If Only Read online

  Masakasu says that when he was young, he had a pet peach, although he probably means fish. The words are similar. He used to talk to the fish because he didn’t have any brothers or sisters.

  Alf says he had two dogs.

  In fact, they were his grandma Cheryl’s dogs. She’s always owned pairs of little white Westies, so cute they could feature on the cover of a calendar of dogs, and gives them slightly royal names. The most recent two are Wills and Harry. They sit in a basket in the corner of the dance hall during Cheryl’s advanced classes, wearing bow ties that match Cheryl’s dresses.

  Alf has one ear trying to listen in to Violetta on the other side of the room. He thinks she says that she used to dance, and she glances at him at the exact moment he looks at her, giving him a rueful smile, as if to say, yes, you were right.

  She has dimples. He hasn’t noticed that before. Her smile has a modest sweetness, a kind of old-fashioned vibe, like a girl in a costume drama catching a man’s eye across a dance floor, hoping he’ll invite her for a gavotte.

  In his dreams.

  To his dismay, Alf is getting a semi. Concentrate on something, he thinks, employing the tactics he used when he was pubescent and doing a rumba with his dance partner Sadie. Think of a list, a very boring list. There’s a map of Italy on the wall. How many cities can he name in a minute? Genova, Torino, Milano, Verona, Venezia, Padova, Firenze, Parma, Modena, Arezzo, Siena. Some of the cities have masculine endings and some feminine. He’s never noticed that before.

  When he asks Susanna why that is, she looks a bit annoyed because it’s nothing to do with the lesson, and she doesn’t know the answer either.

  ‘Why? Why?’ she says in English. ‘All the time, with you is why? Here in Italy, there is no why!’

  As he walks up the road towards the station, Alf hears footsteps behind, catching him up.

  ‘I liked your question,’ Letty says.

  ‘It’s just there are so many rules you have to learn, but then nobody can tell you why a road is feminine and a tree is masculine. It does my head in,’ he tells her. ‘It must seem dumb to you.’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘In fact, I’ve always just accepted that some things are masculine, and others feminine. Latin has neuter too. I’ve never asked why. So I thought it was a very intelligent question, actually.’

  If anyone else said that to him, he would find it patronizing, but with her it comes out like it’s a simple statement of fact, not a judgement.

  She smiles at him. Did he really not see the dimples before, or was it that she never smiled?

  ‘So where are you off to this afternoon?’ he asks.

  ‘The Villa Giulia. It’s a museum the other side of the Villa Borghese,’ she says. ‘I thought I’d walk there.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s open? Most museums here close on Mondays,’ he says, then looks it up on his mobile phone. ‘Yes. Closed. Sorry!’

  ‘Oh,’ she says.

  ‘The Villa Borghese is nice,’ he says. ‘I can get you a free Segway tour if you like.’

  ‘I’ve never been on one.’

  ‘It’s a blast,’ he says.

  ‘But aren’t you working?’

  ‘Mondays are usually pretty slow.’

  It’s not true and it’s the sort of thing she’ll figure out, because she’s got this logical way of thinking. He half expects her to say, ‘That seems odd if the Forum is one of the only places that are open on Mondays,’ but she doesn’t. And he tells himself not to mislead her again. It’s too nerve-wracking.

  ‘Well, if you’re sure?’ she says, which is what she said to him in the Forum, and it feels like they’ve taken all this time to get back to the same point. He’s never had to work so hard with a woman, but he likes that he has to be at his sharpest with her.

  They walk across the huge square in front of Termini station and past the Baths of Diocletian. He points out the international bookshop Feltrinelli, where you can buy books in English. They cross the road that leads towards the Quirinale, and down past the American embassy towards the Via Veneto. This is the place where they shot scenes for La Dolce Vita, he tells her, as they walk past expensive cafes with waiters dancing attendance on their rich international guests.

  ‘It used to be where Italians came to watch the world go by, but now it’s mostly the world watching Italians going by,’ he says.

  ‘Did you just make that up?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ he says, taken aback.

  ‘I thought perhaps you’d read it in a guidebook.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he says, wondering now if he did. ‘When I first came here, I bought a Blue Guide and went all over the city with it. I wanted to know what everything was – you know how it is?’

  She nods.

  ‘You’re from London, right?’ he says.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘People who live in cities never see any of it. They just take it for granted.’

  ‘You sound like my mother,’ she says, adding, ‘Not in a bad way. I just mean she’s the same with a guidebook – and she comes from Preston.’

  ‘That’s near Blackpool,’ he says.

  He doesn’t think he’s ever been actively pleased to hear someone comes from Preston before.

  It allows him to suppose that Letty is not so very different from him after all.

  ‘So when did she leave Preston?’

  ‘When she went up to Oxford.’

  Still pretty different, he thinks.

  ‘Is that where you go?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  Very different. Very, very different.

  Too intelligent, too posh, too beautiful. All he has to offer her is a free Segway ride, and he’s not even sure that he hasn’t over-promised there. Yuri is pretty tight with favours.

  The sounds of the city drift away in the park. Their pace slows as if to harmonize with the tranquillity.

  ‘Do you have Italian friends?’ Letty is the one to break the silence. ‘You’ve been here a while, right?’

  ‘Five months,’ he says.

  There are people – the guys on the ticket kiosk at the Forum, a couple of lads he’s seen a few times in the same seats when he’s gone to Roma matches. They travel back on the Metro together talking as best they can in bits of English and Italian, and they always fist-bump him as he gets off the train at a stop before theirs. But they’ve never suggested having a drink in a bar, or going back to theirs for a beer. Italians are very friendly, but there is no one he would call a friend.

  ‘I’m trying to find someone who would like to exchange Italian conversation for English,’ she explains.

  ‘There is a bar where people go on Tuesdays,’ he suggests.

  The bar they were in on Friday. Why is he telling her that?

  ‘But it’s mainly a pick-up place, you know,’ he adds quickly. ‘Italian guys go there to pick up Scandinavian au pairs.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think I’d like that,’ she says.

  His heartbeat slows down again.

  There’s one of Rome’s ubiquitous painted vans selling soft drinks and snacks. The word ‘Emporio’ is written on the side.

  ‘What a big name for a little van,’ says Letty, as Alf photographs it.

  He posts the photo, stealing her words as a caption.

  Alf sees the look that Yuri gives her as they approach the clearing where the Segways are. And then his surprise as he clocks Alf with her.

  ‘Ti presento Violetta,’ he says.

  ‘Letty,’ she says, shaking Yuri’s hand.

  Alf doesn’t even have to ask for free hire, Yuri’s so keen to impress her.

  She listens very carefully to Alf’s instructions, shadowing as he demonstrates, as if she is learning a dance step. First they practise along the flat avenue that leads up to the viewpoint at the Pincio. Apart from a yelp as she first sets off, she gets it straight away. She has good balance.

  They go as far as the zoo, past little temples and the theatre, then back u
p to the field where the military exercise their horses. Letty isn’t as tentative as he expected her to be, but keeps pace with him, even races him, as they go faster and faster, and on the final descent back to Yuri, overtakes him, long hair blowing behind her, right arm punching the air as she beats him to an imaginary finish line.

  ‘That was brilliant!’ she says.

  It’s as if her body has suddenly come alive.

  ‘You’re pretty brave,’ Alf says, as they walk away from Yuri.

  ‘Reckless, maybe?’ she says. ‘It was like . . . it was like the first time it snowed in London. Well, not the first time, obviously, but the first time I had seen it. My father found this wooden sledge that he had as a child. When we got to Primrose Hill, it was like the whole of London had come out to play. People were shrieking and laughing as they careered down the hill, and at first I was reluctant, but my dad just gave the sledge a little push with his foot so I didn’t have time to think about it, and I went hurtling down the hill. I loved it so much, I ran back up and went down and up again until it got too dark to see!’

  It’s the most he’s ever heard her say and, as she talks excitedly, he can see what she must have been like as a little girl, and he wonders what happened to make her so reserved.

  ‘Do you want to grab something to eat?’ he asks as they pass the park cafe.

  She thinks about it, then says, ‘Why not?’

  She chooses a tramezzino, a single sandwich; he a panino. He offers to pay for both, but she insists on paying her share.

  He feels pleased about prolonging their time together, but now he can’t think of anything to say, and she, as if regretting her breathless enthusiasm, has gone back to silence as she eats her sandwich slowly. A pigeon pecks around their feet, picking up crumbs.

  ‘You only get to know people when you can talk in the past tense,’ Alf says.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ she asks, either genuinely curious or hostile; he’s not sure.

  ‘Well, today, with the imperfetto,’ he says, ‘I learned that Masakasu wasn’t taken on holidays as a child because he wasn’t good enough at school, so his parents made him do extra study. So, Masakasu’s a pain in the arse, right? With all his singing. I mean, great at first, but now it’s like any excuse and he’ll break into song . . .’

  She lets out a little blurt of laughter.

  ‘But when I saw him as this only child with strict parents, talking to his pet peach – or fish, I think he meant . . .’

  She laughs again.

  ‘. . . I could understand exactly why he’s always having to show off something that he’s good at now. It made sense. And I liked him more because of it, somehow.’

  Letty rarely responds immediately. She considers what he’s said as she chews each small mouthful methodically.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Oddly, I’d never associated that with the imperfect tense.’

  He doesn’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. He wants to say, ‘What made you like you are? When did you get so measured and precise and thoughtful?’ But he knows it is too soon to ask.

  At the edge of the park, he says, ‘We can catch the number three tram here. All the way back to Porta Maggiore for you.’

  She looks surprised, possibly irritated, that he has remembered where she lives.

  ‘And Testaccio for me,’ he adds.

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘Beyond the Aventine. It borders the river. It was Ancient Rome’s dump. There’s this hill called Monte Testaccio that is made entirely out of discarded crockery. You can see bits of terracotta poking out of the grass, I’m not kidding.’

  ‘You really are a walking guidebook!’ she says, as a tram pulls up in front of them and its doors open with a loud hiss.

  ‘I sometimes tell my Americans, if you want to see la vera Roma, just get the number three tram,’ says Alf. ‘It takes you everywhere.’

  There’s a fairly steep hill up the side of the park, and then the tram trundles through Parioli, which is the posh bit of town where the embassies are. After that it goes through the university area and San Lorenzo, which comes alive at night with music pounding from clubs that you wouldn’t even know were there during the day.

  As he points everything out to her, Letty swivels on her seat looking this way and that, and he knows that all the other men in the tram are staring at her. Their envy feels like sunshine on his skin. Every time her thigh accidentally bumps against his, or her hair touches his arm, he can feel the point of contact for seconds after.

  ‘You’re the next stop,’ Alf says as the tram rattles through a tunnel under the main railway lines from Termini.

  ‘Oh!’

  Is there disappointment in her voice, or is he just reading that in? He hates the idea that tomorrow will be Groundhog Day again: they will meet in class and she will ignore him, and then she’ll say a few words and finally feel comfortable enough to say more, and then it will be almost time to leave her.

  ‘Would you like to do something tomorrow?’ he says, as the tram screeches to a halt in the middle of the busy roundabout next to the enormous triumphal arch.

  ‘Yes!’ she says.

  No thinking. Just yes!

  ‘What did you have in mind?’ she says.

  He wasn’t expecting that. He hadn’t got beyond the likelihood of rejection.

  ‘Surprise?’ he says.

  She looks doubtful, but there isn’t time now to think of suggestions.

  He watches as she walks away from the tram towards the pedestrian crossing, trying to get clues about what she’s thinking from her body language. As the tram pulls away, she turns and looks for him, and when her eyes find his, she waves with fingers splayed, her hand at shoulder height, like a child who has just learned how to.

  8

  Tuesday

  LETTY

  According to today’s worksheet, people born with the star sign Leo are very sociable and easy-going. But – attenzione! – you shouldn’t put too much trust in them. Letty wonders if Alf is a Leo, and then tells herself not to be so silly. Her star sign apparently means she is a happy, optimistic person who needs a lot of affection and falls in love easily. But – beware! – she adores change and novelty. She can’t think of a description that suits her less.

  Susanna wants them to guess their partner’s star sign.

  Without thinking, Letty says Heidi is Libra because the description says: Very attractive, but vain and wants to be the centre of attention.

  And Heidi, twisting a lock of her perfectly straightened and highlighted hair, retaliates with Gemini, described as: Intelligent but also irritable and anxious. They have many intellectual interests, but living with them isn’t easy.

  Luckily, they both think it’s funny and they’re both wrong.

  Today, Alf doesn’t try to partner up with Letty or get into her group for discussion. He doesn’t even hang back at the end of class. But when she leaves the building, he’s already waiting in the place they’ve started talking twice before.

  As she joins him, he says, ‘Do you have a ticket for the Metro?’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  It’s a long journey, and the trains are hot and noisy, so it’s difficult to sustain any sort of conversation. They’re almost at the end of the line when they reach a nondescript station called Ponte Mammolo, and Alf says, ‘This is us.’

  The heat outside is intense and the place they have arrived in looks unpromising. It’s a bus station. At last, Letty discovers their destination. Tivoli. The emperor Hadrian had a villa there. It is one of the places she was intending to visit. Alf buys four tickets in the bar, one each for the journey there and the journey back, and two big squares of pizza cut from a giant tray that has just come out of the oven.

  ‘Lunch,’ he says, handing her one.

  The oil from the pizza slab has already turned the paper napkin translucent. It’s hot and heavy in her hands. She’s about to say that she doesn’t want it, b
ut remembers she hasn’t eaten since yesterday’s sandwich in the park.

  It’s food she would never normally dream of eating, but it is delicious, although it’s far too much for her, and the melted mozzarella and long watery strips of courgette make it impossible to eat decorously.

  Standing at the bus stop in the searing heat, with the air full of diesel fumes and her fingers and face oily from the pizza, it’s the most unlikely place to feel a sudden bolt of happiness. I’m in Rome, I am free, Letty thinks, and nobody in the world knows where I am.

  Just before the bus arrives, they are suddenly crowded out by people with shopping and babies in pushchairs. Alf helps others on, but he’s also assertive, holding a couple of queue jumpers back with a firm arm across the steps to allow Letty in. He knows which side will have the sun, and chooses the other. There’s a breeze from the open window when the bus is moving, but it’s swelteringly hot when stuck in traffic through the miles and miles of car showrooms, out-of-town discos, bowling alleys, McDonald’s. It’s an Italy Letty didn’t know existed, more like she imagines the urban sprawl of a big American city.

  ‘It will be worth it. Promise,’ Alf tells her.

  ‘How often do people in Italy change their sofas?’ Letty asks, as they pass yet another sofa showroom.

  He asks the woman in the next seat, in broken Italian.

  ‘Italians like new sofas, yes?’

  She smiles and says only if they can afford it! She rubs her thumb and fingertips together to indicate money. Letty notices that Alf does the same. He talks with his body, she thinks, like Italians do, and the woman responds, asking him where they are from. He introduces Letty as his friend from London.

  ‘Bella,’ the woman says, smiling at Letty, and somehow she doesn’t mind so much this time.

  As the road begins to climb, fruit stalls appear beside the kerb, and they trundle through villages with shops and schools and five-a-side football pitches. Then the road becomes steeper, and the bus grinds around hairpin bends to the hilltop town of Tivoli.

  They get off in a square with a vast panorama of the plain below and hills all around. She wonders if they are the ones she can see from her apartment window.