Liz Fielding - Flirting with Italian

‘Did you ever try to get in touch?’ she asked. ‘After the war?’

‘I wrote. Sent some money. Asked her to let me know if she needed anything. There was no reply and in the end I thought it best to let it go, thinking that letters, money from an English airman might cause her problems. Embarrassment …’ He shook his head. ‘Your grandmother was on the way by then, I was working night and day to catch up with my studies.’ He shrugged. ‘We got on with things.’

Lived with the rushed wartime marriage, vows made when his life was counted in hours rather than years.

‘It was a good life,’ he said, as if reading her thoughts.

‘I know.’ She’d turned the photograph over and read out, ‘“June nineteen forty-four. Isola del Serrone”. Is that the village she lived in? I wonder if she’s still alive?’

‘She’d be in her eighties,’ he said doubtfully.

‘A stripling lass compared to you.’ And with those bones, those eyes, she’d still be beautiful. ‘You should try to find her.’

‘No …’

‘It shouldn’t be that difficult.’ She reached for his laptop and searched the internet for the name of the village. ‘Let’s see. An actress was born there. And a racing driver …’ She glanced up. ‘How small was this village?’

She had clicked on the link to the racing driver and found herself looking at a photograph of a man in overalls, a crash helmet under his arm.

‘Oh, how awful!’ she exclaimed.

‘What?’

‘The racing driver was killed in a practice session in nineteen eighty-three, leaving a wife and young son.’ She skimmed through the caption. ‘But they lived in Turin. This looks more like it,’ she said, clicking on another link. ‘A vineyard. It’s a local co-operative producing prize-winning wine …’

‘Leave it, Sarah.’ She looked up. ‘Some things are better left in the past.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Lucia will have had a family. No one wants old skeletons to come rattling out of the cupboard.’

‘You’re not an old skeleton …’ Then, seeing that he really meant it, added, ‘Sorry. I’m being bossy. It goes with the job.’ But as he made a move to return the picture to the bottom of the box, she said, ‘Don’t shut her away.’

‘This is in no fit state to put in a frame,’ he protested.

‘I know someone who can scan it, clean it up so that it looks like new. We all need memories to keep us warm at night. You said it,’ she pointed out.

‘So I did. And I’ll let you take it, clean it up, if you’ll promise to take the medicine I’ve prescribed.’

‘The Italian lover?’

‘Night and morning until all symptoms of heartache are completely gone,’ he said with a smile.

ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS

Oh, good grief. Where to start? Who was she talking to? Her students? Colleagues? Parents?

Herself …

I can see you all, sitting on the wall before assembly, grumbling about having to read Miss Gratton’s blog on top of all that revising you have to do.

You are revising? Do it right once and History will be just that. History. Unless you’re living in Rome, where you’re surrounded by it. No! Don’t switch off!

I know you think that this blog is going to be all about ancient Romans, old ruins and churches. Boring.

That if you leave a comment I’ll be marking it out of ten. Or worse, that if you don’t leave a comment telling me how much you’re missing me I’ll give you cyber detention.

Who was she kidding? No fifteen-year-old was going to waste time reading this. She was just going through the motions. A week or two and she could forget it. Not that the blog was helping. It was hard not to think about Tom back in the staffroom, his smile as he looked up and saw her …

She sighed, reread what she’d written so far.

…cyber detention.

You can relax. I’ll take it as read.

Before we get to the boring stuff …

Boring was good. The sooner they switched off the better.

… boring stuff, however, I thought you’d like to see where I live.

The street is very narrow, cobbled and so steep that it has a step every couple of metres. It’s inaccessible to cars, although that doesn’t stop boys on Vespas—a danger to life and limb—using it as a shortcut.

I live on the top floor of the yellow house on the left. No need for a workout in the gym. The hill and the stairs will keep me fit.

It had been raining when she’d arrived and she’d been soaked through by the time she’d hauled her luggage up from the street. It hadn’t occurred to her to carry a raincoat; she was going to Rome, city of eternal sunshine. Ha!

And she was out of shape. The stairs might kill her …

I have a tiny terrace. The geranium is a gift from my new students (you might want to make a note of that), who are all extremely tidy …

More than tidy. Well groomed, fashion-conscious, even the boys—especially the boys—with their designer-label wardrobes.

… well behaved and produce their homework on time.

A comment guaranteed to have her students switching off en masse.

This is the view.

A fabulous panorama of the city. Domes, red tiled roofs and the Victor Emmanuelle Memorial like a vast wedding cake at its heart. It was a view made to share while you drank an early morning cup of coffee, or a glass of wine in the evening, with the city lights spread out below you.

Hard not to imagine sharing it with Tom, although he hated travelling. Getting him on the cross Channel ferry for a weekend in France had been hard work.

It was a little soon to have made any progress in the ‘Italian lover’ department so, for the moment, she and her mug of cocoa had it all to themselves.

You’re right, there are loads of churches. The dome in the distance on the left is St Peter’s, by the way. In case you’re interested. And this is the Mercato Esquilino, the local market where I shop for food.

There’s a lot of stuff that you won’t find in Maybridge market. These zucchini flowers—courgettes to you—for instance. I bought some and put them in a bowl because the yellow is so cheery …

She deleted cheery . She did not want anyone to think she needed cheering up.

… so gorgeous, but the locals eat them stuffed with a dab of soft cheese and deep-fried in a feather-light batter.

And, for the girls, especially the ones in the staffroom, this is Pietro, who sells the most sublime dolcelatte and mortadella.

The food here is fabulous and I am going to need every one of those four flights of stairs if I’m not to burst out of my new clothes.

Oh, yes. The clothes.

And suddenly she was enjoying herself.

She’d been met at the airport by Pippa, the school secretary, a young Englishwoman living in Rome with her Italian boyfriend. It was Pippa who had found her the apartment on the top floor of a crumbling old house. Apparently it belonged to the boyfriend’s family. Sarah’s first reaction on seeing it had been, ‘What?’

It was a world away from her modern flat in Maybridge but, having been in Rome for a couple of weeks, she realised how lucky she was to get something so central. And she’d quickly fallen in love with its odd-shaped rooms, high ceilings and view.

Pippa had introduced her to the transport system, shown her around and, having taken one look at her wardrobe, warned her that the cheap and cheerful tops, skirts and trousers that had been ‘teacher uniform’ at Maybridge High would not cut the mustard in Rome. Here, quality, rather than quantity, mattered.