Gemma Townley - When in Rome...

Mike moves back in alarm. “You’re not going to puke are you?”

Once, when we were going out, I got horrendously drunk (we were at a party where Mike was flirting with pretty much everyone except me, and drinking wine straight from the bottle seemed to be a pretty good idea), and on the way back I was sick on Mike’s shoulder. He was absolutely furious and wouldn’t talk to me for weeks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I’ll probably be okay . . .” I say, getting up quickly and walking toward the bathroom. It does the trick. Mike’s squeamishness is stronger than his sexual appetite, and he grabs a blanket and a pillow. “Look, I’m going to sleep here, just in case,” he says quickly, pulling a camp bed out of the wardrobe.

“You, um, get some sleep, okay?”

I’d be offended if I wasn’t so relieved.

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I wake up slowly. The sun is shining on my face and is deliciously warm. As soon as I open my eyes I feel a tremor of excitement pass through me. I’m in Rome! I’m really here, and it’s sunny, and I didn’t sleep with Mike, and I’m going to have a lovely day walking around the city, having coffee in little roadside cafes, and visiting the Coliseum. Maybe Brian could come, too, then it really would be likeRoman Holiday . Although actually I’m a lot more clued up than Audrey Hepburn was. I would have sussed Gregory Peck right away if it had been me.

I sit up quickly and discover two things. First, moving quickly is not a great idea when you’ve been drinking champagne all night. Second, Mike’s camp bed is empty.

To be honest, I’m actually a bit relieved that Mike isn’t there. It means I can get up slowly and enjoy the morning. He’s probably out getting us some breakfast or something. I notice that there’s a television opposite me on the desk and the remote control is on the bedside table.

Within moments the comforting sounds of BBC Worldwide news are filling the room.

I lie back down, propping my throbbing head up with pillows. It’s the business news, which is a shame, but still, at least it’s television and I can understand it. There’s another corporate scandal in the States, and there’s someone talking about the investment community being betrayed, how it’s another Enron. I yawn, and a little box appears saying that “Top Gear” is going to be on in five minutes.

I get up slowly and wander into the bathroom. To my amazement, the television is as loud in the bathroom as in the bedroom. I look around, and sure enough, there are speakers in all four corners of the room. How cool is that? I turn on the shower and wash my hair as the newsreader drones on about the AMT Group propping up its revenues through multiple acquisitions and the disgraced board of directors being investigated. One of them has been arrested, and there’s another one who they can’t pin any blame on.

“Taylor has been exonerated in this episode, but the SEC is still questioning the auditors . . .”

the newsreader says as I rinse out my hair. Honestly, I don’t know how people like David manage to listen to this stuff and make sense of it. As soon as I hear the words “and now it’s time for our business news” I start yawning. Luckily, as I get out of the shower, my head feeling almost back to normal, the familiar “Top Gear” music kicks in.

But before I can sit back down on the bed to watch it, the phone rings. It’s Mike.

“Good sleep?”

“Um, yeah, great. Where are you?”

They’re test-driving four-by-fours on the television. I think of my mother and poor James’s attempts to get her out of her antiquated Mini.

“Oh, I woke up early, so I thought I’d get on with a few things. Fancy going to the Vatican?”

The Vatican? What a surprise! Mike is so not the sort to go sightseeing. It suddenly occurs to me that he could be Catholic. To be honest, I have no idea whether Mike is even religious or not.

I don’t think it’s ever come up in conversation. I’ve never really done the whole church thing except for a couple of years during the Kensington Church Street period (I divide my life up by addresses) when I went to a Catholic boarding school because my mother thought I might “get into trouble” in London. I hated it at first but then got totally seduced by the structure of the day and the soft-spoken teachers who were all nuns and called “sister.” They looked after us amazingly well—although the teaching was pretty appalling. In the end I left because my mother realized I’d never get my O levels if I stayed, but by then I had decided that I wanted to take my vows and join a convent. I argued fiercely with my mother and she said that if I got my O levels in a more academic private school I could go to a convent if I really wanted to, and of course, by then I’d forgotten all about becoming a nun and wanted to be in a band instead.

Still, I’ve always wanted to go to the Vatican. It’s even on my planned list of activities—it’s got the Sistine Chapel and everything! More to the point, does this mean Mike really has changed and is interested in things and people other than himself?

“Give me half an hour or something,” I croak.

It looks lovely and sunny outside, so I put on a skirt and a T-shirt and slap on some sun cream just in case. I notice that Mike’s holdall has disappeared and make a mental note to quiz him about it later.

By the time I get downstairs, I am absolutely starving. We had a few bar snacks last night, but no proper meal. Maybe this is how celebrities stay so thin; they just drink champagne all the time and don’t have time to eat. Mike is on his mobile by the reception desk. He waves hello, then turns his back on me, continuing his conversation.

He looks irritated when he comes off the phone.

“Shall we go?” he says abruptly. Not even a “how are you.”

“Why don’t we get some breakfast first?” I suggest. “I haven’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime.”

“Oh, I grabbed something to eat when I got up,” says Mike. “Look, you can buy a croissant on the way, can’t you?”

“I s’pose,” I say doubtfully. I was hoping for a long leisurely breakfast with lots of coffee and orange juice. Still, I should be able to grab something near the Vatican. It’s so nice to be going somewhere cultural with Mike. He used to be so scathing of my attempts to get him to go to art galleries. He’d go if it was “cool” and the right people were going to be there—a Damien Hirst private view, or something—but anything else was out of the question. And even if we did go to a gallery, we’d never actually look at the paintings; Mike would always head straight to the bar and end up flirting with everyone.

But now, well, we are in Rome and I am finally going to fulfill my fantasies of walking round arm in arm, looking at beautiful works of art, and eating delicious ice cream. Okay, so the ice cream bit hasn’t featured in my fantasies before, but I’m really starving.

Actually we don’t walk; we take a cab. It’s not far, but Mike doesn’t do walking. He doesn’t believe in it, he always says. I’ve never established whether he doesn’t believe that walking is actually possible, or whether it’s just the benefits of walking that he doesn’t believe in. Not that it matters, taxis are absolutely fine by me.

As we pull up outside St. Peter’s Square, I come over all overawed and amazed. It’s absolutely huge, a massive courtyard surrounded by statues and engravings and pillars. We stand outside St.

Peter’s Basilica for about ten minutes, marveling. Then we stand outside for another ten minutes, kind of looking around.

“Do we need to buy tickets?” I ask.