I called her last night from the Villa to confirm the arrival time of my train, though we both understood it was just to say yes, I really am coming to live with you in Pisa.
“Is your Mama still there?” I asked.
When Maria was admitted to the hospital in Pisa, her mother came over to visit again. Part of the apprehension I’ve been feeling is the thought of not measuring up in her mother’s eyes – or being thought of as too old for Maria.
“No, you’re safe – she’s gone.”
“You didn’t have to dye your hair to get rid of her?”
“No, she was good.”
“Did you tell her about me?”
“I did, and of course she wanted to wait around to meet you.”
“But you said no?”
“I told her next time.”
“And she was okay with that?”
“I told her I thought you were special but that I wanted us to get to know each other better before I inflicted my family on you.”
“Did you tell her we’d be living together in one room?”
“No – she doesn’t need to know that yet.”
“And do you think she’ll tell your Papa about me?”
“Probably, yes; he’ll find out soon enough, anyway.”
“Does that worry you?”
“Not especially, not if we’re together – does it you?”
“It’s part of the package deal, that’s all.” Maria said nothing to this and I listened to her silence travel all the way from her mobile up to some satellite in space and back down into the hills of Rome. “I like the package,” I said.
“And you still agree to the deal?”
“I still agree to the deal.”
Maria sees me and waves along the platform, like it’s the most natural thing in the world that I should be here. She smiles and looks puzzled when I don’t wave back, but when I walk towards her she dodges past the other passengers to meet me and we hug and I feel again how slight she is in my arms but also how strong and how she makes me feel alive and in the present tense, here, now, this is it, this is all there is. We kiss like when we first kissed, lips barely touching and yet close enough together for a current of love to pass between us. Yes, this is it; I have chosen to become a believer and what I hold here in my arms is what I believe in.
So I live in Pisa with Maria. She’s the reason that I’m here. I shop for dinner each evening and I’m happy to do so. We have in a few basics like herbs and spices and olive oil that I don’t need to buy every day, but we use a shared kitchen in a students’ residence and things tend to disappear if they’re left hanging around. I don’t mind; it’s against the house rules for students to have anyone sleep over, so Maria could be reported if anyone felt that way inclined. Of course, many students have lovers who stay the night and it’s in nobody’s interest to rock the boat, but I’m the only non-student who lives in the building on a permanent basis – even when Maria’s in the isolation ward at the hospital. Part of the unspoken agreement of the other residents looking the other way is that I’m generous with the meals I make for myself and Maria. I tend to buy more pasta and cook more sauce than we need and any leftovers are available for whoever gets to them first. They can forget about the meat course: nothing gets past Maria.
Sharing the kitchen is no big deal; there are eight rooms on our floor but no one else actually cooks any meals. Just about everybody eats at the Mensa Universitaria or La Mescita. The kitchen is more like a common room and I often have company while I cook. The only thing that grates is when someone smokes without asking, and I’m in no position to ask them not to. But, as we’ve all got to know each other better, they’ve become more considerate even in this; either that, or Maria has had words. I’m so much older that they must look upon me as some kind of an oddity, but I reckon they’ve got used to having me about the place. If they think it’s strange that I’m with Maria, they’re polite enough not to say so – they’re cool about it. They help me with my Italian and they enjoy trying out their English. They also like correcting some of my cooking techniques, like how best to chop the garlic or to tenderise the meat. This always makes me laugh and they also see the funny side of telling probably the only cook in the building just how to do it properly, but I do listen and I’m learning all the time. I also own a few recipe books that help both to increase my vocabulary and to give me fresh ideas for dinner each evening.
I do all this out of love for Maria, I know, but it’s more than this. If she doesn’t eat a full and varied diet, she’ll get sick. My job is to make sure she eats well. There are perks and I get paid in kind.
If I’m feeling confident I’ll shop in the market for vegetables, but more often than not there’s a shop I like to use in the Via San Frediano. Here, I can help myself and not have to ask for what I want. I’m getting better, but I still find it hard to grasp what the stall holders are saying; it’s never as simple as half a kilo of this please sure here you are that’s two euro fifty here’s the money thanks very much. There’s always a question in there I hadn’t reckoned on and it throws me and I start to sweat and I know it’s nothing and this is how language works and I’ll never learn if I don’t put myself in these situations, but I can’t do this every day. I feel happier when Maria is with me, because she steps in and explains what’s being said and we can go over the words together afterwards – but I’m still exhausted after just a single transaction. If I’m serving myself, I can take my time and occasionally buy something I don’t recognise and ask Maria what it is when I get back to the room. Plus, the shop on San Frediano has all the extras like pasta, or stock, or oil, or rice. I have a butcher I use a few doors down and here I do have to ask specifically for what I want, though there’s still a lot of pointing and gesticulating and nodding of the head going on. I’m pleased with myself each time I come out with whatever I went in for, but it takes it out of me.
There’s a note from Maria when I get back to the room – she’s gone to the hospital to use the trampoline. She can spend up to an hour simply bouncing up and down, and they have the trampoline permanently set up for her in the Physiotherapy department. She doesn’t go every day but when she does it’s usually at about this time, after she’s finished her studies and while I’m cooking dinner. On the days when her chest is particularly bad, it helps clear some of the mucus and eases her breathing. It’s tough exercise, but she gets into a rhythm and it calms her down. I’ve been with her a few times and it’s good fun. Once I forget how much of a twit I must look and give in to the bounce, I feel how soothing it must be for Maria. As I get going, Maria joins me in the middle and we hold hands and bounce together. This is harder because of our differing height and weight, but Maria knows how to adjust herself to keep us in sync. I don’t know how she does it, but she seems to keep her face level with mine. It’s amazing how close it makes us feel.
Our room is small for two people to live in together, and we keep it tidy through necessity. We took out the single bed and mattress supplied by the University and replaced it with a futon that we can roll up into a seat during the day. Apart from that, there’s the study desk and chair, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. I still don’t possess too many belongings, so most of the space is taken up by Maria’s stuff. We share a laptop that Maria has borrowed from the University.
I take the ingredients for tonight’s dinner along to the kitchen. The two Toni’s are sat at the table – boy and girl – and not for the first time I wonder if they’re not an item together for the simple reason that they share the same name. They’re the best of friends and male Toni is a regular visitor to our kitchen; female Toni lives in the room facing ours. If either of them is currently seeing someone else, it gets discussed at length over coffee in this kitchen.
“Ah, Brendan,” male Toni says.
“Ah, dinner, you mean,” female Toni says.
Male Toni is one of my best customers.
“What is it tonight?” he asks.
I know everybody in the building is fascinated and amused by my culinary habits. It’s the most visible evidence of my living here so I’m sure they think of me as the Englishman who cooks for Maria. They have some vague understanding of Maria being sick but I can’t imagine they’ve fully grasped the connection between Maria’s lungs and her dietary needs. When I sit down and read it through in one of the many information pamphlets Maria’s accumulated over the years, it makes a kind of sense – she can’t break down the goodness in her food so she needs to eat as well as she can – but I get lost if ever I try to explain it to any of our friends. And it freaks me out a little that yes, I can help by making sure Maria eats a good dinner each evening, but that doesn’t stop whatever damage is being done to her lungs. It’s not as though she just does this one thing and everything will be okay. Eating well is like the trampoline: it helps her through the day is all.
There are some bad days – bad in ways I didn’t think possible. Days when she’s hospitalised and I can’t even get to see her. Days when I’ve no one to cook for and I wonder what the hell I’m doing living in a student residence in Pisa and what will I do when she dies? Days when I think this might be the time, though Maria’s told me it won’t happen in that way, that when it comes it will be a long, strong steady decline with no reverse gear. She calls these bad days going in for a service but for me they’re a breakdown, a write off, a crash and it’s Maria that has to give me the jump-start afterwards. Didn’t she warn me how it would be and aren’t we in this together? Don’t we have each other and don’t let her down now because she’s come to depend on me. Isn’t this why we are together? Yes, I think, but no amount of culinary expertise is going to save you. No amount of love and sex will stop what’s happening to your body. No amount of living life to the full will mean you won’t die. And then I feel weak and useless and ashamed that she’s so much stronger than I could ever be and she says listen, do me a favour – cover my shift at El Greco’s tonight and tomorrow I’ll be fine. I’ll come home and you’ll cook for me and we’ll make love and this will be over for another little while, and so I do as she asks because she’s all I have. She’s my love, my life, my wife without us ever being married – though the Padre did give us his blessing and more than once Maria has offered to marry me if it would make me feel more secure.
I blanch some spinach for a minute or so, drain it through a colander and tip it out on to a chopping board. I cut it up and fry it with some butter and salt and pepper. I add a tumbler of milk, mix it all together and tip it into a greased oven dish. I chop up some ham and sprinkle it over the spinach, and do the same with grated Groviera and Parmesan. That’s ready to go in the oven, but it doesn’t take long so I’ll put it in when Maria gets home from the hospital. I’m also making a vegetable risotto, so I chop up some carrots, an onion, two sticks of celery and some lettuce. I fry all these in some butter for a few minutes and then add the rice. I consciously add extra rice because this will be the leftovers dish for the others. I add in some stock, stir it all together until the stock is absorbed, and then pour in some more stock. I repeat this for the next twenty minutes or so, until the rice is cooked. I add some salt, black pepper and grated parmesan, take it off the heat and cover it with a pan lid.
Maria comes in and we kiss.
“How was it?” I ask.
“Great.”
She lifts the lid off the risotto to see what’s in the pan.
“What else are we having?” she asks. She points at the spinach dish. “What’s that?”
“You’re a cheeky bitch.” I say this in English because I don’t know the Italian. “And you’re sweaty – go take a shower.”
I turn on the oven and take the chicken breasts out the fridge. I realise I could have had these marinating, but it’s too late for that now. They’re too thick, so I score each breast a few times and put them in a bowl. I pour in some olive oil, grate in some black pepper, and rub the oil into the chicken with my hands.
“No veal tonight?” asks male Toni. He knows I have a problem with buying and cooking veal, but I’m getting over it. I don’t like it – the idea, I mean, not the taste – but twice now I’ve overcome my reservations and gone for it.
I cut a lemon in half, squeeze the juice on to the chicken, and use my hands again to mix it all together. I use the same frying pan with which I cooked the spinach, and I toss in the two half-lemons for good luck. The oven’s at the right temperature so I put in the spinach dish. Once I’ve sealed the chicken on both sides, I reduce the heat under the frying pan and relax. I turn to the two Toni’s.
“Some wine now, I think, don’t you?” My Italian sentences still feel like a collection of simple phrases, but I’m getting there.
I go back to the room to fetch the bottle of wine. This too I tend to buy on a daily basis because otherwise it’d go missing. Maria’s in the room, naked apart from her underwear.
“Funny how you always come in when I’ve no clothes on, don’t you think?”
“Can you blame me?”
“You have to kiss me now.”
“The chicken will burn.”
“I said – you have to kiss me now.”
“It’s never just a kiss with you though, is it?”
“One kiss; I promise.”
I kiss her.
“I can smell lemons.”
“They’ll be burnt lemons if I don’t get back to them.”
“Let me smell your hands.”
She takes my right hand and lifts it to her nose. She puts my thumb in her mouth and then puts my hand on her breast.
“I’m going back to my chicken now,” I say, “and my spinach.”
“Spinach – what are you trying to do to me?”
“Feed you.”
“Don’t you want to make love to me?”
“Yes, but first we eat.”
“You don’t want me any more.”
“I want you plenty, only not right now – later.”
“I might not be in the mood later.”
“You might not have a choice. Now, get dressed – your dinner’s ready.”
The chicken’s fine and I take the spinach out the oven. I open the wine and pour out four glasses.
“Cheers, Brendan,” says male Toni in English.
Maria comes through and we sit down to eat. Toni helps himself to some risotto. Maria has to take her enzymes before she eats so she knocks back the tablets with her wine and shrugs and smiles at me. Apart from this mouthful she barely touches the wine, particularly on nights like this when she’s working, but she eats all the food I put in front of her. Everything is good, and already I’m thinking about what I might cook for her tomorrow.
“I have to get going,” she says.
I tend to spend evenings going over the work I’ve done during the day. That way I can do some corrections while thinking about what to write tomorrow. For a while there I had some pictures of Ciara as the background on the laptop. Maria found them on the internet and saved them for me and we had a row about it until I came to my senses. All the pictures were of Ciara with her mother, growing up in public, from when she was still a baby to when she was about eight years old. Maria didn’t save any of the text accompanying the photographs but I could see they were all taken to capture the various stages of Siobhan’s and not Ciara’s life. It was upsetting, of course, which was why I got mad at Maria, but the more I considered the photographs the more Ciara looked like any girl might appear with her mother – sometimes happy, sometimes sad and very often bored. To the world, she’s Siobhan McGovern’s daughter and, if anybody thinks about it at all, Danny Callinan is her father. Does that matter? I don’t know. If it makes life easier for Ciara then it’s better that way. Who knows if Siobhan will ever tell her about me? I believe I gave up the right to insist that she does. I learnt to appreciate the photographs of Ciara for what they are and eventually I deleted them from the laptop. She’s up there on the internet if I ever need to see her.
El Greco’s is the only non-smoking café bar in Pisa – or at least it was until others started following suit – and Maria works there at least four nights a week. She waits on tables and serves at the bar and keeps everyone in good order. I’ve watched her and she’s efficient without being charming. She wins over her customers by being good at her job. Just how good she is they find out when I have to cover for her, though I tend to be given jobs like clearing tables and washing dishes rather than taking orders and serving the food. The owner, Younis, who isn’t Greek at all but Moroccan, rates Maria so highly that he’s very understanding when she’s too sick to work. I’m a poor substitute but he tolerates me and we get along well. I often sit and have a drink with him at the end of the evening when I come in to collect Maria and he likes to talk about writing and books and England and the River Thames for some reason – he really loves that river.
The bar gets progressively noisier as the evening wears on – morphing from a café bar to a drinks bar where there’s often dancing. As I arrive, the music is turned down low and the place starts to empty out. I give Maria a hand clearing away some glasses and then sit with Younis to enjoy my drink at the bar. I watch Maria dodge between the chairs and tables, protecting her stomach but trying not to make it look so obvious. She’s going to have to cut back on the trampoline. I should put her out her misery and tell her I know about the baby. How could I not know when we live so close together? I understand why she’s nervous about telling me but really, I’m okay with it. I believe everything’s going to be all right. I’m the least of Maria’s worries: her Papa’s likely to go ballistic, undecided as he is already about my motives for living with his daughter. I’ve a feeling Maria will opt for us to get married, all things considered. She’ll be as practical about the future care of her baby as she is about her own mortality. Maybe I’ll suggest a trip down to Rome to break the news to Giovanni and Ines? I reckon we’ll be looking for their help again in the very near future. Giovanni recently retired from working in the Villa’s gardens, but Ines still helps out in the kitchen. And Michael, and the Padre – they’ll both have to be told.
Dancing to the End of Love Page 31
