Nicola Barker - Heading Inland

Inside one of the greenhouses a smart group of horticultural Italians — smelling of starch, scent and shoe leather — were inspecting the finalists in an orchid exhibition. Tina slipped in to take a look.

The orchids seemed alien, like sophisticated intergalactic creatures. They didn’t look real. Tina squatted down in front of one, closed her eyes and inhaled. The air was warm and smelled only of soil. Soil . She shuddered.

‘You know, that orchid is a colour you see nowhere else on this earth apart from in one other place. It is a purple-brown the colour of the human kidney, sì ?’

Tina looked up.

‘I’m Paolo. Hi. I could see you were not with the others. I guessed you were English from your shoes. Am I correct in so guessing?’

‘Oh.’ Tina looked down at her suede moccasins and then back up at Paolo again. ‘Uh. . The flowers were so lovely. .’

‘Orchids.’

‘Yes. They almost look. . plastic.’

‘I suppose you could say that. God is a master technician, huh? I should know, I’m a doctor. I studied in America for several years, in Boston.’

‘Your English is excellent.’

‘Thank you. I enjoy the chance to, ah, take it out for a test drive every so often.’

Paolo shrugged his strong, square shoulders. Tina smiled.

‘Your hair is in such a pretty style,’ Paolo said. ‘The English are so original.’

Tina put a hand to her pale brown bob. Paolo’s beautiful dark eyes clouded over, momentarily.

‘You must think me so presumptuous. You have not even had the chance to introduce yourself.’ Paolo took hold of Tina’s hand. ‘Your name?’

‘Tina.’

‘Forgive me, Tina.’ He kissed her fingers, so softly that she barely felt his lips, just his breath, which later, she discovered, was sweet and nutty and flavoured with pistachios.

Was this the thing? Was this the thing Rome held just for her? Not a fountain or a figurine, but Paolo? He took her for coffee and then invited her to collect wild mushrooms with him that afternoon in the Parco Oppio. Tina floated back to her hotel clutching a moist amaretto biscuit in one hand and something that felt suspiciously like the key to Paolo’s heart in the other.

The haughty Italian matron who presided over the front desk in Tina’s hotel obligingly changed some of Tina’s pounds into lire and then announced, in her clipped English: ‘A man came for you earlier. He left no name but he was wearing something full of. . fluff, on his head, a hat,’ she grimaced, ‘and shoes made of plastic. He is. . uh. .’ Unable to find the right word, the woman twirled her finger in a circle and raised her eyes skywards.

‘Mad?’ Tina tried.

‘ No .’

‘English?’

She shrugged. ‘ Sì .’

‘Did he leave a message?’

‘ Sì .’ The woman offered Tina a folded piece of paper. Tina opened it up. In badly formed letters was written:

Tina I’ve gotta see you It’s urgent

love ralph

Tina turned the note over, picked up a stray, yellow Bic pen from the desk and wrote:

Ralph, At last I think I’ve found what I was looking for in this magical city of Rome. I won’t waste your time or mine by describing what it is, but I am quite certain of what it isn’t. It isn’t a short Englishman in stack heels with a bad haircut and dirty teeth. I know that now. What you did in that church yesterday appalled me. I’ve decided I don’t want to see you any more. You disgust me. Goodbye.

Tina

Tina handed the notelet back to the woman. ‘If he comes by again,’ she said sweetly, ‘will you make sure that he gets this?’ Then she slipped the Bic pen, without so much as a second thought, into her jacket pocket.

Paolo pushed aside a bush and whistled to himself. ‘Do you see what I see, Tina?’

Tina recoiled. There was something about this fungus, something that made her palms dampen. Paolo put out his hands and gently plucked the mushrooms. ‘With strips of pasta, some garlic, hard cheese. . a touch of single cream.’ He kissed the air and then plopped the mushrooms into the basket he was holding.

‘They look a little like. . uh. . bones,’ Tina said. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘They taste like flesh,’ Paolo said, standing up and striding off. ‘Very rich, very strong, very gamey.’

Tina followed a short distance behind him. She caught up at the next bush. ‘This is a nice park. Are we close to the Colosseum?’

Paolo pushed aside the bush but there were no mushrooms underneath, only a used soft drinks can and the plastic segment of a syringe. He stood to attention. ‘You don’t want to come here at night. Homeless people haunt this place. That is why I hunt here for mushrooms, because others don’t have the audacity to look in such a venue. So you have to be observant,’ Paolo added. ‘Especially a woman on her own. That makes you extremely vulnerable.’

He stalked off again. Tina followed. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I’ve found Rome very hospitable. I mean. .’

‘A woman came into my surgery yesterday,’ Paolo said. ‘She had been mugged while walking through the Jewish Ghetto. They wanted her watch. She resisted. They sliced into her arm with a blade, through the tendons, down to the bone. The blade was rusty. I knew even then it would go septic, get infected, start to swell and rot like garbage in the stinking heat of an Italian summer.’

‘My God.’

‘You must be wary. To you this is simply a holiday, but to the casual vagabond and thief, you are a perfect financial opportunity.’

Tina, from the corner of her eye, noticed what she thought might be a cluster of wild mushrooms, but they were sprouting alongside something that bore a startling resemblance to a clump of dog shit and she couldn’t bear the idea of drawing Paolo’s attention to them, not even for the thrill of earning his approbation.

‘Have you noticed what I’ve noticed?’ Paolo stood still, like a bloodhound, his nose flaring, his fists tightening. Tina’s heart sank. He’d seen the mushrooms. Before she could respond, however, Paolo whispered, quite urgently, ‘As I was saying, this place is new to you and so the sights and the pleasures of the senses are here to be enjoyed for the very first time, but I. . I am more familiar with this environment so can take in the larger view, the periphery. Someone is following us. Did you see him? When I bought you your gelato he stood a little distance away. Later he bought one for himself.’

Paolo pointed. Tina followed the line of his finger. She failed to detect anything unusual.

‘See?’ Paolo asked. ‘In the scruffy clothing, with his long face, his dirty arms. He has a pronounced limp. He’s ducking behind that yellow flowering bush. He knows I’m on to him. A junkie. Probably a thief.’

Tina looked again. A man with a child and a suitcase. A young woman sitting under a tree reading a magazine. Two teenagers playing with a frisbee. And then she saw him. Ralph !

She nearly swore, but she stopped herself. ‘Paolo!’ she exclaimed. ‘Over there! See? Some mushrooms.’

Paolo looked where she’d indicated, strode over, crouched down and plucked them from the soil. ‘Such a meal I will make you!’ he exclaimed. ‘Such a feast!’

By the time he’d straightened up again, Ralph had made himself scarce. Tina blinked and wondered if she’d dreamed him.

She went home to change for dinner. Ralph was loitering outside her hotel. He was holding an open copy of La Moda in front of him but he wasn’t reading it.

‘What do you want, Ralph? Didn’t you get my note?’

His face was pale and moist. He seemed distracted.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘and to be honest. .’