Nicola Barker - Heading Inland

‘I don’t like being followed around,’ Tina said, emphatically.

‘So who the hell is that guy?’ Ralph interjected indignantly. ‘Christ, you’re a fast worker. Yesterday it was me, today it’s some fat Italian with hair sprouting out from his cuffs and his collar.’

‘It was never you, Ralph,’ Tina said haughtily as she pushed past him and stepped into the hotel’s revolving doors. Ralph was nimble though, quick on his feet, and he stuck to her, entering the same little segment of the doors. He was crushed up against the back of her as she pushed and walked. He smelled of Dettol. Then he stopped and the door jammed. Tina tried to keep moving but Ralph was too strong. The glass held fast.

‘Stop pressing against me! Let me out of here.’

‘Tina,’ Ralph said, ‘I regret what I did yesterday. And I want to give you that money I owe you from the Vatican Museum.’

‘Keep it. I don’t want it.’

Ralph put his hand into his pocket and drew out an old tissue, a bus ticket, a couple of lire and a cheese straw. Tina blinked and focused. It wasn’t a cheese straw. It was a bone.

‘My God! What is that? Did you steal it?’

‘Uh. .?’ Ralph looked down. ‘It’s a cheese straw.’

‘Oh.’ Tina felt claustrophobic and slightly dizzy. ‘I thought it was the bone. I mean, I thought you had the bone.’

Ralph guffawed. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’ He adjusted his position. Tina squinted at him, somewhat perplexed. Close up, she found his white skin, his dead eyes, particularly distasteful.

‘My friend thought you were a drug addict,’ she said, sharply. ‘You look a mess.’

‘Fine,’ Ralph responded. ‘So I’m sorry about the way things turned out yesterday. But that note you left. . See,’ he bared his teeth, ‘my mouth is spotless.’

‘But your shirt,’ Tina smiled back, tight-lipped, jabbing at his chest with her middle finger, ‘isn’t Lacoste. It’s a second-rate impersonation. Which, to be brutally honest, Ralph, seems entirely appropriate.’

While Ralph paused to digest this information, Tina took her chance and gave the door a violent shove, pushed it forward and snapped out of the restrictive glass bubble into the foyer. Ralph was disorientated for a moment but then quickly followed. He didn’t let up. He trailed her to the front desk.

‘Go away, Ralph.’

‘It’s only. .’

She spun around. ‘What?!’

He was still holding the bus ticket and the cheese straw in his right hand.

‘It’s only, I mean. .’ he said, shiftily. ‘Couldn’t we talk this over in private?’

‘Get lost, Ralph.’

Ralph didn’t budge. Tina asked for her key and then pressed for the lift. ‘By the way,’ she said sharply, ‘Paolo said Sophia Loren never lived in the Piazza Barberini. She never even lived in Rome. It’s just a myth. My guidebook says the same thing.’

Ralph opened his mouth to say something, but before he’d uttered a single syllable, Tina had swept off, up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

The lift arrived. The doors opened. People got out. The doors closed. Ralph remained where he was. He grimaced, looked around him, cleared his throat and then gently, neatly, carefully , he folded up his copy of La Moda .

‘It looks fantastic, Paolo,’ Tina murmured. She was sitting in his spotless flat and staring down at a steaming plateful of pasta and mushrooms.

‘Tuck in,’ Paolo said, turning this little smidgen of colloquial English over on his tongue like an exquisite truffle. Tina picked up her fork. She ate a small strand of the pasta and then smiled. ‘It’s delicious.’

Paolo beamed at her.

She speared a mushroom. She inhaled deeply and lifted the mushroom up towards her lips. She could smell it. It didn’t smell like a mushroom at all. It smelled of old bone. Rotten bone. She paused.

‘What’s wrong?’

Tina closed her eyes for a moment. Don’t blow it, Tina, she thought frantically. This man is a dream. You’ve arrived, girl. You’ve arrived! But her brain took no account of these thoughts and projected the unpalatable image of a dog’s anus on to the inside of her eyelids. Her gorge rose.

‘Tina?’

She opened her eyes. ‘Paolo?’

‘Is something wrong? Is it the evening light? Is it too bright?’

‘The light?’ Tina blinked. ‘Oh. Yes, it is bright.’

‘Easily remedied.’

Paolo sprang up and over to the window to adjust the blinds. While he was distracted, Tina grabbed her handbag from the floor, yanked it open and tipped the mushrooms from her plate straight into it. This whole manoeuvre took a total of four or five seconds.

She snapped the bag shut.

‘Tina!’ Paolo expostulated. Tina squeaked and looked up guiltily. But Paolo was not staring at her. He was staring out of the window. ‘Tina, come here for a moment.’

She did as he asked. Paolo pointed. ‘It’s him, huh? You see him?’

Tina craned her neck and followed the line of Paolo’s index finger.

‘You see him? The same one as earlier. Next to the street lamp. Smoking.’

Ralph. Next to the lamp-post; bad shoes, bad hair, puffing on a cigarette. Something was wrong, though. It was his hat. It wasn’t on his head, perched jauntily, as one might have expected; it was hanging from his belt buckle like a furry codpiece.

‘I have reason to believe that man is stalking you,’ Paolo said. ‘I have every reason to believe it.’ Without another word he strode swiftly from the room.

‘Hang on a second. . Paolo?’

The door slammed. Tina returned to the window. After a short time, Paolo appeared in the street. Ralph gave a start, grabbed hold of his hat, turned on his heel and ran. Paolo followed, but didn’t venture beyond the end of the road. Tina went back to the table, sat down and picked up her fork.

Of course he insisted on escorting her home. He told her how one of his uncles had been glassed in the Palazzo Nuovo for his cufflinks. ‘People see you, Tina, and straight away they can tell you are green. You are green like a dollar sign. A big, green dollar sign walking down the road.’

He frog-marched her into the hotel foyer, watched as she picked up her keys, called the lift. While they waited for it he arranged to meet her early the following morning for breakfast. He kissed her ear as the lift doors opened. ‘Don’t leave the sanctuary of the building until I am here to meet you, OK?’

Tina smiled and nodded. Paolo was so protective . It gave her goosebumps.

‘You are so desirable,’ he muttered, ‘so damn vulnerable. You are an accident, Tina, just waiting to happen.’

Tina had a shower, wrapped a towel around her midriff and then strolled into her bedroom.

‘My God!’

Paolo was sitting, bold as brass, on the end of her bed.

Tina clutched at her towel. ‘Paolo! What on earth are you doing here?’

Paolo clucked his tongue and shook his head. ‘The window. You left it wide open. I was checking the rear of the building. I came up by the fire escape. You must be more cautious, Tina. I could have been anybody.’ He stood up. ‘I’m sorry to have to scare you like that. It’s just that we can’t be too careful, huh?’

Tina nodded.

Paolo returned to the window, swung his leg over the ledge and jumped out on to the escape. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow. Breakfast.’

Tina nodded again.

‘The window. Close it tight, sì ?’

‘I will. Straight away.’

She closed it. She sat down on her bed.

‘Is that guy some kind of a fucking psychopath or what?’

Tina froze and then she yelled.

‘Aiuto!’

In the short silence that followed an accent that was distinctly English and distinctly Ralph’s said, ‘And what the fuck does that mean?’