I suppose she might be wondering the same thing about me. But Oliver had to work; it can’t be helped. Suddenly a flicker of doubt passes across my mind, as I remember what happened with Jay. He also said he had to work one weekend … and it later turned out he was with his other girlfriend. Or rather his girlfriend, because he and I were always a ‘let’s not put labels on this’ mess. I’ve never felt so stupid in all my life.
But that was completely different. I can trust Oliver. Just because he had to duck out of Valentine’s Day does not mean that he’s seeing someone else. Or that he’s losing interest.
To distract myself from these paranoid musings, I get out my guidebook and continue reading about Rome. Maggie gets out One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.
‘Isn’t that—?’ I ask, before I can stop myself.
‘Yes. It’s the same book I was reading at New Year. I am going to finish it, even if it takes me all year.’
‘It’ll take you a hundred years at this rate,’ says Lily. ‘Why don’t you start something else?’
Maggie shakes her head. ‘Once I start a book, I have to finish it.’
The airport, of course, is about an hour from Rome itself – that’s why our flight was so cheap. But the journey goes quickly, and soon we’re heading towards the centre. My first impression of Rome is that it’s like a giant open-air museum where past and present are randomly piled up together. We pass the Colosseum and the Forum, and hills topped with palaces, side by side with Zara shops, ads for mobile phones and people on Vespas.
We get off the bus and start to walk, following the directions I’ve printed out. We’re on a street called Via della Propaganda, which seems funny and also extremely Roman. Everything we pass, almost without exception, is beautiful. The buildings are pink and orange and ochre, with tall wooden doors framed with stone arches; every few minutes there’s an ivy-covered building housing a quaint little bar or antique shop. A girl goes by riding a moped in high heels, her black hair streaming in the breeze. I think of the Italian guys who work in Starbucks on Finchley Road near my flat. How can they stand it?
‘It’s so sunny,’ breathes Maggie. She stops to take off her trench coat and puts on a big pair of sunglasses. Three Romans in leather jackets give her an appreciative look as they pass by, before checking out me and Lily.
‘Ciao, biondina,’ says one of them, smiling at Lily, before they wander on.
‘Somehow it seems more acceptable coming from handsome Italians rather than out of a white van,’ I say thoughtfully. ‘But maybe I’m just being a snob.’
The others laugh. We pass an elegant cobbled square with a tall ancient column. The square is doubling up as a car park – more evidence of how casually Romans seem to treat their classical past. After walking down a street full of very fancy shops, we find ourselves in a big piazza, with palm trees dotted here and there and a marble fountain in the middle. A vast flight of flower-filled steps sweeps up to a church with two towers. There are people sitting all over the steps – teenagers, tourists and locals, chatting, smoking and sunbathing. Sunbathing!
‘This is the Piazza di Spagna,’ I say, consulting my map. ‘Our hotel is on this square.’
‘O to the M to the G,’ says Lily.
Il Palazzetto is fairly well hidden away, but eventually we locate the brass plate and climb the steps to the private terrace overlooking the Piazza di Spagna. We can barely contain ourselves with excitement as we’re shown inside and taken to our rooms. The hotel is tiny, but both of the rooms are bigger than my entire apartment (which wouldn’t be hard) and have balconies overlooking the piazza. Everything is decorated in creamy white and gold – it’s like an expensive dessert.
‘Aaah,’ says Lily, flopping on to their bed. ‘That’s what I’m talking about. Can you book all my holidays, Rachel?’
Maggie is already unpacking quickly, like a neat whirlwind. Lily and I watch as she hangs her clothes in order of colour, type and probably star sign, lines up her shoes underneath according to height, and then starts sorting underwear and accessories into different drawers. I happen to know that when she’s at home, she changes into ‘lounging’ clothes, to keep her day clothes nice.
‘What’s the plan, ladies?’ she asks. ‘It’s six thirty now. Do we want to chill out here for a bit and get changed, or head out for a little drink on our private terrace?’
‘I could handle a drink on our private terrace,’ I say. ‘And then we could go on somewhere else.’ I open up my Time Out guide and start reading out descriptions of bars nearby. I can see Maggie and Lily exchanging glances.
‘Let me guess. Not spontaneous enough? You’d prefer to wander?’
They both nod mutely, and I laugh. It’s a good thing I don’t take offence easily.
Hearing a buzz, I reach for my phone and see that I have three messages welcoming me to Movistar, and one from Oliver: How is Roma? Hope it’s great. Just arriving in Bristol and heading out for some beers with Laura and the others. X
Smiling, I tap out a quick reply to say that we’ve arrived safely and that the hotel is gorgeous. I’m surprised by his mention of beers: I hadn’t realised the Friday evening was just social. But I suppose that’s the nature of conferences. Though I don’t really see why Laura, his glamorous orthopaedic colleague, merits a special mention.
‘So are we going out-out now?’ asks Maggie. ‘Or are we just going out for a quick snifter? If it’s a quick snifter, I won’t get changed, but if we’re going out-out then I’d like to get dressed up.’
It hadn’t occurred to me to dress up. I’m wearing my favourite V-neck black top, a denim skirt and flat black boots; those will take me from day to night, as the magazines say. But judging from Lily’s expression, I can tell that for Maggie, it’s more of a process.
‘Let’s say it’s a quick snifter for now,’ says Lily. ‘We can come back and get changed if we want to.’
Lily and I brush our hair, Maggie makes some minute adjustments to her make-up, and then we go out on to the hotel’s terrace. We have a bird’s-eye view of the piazza, lit up by the setting sun. On the other side, I can see a large complex of buildings that I think might be the Vatican. Oh God, I completely forgot the Vatican! There’s so much to see, it’s almost stressful. Then I think of how silly that is, and start to laugh.
‘What’s so funny?’ asks Lily.
I rub my face. ‘I was feeling stressed out about how much there is to see in Rome. I know, I know. I’ve been working so hard, and I’m used to tackling everything as if it’s a work project. I need help.’
‘That sounds like Paris Syndrome,’ says Maggie. ‘It mainly afflicts Japanese people who go to Paris with massive expectations and then get overwhelmed and develop culture shock. It can lead to palpitations, paranoia, even hallucinations.’
Lily hoots with laughter. ‘You’re making that up.’
‘No, really. I read about it in a psychiatric journal that my flatmate subscribes to. But don’t worry, Rachel,’ she adds reassuringly, ‘you probably just need a holiday.’
We order three glasses of white wine, which arrive promptly – ice-cold, with a thoughtful little bowl of nuts and pretzels. I thank the waiter, who answers, ‘Prego.’ Lovely.
‘To Rome,’ says Lily. ‘And to our Roman Holiday!’
We clink glasses and I sigh with happiness. This is the life. I don’t even need my jacket!
‘Gosh, it’s nice ordering a glass of wine and not being ID’d,’ says Lily. ‘I was so flattered at first, but then I realised it happens to everyone, even if you’re fifty. It’s a pain in the neck.’
‘How did you end up living in LA?’ I ask.
‘It was very random. My cousin lives there – I went out for her wedding last October, and I got a job and never came back.’
‘It must be nice to have family there. What does your cousin do?’
‘She works in publishing. Her husband’s American; he’s a film agent.’
‘Wait a min
ute. Is your cousin Alice Roberts?’
‘Yes, she is! Do you know her?’
‘Yes – I’m a good friend of your other cousin, her sister Erica. Do you know her friend Poppy as well? She’s a friend of mine.’
‘Yes! That’s amazing!’ Lily says, beaming at me and peering over her sunglasses. ‘Such a small world.’
‘Wait! Does that mean your Poppy,’ Maggie looks at me, ‘is the same as your Poppy? What are the odds?’
We discuss the ins and outs of who knows who how, and all get confused, but I conclude by saying, ‘It just goes to show, there are only ten people in London.’
‘And they do the rest with CGI,’ says Lily.
The sun is properly setting now; the whole terrace is bathed in warm evening light and the steps are filling up even more. I love the way people are strolling around, chatting and forming different groups. It’s as if the whole square is a big sitting room for Rome.
Beside us on the terrace are two very eye-catching women. They could be any age from forty to eighty, and both are sporting pencil skirts, silk blouses and lots of jewellery. One of them has dark hair in a beehive, with very red lipstick; the other has blond hair, blow-dried in waves, with her eyebrows carefully pencilled in. It’s a lot of look, as they say, but they look great.
‘I hope I look that good when I’m their age,’ Maggie murmurs.
‘I don’t look that good now,’ I say. The other two rush to contradict me, but I honestly wasn’t fishing for compliments. I just don’t think I could ever be bothered to go to the effort that those two women clearly have. I explain this to the girls, adding, ‘Seriously, some mornings I barely have time to brush my teeth. And I always end up doing my make-up on the Tube. Don’t look like that, Maggie, I have a happy life really.’
We briefly discuss work and our commutes before somehow the conversation turns to boys and whether or not you should ask them out.
‘I admire people who can do it,’ says Maggie. ‘But I couldn’t. I would be too embarrassed. I really feel for guys, I don’t know how they do it.’
‘Oh, I can do it all right,’ I say. ‘But I’ve never had good results from it. Either you go out once and you never hear from them again, or else they say yes at first and then they cancel. I’m equal opportunities in every other area, but not for asking men out. It’s a waste of time.’
‘I’m a firm believer in “everything but”,’ says Lily.
‘What’s that?’ I ask, tickled. ‘It sounds like what the girls at my convent school used to do.’
‘It means that you can offer every encouragement short of asking a guy out,’ Lily says. ‘You can drop massive hints, like “Oh, I’d love to see that film” or “I’d love to try Burmese food” or whatever. You just can’t overtly ask them out. Well, you can, but I agree that it doesn’t work.’
‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t ask him out,’ suggests Maggie.
‘Exactly,’ says Lily, and we all laugh.
‘Is anyone getting hungry?’ asks Maggie. ‘It might be nice to go and have some dinner at some point.’
‘I could do with a snacketino,’ I agree. ‘A snacketito.’
‘Me too, but does that mean you’ll want to get changed?’ Lily asks Maggie sadly. Which was exactly what I was thinking, but I haven’t known Maggie as long as Lily has so I wouldn’t have had the nerve to ask.
We agree a strict time limit of twenty minutes to get changed; long enough for me to pull on jeans and a jacket – it’s getting a tiny bit chilly – and for Lily to put on some more eyeliner. Maggie changes into a very cute off-white dress with a low neck that she wears with a denim jacket, cognac boots and bare legs.
‘Oh no,’ says Lily. ‘You’ve raised the game! Now I look like a slob. I’m going to change.’ And she swaps her white T-shirt for a tighter blue one, and her hoodie for a black-and-white-striped blazer. So I decide to swap my flat boots for my ankle boots, which have a low heel, and add some eyeliner as well.
‘I didn’t raise the game,’ Maggie protests, as we go down the stairs. ‘I didn’t even change my make-up, just added lipstick.’
‘You’re a great one for doing all different kinds of make-up. I’ve worn exactly the same make-up every day since I was about twenty,’ I say.
We walk through the lobby and out into the Roman evening, which is full of an indefinable excitement that … well, I can’t keep comparing it to Finchley Road, but it is so different.
I suddenly realise that Maggie is looking at me in horror. ‘Have you really, Rachel? Every single day? But … it’s not that you don’t look lovely, but you’re missing out on so much fun!’
‘I never thought of it like that,’ I admit. ‘I suppose I’ve found something that works, so I don’t want to experiment in case it looks hideous.’
‘You could never look hideous,’ says Maggie. ‘But could I do your make-up while we’re here? Please?’
‘You should let her,’ says Lily. ‘She’s good.’
We’re wandering through the big square now, looking at all the people sitting outside, drinking, smoking, chatting. The other two girls are walking slowly; I keep on having to slow down from my usual London pace. I’m always rushing somewhere – to work, from work, to the gym. Sometimes – and I know this is bad – if I’m stuck behind someone who’s walking very slowly, I secretly want to punch them in the back of the head. God. What kind of a monster am I?
‘What about that place?’ says Lily, indicating a little restaurant tucked down a side street, with an awning and ivy-covered walls.
‘Lovely,’ agrees Maggie.
I’m worried that we’re going to a random restaurant without consulting a single guidebook. What if it’s awful? But it’s too late now. The waiter makes a big fuss of us, showing us to a table outside where we can watch the world go by. I also can’t believe that it’s warm enough to sit outside, but it is.
We all choose pizzas and Maggie and I order a carafe of red wine to share. Lily asks for a Coke with fresh lime juice, which she communicates to the waiter with the aid of a dictionary app on her phone.
‘The hard stuff,’ says Maggie, sounding impressed. ‘I never drink Coke, only Diet.’
‘Coke is so much nicer,’ says Lily. ‘Honestly, try it.’
We all take a sip and exclaim. The lime juice gives it the most incredible kick and the Coke itself is delicious.
‘You’re right; it’s so much nicer than Diet,’ I say. ‘And with the lime! It’s fantastic.’ I decide I’m going to drink this from now on; to hell with the calories.
‘Jesse introduced me to it. He said he’d rather have a Coke once in a while than Diet Cokes every day.’
‘Is Jesse your boyfriend?’ I ask.
She nods. ‘He lives in Colorado, and I’m in LA.’
‘He’s the whole reason she moved there!’ Maggie says, snapping a breadstick. ‘It was a whirlwind romance; she went over for the wedding, met him and that was that.’
‘Jesse wasn’t the whole reason,’ Lily says with a frown. ‘I got a job, and I loved it over there – I would have stayed even if it wasn’t for him.’
‘OK, Lil, I didn’t mean to grind your gears,’ says Maggie.
‘No, no, you didn’t,’ Lily says immediately. ‘Sorry.’ She sighs, and Maggie and I exchange glances before changing the subject.
Maggie starts telling us about her forays into internet dating, which seem to be going well; she’s got a date lined up already for next week.
‘He teaches kids with special needs and he’s got one blue and one green eye. Isn’t that cool?’
‘Very cool,’ says Lily. ‘What’s the standard like generally? Are there lots of hotties, or is it slim pickings?’
‘A bit of everything really,’ says Maggie. ‘Loads of snowboarders, for some reason. Half the guys have a picture of themselves holding a snowboard.’
‘What are the other half holding?’ Lily asks, and then goes into a fit of giggles, which sets us all off. ‘So
rry. Very immature of me,’ she sighs.
Maggie continues, ‘And then about ninety per cent of them say they’re passionate about travelling, which … meh.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ I ask.
‘Nothing. Except travelling is something you do for a few weeks, a year at most. And it seems sad if that’s what you’re passionate about, rather than anything in your normal life.’ She starts laughing. ‘One guy I was emailing was the opposite, though. He said he would only date someone who lived within walking distance. It turned out that I was just outside his catchment area, so we never met up.’
‘So even if he met a kind, friendly, intelligent Brazilian supermodel who was an amazing cook, she’d still have to be within walking distance? Men are so weird,’ I say.
Our pizzas have arrived; the thinnest, crispiest ones I’ve ever seen, blackened around the edges. I’m having pepperoni and mushroom, which is what I always order. And this is the best one I’ve ever had in my life. Maggie’s ordered a mushroom one, and looks carefully – at Lily’s suggestion – to double-check that there’s no meat before tucking in.
‘Remember that school trip to Paris when you told them you were a vegetarian and they gave you a salad with bacon?’ Lily says. ‘They couldn’t believe that was a problem.’
‘Were you two at school together? Is that how you know each other?’ I ask.
Lily shakes her head, her mouth full. Maggie says, ‘Next-door neighbours. She’s three years younger than me anyway.’
‘But we’ve made the relationship work in spite of the age gap,’ Lily says.
‘We went to different schools as well,’ says Maggie. ‘Yours was definitely more fun, or it sounded more fun. How about you, Rachel? Did you like school?’
‘I went to two secondary schools. Local school until I was sixteen, and then a posh hot-house school in Dublin. It was fine.’
I won a scholarship, but that’s not worth mentioning. In fact, those two years in Dublin are not worth mentioning. I lived with my aunt; I had no friends, no social life except my trips home to Celbridge every few months. I put my head down and studied like a thing possessed. A girl who was at school with me came up to me in my first term at Trinity and complimented me on how much weight I’d lost. In fact I was still the same size ten I’d always been; I’d just spent the previous two years swathed in tracksuits.
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