A4 and I went on a beach holiday almost the first week we met. His housemate’s girlfriend wanted cockles. We didn’t buy any, but we went to three beaches looking for someone selling them. It was a very hot morning. At the first place we stopped, the water was in a shallow bay and the beach was more like a pile of shells. We walked into the water, which was exactly as warm as the air. It felt like bathing in sweat. We drove on.
At the second village, there was nowhere to park. We pulled off the road and looked at the beach and the water. We were still unsure around each other and didn’t have many topics of conversation yet.
The third beach was perfect, sandy and deserted. It was somewhere Al had been with me often. The wind was coming up and the heat had gone from the day. The water was open for miles and came in strong waves. A4 stripped down to his bathing shorts-I was in awe of his beauty then, and couldn’t stop staring at his body. He dove into the surf and flopped around happily. I walked out to the water’s edge and put a foot in. It was freezing! I jumped back.
“Are you mad?” I yelled out to his bobbing head. “Aren’t you cold?”
“It’s bracing!” he yelled back, and even at that distance I could hear his teeth chattering. I laughed and laughed. On the way home, we went past endless farms and looked at the pigs rooting in the last light of the day. A DJ on the radio was playing old songs, swing jazz, and we listened in happy silence. Sometimes to make me laugh he’d say, “Bracing!”
But the best holiday with him, and we went on many together, was camping. We set up a large tent in the woods next to a cold-water spring and stayed several days. The water was icy in the very hot summer and we bathed naked. A giant dead tree slanted out of the water, and balancing on that, he had me over and over. It felt so wonderfully primal. Until a naturist came along and paddled in the shallow water as if we weren’t even there.
Holiday sex is the best. No one to answer to, no work, no neighbors. And if you’re lucky, no phone reception. Pure sensation. It’s probably exactly what the clients at work are after. lundi, le 10 mai
There were no direct flights back. Spent one night in Rome at a large, central hostel.
The shop around the corner must have been the only one open in the early evening, as it was crowded. Bought bread, tomatoes, ricotta al forno. The markets of other countries are fascinating to me. Walking the aisles slowly, seeing what is given pride of place on the shelves. Single-serving meat pastes in the Czech Republic, screw-top bottles of sangria in Spain sold as if they were soda, the odd variety of things offered in the supermarket queues in North America. Razors, balloons, and dried meat especially.
The kitchen of the hostel was large and well equipped, with loud groups of young people at the tables. I sat on the corner of one, eating sandwiches and reading a newspaper. Wrapped two rolls and some cheese in a bit of paper to save for breakfast.
A few people sat nearby. They were English, but not traveling in a group together. I asked one where he was from. Cheddar, he said. Ah, I said. I knew someone from there a long time ago. Asked what he was doing in Rome. Not much, he said. Meeting a friend but she had gone on elsewhere. Did he like Italy? Yes. He showed me a map of all the places he’d walked in Rome. Someone had left a sweet bread, a loaf of colomba, in the communal food cupboard. We tore it to bits. The buttery flesh was sticky on top with crystallized sugar and candied peel. One of the others asked if we wanted to go for ice cream.
“Which flavor?” I asked.
“They have every flavor,” he said. The boy from Cheddar agreed. It was late, but they were open late, apparently.
We walked for almost an hour. The city was waking up, groups of men and women everywhere. I was pleased to be in the company of these men. They were each funny and clever, though I took a shine to the one from Cheddar. “Is it that one?” I asked as we walked past yet another gelateria. “No, not yet,” he said. “It’s better than that.”
It was. I couldn’t help but laugh, when we finally reached our destination. The large bright store had every flavor imaginable. I mean that. They had Nutella flavor, Ferrero Rocher. Peanut butter. Fruits I’d never heard of. They had more flavors of chocolate ice cream alone than most places had altogether. I was delighted, ordered a cone with one scoop of coconut and one of mango. The three of us nibbled from each other’s, then bought more, different flavors.
We stood outside in a little plaza. The other boy disappeared, I don’t know where to. The bit from Cheddar and I were talking about twins, and sex, and twins he’d wanted to have sex with, the sort of things that really only drunk people discuss, except we weren’t drunk. Perhaps high on ice cream. I asked what he did. He was a student, he said. Some variant of chemistry. Poor, of course. Though someone had once offered him a job as a stripper.
“Didn’t you take it?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“Pity. I did it for a while, once. When I was a student.”
“Really?” he asked. I nodded. The other one came back. We dropped the subject.
They wanted to see the Trevi Fountain. Actually, both of them had seen it before. They wanted me to see it. “How many times have you been to Rome?” Incredulous. “And you’ve never seen the fountain?” We walked and walked. Well-dressed couples were going in to lamplit restaurants.
At the fountain there were groups of tourists, though it must have been about midnight. People selling cheap electronics. Short Asian girls with rosebuds who would stand almost in your armpit. The water was full of coins and rubbish. They say throwing money into the fountain ensures your safe return to Rome someday; I wonder what disposing of your candy wrappers there signifies. We left.
Walked along the river, crossed a bridge. On both sides were statues of angels; we stopped, talked about sculpture, talked about Titian. How the male form looks better in stone but the female looks better painted.
We looked at the map, turned down a road toward the Vatican. Stood outside St. Peter’s. There is an obelisk there, a single needle point into the sky. There’s another obelisk in London. Strange how we moderns have moved them around the world singly, when the Egyptians put them up in pairs. It would be like erecting half a minaret or just the nave of a church. You can go up in the dome of St. Peter’s, I said. From the roof there is a gift shop staffed by nuns, you can buy a postcard of the Vatican and post it from the roof. That, in my opinion, is the finest thing in the religion, which has no shortage of amazing things.
We walked back. We circled round ruins, pillars of the Romans fallen into piles of stone discs. Something-I can’t remember what-reminded me of a poem, and I told it to them. The boys talked about children’s television. Cheddar told us about The Singing Ringing Tree. We others could not remember it. Neither of them had ever read The Little Prince as children, so I told them that story.
“That’s terrible,” Cheddar said. “What a story to tell a child.”
I shrugged. We saw a scooter that had silk flowers glued all over it parked outside a restaurant. We bought and shared a terrible, overpriced slice of pizza with an artichoke topping.
Back at the hostel the other boy went to bed. Cheddar and I stayed up, talked and talked, mostly about Brighton. I drew nonsensical things on a paper napkin, he kept it. He talked about going back to the Vatican to see the Pope in the morning first thing. Stand in queues for the confessionals that stand also in long rows, organized by the language the priest inside speaks. Asked if I would go.
“My flight is at eight,” I said. “I need to get some sleep.” It was about five.
“I think I’ll stay up,” he said.
“You should nap first, you’ll die at this rate.”
“I haven’t written in my journal yet,” he said. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” He walked me to my floor, we exchanged e-mail addresses, touched lips on the stairs. mardi, le 11 mai
Only just awake enough to check e-mail when I finally arrived home. A note from Dr. C, who is visiting the UK soon. And wants to see me. Must go sleep on it, as if I had a choice. dimanche, le 16 mai
A few days ago, before going to Rome, I had a missed call from the agency and a text from the manager, confirming a client at half nine.
I rang her back. “Terribly sorry, you’ll have to cancel, I’m still away.”
“Ah, right, darling. You see, this man, he is so nice…”
“No-I’m actually away. Out of the country. I’m not back until late Tuesday.” As I told her, in several calls and e-mails through the last few weeks.
“Are you certain? Because he asked specifically for you.”
Am I certain I’m not home? Yes, fairly sure of that. Unless North London has suddenly turned into a sunny seaside locale full of flowering plants. It could happen. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”
