Much Ado About Sweet Nothing

by Alison May

  ‘It’s OK. And I’m OK. What can I do for you?’

  My prepared speech has gone out of my head now, so I just push the envelope across the desk to him. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘More apologies.’ He tears the envelope open and reads the contents over. ‘I’m surprised.’

  I don’t really know what to say.

  ‘You’re a delight to work with. I didn’t think Claudio would be the sort to want his bride tied to the kitchen sink.’

  I can feel myself blushing with the compliment. Of course, I know he’s just being kind, but it’s still very sweet of him.

  ‘I won’t be tied to the sink.’ I take a deep breath. I haven’t explained why I’m leaving in the letter. I decided I needed to practise saying it out loud. ‘We’re going to live in Italy. Naples. Napoli.’ I correct myself. I need to start trying to sound like a native.

  Danny nods. ‘It’s a beautiful country.’

  ‘That’s what Claudio says.’

  ‘Of course. He loves it there. I’m sure he will be as happy as a pig in muck.’

  He will. He’s already massively excited about the move.

  Danny continues. ‘It will be such a shame for the library to lose you though. You’ve done so much over the past couple of years. I guess I just assumed you would be working with us for years and years to come.’

  ‘I would have liked that.’

  Danny comes around the front of the desk. ‘I would have liked that too.’

  He pauses. I get the impression he’s deciding whether to say more. ‘But things change. You are young, and very much in love. Of course, you should go where your heart takes you.’

  He smiles, and simultaneously winces as the muscles pull against his bruised eye. ‘We’ll miss you here though.’

  ‘I’m still here till summer.’

  ‘Good. I would hate you to leave before we had finished our little project with Ben.’

  ‘The art project?’

  He laughs. ‘That as well.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Five months earlier

  Claudio

  The bar’s full tonight. It’s early September so there are still plenty of summer visitors around. Somehow this place seems to be the designated drinking venue of choice for visitors and foreign residents in Naples. There’s a load of tour reps and a smattering of foreign students from the university, including a couple of vulcanologists, which makes me sick. That’s something I would really have loved to do. I actually had a place to do geology at college, but I didn’t get the grades. Hardly surprising; Ben was the clever one in our family.

  By the way, I never tell girls I’m interested in vulcanology. They either think you’re some kind of sci-fi geek, or they know that it basically means you like rocks and that’s so dull sounding they almost wish you were a sci-fi nut. But saying you’re a rep is tricky too. We do have kind of a reputation for drunkenness and never calling. It’s not an unfair reputation, but still, it’s one you have to manage quite carefully. I tend to claim to be enthralled by the culture, and just to be working as a rep to pay my way. Pulling’s never about what you’re selling. It’s all about the pitch.

  As soon as we arrive at the bar I look around for Theresa. Theresa has been my fallback girl for the last eight months, and I’m sort of feeling like cashing my chips before she loses interest all together. Always good to have one iron in the fire you know isn’t going to say no.

  She’s a barmaid here, so I’ve seen her a couple of times most weeks since I got here, and she is definitely up for it. Drinks appear ‘on the house’ and she hangs about our table half the night. Seriously, I’m surprised no one else has complained about the lack of service. A couple of times when I’ve slunk off early the lads reckon she’s asked for me when she got off shift. But it’s never happened, for various reasons, including a number of other women who didn’t suffer the distraction of having to leave to deal with paying customers mid-flirt.

  Tonight I can’t see her. I feel a sudden twinge of anxiety. What if she’s gone off with someone else? So much for chip cashing. I get myself a beer and start scouting the alternatives, but then she walks in. I grin. ‘Hi bella.’

  ‘Hi.’

  I ask her how she is, and she tells me, in Italian, that she’s fine and not working tonight. That’s a bonus. I’m guessing she must have got sick of getting left with the end-of-shift dregs. So here we are, not working, not committed to going home with anyone else, and practically popping out of our tube top in anticipation. That last one was just her, by the way, not me.

  I buy her one drink as a nicety, and she pretty much necks it. We walk back to the apartment talking as little as possible, and then we have sex, which is good. Actually it’s pretty run of the mill, but it scratches this itch and she goes to sleep fairly quickly afterwards, apparently satisfied, not that I check.

  Now I can’t sleep. Normally getting laid knocks me out like a light, but tonight I’m just lying here trying not to move too much so I don’t wake her up. And I don’t want to wake her because I don’t want to have sex with her again. That thought is a bit of a shocker. Theresa is gorgeous, in an obvious sort of a way. But I like obvious. Nothing at all wrong with obvious. I know I’m supposed to find true beauty in the imperfections, or whatever, but at the end of the day you know where you are with obvious. I’m scared of waking her up, because if she wakes up we’re going to have to have sex again. We’re naked. We’re in bed together, and we have no conversational common ground. If she wakes up anytime soon more sex is inevitable. My skin feels clammy, and like I need to have a shower. I roll over as carefully as I can manage, but my body is refusing to be comfortable.

  I get out of bed without waking her at about half past two. I go into the living room. Before I’ve had a chance to decide what to do, my body has sat itself down and switched the computer on. When the screen comes to life I click on e-mail. Part of me is watching myself from outside wondering why the hell I’ve got up and put the computer on in the middle of the night. The other part of me, the part that’s winning, is fixated on the screen. The new mail alert flicks up and I click on it to see Henri’s name in my inbox.

  The outside part of me is catching up with the inside part. I have just left a very attractive, very available naked woman in my bed to get up at five in the morning to see whether a virtual stranger thousands of miles away has sent me e-mail. And that’s when I know that I am truly and properly fucked.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Claudio

  ‘Get up! Get up! Get up!’ Ben is banging what I have to assume is a frying pan and wooden spoon outside my bedroom door. ‘Time to start drinking.’

  I roll over and stick my head under the duvet. Ben takes my silence as an invitation and marches into the room still bashing the pan. ‘Come on. I’m making fried food to line our stomachs.’

  I stick my head out and nod at him. Cooked breakfast does sound good actually, although I am concerned that Ben thinks lining our stomachs is necessary. Tonight is my stag. Henri made me promise to behave. Then she made Ben promise to make me behave. Then Trix made Danny promise to make us both behave. The stomach-lining plan does seem to suggest that Ben has not really absorbed these warnings. I wonder if allowing Henri to schedule pre-wedding wine tasting for tomorrow was a good idea. Are you supposed to spit it out? Oh well, hair of the dog and all that.

  The fry-up is good. While I eat Ben runs me through the plan for the day. If he was aiming for fool-proof simplicity I think he’s pulled it off. It goes like this:

  1. Arrive at pub around 12 noon.

  2. Drink.

  3. Re-convene here for further fried food around lunchtime tomorrow, before I get dragged off in the afternoon for official groom duties.

  I like it. It’s a good plan. This afternoon we will also be able to watch Italy play England in the six-nations rugby. I moan about the lack of football, but Ben reckons they weren’t willing to re-arrange international sporting schedules just to accommodate m
y stag.

  Honestly, I don’t know why Italy play rugby. We’re just wonderful at football. We make the best suits in the world. We have the most amazing women. The food is perfection on a plate. Why do we even bother with other stuff? Why not just sit back and accept our inherent superiority in all the areas that actually matter, and let people with malformed necks from other countries run around after a football that somebody’s sat on? Whoever decided that Italy should play international rugby had no thought for the pain this would cause their countrymen living in the UK.

  Even worse than that, not only will England win, but I will be the only Italian supporter in the pub, because my oh-so-unromantic brother supports England. This is a man with no sense of heritage or history whatsoever. When I was about fifteen I called him out on it, and he just sort of shrugged and said that he was English because he was born in England. When I pointed out that he was nearly born in Italy, his parents were Italian, and all his family were Italian he just looked at me like he was waiting for me to explain how that was relevant to him. So on my stag night, my team are going to get well and truly stuffed and even my best man won’t be supporting me.

  With that in mind, I shall skim over the details of the match. Suffice to say England won. Only 23-19, so it was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. The piss-taking was actually pretty low key on account of how for most of the match it actually looked like England could plausibly lose. It’s pathetic but only losing by four feels almost like winning.

  There’s ten of us in all: me; Ben, obviously; Danny; John, unfortunately; four guys from college; one guy, Deano, who we know from years ago; and one guy, Gaery, an Irish bloke who was over in Naples with me last year. He’s in the UK at the moment because of some girl, much to Ben’s disgust. Fine by me though – he decided to support Italy over England, so I wasn’t feeling like a Billy on my own stag.

  Anyway, game over, we go to play some pool. Ben appears to have been collecting fifty pence pieces since the beginning of time, so it looks like we’ll be playing ‘winner stays on’ until all but one of us passes out through hunger or alcohol consumption. Me and Ben start, and he thrashes me, which I think is unsporting given that it’s my party. He’s spouting forth about how the game is all about angles and applied maths, so I leave him to explain it to some other sucker and head for the bar with Deano.

  Deano has been around and about me and Ben since we were kids. His mum lived up the road from us, until they moved when we were teenagers. I lost touch with him after that, but he found Ben on one of those pre-Facebook getting-in-touch-with-old-schoolfriends things online when Ben was at uni. He’s a good mate to have around: he looks like a serious hardnut. He’s one of those square blokes, who’s big in every direction. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself in a fight. That’s how we ended up being mates. I saved him in the playground. Scrapping with Deano was the primary school version of the fairground strongman striker for ten-year-olds. I think that sort of stuff is supposed to toughen kids up, but it didn’t work on Deano. He would always end up in the middle of crowds of kids shouting. ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’, with some brat half his size pounding at his stomach, and he’d just be standing there like he didn’t really get what was going on.

  Hanging out with him now, he is exactly the same as when we were eleven. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he produced a 1995 copy of Playboy from his satchel and told me to keep it hidden from my mum. Ben says he’s soft in the head. I mean, he says it in a nice way, but he does say it. It’s only half true though. Deano’s soft across the board. It’s not specific to his head.

  Anyway, we have a beer together at the bar. Compared with Ben and Danny he’s quite restful company, quieter company anyway.

  ‘She’s pretty.’

  ‘Who is?’ I glance at the bar staff. There is a particularly hot girl that works here, generally known as ‘hot girl behind the bar’. Ben coined that – descriptive but not exactly poetic. She doesn’t seem to be around though, so I start scanning the room for alternative prettiness.

  ‘Your girlfriend.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. She is.’ She is pretty. I swallow. It’s just an observation, nothing to get wound up about, but somehow other men noticing how pretty she is doesn’t feel cool. ‘When did you meet her?’

  Deano scrunches up his eyebrows. ‘In town.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last week. She was with Trix.’ He grins at me. ‘Why?’

  Something tightens in my stomach. ‘She didn’t mention it.’

  Once Ben has beaten another eight people at pool, we’re allowed to move on. The next part of the plan is our favourite curry house and some competitive spice eating. Walking through town John falls into step beside me. I still don’t know what to say to him.

  ‘Everyone seems to think Henrietta’s a lovely girl.’

  Seems to think?

  ‘Danny says she’s excited about the wedding.’

  I agree again.

  ‘I hope she’s as excited as she seems.’

  I look at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing that won’t wait.’

  I swallow hard. Of course Henri’s excited about the wedding. She is, in fact, pretty much beside herself in crazy excited Bride mode. Trix keeps having to reassure me that it’s entirely normal and nothing to be scared about. ‘What do you mean?

  He shakes his head. ‘It’s probably nothing.’

  ‘What’s nothing?’

  He doesn’t answer straight away, just smiles a bit to himself.

  ‘I think she’s very lucky,’ and he touches my arm, really gently, so as you’d hardly notice it, if you weren’t a straight man and therefore naturally very aware of what the gay man you’re talking to is doing with his hands. That sounded wrong. I’m not homophobic. Well, I probably am a bit, but no more than any other straight twenty-first century bloke. Danny is genuinely a friend, and I suppose he touches me, but not in a gay way. Actually, in a very gay way, but it’s not weird. He’s just big and camp and expressive and he’s always grabbing people’s arms, or slapping people’s backs and doling out huge man-hugs. John’s different. Everything he says, every movement that he makes is pre-meditated.

  I’m aware that I need to say something. ‘Oh no. I’m very lucky.’

  He doesn’t respond to that, but his hand rubs very definitely against my leg. I take an involuntary half step away to the side, and that’s it.

  He walks off and catches up with Danny.

  ‘I think she’s very lucky.’ I must be imagining things. He probably just brushed his hand against me as we were walking. It was probably an accident. Twice. He probably thinks she’s lucky because she’s looking forward to the wedding so much. I’m telling myself this, but I don’t believe it. You are very welcome to call me arrogant, but I think that my mate’s boyfriend just made a pass at me on my stag night.

  As soon as we get to the curry house, I grab Ben by the arm and drag him to the bogs.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘In here? We’re not women. We do not talk in toilets.’

  I scan the room, and kick the stall door so it swings open. There’s no one else in here. ‘I’m not quite sure how to say this.’

  Ben closes his eyes. ‘If you’re having second thoughts, it’s not too late.’

  ‘I’m not having second thoughts.’

  He opens his eyes. ‘Good. I was lying. It is too late. You have to marry her now, even if she turns out to be Satan’s special representative to the North of England.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I really don’t know how to put this.’

  ‘Get to the point. I want to eat.’

  ‘Right. I think John made a pass at me.’ As soon as I say it, it sounds insane. ‘That sounds stupid. It probably is stupid. Ignore me.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing really.’

  ‘What happened?’

  I loo
k at him. He doesn’t look surprised. He looks concerned, which is scaring me; sympathetic, which is even weirder coming from Ben; but not surprised. Still, it does sound crazy said out loud. ‘It was nothing. He just made some comment about Henri being a lucky girl, and then I thought he sort of stroked my arm, and there was something else he said about Henri being excited or not being excited.’ I take a breath. ‘It was probably nothing.’

  ‘What are you two doing in here?’

  Danny is standing in the doorway to the toilets. ‘If you’ve finished fixing your lippy and talking about boys, we need to order food, and you’re already half a beer behind the pace. What are you talking about anyway?’

  I don’t know what to say. I don’t look at Ben. If Danny catches us exchanging a look he’ll know something’s up. I don’t have an answer ready. I rule out ‘We were just discussing your boyfriend coming on to me,’ but don’t get any further. Ben manages to say some words.

  ‘Pre-wedding jitters.’

  Danny looks at me. ‘Having second thoughts?’

  Ben laughs. ‘Not him. Me. Have you any idea of the pressure on the best man on these occasions. Don’t lose the ring. Don’t forget your speech. Dance with the bridesmaid. Remember everyone’s name. Make sure everyone has a lift from the church to the reception.’

  Danny looks confused. ‘Can’t we get taxis to the reception?’

  Ben pats him on the back. ‘Good idea. Thank you. Well that solves that problem. Shall we eat?’

  Ben ushers Danny back out into the restaurant and turns back to me. ‘You’re right. You’re probably imagining things. Come on. It’s your stag. Let’s go enjoy it.’

  I follow him back to the table, but there’s something bothering me. Ben didn’t look surprised. He should have looked surprised. I was certainly surprised.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Nine Years Ago

  Ben

  ‘What the fuck?’

  I’ve tried to jump up from my seat but it’s a stupid moulded plastic thing that’s attached to the table so my jump has left me pinned to the back of the chair, half squatting, with my crotch pressed against the table edge. What my jump has singularly failed to do is dislodge Danny’s new boyfriend’s hand from my upper thigh.