. We build cages for ourselves, Rosie, in all sorts of ways. Work, family, habit. I’ve realized that I feel imprisoned by the walls I’ve built around myself.’
In all our marriage, I had never heard such words leave Nathan’s lips. It was a new language for us both and I didn’t think he spoke it fluently or even well. I groped at my unruly chest. ‘Imprisoned? But you wanted to be. You spent… energy, time doing it. You wanted a family and the career. You’ve had them, and enjoyed them, and you can’t just discard a family because you feel a bit bored.’
‘You don’t want to live with someone who feels like I do, do you?’
‘Isn’t that for me to decide?’
‘I’d better be completely honest with you, Rosie.’ I quivered at the thought of Nathan’s complete honesty. ‘The other I could have dealt with but this person… She gives me… what I think I must be looking for. She admits new possibilities.’
‘Or do you mean sex?’ I flashed.
We glared at each other and I was sorry I had allowed myself to say something so obvious, so revealing. Then again, it was obvious.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Nathan, but the gleam in his eye told me otherwise. I thought of the other night, when it had been so easy, so affectionate, and I felt black outrage. Back went Nathan’s hands into his pockets. ‘When we married, we agreed that we would always give each other space. I’ve been a good husband, yes?’
‘Yes, you have.’ I spoke as calmly as I could.
‘I’ve done everything you could ask?’ I nodded. ‘Well, I’m asking now for my space.’
I wondered what could possibly help me. A drink? A blow to the head? ‘How long has this… Nathan? Who?’
‘About a year.’
; ‘Oh, God,’ I said. ‘So long. We’ve been living a lie so long.’ So long that it took in last Christmas. (‘Nathan, what do you think – Christmas lunch or Christmas dinner?’) The autumn holiday in Scotland where rain fell as soft as bottled water and we found wild bilberries on the hill. Nathan’s birthday party in August (forty people came and toasted him), and the familiar cycle of Monday and Friday, the suppers we had shared, the bottles of wine, the intimacies… They had all been different from what I had supposed them to be.
Nathan looked sick and stricken. ‘Not a lie, Rosie, because it didn’t start out serious.’
‘Nathan, have you had affairs before?’
‘No. Never.’ He took my hand. ‘I promise.’ He dropped it.
In a way, that made it worse. ‘Nathan, have you been pushed into this by whoever it is? You really, really mean what you say?’
‘I must have change. I must have some air. I can’t stay where I am any longer.’
I dropped my head into my hands. ‘For God’s sake, Nathan, don’t. Spare me. Please don’t dress an affair into some great plea for freedom. I can’t bear it.’
‘If that’s the way you want it.’
‘But who is it?’
Nathan took his hands out of his pockets and smoothed down his hair. The transition from the successful newspaper executive into a troubled, middle-aged man shocked me. ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this…’
Head bowed, like a victim, I waited. ‘Who, Nathan?’
He swallowed. ‘It’s Minty.’
After Nathan had shovelled a few things into a bag and departed, I walked through the house. I did not know what else to do. I went up the stairs and along the landing. Outside the main bedroom, our bedroom, I came to a halt for I could not bring myself to enter it.
It’s Minty.
No, I choked, backing away from Nathan. It’s not possible. Minty would not do that.
Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman Page 5