Rupert Thomson: Katherine Carlyle

I shower, then stand in front of the bathroom mirror, brown all over except for a single blinding strip of white. Tilting my head one way then the other, I run a brush through my wet hair. The ends come to level with my hip bones. I really ought to have it cut but I can’t be bothered to make an appointment, let alone sit in a chair for hours and listen to all the gossip. I remember the time I wound my hair round Adefemi’s wrists. You’re my prisoner , I said. He always liked me to keep it long.

My phone rings in the living room. I put the brush down and lean close to the mirror. My face stares at me, unblinking. I look like someone who’s about to meet her fate. Are you superstitious? I smile, then lower my eyes. The good thing about September is you still have a tan. Lipstick and perfume: that’s all you need.

Once dressed — short skirt, leather jacket, sandals — I check my phone. Four missed calls, three of them from Massimo. Kit? Kit! Where are you? Call me! By midnight my arms are round his waist as we race through the warm brown streets, the throaty roar of his Ducati bouncing off the facades of buildings. I rest my chin on his left shoulder and watch the city rush towards me. Massimo’s a prince. Rome’s full of princes. We cut through the Jewish quarter. A man in a white vest sits on a wooden chair. A cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he’s peeling an orange. The smoke unwinds into the air. The opal glitter of a fountain.

Massimo pulls up outside a club in Testaccio. Two revs of the engine, then he switches it off. Deep bass notes take over. I can already see the dance floor, a crush of sweat-soaked bodies, jittery strobe lighting. Massimo watches me remove my helmet and shake out my hair. “You seem different.”

A cigarette arcs down from the terrace and lands on the cobbles in a shower of red sparks.

Later, in the club, we run into people we know, or half-know — Maurizio, Livia, Salvatore. None of us can quite believe the summer’s over; there’s a sense of nostalgia, an undercurrent of despair. Livia thinks we should spend a few days at her mother’s house on Stromboli. Salvatore says Morocco would be warmer. Massimo is already complaining about Milan, where he will soon be studying. Imagine what the weather will be like up there . I tell him he won’t even notice. He’ll be too busy going out with models.

“It’s you I want,” he mutters.

“I’ve only just split up with Adefemi,” I say. “And anyway, we’re supposed to be friends, aren’t we?”

“Adefemi.” Massimo treads on a transparent plastic cup, which cracks loudly beneath his boot.

“I’ll be off as well before too long,” I say.

He nods. “Oxford.”

I’ve won a scholarship to Worcester College, to study Italian and French, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

“No,” I say, “not Oxford.”

“Where, then?”

I don’t answer.

“You’re impossible.” He lights a cigarette and blows out a thin blade of smoke that blunts itself against the night.

I move to the railing at the far end of the terrace. The air smells of spinach and wet fur. In June a group of us went dancing not far from here. I remember stone steps vanishing into the river, and a boat moored against the bank, and the water, green and milky. Nineties techno, dry ice. Ketamine. Then I remember a place Adefemi showed me, on a bridge that links Testaccio and Trastevere. If you stop halfway across and lean over the parapet, a draft reaches up to cool your face, even on a stifling August day. I think about all the people in bars and clubs and restaurants, and how I will soon be gone, and how none of it will change. That’s the thing about Rome. Nothing changes. When you’re somewhere else you can always imagine exactly what’s happening.

Later still, Massimo takes me back to his apartment, which occupies one entire floor of a palazzo near Piazza Venezia. Massimo has a Thai manservant who wears immaculate white gloves. Every morning he wakes Massimo with a cappuccino and a copy of La Repubblica . Massimo’s living room is the size of a tennis court, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a brown-and-white marble floor. He used to have a brown-and-white fox terrier. Whenever the dog lay down, it disappeared.

Massimo offers me cocaine. I shake my head. He tosses the see-through plastic packet on the coffee table. Some of the white powder spills. He doesn’t care. He pours me a cognac, then puts on Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. We lie at ninety degrees to each other, on matching cream sofas. I sip my drink; my stomach glows. It’s a last night of sorts and I’m only sorry I can’t tell him. The sound of the trumpet is clear as glass, some notes so fragile it’s a wonder they don’t shatter.

“Is your father in town?” he says.

“No, he’s away.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Some war zone or other.”

Massimo smiles. He has always liked the idea of my father. He thinks being a reporter is romantic.

Sitting up, he runs a hand through his hair, then changes the music. This time it’s Suicide’s “Ghost Rider.” I finish my cognac and slip out of my shoes. We dance back to back on the cool marble floor, our arms lifting dreamily into the air above our heads like a snake charmer’s snakes.

At three in the morning I tell him I’m going home. He starts to cry. “What if I never see you again?”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” I push the hair out of his eyes and kiss him on the forehead. “You’re tired. You should go to bed.”

Outside, as I bend over to unlock my Vespa, a car races down the street, boys leaning from the window, a maroon-and-yellow flag rippling and snapping in their hands. One of them shouts at me. The only word I hear is culo . I’m still thinking about the things Massimo said. You seem different. What if I never see you again? Sometimes he’s so in tune with me that he can read my thoughts even as they’re forming. Not that I know what lies ahead. All I can say for sure is that a space will open up between us and the temperature will drop. Perhaps he was right to feel sad.

I ride down to Lungotevere then follow the river. As I pass the Isola Tiburina there is the smell of golden syrup. It’s like a memory from another country, a different time. I pull over to the side of the road. The smell’s still there, but I can’t account for it. There’s no factory, no shop. I accelerate away again.

Tonight the city smells like England .

Though it’s late I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep. It’s almost as if I had the coke he offered me. My body feels wound up like a clockwork toy. I need to be set down, let loose.

Goodbye, I whisper as I turn away from the river.

Goodbye, goodbye.

/

When my father calls on September 6, everything’s in place and it’s only two days until I act. He’s in the Middle East, he says. In Syria. He’s sorry he’s been elusive recently. I tell him I understand. The line swoops and crackles beneath our words. Sometimes it sounds hollow, as if we’re talking in a cave. Other times, the connection cuts out altogether and there’s an absence that makes me feel queasy, like the numbness you get in your arm when you rest your head on it and fall asleep.

I ask him how he is.

He’s fine, he says. He’s not in any danger. Most of the shells are landing in rebel-held suburbs. I say I’m fine too. Rome is relatively peaceful at the moment, I tell him, despite a night of heavy fighting.

“Have there been demonstrations?” He sounds surprised, annoyed with himself. If there’s one thing he can’t stand, it’s missing out on breaking news.

“Dad,” I say. “It was a joke.”

Silence.