T Williams - To Rome, with Love

As if on cue, the band struck up and Chuck immediately persuaded Terri to join him on the dance floor. Sarah looked across at Véronique. ‘You going to be dancing, Véronique?’

‘I reckon so. Jean-Pierre loves to dance.’

Just at that moment, Sarah intercepted an exchange of glances between Véronique and Jean-Pierre on the next table. ‘I get the impression Jean-Pierre likes you a lot.’

Véronique blushed. ‘I’ve worked with him for years. He’s a lovely guy.’ She leant across the table towards Sarah. ‘He went through a horrible divorce a while back and this is just about the first time I’ve seen him relaxed and happy for ages.’

‘That’s the thing about fresh air, exercise and good food. Somehow, you can’t avoid feeling happy under these circumstances.’ As she spoke, Sarah found herself wondering if her boss would also begin to reap the benefits of the open-air life. Certainly, he needed to.

Gradually a few more people began to get up and dance and it wasn’t long before all the women, Sarah, Terri and Véronique included, found themselves in demand. Very reluctantly, Sarah accepted Chuck’s invitation and made her way out onto the dance floor. In fact, her first dance with Chuck was so hilarious, it put her in a good mood for the rest of the evening. As he threw himself enthusiastically into his dancing, it was difficult to work out whether his grimaces and jerky movements were an attempt to follow the rhythm or a painful reaction to the discomfort he was feeling in his nether regions. Sarah had a fit of the giggles and, from then on, actually started to enjoy herself. Almost everybody came out onto the dance floor and Sarah noticed Polly spending a lot of time dancing with Dan, the quietest of the trio of Americans. Glynis was well away, dancing with, as far as Sarah could see, every man in the group. Paul was much in demand and, in particular, she noticed that Diana spent a lot of time with him.

Sarah danced with almost all the men in the room, even waltzing with a couple of elderly Italian gentlemen who were dining there that night. There was no doubt in her mind that the best dancer of all was Lars. He had a way of moving that looked so natural and his sense of rhythm was infectious. Sarah danced with him more than with anybody else.

The one person who didn’t ask her to dance and, as far as she could see, didn’t ask any of the others either, was Miles. In fact, although Sarah and most of the others were still dancing right up to just before midnight, by then she realised she hadn’t seen Miles for well over an hour, maybe longer. Presumably he had disappeared up to his room to carry on working. At least, she hoped he was working. There had been one moment, early on, passing near his table in search of a drink, when her eyes had met his and, just for a second, she had again read something on his face that bothered her. What she had seen, she now felt sure, was sadness.

Chapter 5

Sarah didn’t sleep well that night either. Part of the reason was probably that her air-conditioning wasn’t working properly and also, to begin with, she had been thinking over the route for the next day. She, Polly and Gianluca had sat down together before dinner and worked out a way of avoiding all major roads, preferring to stick to quieter country roads, even though this inevitably lengthened the distance travelled. Their route to Rome wasn’t a direct one, anyway, as they planned to zigzag through the hills of the regions of Marche, Umbria and Lazio, crossing the peninsula to the opposite coast, and one of the main reasons for this had been to avoid busy roads as far as possible. But the route wasn’t the only thing that kept her from falling asleep.

First, inevitably, there were the unwanted images of what she was now coming to refer to in her head as her previous life. The evening of music and dancing had awakened memories of her and James in happier times. He had been a great dancer, maybe as good as Lars, and they had spent many hours on the dance floor together. The thought of dancing with him brought memories of more intimate moments with him and she found herself shaking her head in annoyance, throwing off the single sheet covering her and getting up for a drink of water to take her mind off him. She took a big mouthful of tepid water, but it didn’t help.

Infuriated by the noisy, inefficient air-conditioning unit, she turned it off and opened the window in the hope of letting in some cooler air. She wandered round the room for a bit, peeking out of the shutters at the deserted promenade and the skeleton of what would probably become a big dipper. Through the open window she could hear the distant whisper of the sea on the sand and, at last, she found that it had a soporific effect on her. After a while, she got back into bed and gradually drifted off to sleep. It was then that things got more complicated.

She was swimming in the sea and the sun was setting right in front of her, half blinding her with its red glow. Behind her was a long, sandy beach, covered in deckchairs, while ahead of her was a raft, bobbing up and down as little waves came through. Sitting on the raft were four or five people, but she was too far away to recognise them. She swam and she swam, getting more and more tired, but it took an age to get close enough to see who they were. At last she got within range and made out five familiar faces. They were all men, sitting there, sunning themselves and dangling their legs in the water. She immediately recognised Lars. Being so tall, he stood out from the crowd. Alongside him, of all people, was James; hunky, handsome, self-centred James. Both of them looked relaxed and happy and they were chatting amicably, unaware of her presence. Stranger still, sitting along the side of the raft were three other figures. There was Paul, chatting to a heavily tattooed man holding three silver clubs, and to their left, all on his own, she recognised the brooding presence of Miles, his eyes trained on her as she swam up to the raft.

She was feeling more and more tired now but none of the men noticed her. She tried to touch the seabed with her toes, but it was too deep. She called out, but only Miles saw her. She held out her hands towards him, but he didn’t make any kind of move to help her.

As the waves broke in her face, she woke up again, bathed in perspiration.

She lay in the darkened room, staring up at the shadows on the ceiling cast by a lone street light, doing her best to slow her spinning mind. It took a long time, but she finally managed to get back to sleep; but it was a broken, uncomfortable night. When she finally surfaced next morning, it was barely light outside, but she didn’t feel like dropping off and struggling with her subconscious again for a while, so she took her now bone-dry bikini from the towel rail and went out for an early morning swim. The coast road was deserted, all but a dust cart noisily hoisting bins into the air and emptying them into its capacious bowels. The sun was now above the horizon, but still a deep orange colour, shining directly into her eyes. She made her way blindly through the surreal landscape of the deserted funfair and across the sand to the water. When she got there, she found she wasn’t alone. A lone swimmer was already in the water, heading towards the raft with an easy front crawl. She waded out into the water, its touch cold against her superheated body after the stuffy night she had just passed, lowered herself in and started swimming.

Partway out towards the raft, she rolled over onto her back and looked back inland. The beach was still almost deserted, apart from a couple of big dogs racing each other through the shallows, while their owner sat on his haunches and smoked his first cigarette of the day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sun on the top of her head was already warm. She rolled back round again until she was looking out to sea. The lone swimmer had reached the raft by now and was standing on it, looking back towards the beach. She carried on, out towards the raft, and, as she approached, she struggled to recognise who it was, the sun directly behind him casting a deep shadow across his face. He had broad shoulders and muscular arms and looked familiar. She swam closer and then heard his voice.