Then he looked over and clocked me, and his face changed, lighting up as I’d imagined it doing. For a second, I thought about excusing myself and hurrying over to him. But Harriet was telling me how hard it was for the women, many of whom had been brutalised and lost their whole families, to integrate into a new community, and how she had volunteer teachers coming in to do English conversation classes, and I was too interested to interrupt her.
And when her story finished, the main act started setting up on stage and I looked around again for Renzo. But he wasn’t there. He’d left, and I didn’t even know whether he’d noticed that I’d been there with Josh.
The Thirteenth Date
I woke up in Renzo’s flat one Saturday in August. We’d been out the night before with some of his mates from his previous job and what he’d promised would just be a quiet drink, a catch-up and a chance for me to meet some of them had turned into multiple rounds of cocktails, a lavish dinner at Sketch (which I’d seen mentioned on Instagram by some of the celebrities I followed and never, ever dreamed I’d go to myself) and then on to a club for dancing. Some of Renzo’s friends had announced that they were going on to Stringfellows, and for a second I’d wondered with the beginnings of panic whether he was going to want to go too or, worse still, expect me to accompany him.
But he’d just said, ‘I don’t need to pay good money to look at beautiful naked women. I’ve got the real thing, right here, for free.’
And we went back to his flat and had the sort of slightly wild, slightly drunken sex I was beginning to expect after nights out with him. I’d wondered with a shadow of concern whether his frenetic energy (and the fact that it took him way longer than normal to orgasm) was due to anything stronger than the many cocktails we’d drunk together, but I told myself that even if it was, it was none of my business. He was a grown-up, and able to make his own decisions about his own body. And anyway, it wasn’t like taking cocaine was a regular thing for him. I’d have known if it was, I reassured myself; and if occasionally he used it to let his hair down after a stressful week, who was I to judge?
Even though I definitely hadn’t indulged in any illegal substances myself, I woke up feeling absolutely foul on that glorious, sunny summer’s day. My head was throbbing like my brain wanted to burst out of my skull. My thighs ached like I’d done a hundred lunges, which I certainly hadn’t, and I was baffled as to why until I remembered how he’d bent my legs high over my head and held my ankles while we had sex. It must have felt like a hardcore yoga workout at the time, but I’d been too pissed and turned on to notice.
And speaking of which… As I mentally assessed the state of my body, a new kind of pain made its presence felt, and with it vanished any hope of going back to sleep until my hangover was better. I got out of bed and tiptoed towards the bathroom, but then the tiptoeing turned into a sprint.
‘Fuck,’ I muttered. ‘Fucking fuck you, cystitis, you utter fucker.’
There went the prospect of leisurely morning sex, lazy afternoon sex after we’d had something to eat, and possibly even sex again before we went to sleep. We’d only been going out for two months, after all, and we didn’t see each other every night, so when we did it still felt as if we were making up for lost time.
But the thought of anything other than a cold flannel going anywhere near my poor sore bits made me want to howl with misery. I turned on the tap to run a cool bath, wondering briefly whether there was any chance of Renzo’s flat containing anything that even vaguely resembled bicarbonate of soda, tea tree oil or cranberry juice, then immediately dismissing the idea. Renzo was about as likely to buy tea tree oil as he was to get the night bus home. If he’d ever bought a carton of cranberry juice it would have been to make Cosmopolitans, and they hadn’t been fashionable since the dark ages of about 2006, long before I was even legally allowed to drink. I necked a couple of paracetamol with water from the tap and lowered myself tenderly into the bath. The cool water and the painkillers helped a bit, and by the time I heard Renzo’s feet on the floor outside, I was feeling a bit better.
‘Christ,’ he said, pushing open the door. ‘I feel like all kinds of shit.’
Even with charcoal shadows under his eyes and his hair sticking up all over the place, he was still the most beautiful man in existence.
‘Me too,’ I said. ‘When I’ve had my bath I might go back to bed. I think I’ve… Do you think you could maybe…’
I know, totally pathetic, but I couldn’t bring myself to come out and tell him what the matter was. It felt too intimate, not in the way sex was intimate, but in another way that was deeply personal, almost shameful. I wondered if we’d ever reach a point where I could casually ask him to add a pack of tampons to the weekly shop, saying carelessly, ‘Not the applicator ones, they ming.’ I couldn’t imagine it at all, but I supposed we’d get there eventually. Maybe.
But he wasn’t listening to my fumbling attempt to explain why I was lying in the bath at eleven in the morning, wan and sorry for myself like a hung-over Lady of Shallot. He switched the shower on to boiling and stepped in. Seconds later, the rich, fruity smell of the Creed shower gel he used billowed out into the bathroom. On his skin, I loved it, but now it seemed unpleasantly cloying.
I levered myself out of the bath, wrapped a huge velvety dove-grey towel round my shoulders and went to sit on the bed, and I was still there, not properly dry and certainly not dressed but feeling slightly less like I was about to die, when Renzo reappeared. He’d shaved and fixed his hair so it fell in the familiar glossy sweep across his brow. He dropped his towel onto the floor and opened the wardrobe, stepping quickly into boxer shorts and jeans, then pulling on a pale blue and white sports shirt.
‘Should I get dressed too? Where are we going?’
‘I’m going to the pub.’
‘What? Surely you don’t feel up to drinking now?’
He laughed. ‘Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. It’s the opening day of the Serie A season and Lazio are playing SPAL. I’m meeting some mates at one, and it’s half twelve now. I’ll just have a few beers.’
‘Do you want me to come?’
‘You?’ He looked at me in surprise. ‘God, no. You’d hate it, fragolina mia. Bunch of men swearing at a TV.’
‘Okay. I’ll get dressed then, and go home.’
He sat next to me on the bed and put his arm around me. ‘Hey, you don’t have to go anywhere. If you’re feeling like crap, stay here, relax, have a nap. I’ll be home by six. We could just have a chilled night in.’
I looked at the bed. The sheets were rumpled after last night and no longer clean, but still they looked like the most inviting thing ever. I could sleep for a couple of hours and then stagger to a pharmacy and get some good strong drugs, and by the time Renzo came home I’d definitely be feeling better. We could order a takeaway and watch a movie and chill, like he said.
‘Great idea,’ I said.
‘Here’s a key. Maybe if you’re feeling better you could make us some dinner? I’ll be starving when I get back. Molta fame. There are loads of shops just down the road. Or just stay in bed, if you want.’
He kissed me and strode out.
I collapsed onto the bed like I was made of melting jelly. I felt hot and cold, knackered and wide awake. I needed to eat, but I wasn’t sure what – if any – food there was in Renzo’s kitchen. I’d never been in the flat alone before, I realised.
With that thought, any chance I’d had of sleep was gone. It’s not like I wanted to snoop; I didn’t, at all. But knowing that I was there by myself made me want to get up and explore, and imagine what it would be like to feel I belonged there.
Ten minutes later, I was dressed in the denim skirt and vest top I’d stuffed into my bag the previous day so I wouldn’t have to do the walk of shame in the low-cut red chiffon shirt and thigh-length skirt I’d gone out in. I wished I had more stuff at Renzo’s flat – the contents of my make-up bag were nowhere near up to the task of making me look like I ha
dn’t been dead for several days, and the can of deodorant in my handbag was empty so I had to nick some of his, which made me smell like a very fragrant bloke.
I made the bed, went through to the kitchen and poured a glass of water from the dispenser on the front of the fridge. Everything in the flat was super-high tech: there were USB sockets everywhere, a wine chiller under the copper-topped counter and a whole cupboard full of space-age appliances including a food processor, an ice-cream maker and a bread maker, all still in their boxes, unused.
On a shelf was a row of cookbooks: Gastronomy of Italy, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, The Food of Italy, La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy and a few more. I opened one at random and saw, in swirly writing on the first page: Buon appetito, Polpetto! Looking forward to many feasts together. Love Minty.
‘Well, stuff you, Minty,’ I muttered. ‘You’re not around now, and I am.’
The books all looked unused, too, their spines stiff and their glossy pages unmarked by splashes of grease or tomato stains. In the fridge were a few bottles of beer, a pint of milk, a pack of coffee beans, a tub of olives and two lemons. The freezer was empty apart from ice and bottles of gin and vodka. The cavernous larder unit held only a pack of amaretti biscuits, a couple of jars of chickpeas, a bottle of olive oil and a box of muesli. When I opened the box, wondering if I could face eating some for breakfast, a moth fluttered out.
Well, if I was going to cook for Renzo, I’d have to lay in some serious provisions. Feeling suddenly faint and queasy again, I sat on one of the tall stools by the counter and sipped my water. I needed to go out anyway, I reasoned, to get to a pharmacy and see if they could give me anything stronger than paracetamol, and to the supermarket to invest in a stash of cranberry juice.
I flicked through one of the cookbooks. Most of the recipes seemed to assume that I had the entire contents of a farmers’ market at my disposal and several hours to spend reducing stock and rendering fat, not to mention the ability to use the pasta maker I’d spotted in the gadget cupboard.
I had none of those things, but there was a Waitrose nearby, so I’d have to manage as best I could. I took photos on my phone of a couple of the simpler-looking recipes and, after another agonising trip to the loo, ventured out.
It was half past two when I staggered back to the flat, buckling under the weight of carrier bags from the supermarket, the pharmacy, the butcher, the deli and the wine merchant (and reeling with horror at how much money I’d spent). Although Renzo’s own wine fridge was nothing if not well stocked, I didn’t want to fuck up and open something that was a precious gift from a client or had cost Renzo two hundred pounds, so I’d bought a bottle each of red and white.
I unpacked everything onto the kitchen island and opened the photos of the recipes on my phone rather than risking spilling something on the virgin pages of the books, and got to work.
I made a tiramisu, beating the mascarpone cheese and eggs together by hand with a fork because I didn’t want to be the first person to use Renzo’s snazzy electric mixer. That was simple enough, and the espresso maker – which at least I knew how to use – was well up to the job of making the ‘good, strong coffee’ the book stipulated the sponge biscuits (‘savoiardi are far superior’, the recipe said sternly, hence my trip to the deli) should be soaked in.
Once that was in the fridge, awaiting only a grating of ‘best dark chocolate’ over the top, and after I’d taken more painkillers washed down with a pint of cranberry juice, I turned to the next recipe.
‘A classic, authentic ragù alla bolognese is quite different from the tomatoey imitation you might be used to eating in Britain,’ lectured the writer, who I was beginning to hate quite a lot. So I chopped onion, carrot, celery and pancetta into tiny cubes, crushed garlic, browned ordinary minced beef and veal mince (which I’d had to go to the butcher to get), mixed everything together in a huge pan and, after figuring out how to make Renzo’s state-of-the-art induction hob turn down to ‘an almost imperceptible, trembling simmer’ without it beeping furiously at me, went to wee for what felt like the billionth time that day.
I remembered Mum telling Perdita and me, when we were teenagers and she was going through a phase of making everything from scratch, which I’d thought at the time was just one of her hippy things but now realised was a very necessary money-saving strategy, that if you can read, you can cook. Maybe that’s true, but no one tells you that if you can’t cook, having to read how to do everything makes it take five times as long.
It was half past four already. If Renzo got back when he’d said – or if he was early – and was starving, the food wouldn’t be nearly ready: the recipe stipulated three to four hours of imperceptible simmering. So I dashed out again and spent a small fortune on marinated artichoke hearts, prosciutto, fennel salami and a cured meat thing called bresaola – which the nice woman in the deli assured me was as authentic as it got – and arranged it all on a platter.
I sliced more garlic and put it in a little dish ready to be rubbed with olive oil and salt over slices of freshly toasted sourdough bread. (’The silver foil-wrapped slugs of garlic bread beloved of 1980s dinner parties would be an insult to any true Italian,’ dissed the recipe.) Yet more garlic went into a dressing to go on the salad I made with no fewer than five different kinds of lettuce, paper-thin slices of red onion and ripped-up basil leaves. I grated most of a wedge of what I thought was parmesan cheese but turned out to be called Parmigiano Reggiano into a bowl.
I drank another pint of water and more cranberry juice and took more of the good strong drugs from the chemist. I had a shower and shaved my legs with Renzo’s razor and dressed in my denim skirt and the top and knickers I’d bought on Marylebone High Street earlier because I could see no sign of a washing machine anywhere in the flat. I put on more make-up. I set the table – a huge, asymmetrical slab of glass surrounded by eight white leather chairs.
I lit candles, even though it was only six and still light outside. I stacked the dishwasher, hoping that I was doing it right. I checked my phone again and again, but there was no message from Renzo. Six thirty came and went. I stirred the sauce for the pasta and put salt (’a good handful – Italians use water as salty as the Mediterranean sea’) into a pan ready to cook the fresh spaghetti I’d bought. I wiped the counter tops and drank more water. I looked at the half-full bottle of white wine I’d opened to put in the pasta sauce and felt a fresh stab of hot pain, and hurried to the bathroom again.
Then there was really nothing more for me to do. The tide of motivation – the urge to prove myself to be the perfect girlfriend – that had carried me through the day was ebbing. I tried calling Renzo, just the once, but his phone went straight to voicemail. I was determined not to ring or message him again after that; he was with friends, he’d said he would be home early, I didn’t want to look needy.
In a cupboard in the spare bedroom, I found a silky silver throw, the designer tags still attached. I carried it through to the living room and curled up on the sofa to wait, needing the comfort of its warmth even though the night wasn’t cold. I found an old episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race on my phone – Renzo’s home entertainment system being a mystery to me – and plugged in my earbuds.
The bang of the front door woke me, hours later, even though I hadn’t been aware I’d fallen asleep. I heard footsteps on the wooden floor, heavy and uneven, then a crash as something heavy – a phone or a set of keys – fell to the floor.
‘Renzo?’
‘Nil–nil. What a fucking shit show. What a waste of fucking time. Che cazzo de casino! Viviane was shit and Mora was worse, and Simone – Christ, what a waste of fucking money.’
He stormed in from the hallway. His shirt was stained and I could smell sourness – beer, sweat or a mixture – coming off him.
‘I cooked dinner,’ I said humbly, struggling up off the sofa. ‘There’s pasta and ragù and salad and pudding. And if you’re hungry now, there’s some salami and stuff.’
; I looked doubtfully at the platter I’d arranged, on which some of the cold meats were curling dry and others sweating grease.
‘I’m not hungry, babe,’ he said. ‘I ate earlier. What I need now is a shag and a sleep. Come on, come to bed.’
Fifteen
When I got to work on Monday morning, a week later, Felicity was already at her desk, her computer powered up and a glass of what looked like pond slime next to her. I said a bright and breezy good morning, and asked how her weekend had been.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Quiet. I spent a lot of time in the gym.’
‘In the gym? Really?’ As far as I knew, my colleague’s idea of healthy living didn’t extend very far beyond the occasional hot yoga class and kicking off brunch with a virgin mary before hitting the fizz.
‘Yup.’ She took a sip of the slime and grimaced.
‘What the hell is that stuff?’
‘It’s the High Fidelity Power Protein shake. Tastes fucking rank, but I expect I’ll get used to it by about week three of the programme.’
‘What programme?’ I sipped my cappuccino and switched on my own computer.
‘You haven’t heard of Fidel Blake? I’m amazed – he’s got, like, two million followers on Insta. Although of course he only takes on a select number of new clients. A few of Pru’s friends use him. Bettina lost a stone and a half and two dress sizes in the first three weeks.’
A stone and a half in three weeks. The numbers on my app had stayed the same for a while now; I’d been a bit lax about entering all my daily calories and I remembered I hadn’t even stepped on the scale that morning. I’d been feeling okay about it – good, even, like the monster in my head had retreated for the moment to leave me in peace. But hearing Felicity’s words made it prick up its ears and stir, knotting my stomach with guilt and anxiety and spoiling the taste of my milky coffee.
It's Not You It's Him: An absolutely hilarious and feel-good romantic comedy Page 17