If Only Page 11

  The lunch menu is simple and designed for people who are enjoying the well-being facilities. When Letty’s pasta arrives, it is one large raviolo in a shallow pool of tomato concasse that is pale red in colour but tastes like the distillation of a thousand fresh tomatoes. Heidi’s saffron risotto with a single langoustine is equally delicious, but both of them eat only half their dish.

  ‘Eating problems, they never go away. True, no?’ Heidi says.

  Letty doesn’t know what to say. Is it so obvious? Does Heidi know from the way she looks, or the way she eats? Then she realizes that Heidi doesn’t mean to accuse her, simply to share something that they have in common.

  ‘I didn’t realize that you . . .’

  She stops mid-sentence, in case Heidi will think that she’s implying she doesn’t look thin enough to have suffered herself.

  ‘You look so healthy,’ she says.

  In hospital, she learned to speak about it as an illness.

  ‘Yes,’ says Heidi. ‘But it’s hard work, no?’

  Letty laughs, knowing that she means the eating, not the starving. Starving is much easier.

  ‘How long for you?’ she asks Heidi.

  ‘I was picked out by a model agency when I was fourteen. Funny to say that I was taking coffee and cake with my friends, and this woman came up to me and gave me her card. So they sent me to do promotional work, like lying on a car looking sexy, you know? My parents didn’t like this, but now I was thinking I was a model, so I told the woman I would like to do catwalks instead. She laughed, said I was too fat. So, you know, I lost the weight and then—’

  ‘You couldn’t stop.’ It’s Letty who finishes the sentence.

  It’s easy to start, and then it becomes impossible to stop; like an addiction, except you’re addicted not to substance but to a behaviour. She learned from the cognitive behavioural therapist she went to, during and after hospital, that addiction is never about your drug of choice, but the beliefs that led you to that behaviour.

  Letty was always thin as a reed, like her father’s side of the family. She didn’t get puppy fat in adolescence as some of her friends did. At ballet school, she used to eat more than any of her peers, constant physical activity making her hungry.

  ‘I used to do ballet—’ she begins to tell Heidi.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Heidi interrupts, as if she understands.

  ‘No. It wasn’t because of ballet . . .’ Letty corrects her.

  That’s what everyone thinks, even the doctors. They’d seen the film Black Swan, so they thought they knew all about it, but they didn’t.

  Ballet had given her control over her body. It was the injury, the sudden shock and lack of discipline that allowed the illness to creep in and take over. She’d gone from ballet school’s strict regime to her father’s school, where she was ‘free’ but had no idea how to cope. Compared to the other girls there, she was tiny and undeveloped, and so frightened that she made an easy target for the cliques of ‘cool’ girls. They called her Ballerina and said she had been kicked out for being too fat. It was true that she had put on a little weight, having been unable to exercise for months, and so the seeds of the belief were sown.

  By the time Josh rescued her from the bullies it was already a problem, but it was still her secret. When he betrayed her, it all spiralled out of her control.

  ‘I was taken into hospital,’ she tells Heidi.

  ‘Mein Gott!’ says Heidi. ‘This was catastrophe, no?’

  For some reason, this makes Letty smile.

  A stranger had been concerned as she walked past Letty on the bridge. She had called the emergency services, then doubled back and started talking to her.

  Would she have jumped if the stranger had done nothing? Letty doesn’t know any more.

  It was so hot that summer. They said she was severely dehydrated. She couldn’t remember how or why she went to the river, or how long she had been standing staring down into the water.

  In the hospital they asked her how she felt on a scale of one to ten. The truth was she felt nothing, a total void, so she said zero. Had she thought of harming herself? The honest answer was that she just wanted to disappear.

  The night she was admitted, one of the agency nurses, running out of patience at the end of a long shift, told her that if she didn’t eat and drink, she would die. At the time, Letty had thought, yes, that would be so much easier for everyone.

  She remembers Frances sobbing beside her hospital bed, thinking Letty was asleep. She’d never seen her mother cry before. It had made her hate herself even more for making everyone unhappy.

  A lot of it is a blur now, like a nightmare whose details she can’t quite grasp. She doesn’t really know what it was that made her finally respond to the routine of the hospital, the regular mealtimes and her uncle Rollo’s visits.

  When she was stable enough to leave, she’d continued with therapy and Marina had provided the routine at home. While Letty studied for her A levels each morning, Marina prepared a light lunch which they would eat together. If Marina was worried about her, she never let it show as her parents did. Frances and Ivo couldn’t understand how it had happened right under their noses. It was as if they thought that anything they inadvertently said or did might make it happen again. Certain words became taboo. Eat, fat, thin, sick, river, death.

  ‘Come!’ Heidi says, pushing back her chair from the table, leading the way out onto the pool terrace, where there are vast umbrellas and loungers with deep cushions. She takes off her wrap and dives into the temptingly blue pool, and Letty follows her. The water is unheated; the late spring sunshine has only taken the edge off its coolness. The shock feels gloriously cathartic, as if she is washing the bad memories away, and when they both come up for air, they are laughing like old friends together.

  The streets of Capri town are really alleyways, where shops built for grocers and bakers now offer the designer brands found on Rome’s Via dei Condotti, London’s Bond Street or New York’s Fifth Avenue. Heidi likes to window-shop, but these are places even she cannot get a deal. As she walks on to Tod’s, Letty stays behind in Louis Vuitton. When they meet up again in the main square for an aperitivo, she pushes an orange cardboard carrier bag across the table towards Heidi.

  ‘Just a little something to say thank you for arranging all this!’ Letty says. ‘And it really is tiny,’ she adds.

  Heidi leans across the table and hugs her, then lovingly extracts the gift box inside the carrier bag, unties the blue ribbon bow, and slides out the tray to reveal a Louis Vuitton dust bag inside. It’s such a ridiculous over-packing of a cheap item, Letty’s suddenly slightly nervous that Heidi will think she is mocking her.

  From inside the dust bag, Heidi draws out a packet of Post-it notes with the Louis Vuitton logo. She bursts out laughing.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ she says. She pulls one off and puts it on her forehead.

  ‘Who am I?’ she asks, remembering the game they played in class.

  Heidi has an Aperol Spritz, Letty a glass of white wine.

  After the swim, Letty’s body feels so clean and purified the wine goes straight to her head. The pleasant feeling of well-being has remained with her, and it’s nice just watching the world go by. Heidi is talking about her husband and how, after four years of marriage, he suddenly told her that he wasn’t sure he loved her.

  Letty listens, nodding, not saying a lot but offering as much reassurance as she can.

  ‘What I need is an affair,’ Heidi tells her. ‘Because now, I have no self-confidence. Did you know that Jo asked me for a drink?’

  Letty didn’t.

  ‘But I’m not so desperate,’ Heidi laughs. ‘And you and Alf?’

  Letty knew this conversation was inevitable. Heidi has seen them leaving the school together. She’s surprised that it hasn’t come up sooner.

  ‘We’ve spent a few afternoons together,’ she hears herself saying.

  ‘You like him?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

&
nbsp; ‘So . . . ?’

  ‘So . . . I don’t know.’ Though she’s trying to appear nonchalant, Letty can feel the colour in her face.

  ‘Do you fuck?’

  Letty’s just taking a sip of her wine. She splutters it back into the glass.

  ‘No!’ she says.

  ‘Such a waste!’ says Heidi. ‘You know you want to.’

  ‘I don’t!’ Letty insists, but it sounds a little half-hearted.

  ‘What happens in Rome stays in Rome, yes? It’s an expression?’

  ‘I’m sure nothing is going to happen in Rome,’ Letty says, thinking how prim she sounds, like a spinster schoolteacher. ‘We hardly know each other!’

  ‘He’s tall, he’s ripped, he has a sexy smile – what more do you need to know?’ Heidi asks.

  Letty’s about to say, ‘Well, I’m not like that.’ But she finds herself thinking, Like what? What am I like?

  So I know you’re coming back to Rome, he’d said at the Trevi Fountain.

  What’s to lose?

  But she’s had that thought before, and the answer was so much more complicated than she intended.

  13

  Monday, Week 3

  ALF

  ‘Non cercavo niente, ma con te ho trovato tutto! Sei il mio tutto. Ti amo!’

  The chalked graffiti on the walkway is still there.

  Now that Alf knows the imperfect tense, he can translate it correctly.

  ‘I wasn’t looking for anything, but with you I’ve found everything! You are my everything. I love you!’

  Alf always thinks better when he’s walking beside water. In Blackpool, in winter especially, there are miles and miles of empty beach where your worries and doubts are blown away by the gale coming off the Irish Sea. Here, with the softer sounds of the river around him, he stands with a handful of gravel, throwing it, stone by stone, into the water with gentle plops.

  Letty will be in class by now.

  He tries to remember if he felt like this when he and Gina first got together. He was made up, yes, turned on, without a doubt, and shocked because he wasn’t expecting it. It was definitely a good surprise, but then the secrecy became all bound up with it and made it a bigger deal than it really was.

  Gina hasn’t changed. He has. But she’s had to give up so much, he doesn’t know if he can bring himself to let her down.

  He owes it to Gina to discuss what’s happening, but he can’t do that when Stuart’s here because, if he’s honest, it’s not going to be a discussion; it’s going to be an ending. Or perhaps now’s the best time? Perhaps Stuart will come to her rescue, provide TLC and a few grand to set her back on her feet?

  His hand is empty of stones, but there are still random splashes in the water. Alf realizes it is raining. In central Rome, within seconds of it starting to rain, vendors appear on the streets, their forearms hung with umbrellas, their hands proffering packets of plastic ponchos in candy colours. He never knows how they get there so quickly. It’s almost as if they’re waiting in the drains below the streets listening for the patter of raindrops. Here, by the river, it’s too remote for street vendors, and the shirt he has worn for their lunch on the Via Veneto gets soaked.

  When he arrives back at the apartment, dripping from head to toe, there’s no one home. The flat feels different when it’s empty, not so oppressive. On his own, taking a shower with the bathroom door open, he wonders if it’s simply the lack of space that is making him feel cramped. If it were just the two of them, would he be happier? The thought of undiluted Gina is even more restrictive, though, than the thought of them all together. Alf negotiates a path through her stuff to his suitcase, and puts on his only other good shirt – a white one that he brought in case he got a job as a waiter – hoping the creases will fall out as he wears it because there isn’t time to iron it.

  Gina and her dad are sitting at a pavement table, which today is encased in thick plastic sheeting because of the threat of rain. He shakes Stuart’s hand and gives Gina a quick kiss. Stuart pushes a designer cologne he’s bought him in duty free across the table. The chair that they’ve left for Alf is situated just beneath the corner seam in the plastic. Drips of water fall directly into the gap between his collar and the nape of his neck, and trickle down his spine. Alf shifts his seat a couple of inches.

  ‘No Roman would ever eat out in this weather,’ he tells Stuart.

  ‘Probably couldn’t afford it, with the state of their economy,’ says Stuart. ‘Total disaster, the Euro—’

  ‘No politics, please!’ Gina intervenes.

  ‘How was your flight?’ Alf asks.

  ‘Not bad, not bad at all,’ says Stuart. ‘How was your lesson?’

  ‘I told Dad you’re trying to learn Italian properly,’ Gina chips in.

  ‘Back to school, eh?’ says Stuart, winking at him.

  Does he know Alf has packed the classes in? How could he? This is why he should have told Gina, Alf thinks, before not saying anything became telling a lie. But he can’t tell her now.

  ‘The pace is a bit slow for me,’ he says, picking up the menu.

  ‘What about you, princess? How’s your Italian?’

  ‘I don’t really need a lot,’ Gina says. ‘It’s best I can’t explain anything in Italian at school, because then they really do have to learn the English. And when we’re out, Alf is really good.’

  ‘Why don’t you order then?’ Stuart says.

  Alf would normally have no problem communicating in Italian with the waiter, but because he’s being scrutinized he’s hesitant about doing the expansive Italian gestures. Also, Stuart wants a hamburger. The waiter is used to dealing with international guests, and all Alf’s attempts in Italian are met with responses in English.

  ‘Must try harder!’ Stuart chuckles.

  Is there something slightly aggressive about his mockery, or is it only that Alf’s banter has become a bit rusty through lack of use?

  ‘Shame about Arsenal not qualifying for Europe,’ he says, hoping to land one where it hurts.

  ‘Shame about Blackpool not qualifying for anything . . . Well, just shame about Blackpool, really!’ Stuart replies.

  Alf laughs.

  The mood seems to relax, equilibrium restored.

  ‘What brings you to Rome?’ Alf asks, as the waiter opens a bottle of red wine for Stuart, and a bottle of sparkling water for Alf and Gina.

  ‘Do I need a reason?’

  ‘No. I just—’

  ‘Haven’t seen my princess for, what is it?’

  ‘Nearly six months,’ says Gina.

  Alf thinks it’s cool that Stuart treats them as equals, but sometimes the father–daughter bond feels awkwardly close to flirtation. If someone were looking at the three of them together, would they see a father, a daughter and her boyfriend? he wonders.

  If Letty were walking past, what would she think? This exact time last week they were strolling up this street, he remembers, suddenly grateful for the plastic sheeting obscuring them from the casual glances of passers-by.

  Gina eats her spaghetti with a spoon and a fork. It’s a stupid thing to get irritated by because it’s how most English people are taught. But it’s so much easier the Italian way, which is to use the side of the bowl as the anchor for the fork. Just because they’re in Rome doesn’t mean they have to do as the Romans do, but if you see a better method used by people who eat pasta every day, why not change? Afterwards, she orders tiramisu and complains that the alcohol in the sponge is so strong she’ll be drunk for her afternoon class, which is what she always says when she eats tiramisu. Alf knows that he used to find all her little girly habits as adorable as Stuart clearly still does, but now they grate like fingernails on a blackboard. He’s glad when she picks up her bag and goes off to work, leaving the two of them together.

  They order coffee. An espresso for Alf, a cappuccino for Stuart.

  ‘In Italy, nobody drinks cappuccino after midday,’ Alf tells Stuart.

  ‘What kind of a rule is
that? I usually have about five per afternoon! Costs me a bloody fortune.’

  It’s not a rule, Alf thinks; it’s just a cultural thing. But he doesn’t say that.

  ‘So what’s this school of yours like?’ Stuart asks him. His face is pink from the red wine, his lips black round the edges.

  ‘What can I tell you?’ says Alf. ‘It’s a school. We learn some grammar and then we try to practise it . . .’

  ‘Is everyone there English?’

  ‘No, not at all. There’s only one other English person in my class. There’s a Japanese guy, a Norwegian, a Swiss woman, two Colombian girls . . .’

  ‘Colombian girls? Maybe I should learn Italian,’ says Stuart.

  Alf remembers similar laddish conversations in the cafe before the Arsenal match, and how much he liked being accepted as one of the guys. It’s not Stuart that’s changed, he thinks, it’s me. It’s just banter, he tells himself. It doesn’t mean anything.

  ‘Anything you fancy doing this afternoon?’ Alf asks.

  There’s no particular reason for them to move from their table, but he feels trapped and restless. It’s still raining, so there’s no point in suggesting a walk in the Villa Borghese, and it’s a Monday so most of the museums and art galleries will be closed. He doesn’t think that Stuart would be interested anyway.

  ‘Are we anywhere near the shops?’ Stuart asks.

  ‘The expensive shops, yes,’ says Alf, realizing as soon as he says it that those are the only ones Stuart would go to.

  ‘I like an Italian fabric,’ says Stuart. ‘And you look like you could use a new shirt . . .’

  Stuart buys an umbrella from one of the street vendors, beating him down from ten euros to eight, although Alf knows that he could have got it for five if he had been charming instead of aggressive. They walk towards the Spanish Steps.

  ‘Why are they the Spanish Steps when we’re in Italy?’ Stuart wants to know.

  ‘I think it’s because the square is called the Spanish square,’ says Alf.

  ‘Duh . . .’ says Stuart.