If Only Read online

  Then she says, ‘Like the Azzurri?’

  ‘The Blues’ is what Italians call their national football team.

  Distantly beautiful, she knows about football and she’s remembered something about him from the day before. Alf’s mood see-saws.

  On their way to the restaurant, he falls into step with her, hoping she’s not going to insist on Italian.

  ‘How long are you here for?’ he asks.

  ‘In Rome?’

  He doesn’t know what else his question could mean. For the first time, he wonders if the remote quality she has is simple nervousness.

  ‘A month, maybe.’

  ‘You’re a student, right? What subject?’ he tries again.

  ‘Latin,’ she says.

  He thinks she must mean the language rather than the dance style.

  ‘You’ve come to the right place then,’ he says, and then feels like a dick because it’s such a dumb thing to say. He’s finally managed to start a chat with the person he’s been obsessed with all week, and he comes up with the sort of line he’d use on a barmaid.

  ‘That’ll be why you’re good at grammar,’ he says.

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  Most girls he knows would say ‘I’m not really . . .’ He likes the fact she doesn’t.

  Then she says, ‘You’re much better at speaking.’ Which surprises him, because he didn’t think that she had noticed him particularly.

  ‘I just don’t care so much if I get it wrong,’ he says, adding, ‘And I usually do.’

  ‘I wish I could be more like that,’ she says.

  Not: ‘Don’t be silly, you’re really good!’ as Gina would say.

  The restaurant has a big table laden with a variety of dishes. Chargrilled vegetables, arancini, various types of pasta. Heidi beckons Violetta over to the space she’s saved next to her, and Alf finds himself with Jo and Masakasu again.

  When he sees Violetta going up to the buffet, he scrapes back his chair mid-conversation, and stands beside her as she helps herself to a small portion of tomato and mozzarella salad garnished with basil leaves.

  ‘Rosso, bianco, verde,’ he says. ‘Like the Italian flag.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I knew it was called insalata tricolore but I never thought of the flag. Is that why?’

  Suddenly he doesn’t know whether it’s something he’s heard, or just made up.

  ‘I think so,’ he says carefully.

  ‘What are you having?’ she asks, watching as he ladles gnocchi alla Sorrentina from the steaming bowl that a man wearing a white chef’s jacket has just deposited on the table.

  ‘It’s Thursday and Romans eat gnocchi on Thursdays.’

  ‘Really? Is there some reason for that?’ she asks. ‘I mean, like fish on Friday?’

  He has no idea. It’s just something he’s picked up.

  He asks the cook why Romans eat gnocchi on Thursdays, seeing from the wince on Violetta’s face that he’s got the grammar wrong.

  The cook thinks about it for a moment. It’s true, he says, on Thursday, a lot of people eat gnocchi, but he has no idea why.

  They all laugh.

  When she allows herself to relax, Alf thinks, she seems younger, less intimidating, and her smile is warm and genuine. He wants more, but he senses that if he pushes her she will retreat again, and he knows that Heidi is watching them talk. He doesn’t want his interaction with Violetta to be public property.

  ‘I’m just going to get a picture,’ Alf says, putting down his plate and taking out his phone to snap a shot of the colourful table. ‘I post about stuff in Rome, you know, not the usual tourist things.’

  Violetta steps back as if he’s told her to get out of the way, and returns to her seat.

  Alf posts the photo with the caption: Buon appetito! #Rome #Roma #lunch.

  Heidi suggests that they get some wine for the table.

  It’s a strange feeling being with the class away from the school. In the classroom, there’s a certain camaraderie. It’s a bit like you’re all stuck in a lift together, Alf thinks. You know you’re going to be with these people for some time, so you try not to like or dislike them too much, or say anything controversial, because if you get on with each other, the experience will be more pleasant. Outside there’s not so much reason to do that.

  Even though he’s spoken very little to anyone, he’s formed quite definite opinions about them. Paola and Carla are good-time girls. They’ve no interest in learning Italian, which is why they turn up late if at all. Studying is just the way they got their rich daddies to fork out the money for an extended holiday. Angela is nice enough, but she’s old enough to be his gran. Jo is boring; Masakasu is a pain in the arse. It was cool the first couple of times he gave them a song, but it’s now getting irritating. Heidi is physically attractive and he kind of knows he could, but also that she would be a nightmare afterwards.

  Then there’s Violetta.

  He hasn’t felt so disorientated and tongue-tied by a woman since he was twelve years old, when he saw Flavia Cacace doing an Argentine tango show dance. He and his mum waited for her at the stage door, and when she came out Donna took a picture of them together and told her that Alf was North-West Ballroom and Latin Champion in his age group, and that when he was older he wanted to dance with her. Flavia was sweet and said she’d look forward to that, which she probably said to everyone, but for weeks he thought about the way her eyes shone when she spoke to him. Then he overheard his mum talking to Leanne, his dance partner Sadie’s mum, about how he kept the photo by his bed. Hormones, Leanne had whispered knowingly. And Sadie had overheard and mocked him mercilessly, even though she fell for a different one of the male professionals every single season of Strictly Come Dancing, and wrote them fan letters and everything.

  It’s a crush, Alf tells himself. He knows less about Violetta than he did about Flavia. She is beautiful, her favourite colour is black, she is a student of Latin. For heaven’s sake. I’m too old for a crush, he thinks.

  Alf pushes back his chair, says he has to go, and leaves a ten-euro note to cover his share.

  Outside, he checks his phone. Gina’s dad has liked his photo. Alf sometimes wonders how Stuart ever gets any work done, since he always seems to be looking at his feed when Alf posts. It might be a bit spooky, like he’s checking up on Alf, if he weren’t such a great guy.

  It’s quarter to one in the UK. Perhaps he’s having a sandwich at his desk. Alf pictures him sitting in the luxurious office where he and Gina once met him for lunch. He remembers the soft depth of the carpet underfoot, and how underdressed he felt in jeans, even though he’d put on a shirt.

  Stuart was wearing a blue suit, the shade that’s just lighter than navy. He took them to a sushi restaurant. When Alf saw the prices, he ordered very little, but Stuart told him to have whatever he wanted because today, for the purposes of his expense account, Alf was a billionaire oligarch.

  The dessert had a bit of gold leaf on it, which Alf had left on his plate, and Gina had laughed and said he was meant to eat it, but her dad said, ‘Listen, young lady, you don’t tell an oligarch what to do.’

  And Alf had said, ‘Yeah, I had gold for breakfast,’ then, gaining confidence: ‘I find it a bit rich with every meal.’

  And Gina’s dad had high-fived him.

  Alf remembers the feeling of pride at gaining his approval. It was like confirmation that he could cut it in the world outside Blackpool.

  It was only six months ago, Alf calculates. But it seems longer.

  5

  Friday

  LETTY

  Letty is in the Forum. She is standing on an empty pedestal, one arm shielding her eyes from the sun.

  ‘Put your arm down!’ Frances is shouting.

  ‘I can’t see!’

  ‘You don’t have to be able to see! It’s a bloody photograph!’

  Letty hears the camera click.

  ‘Can’t you do an arabesque?’ Her mother’s voice. ‘Or fifth position
or something?’

  Letty obliges by putting both arms in the air, fingers held precisely as her ballet teacher demands.

  ‘Lovely!’ shouts Frances.

  ‘All done!’ Her father’s voice, his hands on her waist, jumping her down.

  Letty wakes up. As returning consciousness fuses sensations with memory, she thinks, I’m in Rome, then closes her eyes again.

  The photograph of her on the pedestal in a sundress, feet turned out, arms aloft in fifth position, eyes blinking in the sun, always stood on Marina’s mantelpiece.

  ‘My fifth little Roman lady,’ Marina called it.

  Letty doesn’t know if she really remembers it being taken, or whether a memory has formed because she has seen it so many times.

  There’s an end-of-the-week feeling to the class and a slightly flat mood in the break, with everyone concentrating on their phones instead of talking to each other. It’s almost as if their lunch together was a date between work colleagues that didn’t quite pan out, and none of them is sure how to recalibrate the relationship.

  Letty and Heidi ended up being the last in the restaurant and finished off the wine together, which was a mistake because Heidi got confessional and revealed that she and her husband were having a trial separation, which was slightly too intimate a conversation given how little they knew each other. It made Letty feel that she should reciprocate with a secret of her own, but she wasn’t going to do that, so she ended up agreeing to meet Heidi for brunch on Sunday, which she didn’t really want to do.

  The theme of today’s class is family. They learn the words for brother, sister, aunt, uncle, grandparents, children. Then they sit in groups to talk about their own families.

  Letty is with Angela and Alf.

  Angela asks Alf if he has a brother.

  No.

  A sister?

  No, but his mum is having twin baby girls soon.

  ‘Che meraviglia!’ Angela says.

  Letty thinks she probably meant to say ‘How lovely!’ instead of ‘What a miracle!’, but Alf takes it to mean that his mum is old to be having babies.

  ‘She’s only thirty-seven,’ he protests.

  Angela has three grown-up children. She’s been married to her husband for thirty years. She has two grandchildren.

  ‘You’re a grandmother?’ says Alf disbelievingly.

  Oh, please! thinks Letty.

  ‘Mia nonna era italiana,’ she volunteers. ‘È morta.’

  Now that she’s told them her grandmother is dead, they don’t know what to say. There’s a moment of awkwardness, then Alf asks if she has two parents.

  Yes. She’s a little surprised at the question.

  ‘Mia papà è morta,’ he says in explanation.

  ‘Mio papà è morto,’ Letty corrects him automatically. ‘The ending has to be masculine for a man. I’m sorry,’ she adds, meaning for correcting him, but it must sound like she’s sorry about his dad because he says, ‘It’s OK, I didn’t know him. It happened a long time ago.’

  He gestures with his thumb over his shoulder, like a half-hearted hitchhiker.

  When the bell goes for the end of the morning lessons, everyone is keen to get away quickly, as if to avoid the possibility of someone suggesting another lunch.

  The Forum is swarming with tour groups led by guides brandishing scarves on sticks, to make it easy to follow them. Letty hears snatches of English, French and Spanish as she weaves past, trying to find a peaceful space to look at the map and work out the location of the pedestal that she stood on for the photo. She has it in mind to send her mother a selfie from the same spot. She’s surprised not to have heard from Frances again, and feels a little guilty for being monosyllabic when she spoke to her.

  Letty is sitting on some steps, looking at the map, trying to match the dots and lines to the bits of wall and column, when she hears a familiar voice.

  To her left, a small group of middle-aged women are learning about the Arch of Septimius Severus. The guide is speaking in English. He has his back to them because he’s pointing out the features on the arch, but it’s unmistakably Alf from her class.

  ‘The arch was originally dedicated to the Emperor Severus and his two sons, Geta and Caracalla,’ he’s telling them. ‘But you know how brothers are? Always fighting? These guys took it to another level. Caracalla murdered Geta.’

  One of the women says, in an American accent, ‘Oh my, those Romans were so bloodthirsty!’

  ‘So when Caracalla became emperor,’ Alf continues, ‘he got his people to put another inscription over the top that doesn’t mention Geta, so it’s like he never even existed. It was the Roman way of wiping all his data. It’s called damnatio memoria.’

  Letty winces at the incorrect Latin.

  How awkward. She remembers talking to him yesterday, him asking about Latin. She would never have imagined that he knew anything about Ancient Rome, let alone worked as a guide.

  Letty stands and walks smartly off in the opposite direction. The House of the Vestal Virgins, she has worked out, is nearer the entrance to the Forum. Once she enters the space, she remembers exactly which pedestal it was that she stood on. She waits for a group of Chinese tourists to hear the history in Mandarin and move on. Then, finding herself alone for a moment, she stands next to the pedestal to take a selfie. Unable to get an angle that shows her and the pedestal, she moves further away.

  ‘Do you need a hand?’

  Alf, with the American ladies a few steps behind him. His white T-shirt has his Instagram handle @rometourguidealf printed on it.

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ she says automatically, and then, ‘Well, actually . . .’

  ‘Give me one minute,’ he says.

  Letty wants to say, really, don’t bother, but he’s already caught the women up and is saying goodbye, his arms outstretched, as if awarding them a symbolic farewell embrace. She sees the delight on their faces as he tells them what a pleasure it has been showing them around, and that he hopes they will enjoy the rest of their stay. They fumble in their purses, drawing out a note each to give him, without even looking at how much. She notices how he makes taking the money part of a handshake, then stands back, shrugs and, as if he can’t resist, gives each of them in turn a warm hug and kiss on the cheek. It’s done with a kind of chivalrous respect, but she sees the sparkle in their eyes. After a couple of steps away, they huddle together excitedly, like the schoolfriends they probably once were, discussing their latest heartthrob.

  ‘It’s damnatio memoriae, by the way,’ Letty says, when he returns with a smile on his face.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘What Caracalla did to Geta. Damnatio memori-ae,’ she says, emphasizing the last phoneme. ‘Not damnatio memoria, which is what you said.’

  Alf’s uncomprehending look shows her that he didn’t see her sitting on the steps, and now she’s going to have to explain and she doesn’t know why she felt the need to correct him anyway.

  ‘I overheard your talk,’ she says, waving towards the end of the Forum where the arch is.

  ‘Tell me again,’ says Alf.

  ‘Damnatio memoriae,’ she says.

  He repeats it after her.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘I’ll remember that. Maybe I’ll check with you before attempting any more Latin.’ Again, the smile. There’s an attractive openness about it.

  Letty wishes she hadn’t said anything. What was she thinking? Who in the world, apart from her, would care? The equable way he has dealt with her means he is not the arrogant person she took him for, and she feels slightly ashamed of herself for making assumptions based solely on his good looks, and the fact he is male. It’s the sort of thing Frances does. Now she’s irrationally annoyed with her mother for being like that, and wonders why she’s even bothering to try to amuse her by sending a photo.

  ‘So, where do you want this photo?’ Alf asks, holding out his hand for her phone.

  ‘Over here.’ Letty points. ‘I came here with my parents when I w
as eight, and there’s this photo of me on a pedestal, and I just thought it might be fun to recreate it . . .’

  ‘Not a problem,’ he agrees. ‘Do you want a hand getting up?’

  Before she can say no, he has lifted her effortlessly, his hands confident on her waist, as if he lifts women onto pedestals all the time. Perhaps he does? Perhaps this is where everyone has a photo taken and it’s not unique to her family?

  She finds her footing and takes a moment to decide on her pose, before standing with one leg slightly bent at the knee, arms by her sides, like a statue. The sun is behind her, so there is no need to shield her eyes.

  She attempts a self-mocking pout to overcome the embarrassment of the situation.

  ‘That’s good,’ he encourages. ‘Turn a little bit more so that I get your profile. That’s great!’

  She goes from feeling silly and self-conscious to quite enjoying it, even raising her arms into fifth like in the photo on Marina’s mantelpiece, laughing at herself as she does it.

  ‘I knew you were a dancer!’ he says.

  She drops her arms and jumps down from the pedestal.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says as he hands her back her phone.

  She’s about to walk away, when he asks, ‘So was that the last time you were here? When you were eight?’

  ‘Yes. We came because of a series of books.’

  Why did she say that? Nobody needs a reason to come to Rome. It’s Rome, for heaven’s sake. But Alf is nodding, waiting for her to continue.

  ‘They were about a group of children having adventures in Ancient Rome,’ she explains. ‘By an author called Caroline Lawrence. The main character was a girl, so I suppose I identified with her. I loved them so much my mother decided we should come to Rome, check out the location . . .’

  It was one of Frances’s typically extravagant gestures. The first book in the series had been a birthday present from her uncle Rollo, who had read Classics at Oxford. It irked Frances that Rollo provided the book that switched Letty on to reading, because Frances, while working long hours, had always made time to read to her daughter at night.

  Letty understands the family dynamic now better than she did then. She remembers her grandmother Marina at Sunday lunch remarking how wonderful it was that Rollo had introduced Letty to these books she loved, and Frances, clearly slighted, upping the ante with, ‘We thought we’d go to Rome at half term, to see where it all happened.’