Maria Gabriella Zampini - Giulia

“Was ist das?”1 she said.

The boy shook his head, rose slowly to his full height of what must have been a good six-foot-two, approached the table, looked Giulia straight in the eyes and said, in English:

“Do you speak English?”

Giulia was a bit miffed. She was Italian, clearly, but of course she could speak English!

“Yes I do,” she replied, keeping her cool and handing out yet another cup of coffee. The boy thanked her with a broad smile, sat back next to the blonde girl and whispered something to her in German.

‘Wow’, Giulia said to herself, ‘quite the range of nationalities this year! Remind me to congratulate you, Ale, if you ever deign to join us!’

With the smell of the coffee infiltrating their nostrils, the boys and girls started to queue up for a cup, rattling off a string of names that Giulia knew she hadn’t a prayer of remembering.

“Giampaolo, pleased to meet you.” (the boy from Rome).

“Oh, hi. I’m Alessio.”

“Morning, I’m Benedetta.”

“Hey, I’m also Giulia!” (she wouldn’t forget that one).

“My name’s Roberta, great to meet you.”

Then there were a couple of Lucas, a Francesco, a Michele, two Valentines and an Edoardo.

Lastly, in English: “Nice to meet you. My name is Andreas.”

And: “Hallo, I’m Simone.” (the leggy blonde).

Suddenly, a voice made itself heard above the music and conversation:

“Morning, guys! This is my mamma, Giulia. She’s pretty cool, huh?”

“Son, if I’d waited for you to introduce me, I’d have been waiting all day!” she replied.

As always, Ale hurried over to his mother, gave her a big kiss and ruffled her hair:

“When are you going to go Rasta like me, Mamma?” he asked for what felt like the millionth time.

“You’d look awesome! Like a Marley-esque cougar who showed up to the Summer of Love fifty years too late!”

His words were met with a chorus of boos, and as Giulia, overjoyed that Ale’s friends had taken her side, returned to the kitchen to put more coffee on, someone changed the music and No Woman, No Cry came blaring out.

“This one’s for you!” yelled Giampaolo, poking his head round the door. “You are one hot mamma!”

It seemed like the kids were only too happy to stick around a while longer.

As Giulia put yet another coffee on, her mind drifted to the beautiful sea waiting for her just a few metres away, but she had no desire to see the motley crew outside her house leave just yet. Leonardo appeared at the door:

“Guys! There’s plenty that needs doing in here! Giulia can’t be expected to do it all by herself now, can she?”

Within seconds, the kitchen was full of boisterous kids, one of whom went to the sink to wash the cups, another grabbed a dishcloth to dry them, one of the girls (Roberta?) seized hold of a broom and proceeded to drag it around the floor, in between everyone’s feet, and someone else did some sweeping of their own, lifting Giulia up into their arms and carrying her carefully outside to the patio.

“You stay here, sit and relax. We do everything.”

Andreas looked at her with his intense blue eyes, made sure she was sitting comfortably on the rattan couch and disappeared back inside.

Giulia closed her eyes and shook her head: ‘Wow, some guys know just how to push your buttons, don’t they?’ she thought to herself with a frisson of excitement. ‘So strong, so tall, dark and handsome...’ She snapped out of it, feeling almost ashamed at having such thoughts. ‘Don’t be so stupid, Giulia,’ she reprimanded herself, ‘he’s just a nice, polite young man, nothing more.’ As she relaxed and stretched her legs out onto the table in front of her, happy that she’d kept herself in check, she saw Andreas out of the corner of her eye, coming towards her with a steaming cup of coffee.

“How much sugar?” he asked, sitting close to her.

“One, thank you.”

He added the sugar cube, took the teaspoon, stirred the coffee and handed it to her.

“Do you want a cigarette?” he asked, producing a pack of Camels from his pocket.

Giulia managed to muster a nod. She was loving all this attention, but wasn’t it a bit unusual? Or perhaps she was just imagining things as always. She’d been avoiding suitors for so long that she could no longer distinguish between kindness and flirting! She looked up to the sky, then as she turned towards Andreas for him to light her cigarette, she met his gaze: an ocean of blue she could just drown in...

“Morning, Mamma!”

The cheery voice of her confident fifteen-year-old son, Daniele, brought her crashing back to Earth and her role as a forty-something mother.

“Sweetie!” she cried, knowing full well it would put his nose out of joint, “I see you’ve managed to join the land of the living! I’m guessing you overdid it a little last night?”

“Maybe a bit,” Daniele admitted freely, “but Ale said I could go down to the beach with him and we had such a good time. We lit a bonfire, loads of people came and began to sing, then loads more people turned up! Have you seen how many friends we’ve made?”

He was bursting with pride that he and his older brother had been the catalysts for such a memorable evening. Giulia looked at him fondly, well aware how important it was to him that Ale, eight years his senior, treated him as an equal.

“Yeah, a right mess you’ve got me in to! Just kidding, darling,” she added, seeing the boy’s face begin to drop, “you know I love having all these people round!”

It was only then she realised that Andreas was no longer sat next to her. She breathed a sigh of relief, asked her son if he wanted breakfast (of course he did), went back inside and started to warm some milk.

Everywhere was absolutely spotless. The youngsters, now back outside, had done an incredible job.

‘If they keep this up, I wouldn’t mind them staying here the whole month!’ she thought to herself, unaware just how prophetic that was.

It was three o’clock by the time she realised she could wander down to the sea. The kids had taken their many scooters and their not so many cars (including hers) and headed for the most popular beach in the area - the one where it was so crowded it was a job even to put a towel down!

Not that they’d be needing towels; they’d gone to that beach so they could play their instruments and attract a crowd of guys with perfectly chiselled bodies and topless girls in thongs, which come to think of it was a perfect description of Giulia twenty years earlier! Just swap the djembes for guitars and Lucio Battisti1 songs!

She carefully rolled up her beach towel and put it in a bag together with a book (she always tried to read something in the summer, because in the winter she was too tired in the evenings and didn’t have enough time during the day), a bottle of water, a clip so she could put her hair up and some sun cream. She took one final look around to make sure everything was in its place and strolled over towards the steps that led her down to her beloved rocks.

It was a place Giulia knew so well. Her family had rented the house by the sea every summer for as long as she could remember, and she had always felt happy here, far from the madding crowd.

So when she and the boys’ father had decided to buy a seaside property, they had chosen this one. There was no need to cram into a baking-hot car and drive to find a decent beach, and they were safe in the knowledge that the kids would never be too far away.