telephone in Dan’s study – unusually tidy, wastepaper basket empty. Gwen had obviously had a good go at it this morning. The room was full of sun. I sat for a few moments in the swivel chair, swinging from side to side, warm, comfortable, wondering if I should. I picked up Dan’s favourite photograph in its tortoiseshell frame – the three of us, Sylvie must have been about five. Dan and I definitely looked younger, though indefinably so. I dialled Carlotta’s number.
Naturally she was in a hurry. I could tell that from the way the mobile was snatched up, even before she spoke. ‘You’re ringing to find out how it went with Bert,’ she said. ‘Thought you would.’ She laughed a short bark of laugh that wasn’t wholly amused. ‘I’m in a dash, but I can tell you, it went bloody well. Really good evening. And, no: if that’s what you want to know. But could have, easily. He was raring to go. Much livelier than the night we had supper with you. Jet lag over, I’d say. Peaceful through the Brahms – Mozart – whoever, randy but gentlemanly at the Savoy …’
‘The Savoy?’ I said.
‘Randy at the Savoy, and absolutely all for it when I parked at his front door.’
There was a brief silence between us. ‘But, hell, you know me,’ she went on. ‘I’m thirty-six, not the spontaneous woman I once was. I wasn’t interested. I’d like Bert to be a friend, a useful spare man. I’m not up for any more complications, not after Andrew.’
‘Quite,’ I said. And then I added that I hadn’t rung up to find out whether or not she had slept with Gilbert, but whether she had liked him and whether she had enjoyed the evening. ‘Oh that ,’ she said airily. ‘Of course I liked him. I only didn’t like him decades ago when he jumped on me in the bushes. I nearly always like your friends, don’t I? I like Bert, I enjoyed the evening, I shall enjoy doing up his house, OK? Now I’ve got to go. Speak to you soon.’
So there was no time to ask more, and anyhow to have done so would have been intolerable, even in a jokey way.
Now I sit in the empty kitchen, listening to the pounding of the grandfather clock, awaiting Dan’s call to say he’s safe in Rome.
DAN
Stifling, Rome. Carlo, my only friend here, is in Capri. ‘Come and join us for the weekend,’ he said, when I rang. What an idea. But Isabel would be miserable at the thought of my extending my trip. So would I. I wouldn’t enjoy Capri without her. I rang her. Didn’t mention the invitation I’d refused just in case, in the sweetness of her heart, she tried to persuade me to go. Then had dinner by myself in a trattoria down the road. God it’s good being surrounded by Italians again. Their emphatic way of speaking somehow endows every moment of every ordinary day with a sense of importance, something I love. It would be exhausting in England, but it works here. Over my tagliatelle alle vongole I cast my mind back to my year in Florence after Oxford, a kind of post-university gap year, and the best of my youthful decisions. The hours – careless of time, money, the need to be productive in some way – just looking at pictures, at sculptures, at the Arno, at the cypress trees black against skies familiar from the small background space they were afforded by Botticelli et al . I remembered that Bert came out one weekend. The thing that got him were the hot bombolini in – what was it called, that tiny dark street? They zoomed down from an upstairs window in a chute. You’d pick them up with a paper napkin, heat still burning your fingers. The dense sugar stuck to a huge area of mouth and cheek. Fingers could only be de-stickied by washing them. Never had such doughnuts. And the Dante and Boccaccio. I’d wake at dawn and read before breakfast. A couplet, just as I dug into a nostalgic zabaglione , came to me unbidden:
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia -
di doman non c’e certezza…
For how many years had that lain buried in my sub-conscious?
Naturally she was in a hurry. I could tell that from the way the mobile was snatched up, even before she spoke. ‘You’re ringing to find out how it went with Bert,’ she said. ‘Thought you would.’ She laughed a short bark of laugh that wasn’t wholly amused. ‘I’m in a dash, but I can tell you, it went bloody well. Really good evening. And, no: if that’s what you want to know. But could have, easily. He was raring to go. Much livelier than the night we had supper with you. Jet lag over, I’d say. Peaceful through the Brahms – Mozart – whoever, randy but gentlemanly at the Savoy …’
‘The Savoy?’ I said.
‘Randy at the Savoy, and absolutely all for it when I parked at his front door.’
There was a brief silence between us. ‘But, hell, you know me,’ she went on. ‘I’m thirty-six, not the spontaneous woman I once was. I wasn’t interested. I’d like Bert to be a friend, a useful spare man. I’m not up for any more complications, not after Andrew.’
‘Quite,’ I said. And then I added that I hadn’t rung up to find out whether or not she had slept with Gilbert, but whether she had liked him and whether she had enjoyed the evening. ‘Oh that ,’ she said airily. ‘Of course I liked him. I only didn’t like him decades ago when he jumped on me in the bushes. I nearly always like your friends, don’t I? I like Bert, I enjoyed the evening, I shall enjoy doing up his house, OK? Now I’ve got to go. Speak to you soon.’
So there was no time to ask more, and anyhow to have done so would have been intolerable, even in a jokey way.
Now I sit in the empty kitchen, listening to the pounding of the grandfather clock, awaiting Dan’s call to say he’s safe in Rome.
DAN
Stifling, Rome. Carlo, my only friend here, is in Capri. ‘Come and join us for the weekend,’ he said, when I rang. What an idea. But Isabel would be miserable at the thought of my extending my trip. So would I. I wouldn’t enjoy Capri without her. I rang her. Didn’t mention the invitation I’d refused just in case, in the sweetness of her heart, she tried to persuade me to go. Then had dinner by myself in a trattoria down the road. God it’s good being surrounded by Italians again. Their emphatic way of speaking somehow endows every moment of every ordinary day with a sense of importance, something I love. It would be exhausting in England, but it works here. Over my tagliatelle alle vongole I cast my mind back to my year in Florence after Oxford, a kind of post-university gap year, and the best of my youthful decisions. The hours – careless of time, money, the need to be productive in some way – just looking at pictures, at sculptures, at the Arno, at the cypress trees black against skies familiar from the small background space they were afforded by Botticelli et al . I remembered that Bert came out one weekend. The thing that got him were the hot bombolini in – what was it called, that tiny dark street? They zoomed down from an upstairs window in a chute. You’d pick them up with a paper napkin, heat still burning your fingers. The dense sugar stuck to a huge area of mouth and cheek. Fingers could only be de-stickied by washing them. Never had such doughnuts. And the Dante and Boccaccio. I’d wake at dawn and read before breakfast. A couplet, just as I dug into a nostalgic zabaglione , came to me unbidden:
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia -
di doman non c’e certezza…
For how many years had that lain buried in my sub-conscious?
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