Sixty Summers

by Amanda Hampson

  They wandered into the basilica, gazing up at its soaring arches and vaulted ceilings; towering pillars like great trunks of ancient trees. A choir, perhaps a hundred or more singers, rehearsed a choral piece, nuanced and beautiful, although not something Maggie recognised. She could hear Rose humming under her breath, as though the music trapped in her was desperate to escape. Leaving there, they drifted through the narrow lanes off the main piazza, crowded with restaurants and buzzing with people. Tiny shops sold flowers, fruit and vegetables, sausages and hams. There were giant wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano on display and delicate pastries and cakes. There was a pleasant familiarity about the place, a vibrancy that Maggie remembered well from all those years ago.

  Buying a selection of cheeses, sausages, bread and a six-pack of cold Peroni, they joined the young people sitting on the steps of the basilica. Rose donated her scarf as an improvised table cloth, and the five of them gathered around it. It was almost dark now and floodlights gilded the piazza. Each archway around the square was transformed into a proscenium of golden light.

  It transpired that Don was a retired teacher and he and Rose fell into a discussion about education systems. Ann gave Fran a detailed run-down of their travels. Maggie only half listened to both conversations, preferring to watch the activity around them.

  A busker set up in the centre of the piazza and began to play ‘Hotel California’ on a steel guitar. Rose immediately lost all interest in the education system and began to sing along. Maggie recalled how often they sang together on that first trip. The Kombi had no radio and they sang to fill the hours and miles. Rose still had a beautiful voice. To her own surprise, Maggie heard herself join in, and Fran added harmonies. Some Americans sitting nearby began to sing along too, mumbling the words between choruses, but it was Rose’s trio who led the song. Encouraged, the busker went on to play ‘Heartache Tonight’, another song they knew off by heart.

  A young couple sitting near them stepped down onto the piazza and began to dance a practised rumba. It was hard not to envy the fluidity of their youthful bodies, the flare of the young woman’s hair and the gaze they shared. Maggie had experienced those moments and felt nostalgic for that sensual charge of the slow dance. She felt something rise up in her that she hadn’t experienced in a long time. It caught in her throat and stung her eyes. It was a sense of quiet contentment. Everything felt right. When the song finished, Maggie glanced over at Rose and Fran and she knew they, too, had felt a shift.

  ‘You didn’t say you were a singing group,’ said Don, evidently impressed.

  ‘Nothing formal,’ replied Rose. ‘Just a happy accident.’

  ‘Songs from our youth,’ explained Fran. ‘When we had time to learn the lyrics.’

  A passer-by threw a two-euro coin onto Rose’s scarf and she burst out laughing. ‘Wowee! Our first paid gig!’

  Fran laughed. ‘If we get desperate, we’ve always got that to fall back on.’

  As they stood up to leave, Maggie noticed Rose was staring out into the crowded piazza with an odd expression on her face. ‘Hang on,’ said Rose. ‘Actually, I’ll meet you back at the car.’ She sounded flustered, and the next moment she rushed off into the crowd. She arrived at the van shortly after the rest of them and when Maggie asked where she’d gone off to, she said it was nothing. ‘Just someone I thought I knew.’

  On the way back to the camp, it started to rain. Don parked beside the facilities block so everyone could dash in for a relief stop. When they arrived at their site, there were hurried goodbyes with Don and Ann, who would be leaving first thing in the morning. They were driving to Brindisi to catch the ferry and start their tour of the Greek islands.

  The belly of the Beast was cold and damp. The cheer of the magical evening quickly evaporated. Maggie hated going to bed without brushing her teeth and spent ten minutes crawling around in the dark with the torch, trying to find her toiletries bag before she finally gave up. There was some jostling over sleeping bags and blankets before they finally all settled down for sleep.

  The rain sounded like nails being thrown on the roof and there was a wet dripping sound that was definitely inside the van. Maggie crawled across to the back door and felt around the edges to discover that water was coursing down the inside of the door.

  ‘What is it?’ Rose shouted over the noise.

  ‘It’s the seal around the door leaking. Just pass me a towel or something thick and I’ll jam it in the door,’ Maggie shouted back. Something soft landed in her face. She opened the back door, to accompanying screams from Fran and Rose, quickly folded the towel over the doorframe and slammed it shut.

  ‘So this is la dolce vita …’ said Rose, pulling her sleeping bag up to her neck.

  Fran got on her knees and felt around under the front seat. ‘I think it’s time to break this out.’

  ‘What is it? A blunt instrument to finish us off?’ asked Rose. ‘Hallelujah!’

  ‘No, Rose. It’s a cab sav.’ Fran paused. ‘Oh, no! It’s got a cork.’

  ‘I put a corkscrew in the box with the cutlery, but we’d need to open the back doors to get it,’ said Rose.

  ‘No, I put that box under the front seat, so it would be easier to get to,’ said Maggie. ‘Can you climb over the seat, Fran? Take the torch.’

  Fran pulled herself up behind the seats, rolled over the top and disappeared. A moment later there was a crow of triumph and her silhouette reappeared clambering back over the seat. She popped opened the bottle, took a swig and handed it to Rose.

  Maggie leaned against the back of the seats and tucked the sleeping bag up under her armpits. There was nothing much to see in the darkness. Rain fell steadily on the roof, the wine found its way into her hand, she took a mouthful and felt it go on its own journey.

  At the second mouthful, she remembered another night, all those years ago, when they had camped in an olive grove somewhere, Italy or Greece. It was a hot summer’s night and they had dragged their bedding out under the olive trees, clearing the ground of twigs and fruit to get comfortable. As they settled down to sleep, the sky was bright with stars and the only sounds were cicadas and crickets.

  Maggie had woken in the night with the horrible feeling that someone was pouring water over her. Rose was shouting incoherently and then the headlights of the Kombi came on. The rain was pelting down. They grabbed their sleeping bags and huddled in the van shivering and laughing at their bad luck. It was three in the morning, sleep was impossible, so they had opened a bottle of wine and told ghost stories and sang until dawn. They finally drifted off to sleep when the rain stopped, only to be woken by a herd of curious goats head-butting the side of the Kombi.

  ‘Do you remember that night in the olive grove?’ asked Maggie, passing the bottle to Rose.

  Rose hooted. ‘Oh, God! That was awful! And the bloody goats.’

  ‘But fun too,’ remembered Fran. ‘Fun to look back on.’

  ‘I don’t remember it bothering us all that much at the time,’ said Maggie.

  ‘And here we are stuck in a van in the rain, drinking wine in the middle of the night.’ Rose laughed. ‘Never thought that would happen again. We had a blast this evening, didn’t we?’

  ‘Do you think it is too late for us?’ asked Maggie, suddenly serious. ‘To do what we want with our lives? All I seem to think about is avoiding upsetting people.’

  ‘Your whole family bullies you,’ said Rose. ‘You never seem to get your own way.’

  ‘Rose, that’s a bit harsh,’ said Fran. ‘Don’t start an argument now.’

  ‘And it’s not true. I have a say in everything. You’re exaggerating.’

  ‘Maybe, but you don’t get your own way. You didn’t want Kristo’s mum to come and live with you. Next thing, she’s moved in and you’re made to feel guilty.’

  ‘She’s not that bad,’ said Maggie. ‘She has her moments. I have to take responsibility for my role in the situation. Being too compliant. Desperate to please. Not saying what I think. Not being ho
nest. Sex, for example …’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ said Rose. ‘Interesting segue.’

  ‘If I could avoid ever having it again, I’d be delighted. If I fob Kristo off, he gets grumpier by the day and then I think, I might as well get it over with so we can have some peace in the house. We can’t discuss it. He takes it super-personally and it turns into an argument.’

  ‘What is it? You just don’t fancy him?’ asked Rose.

  ‘If I fancied anyone, it would be him. I’m just not interested in sex. I’m never in the mood.’

  ‘It could be menopause, Mags, but it could also be the depression,’ suggested Rose. ‘It’s just you two are out of step right now. For some people, sex is like the WD-40 of their relationship – it smooths things out and gets you through the rough patches.’

  Maggie laughed. ‘One of your better metaphors, Rosie.’

  ‘When we were young,’ remembered Fran, ‘we had that idea that to hang on to a guy we had to be “good in bed”. We always used to wonder what it meant. We never had the idea that men need to be “good in bed” to please us.’

  ‘Maybe there should be a ranking system, like TripAdvisor. Encourage men to lift their game,’ suggested Rose, apparently serious.

  ‘We haven’t heard any revelations from you on your favourite topic, Rose,’ said Maggie, passing her the bottle. ‘Here, have some truth serum.’

  ‘Revelations. Things went off the rails in that department after I found out Peter was banging that PhD student. After that, he never initiated sex. I had to ask. A few years ago, I just stopped asking. And that was it.’

  ‘Oh, Rose! I didn’t know that,’ said Fran. ‘Do you think he’s been with anyone else?’

  ‘Peter never tells you anything he doesn’t want to. He’s on some sort of spectrum, whatever that means. He’s very private. I thought that student was the first, but I’m not so sure. There’s something about him that women find attractive: that helpless nerdy man-boy thing.’

  ‘You still have a good partnership, despite that. That’s something,’ said Maggie. ‘Hang on. You’re not trying to tell us you’re celibate?’

  There was a long pause, then Rose said, ‘No, I’m not. There is someone.’

  ‘You sly dog! I thought you’d been a bit more chirpy,’ said Maggie. ‘It was around the time you started French classes.’

  ‘There are no French classes,’ admitted Rose.

  ‘Is he a good man, Rose?’ asked Fran.

  ‘Yes, he’s a good man. He and Peter do have one positive thing in common – neither of them try to control me. I’ve only realised recently why I was so combative in those earlier relationships. I always felt as though I was fighting for my corner.’

  Maggie asked Rose if she loved him.

  ‘Not sure I love him, but I like him a lot. So you don’t think … I don’t know … badly of me?’ asked Rose, uncharacteristically hesitant.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ confirmed Fran.

  ‘Me neither,’ agreed Maggie. ‘It’s your life, Rose. You deserve to be loved. We all do.’

  ‘Of course we do,’ said Rose. ‘Thank you.’

  The rain began to ease as Maggie snuggled down and tucked the sleeping bag in around her. She tried not to think about the sleeping tablets and the antidepressants that had gone with her bag – coming off them so suddenly could be brutal. Today had been a good day. She would take the night as it came.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When they left the camping ground next morning, Rose felt obliged to take the wheel. She would have preferred to be in a comfy seat on a train, not having to deal with the fumes and persistent cheesy odour. The night had been rocky. The confined space was going to take some getting used to, but she’d had worse. It could only get better.

  Yesterday, it seemed as though Maggie’s mood had shifted and they were united in feeling more optimistic about the expedition. Today was completely different. Maggie was very flat and revealed that her antidepressants had been in her stolen handbag. Going off them so suddenly, she could be having withdrawals, but what could they do? Getting a new prescription in Italy would be impossible. They’d have to keep a close eye on her.

  Early-morning mist drifted over the ploughed fields beside the Autostrade and Rose thought how nice it would be to remain in the countryside and away from the cities. The immediate problem was that they were headed south without any real plan, and some practical decisions had to be made.

  Coming back from Bologna in the car the previous evening, they had vaguely discussed heading south, and perhaps out towards the coast. Don and Ann, who agreed with each other on every topic, had immediately set about dissuading them from that route. ‘The whole Adriatic Coast has been destroyed by tourism,’ said Ann. ‘Hundreds of kilometres of apartments and the beaches covered in millions of deckchairs and umbrellas. You won’t like it, I promise.’

  Maggie explained that they had two weeks before their flights out of Rome, so plenty of time to explore. Rose thought it would be interesting to see the coast. They didn’t have to stay.

  ‘If you go out to the coast, then you’ll need to drive across the width of Italy to get to Rome,’ said Don. ‘The centre is quite mountainous, you know.’

  Rose was slightly annoyed by the conversation. ‘We’re not afraid of a few mountains. We’re not helpless little old ladies, you know.’ One minute their new friends were trying to help, the next they were taking charge. Despite that, she did feel a bit abandoned seeing the empty site next door this morning. It was nice to think that someone had their backs, even for a short time.

  ‘We can’t just keep driving without a clue where we’re going,’ said Rose. ‘Especially on the Autostrade. We’ll run out of Italy sooner or later. Or get picked up for driving through the Telepass gates without paying. We’ve gone from one extreme to the other. From too many plans to not enough.’

  Fran opened out the map and inspected it. ‘Siena was on our original itinerary. Why not go there? We should get signs when we get to Forli.’

  Maggie was quiet. After a moment she agreed with the idea but Rose sensed a reluctance.

  ‘Siena it is, then. Andiamo – let’s go!’ Rose burst into an operatic rendition of ‘That’s Amore’ to cheer everyone up.

  ‘Where did you run off to last night, Rose?’ asked Maggie, as though it had been playing on her mind.

  Rose kept her eyes on the road, desperately trying to think of a way to avoid this conversation. ‘It was nothing, just someone I thought I knew. I told you that.’

  ‘Was it Nico? Is that why you’re being evasive?’

  ‘Okay. It was a guy who looked a bit like him. That’s all. He wasn’t that close, I couldn’t really tell, but he was wearing one of those tailored leather jackets Nico likes to wear —’ Rose faltered. In the light of day, Rose was more convinced she’d imagined the sighting, feeding into Maggie’s paranoia.

  ‘Shit! Did he see us?’

  ‘No. He was walking quite fast, just looking around. Alone.’

  ‘And what were you going to do? Confront him? This is exactly why I didn’t want you to know about it!’ said Maggie.

  ‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ interrupted Fran. ‘It’s too much of a coincidence. It’s more likely to be Rose’s vivid imagination.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Rose.

  ‘Was Bologna on the itinerary?’ asked Maggie.

  ‘Yes, it was,’ said Fran. ‘After Verona. Then Siena.’

  ‘We can’t go to Siena. Think of somewhere else. We just can’t go. Anywhere but there.’ Maggie’s words tumbled out breathlessly.

  ‘Do you think he’s here, following us?’ said Fran. ‘That feels like something out of a movie.’ She hesitated. ‘Maggie, I don’t think that’s real.’

  Rose was rattled by the whole conversation. When the sign for area servizio came up, she took the exit and pulled into the Autogrill car park and turned off the ignition. The Beast gave a despairing shudder and fell silent.

  ‘Okay, Maggie
, what the hell is going on? You have to tell us.’

  Maggie put her face in her hands. ‘Not here. I will tell you. Later.’

  Rose had never known Maggie to be so secretive and frustrating. At the same time, it was obvious that she was in a very fragile state. ‘Let’s go in and have a coffee,’ suggested Rose.

  ‘I don’t want to go in there,’ said Maggie quietly. ‘I don’t want people looking at me.’

  Fran and Rose exchanged worried looks. Fran slid her arm around Maggie’s shoulder. ‘Mags, the way you’re feeling now is not real. Your brain is going a bit haywire. But, in a day or two, it will be different. I was on antidepressants for a while, so I know what I’m talking about.’

  Maggie nodded, unconvinced.

  Fran handed Rose a ten-euro note. ‘I’m expecting change – no chocolate bickies.’

  ‘Quite the tyrant now you’re in charge, aren’t you?’ noted Rose.

  The Autogrill was straight out of a Jetsons cartoon: 1960s space-age architecture. Inside, it was as fragrant as a nonna’s kitchen, with the smell of warm pastries and fresh bread. Rose stood gazing wistfully at the fat focaccia sandwiches of tomatoes, basil and buffalo mozzarella. Pesto pasta. It was too early for lasagna, but chocolate torte? In the end it was just three black coffees as instructed. As she came out, the sight of the van parked between a smart-looking SUV and a sleek Mercedes, in all its ugliness, dirty and misshapen, was sobering, and Rose suddenly felt out of her depth, wondering where on earth this was all going.

  Maggie took her coffee with murmured thanks. Rose felt they deserved to have some insight into what was going on, given the constant pressure to change plans. She feared the worst: that Maggie had had an affair with Nico. In which case a nervous breakdown would be fully warranted because that was an incendiary that would blow the Dimitratos family sky high. It needed to be handled delicately. ‘Have you got something going on with Nico?’ asked Rose. ‘Just tell us and get it over with.’

  ‘Rose! She doesn’t have to tell us —’