‘You don’t think it would be weird?’
‘A little, maybe. But every suggestion Eugenia Marinello has ever made to me has been right on the money so if she thinks you need peace and quiet and I need company, I’m willing to agree.’
‘It’s still weird.’
‘Well, there are a hell of a lot worse places to go, Connie. You’d have your own space, you could eat, sleep, walk on the beach, help me out with my senior citizens. They’ve been giving me a giant pain in the ass since Herb moved to Boca, excuse my French.’
But I don’t even know you, I wanted to say, and besides people don’t just take off with perfect strangers. Even if they’ve met those strangers before in their dreams and those perfect strangers have kept them company while they were unconscious.
‘I can’t,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
Actually, I couldn’t think of a reason apart from natural caution, which I appeared to have ceased practising.
‘Okay then,’ I said.
And that was that.
Fifteen
‘You’re going where?’ my mother asked me, incredulous, when I revealed my plan to recuperate at the seaside home of a perfect stranger. ‘Your own home isn’t good enough for you? You have to take up with a man you only met one time? Why would you do this?’ She was looking at my father for back-up. ‘By the ocean of all places. She doesn’t know how dangerous that is? What can happen out there?’
‘He’s a doctor, Mom,’ I said. ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’
‘All of a sudden you care if I’m pleased?’
Just repeat that conversation pretty much verbatim for six or eight hours and you will understand why it was with some enthusiasm that I left the house the next morning, headed for Shelter Island. Emmet, bless his heart, walked me to the Hamptons Jitney stop on 69th Street and told me to take care of myself, as though he meant it even, and suggested that perhaps once I had sussed out the scene I could call for him. He could move out there too, especially if there was a wide-screen TV, and I shouldn’t worry about the 20 grand, he was okay with me letting him down.
I sat on the bus staring out the window as the dreary clutter of the city gave way to the gentle open spaces off the Long Island Expressway. Even though I loved the city with all my heart, at that moment it felt good to be getting away from it.
I tried not to but I liked Sag Harbor, my drop-off point. Tom had always been so scathing of the Hamptons but the shingle houses with their leafy green gardens appealed to me in a storybook sort of way. It looked like the sort of place where nothing bad could happen. Where people were nice to each other. Where the water of the harbour sparkled at the end of a neat main street with no Starbucks or T-Mobile franchises. Stepping off the bus at the firehouse, though, I grew wary. On closer inspection every second car was a Mercedes; there were too many antique stores; all the women wore white capri pants. But then the Jitney pulled away and I saw Luca across the road waiting for me, leaning against the side of an old green Chevy pick-up looking like something out of a James Dean movie. He was just the sort of guy who looked at home wherever he was and there was something infectiously comforting about that. He smiled and walked toward me, grabbing my bag and throwing it in the back of his truck, then opening the passenger-side door for me to get in.
A big fat marmalade cat with only one ear sat in a superior fashion in my seat, staring straight ahead and not even bothering to turn its big fat head to look at me.
‘What is it with cats?’ I asked Luca. ‘Did something happen when I was gone? It’s like they’re setting themselves up to rule the world.’
‘Meet Gertrude,’ Luca said, coming over to my side and pushing the cat into the middle of the bench seat as if she were a statue. ‘She’s a little eccentric.’
‘She’s the size of a freakin’ horse,’ I said. ‘And what’s with all that staring straight ahead?’ Actually, as long as she didn’t try to have sex with me, I was okay with it.
‘Oh, you’ll get used to her,’ Luca said, climbing into the driver’s side and following the signs to the Shelter Island ferry. It was good to be out in the open surrounded by so much greenery. I felt slightly better straightaway. And as we crossed on the boat from North Haven to Shelter Island, I felt a further physical unclenching that seemed to loosen every cell in my body. It was only a five-minute trip but I got out of the truck and stood at the back of the ferry all the same, watching the mainland get smaller and smaller as the smooth silvery sea spread itself out in front of me. I closed my eyes and breathed in the sea air, the sun beating on my face. It was the best I could remember feeling since I had been in Venice, which was a dream. But that was a good thing, I told myself. I knew now what was a dream and what wasn’t; to be feeling good in real life was progress.
Gertrude had moved back into my space when I returned to the truck and for the life of me I couldn’t push the darn creature over. Luca had to pull on her from his side.
‘Thank you for the welcome, Gertrude,’ I said sarcastically. ‘It is much appreciated.’ She kept staring ahead, unimpressed, in a particularly cat-like way and emitted an audible fart that made my jaw drop to my chest. The audacity of it!
‘Welcome to Shelter Island,’ Luca said and we both laughed as we bumped off the ferry and onto dry land. Gertrude licked a paw with a self-satisfied smirk. She had attitude, that cat. In spades.
Shelter Island was the opposite of Manhattan. A wide road stretched ahead, lush forest on either side, houses with acres in-between each other hidden by huge trees and well-kept gardens. About a mile past the ferry landing we turned off into a sleepy tree-lined street, which took us over the brow of the hill and back down toward a stunning open cove. I wondered how anyone could think that the seashore was a dangerous place; it felt like the safest place I had ever been to: the perfect antidote to the noisy high-rise city, all flat and serene and sparkly and pure. I was transfixed. Near the bottom of the hill, when we were almost at the beach, Luca turned into a leafy driveway. I found myself, and Gertrude, staring at a big rustic wooden house, bathed in sunlight and facing the sea. It had a porch that ran across the front and a big stone chimney that straddled both floors. It was the sort of place I imagined Daniel Boone would have lived in if he’d been around in the 21st century.
By the time Luca had shown me around and deposited me in my room I was in love with the house, the cove, the island; even Gertrude was starting to grow on me. She walked in front of me wherever I went, with her tail straight up in the air; and when it came to making right turns, she instead did a haughty little circle to her left.
‘What the hell is that about?’ I asked Luca the first time she did it and I nearly tripped over her.
‘Like I said, she’s eccentric.’
She certainly was. The moment I opened my bag and started to unpack she climbed into it, lay down on top of my clothes and would not get off. The great lard-ass weighed a ton and turned herself as stiff as a board. There was no way I could shift her without putting my back out so in the end I just left her there and went downstairs.
Luca had gone to work, telling me to make myself at home, which left me free to poke about his house. Turned out he had good taste as well. The interior was kind of woody with Mexican-looking rugs and big squashy chairs and lots of lamps and bookcases. The kitchen was outdated but adequate and the refrigerator was well stocked, which led me to think that Luca probably cooked rather than ate take-out. I just hoped he wasn’t going to torture me with perfectly spiced culinary miracles because I had gone a whole half-hour without thinking about the state of my olfactory bulbs and the quiver in my stomach where fear lurked had, for that time, been quelled.
After wandering aimlessly around the living room, picking up books and magazines and other clues as to the nature of the man with whom I was living (boy, that was a weird thought), I pulled open the sliding glass doors out on to the porch and stepped outside.
There was nothing between Luca’s house and the beach b
ut the rest of the road we had come down, which led to a couple more houses further down the beach. It finished at an inlet, the glassy-looking water of which was interspersed with tidy wooden jetties. I’d seen movies where people lived in places like this. It was a bit like On Golden Pond and made me want to go fishing, which was pretty strange as up until that moment I had never before even considered such a thing. There was no sound at all but for the birds. The Shelter Island shoreline attracted a whole bunch of protected species, Luca had told me: piping plover, least tern and osprey. I certainly couldn’t tell which was which — when it came to birds I knew my squab from my Cornish game hen though neither of them said much if you know what I mean — but those live birds were a musical bunch. It was such a different sound from the cacophony of the city. There were no layers of noise like I was used to. No rumbling traffic beneath clanking garbage trucks, no tooting horns atop whining sirens, no babies crying and hammers banging: just quiet and birdsong. I settled myself in one of the porch chairs and the sea twinkled out in front of me. It was the most peaceful place I had ever been in my whole life.
I sat there staring out at that beautiful sea for a while, then went for a long walk on the beach. Actually, that had been Gertrude’s idea. On my way back from the bathroom I had absent-mindedly followed her until before I knew it I was across the road and walking along the warm sand of Smith Cove. I wore a short khaki skirt and a tank top I had found in my closet at Ty’s place (the only concessions to the casual life I could find even though they were both Ralph Lauren); my skinny white arms and legs were dazzlingly pale against the blue of the sky, the green of the trees and the silvery shimmer of the water. I could feel my skin drinking in the sunshine, my batteries being charged. It felt good.
When I got back I made myself a late lunch of a peanut butter, celery and cottage-cheese sandwich, which satisfied as many of my senses as I could manage, then took a long, dreamless nap in my upstairs room, which looked out over the water. When I woke up, dusk was falling, painting pinks and purples on the mill-pond seascape outside. I pulled on a sweater and went downstairs. There were signs of activity in the kitchen. The food processor was out and ready to be used. A pot of honey sat beside it and a bottle of rice wine vinegar. I picked up a knob of gnarled ginger root and scratched at the skin, missing smell like a lost limb, then went to find Luca.
After circumnavigating the house I eventually found him out front, on the slope that ran from his lawn to the road by the beach. I hadn’t noticed before but the bank was terraced and vibrantly packed to the gunnels with a jaw-dropping herb and vegetable garden. There were zucchinis and summer squash, lettuce, green beans, new potatoes, basil, borage and sorrel. Halfway down the slope Luca was hidden in a patch of blossoming sage, his grey T-shirt and brown skin perfectly in tune with the tiny purple flowers. He was tilling the soil with a small hand-trowel and as I watched him stretch out at work, the sinews in his arms bulging, his ribs showing through his well-worn Yankees T-shirt, it just about took my breath away. I had seen it all before. In the squero of my dreams. What did it mean?
He spied me, finally, and sat back on his haunches, wiping the sweat from his forehead. ‘Well hello you,’ he said. ‘Good day?’
I nodded dumbly and moved closer to him, sitting down on the grass of the terraced bank, knees pulled up to my chest. I reached out to pluck some sage blossoms, rubbing them between my fingers, holding them up to my nose even though I knew nothing would, nothing could come of it.
‘And you?’
‘So-so. Our receptionist is missing in action so there’s more chaos than usual.’
He got back on his knees and leaned into the sage patch again. ‘Long Island glacial soil,’ he said, ‘richest in the whole country almost. You a gardener?’
I shook my head. ‘In Manhattan, are you crazy? Besides I have the Greenmarket just around the corner.’
‘I suppose,’ Luca said. ‘Although there’s nothing like eating something you grew yourself.’
‘Wouldn’t make a hell of a lot of difference to me right now I guess.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing to do with taste,’ he disagreed.
‘Luca, all food is to do with taste!’
‘The flavour’s only part of it,’ he said without stopping what he was doing. ‘It’s not the be-all and end-all. I just prefer my beans to anyone else’s.’
‘Because you grow them?’
‘Because I like growing them. Because it’s nice out here and there’s no bullshit. There is compost though,’ he said, sitting back again and indicating the barrow full of rich garden manure next to him. ‘Don’t suppose you feel like giving me a hand?’
It would have been churlish not to and anyway he was right: it was nice out there. I was nursing something warm and fuzzy inside of me at just sitting there in the evening heat among the herbs and vegetables with Luca. He didn’t spark that embarrassing overwhelming lustiness that Marco did but something about him struck a chord in me that felt like I had swallowed a great big fat piece of warm apple pie.
‘Just take a trowel full and dig it into the soil like this,’ he said, showing me how to do just that. I clumsily copied him and we worked our way along the row, me doing the front half and him stretching over to do the back. It was quiet, apart from the birds and the distant lapping of the sea and the odd yowl from Gertrude, who lay upside-down on the front lawn, fighting off an imaginary Doberman with her paws, then running around in crazy left circles.
I was trying to figure out a connection between the lost art of gondola-building and composting and it was not exactly coming to me in a rush. It was something to do with basics, I thought, but further than that and my mind turned to mush. And it was something to do with fathers and sons. ‘Why do you think Marco has to spend more time with the living?’ I asked him after we’d been working in silence for 10 minutes or so. ‘Isn’t he, like, a genius or something? He’s only 29 and people are filming him and writing articles about him. Aren’t you proud?’
‘Course I’m proud,’ Luca kept trowelling the earth.
Still, there was a ‘but’ hanging in the air.
‘But what?’ I prompted.
‘But nothing.’
‘But something,’ I argued, dragging my trowel through the soil.
Luca laughed, loosened a little. ‘I guess it worries me,’ he said, ‘that he goes into that hospital every day and holds all those futures in his hands, literally. Takes the brains out of those skulls, works his magic; then scrubs out and walks away like he’s 10 feet tall and nothing can touch him.’
‘I don’t get what’s wrong with that.’ It was hard work, gardening: my arm was getting sore and I had a little cramp in my thigh, but Gertrude had finished playing with her imaginary enemy and had me under strict scrutiny so I didn’t think I could let up.
‘Well, it’s not that there’s something wrong with it but …’ he pulled out a weed and threw it up onto the terrace above, where little piles of them peppered the even grass. ‘You know, you are probably the first patient all year that Marc has spoken to, actually spoken to.
I felt a warm flood of happiness. There was something special between Marco and me, I had always known it.
‘And that’s probably thanks to Eugenia,’ Luca continued, pricking my bubble a little, ‘because she has a sixth sense for that sort of thing. Trust me. The woman is blessed. And Marc thinks he’s saving lives and he is, of course he is, but it’s just statistics.’ It was just like in the boatyard, as though we were picking up a conversation we had started at an earlier time. ‘A life to him is a number. He doesn’t care about the person who may or may not go on to live it. He doesn’t even know about that person. A surgery goes well or it doesn’t, and in his case it mostly goes well. But he does not have one clue about what happens to the folks who survive his surgery. Outcomes, as they say, are not his field. All he knows is whether he did his bit brilliantly. He doesn’t know if that brain he held in his hands ever remembered anything again, ever recog
nised a face or a word or a memory. He doesn’t know if the body that brain belonged to ever walked again, if it spent the rest of its life in a wheelchair, or dragged one foot, or lay curled up in a darkened room forever. He doesn’t know how the mother of that curled-up body is going to cope with having her son in rehab for the rest of his life, how the wife of the guy who can’t talk is going to stay with him, how every single person with a brain trauma has to grieve for the person they once were because they’re just not that person any more and never will be again. He doesn’t get that.’
I had stopped digging in the soil and was staring at him, frozen, as was Gertrude. It suddenly occurred to me she was probably the victim of a head injury herself. One ear? Eccentric behaviour? No right turns? I would put money on it. I was shocked by what Luca was saying but not only because he was saying it about his son but because he was saying it about me. I was a person with a brain trauma after all. And was I grieving for the person I once was because I was not that person any more and never would be again?
Holy shit. He’d only hit the nail on the goddamned head. I collapsed on my butt, the trowel falling into the soil.
‘Hey,’ Luca said, alarmed. ‘Are you all right?’ He was at my side, crouched beside me, one hand on my shoulder, one on my knee, looking into my face. The sound of terns or plovers or ospreys was ringing in my ears, I felt dizzy and weak.
‘I never thought about grieving for the old me,’ I told him. ‘I didn’t think she was gone, just on vacation.’
‘I’m sorry, Connie,’ he said.
‘You think I’ve lost my taste forever?’ The thought was like a long, deep dark well that I pictured my body lying at the bottom of.
‘Connie,’ said Luca, with that tenderness that never failed to stun me, ‘I think there is so much more to you than taste.’
There was more to me than taste? I had no idea how he could possibly know that: it was one of those extraordinary things that he said in that ordinary fashion of his. And as his words sank in they astounded me. Before my accident I was all about taste. The me I grieved for was all about taste. What else was there?