Us

  In a kiosk at the edge of the square I paid an extortionate amount of money for two bottles of water, draining one and half of the other before stopping to take in my reflection in the mirrored wall. A vertical line divided the crimson half of my face and neck from the white, while across my forehead the shade of the baseball cap had created an equator. My face had been stencilled by the sun into something resembling the Danish flag. I touched the skin – the tenderness told me there was worse to come – and laughed, the kind of laughter that precedes great sobbing tears, and stepped out into the heat.

  I felt faint, nauseous, irrational. Returning to the cauldron of the piazza was inconceivable, but there was no hotel room to lie down in and only twelve euros in my pocket, not even enough to get me back to Florence where my wallet and passport were even now accumulating fines. Instead I staggered through the crowds, water bottle in my hand, dizzy and deranged, clinging to the shade like a vampire, with scarcely a rational thought in my head, until the street opened up into a courtyard, the ornate candy-striped façade of the Duomo rising up vertically. A sudden clamour of bells from the campanile raised every eye to the sky and then, even louder than the church bells, I heard the celestial sound of Kat Kilgour playing ‘Beat It’ on her accordion.

  I waited until the final chords before I stepped forward and threw my arms around her. ‘Kat Kilgour!’ I said, through cracked lips. ‘I am so, so pleased to see you!’

  ‘Jeez, Mr Petersen,’ she said, recoiling a little. ‘You look completely f***** up.’

  Yes, it was an emotional reunion on my part, but I still wish the police hadn’t got involved.

  137. sweet child of mine

  I’m loath to throw around terms like ‘brutality’. It was all a misunderstanding, or perhaps an overreaction on their part, and mine too. If I’d been more level-headed I’d have handled the situation differently. Nevertheless …

  ‘Kat, you have no idea what I’ve been through.’

  I was undeniably pleased to see her, a great deal more than she was pleased to see me, because she was already launching into her next number, an anthemic ‘Sweet Child of Mine’. It’s a demanding vocal so I waited patiently until the instrumental, then:

  ‘Kat, I need to see Albie. Is he with you?’

  ‘Can’t talk, Mr P.—’

  ‘No, quite, but I need to know if he’s all right. Maybe later?’

  ‘Can’t talk, Mr P.—’

  ‘Oh. Okay. Okay. I’m sorry, you’re playing your solo, but if I could just know where—’

  ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘But nearby? Yes? Yes?’ She began the next verse, and it seemed only fair that I should drop my coins into her bowler hat. ‘If you could just point me in the right direction?’ A five, a ten euro note followed, the last of my cash all gone. I began to search my pockets for more coins. ‘Kat, I’ll leave you alone, but I’ve travelled a very long way and …’

  The song ended, but she embarked immediately on ‘Riders on the Storm’, and if she started that then she might never stop.

  ‘Kat, I am actually paying you to stop playing!’ I shouted, and here I put my hand into the bellows of the accordion, which was too much, I concede now. Certainly, Kat’s response was violent, the song abandoned, a finger jabbed in my face.

  ‘Do NOT touch, Mr P.! If your son wants to hide from you, then it’s none of your business—’

  ‘Well, it sort of is—’

  ‘I know all too well what it’s like to live with an oppressive, overbearing father—’

  ‘Oppressive? I’m not oppressive.’

  ‘… and even if your son’s not my favourite person at the moment, I would never split on him. Never!’

  ‘Not your favourite … why, have you argued?’

  ‘I think that’s a fair assessment.’

  ‘Have you … have you split up?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve split up! Try to conceal your glee, Mr P.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last night, if you must know.’

  ‘So, so where is he? Where did he go? Kat, please tell me …’ And here I put my hand on her arm, which was also a mistake.

  ‘Get off me!’ she shouted, and I began to sense the hostility of the small crowd who had so enjoyed ‘Sweet Child of Mine’. ‘I’ve told you, it is none of your business what Albie does and … oh, jeez.’ She looked over my shoulder. ‘Here we go again.’

  It seemed our discussion had attracted the attention of two carabinieri, large, handsome men in pale blue short-sleeve shirts heading straight towards us. Kat knelt down and began hurriedly cramming her takings into the tight pockets of her cut-off jeans.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll talk to them.’

  ‘It’s not you they’re interested in, it’s me.’

  And sure enough, the police went straight for Kat, one on each side, speaking rapidly in urgent voices. A crowd was gathering around us now, and I heard mention of permits, of local regulations, Kat talking over them in a weary and impertinent tone – exactly the wrong tone, I thought, to adopt when speaking to armed officers. ‘Yeah, I know, I need a permit … No, I don’t have one, as you well know … Fine, okay, you’ve made your point, I’ll pack up and be gone …’ She bundled her accordion like a child to her chest and attempted to put her head down and slip away, but the larger of the policemen, broad, bullet-headed, placed one hand on her shoulder and reached for a notepad. ‘How can I pay a fine if you won’t let me earn any—? No, I will not empty my pockets! No! Get stuffed, you bastards! Get your hands off me!’ And now the crowd was parting as the policemen marched Kat towards the car that would take her away, and with her all clues to Albie’s whereabouts.

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘No, no, no, no, you can’t do this!’ and I hurried after them.

  I wish I could pretend that gallantry prompted me to intervene, rather than self-interest, but Kat was my last hope, my only link to Albie, and so I found myself squeezing between the policemen, placing my hand on an arm, trying to loosen the grip – not aggressively, I thought, but coaxingly. To an outsider, this might have resembled a scuffle, and it’s true that I was not calm. ‘Stay out of it, Mr P.!’ shouted Kat over her shoulder, but I was attached now. ‘That isn’t necessary!’ I was shouting. ‘You’re overreacting! No necessary, no overreact!’ I was tugging on the larger policeman’s forearm, noticing by the by that, like many bald men, he had extremely hairy arms and also a very elborate watch, four little dials on its face, like scuba divers wear and I wondered, as he spun me around and slipped and tightened one of those plastic ties around my wrists, the kind I use at home to tidy the cables behind the TV, if he went diving at weekends.

  138. the jailbird

  As a child I had sometimes wondered how I might fare in the prison environment. It was a concern that followed me into adulthood, and I came to the conclusion: not well. Of course, the situation was unlikely ever to arise. True, I had recently stolen a packet of Soft Mints from the newsagents in Munich airport, but surely this was beyond the jurisdiction of Italy’s legal system, and besides, the evidence was long gone. So I felt reasonably calm as I sat at the desk of Siena’s main police station. What, after all, was my crime?

  Nevertheless, I seemed to cause quite a stir. Who was this mystery man? What kind of tourist has no passport or driving licence, no wallet, no money or keys or hotel reservations? Lack of ID, it seemed, marked me down as some sort of desperate character, which was accurate, though not in the way they imagined. I explained that all would be clear if I could just borrow some money and pop back to Firenze, and that I’d then be happy to pay any fine, my own and Kat’s too, but no one seemed willing to offer up the fare and neither was I permitted to leave. A connection had been made between Kat and myself. Despite my protests, they insisted on calling her my girlfriend. I can only imagine how Kat must have felt about that.

  Gradually, the desk staff lost interest, directing me to a chair in the waiting room and leaving me there. Kat was somewhere in the offices behind the de
sk and it seemed my punishment would be to wait for her, to wait and wait for hours on end, on hard plastic chairs, as a parade of tourists – legitimate tourists with even tans and passports – came in to report lost luggage, wallets, cameras, in order that they could claim insurance. Of course I would wait – what choice did I have? At least I was out of the sun.

  But it was early evening by the time they finally reunited me with my ‘girlfriend’, demanding that she also take a seat and wait. Kat was unwilling at first to acknowledge my presence, but finally:

  ‘Nice trainers, Mr P.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What happened to your face?’

  ‘Hm? Oh, this. I fell asleep in the sun.’

  ‘Looks sore.’

  ‘It is. It is.’

  ‘Did you tell them about me stealing that croissant from the breakfast buffet?’

  I held my hands out to the side, palms upwards. ‘Hey, I’m no stoolie,’ I said, quite the comedian.

  She smiled. ‘You shouldn’t have got involved back there.’

  ‘They did overreact a little, I thought.’

  ‘Occupational hazard. You’re meant to have a permit, but it’s a bureaucratic nightmare. Also, they know me here, I’m a bit of a repeat offender, so …’

  ‘I was scared they were going to take you away.’

  ‘Very noble of you, I’m sure.’

  ‘I was thinking of myself, really.’

  ‘You mustn’t take this the wrong way, Mr P., but you don’t smell too good.’

  ‘No. No, I’m aware of that. I’d keep your distance if I were you.’

  She smiled and moved one chair closer. ‘I still can’t tell you where he is.’

  ‘But can you at least tell me he’s okay?’

  ‘Define “okay”. He’s a very troubled boy, your Albie.’

  ‘Yes, clearly.’

  ‘He’s quite … dark.’

  ‘I know that—’

  ‘Very angry. Very, very angry. He has a lot of issues. A lot. With you, I mean. He talks about you a lot.’

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘And not in a good way.’

  ‘Well, that’s why I’m here. I wanted to make amends, Kat, for the scene … well, you were there.’

  ‘That was cold, Mr P., really cold.’

  ‘I’m aware of that. Which is why I need to see him.’

  ‘It’s not as easy as that; it goes a lot further back.’

  ‘I’m sure it does.’

  She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Did you really glue all his Lego bricks together?’

  ‘Some. Not all, just some.’

  ‘Did you tell him he was stupid?’

  ‘Good God, no! Is that what he told you? That’s not true.’

  ‘He says he disappoints you.’

  ‘And that’s not true either—’

  ‘That he feels like you’re disappointed in him—’

  ‘Absolutely not true!’

  ‘He says you and Mrs P. might be splitting up.’

  I was not able to deny this.

  ‘Well, that … might be true, it’s … up in the air. Did his mother tell him that?’

  ‘He said there wasn’t any need, you haven’t got on for years. But yeah. Yeah, Mrs P. did tell him that.’

  I felt a contraction in my chest. ‘That we were splitting up, or that we might be?’

  ‘That you might be.’

  ‘Good, good—’

  ‘But Albie thinks you will.’

  ‘Oh.’

  After a while, I managed: ‘Well, relationships are never easy.’

  My observation was a platitude at best, yet it seemed to strike Kat as a remarkable insight. ‘You can say that again!’ she said and started to cry and I found myself placing an arm around her shoulder while the officer at the desk looked on sympathetically. ‘I really loved him, Mr P.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Kat—’

  ‘But we were arguing all the time.’ She sniffed, laughed. ‘He’s a moody little bugger, isn’t he?’

  ‘He can be at times. What did you argue about?’

  ‘Everything! Politics, sex—’

  ‘O-kay—’

  ‘Astrology! We even argued about astrology!’

  ‘What exactly did he say?’

  ‘He really went off on one – he said that it was bullshit to think planets could influence human characteristics and anyone who believed it was just dumb …’

  ‘I’m so sorry to hear that,’ I said and proudly thought that’s my boy.

  ‘He said I was too old for him. I’m only twenty-six, for God’s sake! He said I was smothering him, he wanted some time by himself.’

  Her head was on my shoulder now, my arm around her, and I consoled her for some time before making my move. ‘Maybe, Kat, if I talked to him, I could put a word in?’

  ‘What’s the point, Mr P.? What’s the bloody point?’

  ‘Nevertheless, if you could just give me the name of the hotel?’

  ‘He’s not in a hotel.’

  ‘A hostel, then.’

  ‘He’s not in a hostel, either.’

  ‘So where is he, Kat?’

  Kat sniffed and cleared her throat. Her nose was running and, rather unusually I thought, she wiped it on my bare arm, leaving a trail of tears and mucus that I could see glinting in the overhead light.

  ‘Spain.’

  ‘Spain?’

  ‘Madrid.’

  ‘Albie’s in Madrid?’

  ‘He said he’d had enough of churches, he wanted to see Guernica. There was a cheap flight, he’ll be long gone by now.’

  ‘Where is he in Madrid, Kat?’

  ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

  Albie was gone. This was neither right nor just, I thought. Because surely, surely you have to succeed, if you give everything you have?

  But it seemed that this was not the case and I realised in that moment that I’d lost not just my son, but probably my wife too, and then it was Kat’s turn to console me as I fell entirely to pieces.

  139. the cell

  I spent the night in a jail cell, though not in a bad way.

  Perhaps my breaking down had something to do with it, but after hours of inactivity the staff now sprang into action and I was led away from Kat and taken to a back room where, once I’d calmed down, it was made clear through complicated mime that there would be no formal charges against me. But where would I go? As it was nearly midnight and I had no passport or money, I was shown to a cell by the desk sergeant with the slightly apologetic air of a hotel manager who really has nothing better left. The small windowless room smelt of a lemony disinfectant, reassuring in this context, with a mattress in blue vinyl that was deliciously cool to the touch. The stainless steel toilet had no seat and was closer to the bed than was ideal, and I was wary of the pillow, too. Prison pillows are different from other pillows. But perhaps if I wrapped it in my shirt and tried not to use the toilet, I’d be okay. After all, I had paid upwards of one hundred and forty euros for less comfortable rooms than this and the alternative, sleeping rough on the streets of Siena, held little appeal. So I accepted the bargain happily, on the proviso that the cell door be left ajar.

  ‘Porta aperta, sì?’

  ‘Sì, porta aperta.’

  And then I was alone.

  The great virtue of defeat, once accepted, is that it at least allows one to rest. Hope had kept me awake for too long, and now, untroubled by the fantasy of a happy ending, I was finally able to fall into a sleep that was remarkable for the total absence of dreams.

  140. the list

  ‘I don’t think our son likes me very much,’ I said to Connie one night in bed.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Douglas. What makes you say that?’

  ‘I don’t know. The way he cries when you leave the room. Oh, also, he tells me.’

  She laughed, and drew closer. ‘He’s going through a mummy phase. All boys, girls too, have it. In a few years’ time you’ll be his idol, you’
ll see.’

  And so I waited to become his idol.

  He started school, and was happy there I think, though often he’d be in bed when I got back from work. If he was asleep, I’d go and watch him, brush his hair back and kiss his forehead. I loved that smell on him, freshly bathed, Pears soap and strawberry toothpaste. If he was awake:

  ‘Do you want me to read tonight?’

  ‘No, I want Mummy to read.’

  ‘Are you sure? Because I’d really like to read to—’

  ‘Mummy! MUMMY!’

  ‘Okay, I’ll get Mummy,’ I’d say, then on closing the door, ‘You know you shouldn’t go to bed with wet hair, Albie. You’ll catch flu.’ I’d say this, even though the science on the issue was dubious to say the least. Still I couldn’t help myself, any more than, on holidays, I could resist telling him not to swim immediately after eating in case of cramps. What was it about water against skin that caused the intestines to suddenly spasm and contract? Why should that be? Didn’t matter – it was one of those phrases on the list.

  Because throughout my childhood and teenage years I had been compiling a list of banal and irritating remarks that I swore I would never, ever make when I was a parent. All children make this list, and all lists are unique, though no doubt there is considerable overlap. Don’t touch that, it’s dirty! Write your thank-you letters, or no more presents! How can you waste food when people are starving? All through Albie’s childhood, out they tumbled. No more biscuits, you’ll spoil your appetite! Tidy your room! It is WAY past your bedtime! Do NOT come downstairs again! Yes, you do have to have the lights off! What on earth are you afraid of? Don’t cry! You’re acting like a baby. I told you, stop crying. Do. Not. Cry!