It was a small restaurant, and they were the first to arrive that evening. As they sat over the aperitif produced for them by the owner, a second couple arrived, young Danes, followed, shortly afterwards, by an elderly man who had the look of a local and who entered into a long conversation through the door of the kitchen.
Gloria enquired what they were talking about.
“His hens,” said Paul, his voice lowered. “He’s telling her about his hens. They’ve developed some sort of staggering illness and they’ve been wandering round his yard like drunken sailors.”
“Oh dear.”
There came a torrent of advice from within the kitchen.
“And?” asked Gloria.
Paul listened. “She says that her aunt had that trouble, but they seemed to get better. She said she thought it was something they’d eaten. She says that hens have more delicate stomachs than people imagine. She also says that it could be psychological.”
“I don’t think so,” said Gloria.
Paul smiled as he listened to what was being said at the kitchen door.
“He says that he doesn’t believe that hens have psychological problems because their brains are too small. He says that hens haven’t got the first clue about anything.”
This drew a short reply from the kitchen.
“And she says that you shouldn’t underestimate hens.”
The waiter returned to take their order. He nodded appreciatively as Paul chose. “Precisely, professore,” he said. “That is precisely what I would recommend.”
“Professore!” whispered Gloria.
The waiter made his way back to the kitchen and Paul turned to Gloria, raising his glass in a toast. And it was at that point that Becky came in.
Paul froze.
Gloria, with her back to the door, had not noticed. “How did you find this place?” she asked Paul. “It’s perfect…”
Her voice trailed off. Noticing Paul’s gaze, she half-turned in her chair, and saw Becky. She had picked up her glass to touch it against Paul’s; now she lowered it. She stared hard at the empty plate at the side of her place, as if studying the faded blue design.
Becky faltered, but the waiter had returned and pointed to a table. He drew a chair back for her, and she sat down. She looked up at the ceiling, at the walls; she did not look in Paul’s direction.
“I’m going to have to say something,” whispered Paul. “I’m sorry, but this place is too small. We can’t sit here and pretend.”
“Are you going to invite her over?” asked Gloria. “I don’t mind if you do.”
Paul looked agonised. “I can’t.”
“What else can you do? We can’t sit here and whisper about somebody on the other side of the room.”
Paul rose to his feet. As he did so, Becky looked up. She started to stand up too.
He stood before her. “Look,” he said. “Gloria’s turned up.”
Becky had a table napkin in her hands. She was twisting it about her fingers. “So I see.”
“Business,” said Paul.
Becky stared at him. “You liar,” she said.
“Why? She’s my editor. You know that.”
Becky’s voice rose. “You didn’t take long, did you? Get rid of me and then…her.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I don’t, do I? You can’t do dinner tonight. You don’t want to go out to dinner, do you? And I come in here and there you are with that woman.”
He tried to defend himself. “It’s not that simple.”
The couple at the nearby table shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
Paul tried to calm her. “I don’t think we should have a public row,” said Paul.
“Oh you don’t, do you?” Everyone was silent, and her voice resonated in the chambered ceiling. The man with the staggering hens looked on, his jaw dropping; the young couple stared fixedly at the menu.
And then Becky reached down to the table and took a fork. Lunging forward, she drove it into Paul’s hand. He shouted out, and the fork dropped to the floor. Gloria pushed her chair back and leapt to Paul’s defence. A glass toppled and fell, shattered on the floor.
Becky turned round and walked out of the door, every eye following her before going back to Paul, who was staring mutely at his hand. There was a small amount of blood; three punctures where the points of the fork had broken the skin.
The owner rushed to Paul’s side. “Professore,” he said, reaching out to examine the injured hand. “Oh, professore, what a terrible thing to happen. She must be a madwoman.”
“She was upset,” said Paul.
“Upset?” shouted Gloria. “Upset!”
Paul was strangely calm. “Look, let’s not make a fuss. It was an accident.”
“An accident?” said Gloria. “I saw it, Paul. She stabbed you with a fork. I saw her.”
Paul brought his hand to his mouth and sucked at the wound. “Nothing. It’s nothing. A tiny drop of blood, that’s all. And I think she was just trying to emphasise her point and it…well, it went wrong.”
“I have something for this hand,” said the owner. “I have a plaster.”
He went back into the kitchen, past his wife, who was staring out from the kitchen doorway, her face a picture of astonishment and disbelief. Returning with a plaster, the owner applied it to Paul’s hand.
“Thank you,” said Paul, and to the other diners he said, “Please forgive us.”
The hubbub that often follows a moment of crisis or shock, the immediate, frantic conversation that is pointedly resumed, now filled the silence; the Danish couple launched into earnest conversation, both talking at the same time, and volubly too; the elderly man said something more about hens, although he was not heard by the woman in the kitchen, who was talking loudly to the waiter.
Seated once more, Paul said to Gloria, “Let’s pretend that didn’t happen. Let’s enjoy our dinner.”
Gloria rolled her eyes. “How can you? You can’t.”
“Well, I can,” said Paul. “You’re simply wrong, Gloria.”
“What’s going to happen now?”
Paul shrugged. “Nothing. And I don’t think there’s anything I can do. I imagine she’ll go home.” He paused. “I’m sorry it’s ending this way, but I suppose sometimes it does.”
She looked at him. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “I suppose that’s the way affairs come to an end. Somebody grabs a fork and stabs the other in the hand. And that’s it.”
Paul sighed. “I’m going to have to go and see that she’s all right. I can’t leave her like that.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Gloria. “She could be dangerous.”
“Nonsense. You stay. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Start the meal. I’ll catch up.”
He would not listen to her protest, and he left. It was only five minutes’ walk to the Fiore, where he imagined Becky would have returned. He suddenly realised that there was something that he had not said, that he now needed to say, to bring the whole matter to an end. He had never said sorry, which, curiously enough, is what the person who is in the wrong is often waiting for the wronged party to say.
He saw her in the hotel. She was weeping, but the quivering of her lip showed him that the tears were of remorse as much as anything else.
“I know you didn’t mean it,” he said. “And I also know that I should have said sorry a long time ago for…well, for everything. For not giving you enough of my time. For not thinking of you enough. For all of that.”
She shook her head. “I was the one who…”
“No, listen to what I’m saying. I’m the one who’s saying sorry now. And I think we both know that it’s over, and that we need to get on with our lives. I don’t want you to think that I hate you or anything.”
“I don’t want you to think that either,” she sobbed. “I don’t hate you either.”
“Well, that’s good, then.” He paused. “Why do
n’t you come back and have dinner with us? You know, there’s nothing between Gloria and me. There really isn’t.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. And I’m going tomorrow.”
“We could have breakfast. The Fiaschetteria. How about that?”
She wiped at her tears. “All right.”
Don’t Fall in Love with This Place
“So,” said Gloria at lunch the next day. “So that’s that?”
“She felt very sorry about it,” said Paul.
Gloria glanced at his hand. The plaster provided by the restaurant had been replaced with a neat square of dressing, held in position by two transparent strips. These had been purchased in the chemist’s shop near the Fiore and applied by the chemist herself, who had inspected the wound and pronounced it inconsequential.
“How did you do it?” she asked as she squirted a fine antiseptic spray over Paul’s hand.
“A fork,” answered Paul.
The chemist peered more closely at the broken skin. “Most unusual, I must say. Mind you, we get everything in here. We had a man who bit his tongue in an argument with a neighbour. That sort of thing.”
Now, sitting with Gloria at one of the outside tables of the Fiaschetteria, Paul reflected on the morning’s events. He had breakfasted with Becky, who had repeated her apologies for what had happened the previous evening. “I’d never want to hurt you, Paul—you know that, don’t you?”
He assured her that he did. “I hope we can be friends,” he said.
“Yes, we can,” she said. “You know something, Paul? I haven’t told you this before, but I will now. There was another reason why I came here. It wasn’t just to say sorry to you.”
He thought: I knew it.
But then, when she continued, it turned out to be something quite different. “Tommy and I had been going through a rough patch. I thought that he was taking me a bit for granted.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. And so I thought that if I came out to see you, that might make him think about his position—might make him sit up and realise that there were alternatives.”
Paul kept his voice level—with difficulty. “I see.”
“And that worked, you know. It really worked. He’s been bombarding me with messages, asking me to come back as soon as possible. He’s suggesting we go off on holiday. He says that he’s missing me terribly.”
Paul heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m glad. In fact, I’m very happy for you, Becky.”
“You know something,” she continued. “I read somewhere that a bit of competition can really help a relationship from getting stale. I think that might have worked in this case.”
Paul stared at her. Did I ever understand her? he thought.
“I’m sure you’re very good for him, Becky. He’s a lucky man.”
“He’s a nice guy,” said Becky. “He’s gentle. Strong men often are, aren’t they?”
Paul thought about this. She was probably right. He remembered the school bully, who had been puny, but who used Japanese fighting skills to get his opponents off balance.
“I suppose I’ve got you out of my system now,” said Becky, thoughtfully. “I know that sounds a bit rude—and I hope you don’t take it the wrong way, but I think this trip has worked for me in more ways than one. It’s shown I could never take you back.”
Paul momentarily floundered. “Take me…take me back?”
“Yes,” said Becky. “I don’t think that it would work in the long term. We’re different types, Paul, and we should have realised that a long time ago.”
He thought she was right. “Yes, we are.”
“Plenty of people go through their life with the wrong person,” Becky continued. “They think they’re suited, but they aren’t. They even make a mistake about what sex of person they want. I know this woman who’s been with this guy for years and only now realises that she wants to be with another woman. She’s in her late forties. All that time wasted.”
“Well, she found what she was looking for.”
“She did. Tommy says life isn’t a dress rehearsal.”
“Oh, he says that, does he?”
“Yes. He says we should live for the moment.”
Paul said that he thought Tommy was right.
“There’s more to Tommy than meets the eye,” observed Becky.
“Still waters run deep,” replied Paul.
—
Becky left for Siena on the eleven o’clock bus. Gloria moved into her vacated room an hour later, helped by a strangely silent Ella, who was clearly struggling to work out what was going on. Word had got out of the fork incident, which was the talk of the market that morning. By the time that Ella was making up the room for Gloria, the word was that there had been an attempted murder in the restaurant last night, with Paul being the victim of an onslaught with a steak knife, receiving injuries that required twenty-four stitches and an immediate transfusion of blood. The perpetrator, it was said, had fled the village—but had more or less definitely been arrested at Fiumicino Airport, trying to leave the country.
Gloria settled into her new room and into a routine in the town. She went for long walks, leaving Paul to work on the book; she bought a sketch book and began to pencil sketches of winding streets and hidden alleyways. Paul took her on the bulldozer to Sant’Antimo, where they heard the monks singing plainchant. She loved the bulldozer. “It’s so ridiculous,” she said. “In fact, it’s utterly and completely absurd.”
“Of course it is,” said Paul. “But then why should we expect the world to be mundane and sensible?”
“It’s just that people don’t hire bulldozers,” said Gloria. “They don’t drive them around Tuscany. They just don’t.”
“They do,” said Paul.
They made a picnic for themselves—rolls, salami, olives—and took it with them to a place they had found on one of their walks. It was a quiet place, a place of scattered oaks and, in the distance, a vineyard that climbed a gently sloping hillside until it joined the sky. She asked him about Anna.
“Where is she?” she said.
“I think she’s spending a few days in Siena. She should be back soon. But I’m trying not to think about her.”
Gloria closed her eyes. “That’s probably a good idea.” And then she asked, “Will I see her, do you think?”
“I don’t think so.”
He picked up a twig and began to strip off its bark. “I don’t know about my life,” he said. “I just don’t know.”
She half-opened her eyes. The sky was limitless, a singing, dizzying emptiness of blue. “What do you mean?” And then, before he could answer, “Does any of us know?”
“The sort of thing I do,” he said. “What’s the point? What difference do I make?”
“You mean, is what you do superficial? Is that your question?”
“In a way, yes. I’ve met people who are doing much more with their lives. Doctors, for instance. A couple of months ago I met a male nurse—a psychiatric nurse. He looks after people in their homes—he goes to check up on them, takes them out for walks, makes them feel better. What do I do? Write about mushrooms.”
It took her a few moments to work out her reply. “You give pleasure to people. That’s a perfectly good thing to do with your life.”
He was sceptical. “Is it really?”
“Yes, it is. Look at artists. What do artists do?”
“Paint. Make us think. Show us beauty.”
“You make us think. You show us beauty.”
“Hardly.”
“Yes, you do. There are various forms of artistry, Paul. The person who grows grapes and makes wine is an artist, I think. The person who writes about all that is also an artist.”
He made a grudging admission. “Possibly.”
They were both silent for a while. Then she said, “The problem is that you don’t have a sense of your future.”
“And we need that?”
“We do. We need to believe in something. F
or most of us that includes having some sense of where we’re going.”
“And I don’t have that sense?”
“I don’t think you do.”
The twig was now bare. He looked at it closely and caught the sharp smell of sap. “I suppose I’ll sort myself out. Eventually.”
“There’s a long tradition of coming to Italy to do that,” said Gloria. “It’s been a sort of rite of passage over the years. The North comes to the South to discover all about love and beauty. Poets, painters. They’ve all done that.”
He dropped the twig. “And some never made it back.”
“Some didn’t.”
It was time for them to start walking back to the town. Gloria was leaving the following day and they were to have dinner together one final time. On the way back, they said very little.
“You’re not offended by what I said?” asked Gloria.
“Of course not. Why should I be?”
“Because what you do with your life is really no concern of mine. You don’t need me to tell you what to do.”
He did not think that friendship was of such limited compass. “I think we should tell our friends when we think they’re not getting something right.”
“You wouldn’t hesitate to tell me if…”
“If I thought you were all over the place.” He smiled. “I don’t.” He paused. “Although I suppose I could say something to you if I thought about it.”
“And what would that be?”
“To let yourself go. Let yourself fall in love, perhaps. Not to be so—how shall I put it—so above it all.”
She lowered her gaze, and he thought, Now I’ve hurt her.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“No, it’s all right.”
He tried to make up for his tactlessness. “I’m sure that somebody’s going to come along. Somebody who’s going to sweep you off your feet.”
“I’m not so sure, but that would be nice, I suppose.”
He persisted. “It could happen.”
She made light of it. “Unlikely. And anyway, it’s not my feet that have to be prised from the ground—it’s his.” She added, “Whoever he is.”