Tell Me Something (Contemporary Romance)

by Adele Parks

  So eight years passed, filled, but not punctuated, by a blur of intense but short-lived love affairs. Maybe I was shallow, or maybe I was perfectly average. I don't know. I just had a type.

  Then Roberto walked into my bar and my life.

  I watched him watching the football match on the TV screen. Even before he said a word it was instantly clear to me that he was Italian (his shoes shone and he was wearing a pink shirt with a confidence that eludes English blokes); besides, he had a unique energy and appetite that seemed to ricochet through the bar and then ping right into my being. I watched as he cheered his team when they made a decent pass, as he pulled at his hair when they let a goal slip through, as he hugged his friend with delightful, firm enthusiasm when his team equalized – and I was mesmerized.

  The excitable and exciting stranger seemed to sense I was watching him. He turned and caught me undressing him with my eyes. I wondered whether he knew I was projecting way past the first carnal encounter, down the aisle and straight into the maternity hospital. I was defenceless; his deep, dark eyes stripped me of any ability I had to feign indifference. I fought my instinct to reach out and stroke his glorious bronzed skin. I wanted to run my hands over his well-defined and athletic body. While not especially tall, everything about his presence seemed purposeful and powerful. His being in the bar made me feel strangely safe and excited all at once.

  He pulled himself away from watching the football and came over to where I was standing behind the bar. Alison would probably have described him as swaggering, I saw a saunter. He leaned close enough for his citrus cologne to drift into my consciousness.

  'I take a beer and, you too, if you are available,' he said. He held my eye, and despite my best intention of dragging my gaze away from his, I found I could not. Did he mean he wanted to buy me a beer? Did he mean he wanted to take me somewhere? Could he mean he wanted to take me sexually? Could he possibly be being so brazen? I hoped so.

  'Where would you take me?' I asked, choosing to understand his comment to mean more than an offer of a beer.

  'Wherever you want. To a restaurant. To a movie. To a new sort of ecstasy.'

  He dropped the last suggestion with indecent aplomb and waited for my response with a cool confidence. I should have been offended or outraged. At the very least I should have pretended to be one of those things; instead I offered my phone number.

  'No. I won't take your number,' he said firmly.

  'You won't?' Suddenly I was embarrassed. Had I got it completely wrong? Had I misheard him? Had I imagined the chemistry which was zinging between the two of us? Had the lethal dart of attraction just struck me?

  'I wait here with you until your shift is finished.'

  'But that's five more hours,' I objected gently, grinning, not trying to hide my amusement.

  'I have forever. I know you are worth the wait. If you give me a number, I call, you might have met another man by that time. I can't risk it. Rather I wait for you. I must not let this go. I sense it is important.'

  I had heard similar before. Italians are prone to this sort of impassioned announcement – it's one of the things I like about them. But I had never felt such chemistry before. Roberto's presence made my throat dry. He'd detonated a bomb of unprecedented excitement. I felt sparkling shafts of exhilaration shoot and spread through my body. Lust lodged in my skull. Desire drenched my innards. Longing shuddered down every nerve in every limb.

  The bar rapidly receded. I didn't care if there were customers to serve or crisps to fetch from the storeroom. Suddenly there was only me and this Italian man; everything other was a dull, sludgy irrelevance.

  We cleaved to one another for the following five hours. By turn we chatted, laughed and silently stared at one another. He told me of his love of fast cars and football. He introduced two or three of his pals but I could barely harness their names to my memory, as he was all-consuming and everything other was less. He told me that he'd only been living in England a week but already had an interview for a job in an advertising agency in Soho.

  'And your family?' I probed.

  'My family have a business in the wine trade,' he said simply; then he sipped his beer in a manner which suggested he found the turn in the conversation difficult.

  'A vineyard, how amazing.' I imagined rows of green vine things, like soldiers in the sunshine.

  He shrugged. 'Not really. Quite normal.'

  I could not comprehend how he could describe running a vineyard as normal. It must be the most romantic thing in the world. I assumed he was attempting to be modest. I wondered if they still crushed grapes by stamping in them. Probably not, some European regulation doutless prevents it, but maybe they still celebrated festivals by producing wine through the traditional methods. The Italians are big on festivals. Not that I was sure that I'd actually want to feel grapes oozing through my toes. I'm not really that earthy. Worse yet, someone else's toes. Yuk. It's enough to send you teetotal.

  He sighed. 'Actually, I have come to England after terrible argues with my family. I need to prove myself. Make career here.' I admired his independent spirit and didn't need to ask for any detail on the nature of the arguments as he added, 'Sometimes families are stifling. I need to be away from my family for a time. You understand?' I nodded enthusiastically. Yes, yes, I understood. I understood everything about this man. 'I think you really do,' he said with a gravelly voice that shook with sincerity.

  A sincerity that transcended all that had gone before.

  3

  I was a smug bride. We married within six months of meeting one another. My parents thought that was a little hurried but I pointed out that they'd only known each other for three months before they got engaged. Mum tutted and said things were different 'in her day', plus they'd had a two-year engagement. Privately I believed that Mum must have had time to waste or perhaps tiny doubts about my father which needed relieving; I had neither time nor doubts so didn't see a need for a lengthy engagement. Alison hinted that we might be in lust rather than love but I dismissed her cynical insinuations with a giggly laugh; secretly I pitied Alison for not having experienced such a glorious free-fall. By default my father was the most encouraging of our speedy nuptials; his only comment being that maybe if I married I'd finally start thinking about a real job. He never missed an opportunity to let me know that he didn't think working behind a bar was a particularly admirable way to fill the day.

  My father was right, I was thinking about a real job: a series of bambini – one popped out straight after the next. I did not want to be an old mum, like mine had been, and while I had two siblings the age gap was such that I might as well have been an only child. I wanted a bursting, boisterous house full of kids. I didn't bother telling my folks that, they'd only have worried about whether Roberto's relatively junior job in advertising would bring in an adequate salary to support a family. Since everyone seemed intent on worrying and finding fault with our union I didn't want to add fuel to the fire. I abhorred the lack of romance in my nearest and dearest. That's why Roberto was so perfect for me. We were both very romantic and impetuous. We recognized and admired each other's daring souls.

  To me, it was delightfully simple. We were desperately, totally, firmly in love. He, like all Italians, adored my curly blonde hair and freckles. He couldn't keep his hands off me and his constant physical attention seemed to have a material effect on my body. My breasts seemed fuller and more responsive; Roberto only had to walk into the room and my nips seemed to spring to attention like rookie soldiers in the presence of an officer. My waist appeared tighter, my stomach flatter. I existed in a constant state of heightened sexuality. He was charmed at the way I pronounced 'mobile' and 'potato', he liked it that I could explain English humour to him and he loved the way I smiled all the time. He didn't mind that I didn't have an impressive degree or job. He found my obsession with all things Italian charming, flattering. He agreed that I'd make a great mum. Everything about me delighted him, nothing about me irritated him.
And it was so lovely to be so thoroughly approved of.

  And for my part, I simply adored Roberto. He was the embodiment of everything I'd long dreamed of. I was mad about his voice (sort of huskily heartfelt but not cheesy). I worshipped his eyes, which always focused on me, and I loved his shoulders and back, which seemed strong and perfectly in proportion to his waist. His feet were neat. His cheekbones just the right side of angular. His clothes were immaculate and his hair was glossy to the point where I found it a trial not to stretch out and touch some part of him every time we were in the same room. He was everything I'd ever fantasized about. Loving him was easy.

  We married in the UK, which was not in fact my dream. I wanted to get married in Italy. I saw myself click-clacking through a piazza in a flowing white gown and high heels. I'd be holding Roberto's hand and giggling as we led the wedding party to a stupendous trattoria for the enormous wedding breakfast. Onlookers would cheer and clap, wish us well and throw rice. We'd drink fine wines and eat for hours. Then we'd dance in the street, the evening would be warm long after the sun had gone down. Except Roberto pointed out that I'm not Catholic and in those days there were requirements that had to be met in terms of instruction classes, etc. if I wanted to marry in a Catholic church. It wasn't practical for us both to leave our jobs for months before the wedding just to attend instruction classes. Besides, I couldn't speak the language (I kept meaning to take lessons but never found the time) and the service would be in Italian or even Latin.

  The matter was settled when my father started to suffer from seizures thanks to his dicky heart. The seizures were mild and he was probably well enough to travel, but somehow I couldn't see him dancing in the streets and struggling to communicate in Italian with his new in laws at seventy-five years old. I figured (or actually Roberto reasoned) a more sedate Church of England wedding in my parents' local village church was the most realistic option. I knew Roberto was being the perfect son-in-law by putting Dad's health first and so I could hardly stubbornly hang on to my dream. I comforted myself with the thought that we could have the children baptized in Italy and we could parade through a piazza then.

  I was surprised so few of Roberto's family could make it to the wedding. His father had died when Roberto was fourteen, but his mother was still living with her very elderly father and Roberto's sister, Paolina. Apparently the row that had caused Roberto to come to England and pursue a career independent of his family's business could not be forgotten in just six months. Around the time of our engagement Roberto made a number of calls to his mother. Even without a degree in the Italian language I understood from his tones that Roberto begged and cajoled his mother to come to our wedding. To no avail.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and tried to comfort him.

  'Maybe we should wait until you and your mother sort this thing out before we get married,' I offered, although secretly dying at the idea of delaying the wedding for a single moment.

  'Pointless,' said Roberto. He didn't elaborate and I didn't pursue.

  Still, I had expected a host of aunts and uncles, cousins and godparents to attend. Italians do family, don't they? None came. They pleaded the lack of notice as an excuse, but I suspected Roberto's row with his mother had sent shockwaves through the family. I pretended to accept their excuses at face value rather than force Roberto into another tricky confrontation. For all the hours we'd spent talking about just about every subject under the sun in the previous six months, I'd never found the right time to probe into the exact nature of the 'stifling' family or the need to be away from them. Roberto had assumed I understood. An urgency for gory detail would somehow taint that assumption of connection. I chose to leave well alone. It would all come out in the wash, eventually. I didn't have to concern myself. Thank goodness, four or five of Roberto's Italian friends did come to the wedding; most brought wives and multiples of children, so his side of the church didn't look too stark in the end.

  Some brides say that their wedding day did not meet their expectations. Perhaps the stress and hype just proves too much. Not me; my day was blissful. I loved every moment from dawn to dusk and beyond. My hair gleamed, my husband was handsome, my dress flattering. The flowers were fragrant, friends delighted, relatives sober. It was perfect. As I stepped down the church steps I took a deep breath. Perhaps it's just because the air in the Midlands is cleaner than in London, but I swear that I breathed in a pungent smell of possibility and I whispered to myself, 'Bring it on. Happily ever after, here I come.'

  4

  When I close my eyes and think of the happily ever after shebang, there are at least a dozen plump bambini in the picture but our happily ever after has not produced offspring with thick dark curls and velvet eyes. Nor any other type, come to that.

  I'd be a good mother. I know I would. I love babies, babies. I've never come across one that I didn't think was just one hundred per cent adorable. I don't even mind if they are screaming, smelly or ugly. In fact I don't accept that there are ugly ones (although Alison swears there isn't any other kind) – I think there are just some that haven't grown into their looks yet. And I adore kids. Lots of women like babies but not kids – or the other way round – but I don't mind. I like them when they are tottering or tearing about. When they are lisping their first few words or when they are incessantly repeating the latest catchphrase from some awful cartoon. I even like teenagers. I just want a family. A noisy, messy, demanding, big family. It's what I've always wanted. Isn't the passeggiata parade at five o'clock with said noisy, messy, demanding, big family part of the Italian deal?

  And Roberto is an ideal dad candidate, too. He also likes kids – Italians do, don't they? And as he is patient, kind and fun – all my friends' kids love him.

  We've been trying for years, in fact we've always tried, right back from our very first carnal encounter, which might have been a tad irresponsible but at the time responsibility was not on my mind. The physical attraction between the two of us was so absolute that we got naked within about six hours of first clapping eyes on one another and pretty much stayed that way until I had to get up to put my wedding dress on. But still no babies.

  Everyone knows someone who can't get pregnant. It's the latest epidemic, but its common or garden nature does not make the situation any less heartbreaking; I think it makes it more so. Sympathy is exhausted. Hearing that a couple are struggling to conceive (I'm very careful with the use of the word infertile) is a bit like hearing that a kid has food allergies. You're sympathetic but also slightly sceptical. I mean, there were no food allergies when we were kids, were there? Isn't it possible that food allergies are a modern paranoia? And childlessness the same.

  I've read every article that has ever been written on the subject. I know that the decrease in childbearing is because women are now taking responsibility for contraception (already explained that this is not my case) or that they have selfishly put their careers before their family life (what career?) or that they have delayed too long because they were constantly at the hairdresser's or the beautician's or some other hopelessly indulgent pursuit (not true, not true!). The only conclusion I can reach is that I really ought to buy a different newspaper; something less misogynist would be nice. Other articles suggest that it might be the filthy Thames water lowering the sperm count, but Roberto drinks mineral water. Or the eight hours a day that he spends in front of a laptop might be to blame. Apparently something nasty is emitted and is gnawing at his manhood, but the guy at the desk next to his has four kids, including twins. It might be additives in convenience food (bad wife, lazy wife) or it might be our stressful lifestyles, but we are not a stressy couple, at least, we weren't.

  Or it could just be bad luck.

  It turns out it's just bad luck.

  We've had all the tests. After two years of not conceiving we started the battery of examinations that many couples endure in order to discover why they aren't being blessed with a bundle. Poor Roberto – neither of us particularly enjoyed the experienc
e but I always think men find medical intrusion much harder to bear. I'm not saying I enjoyed peeing into pots, giving blood and handing over all sorts of bodily samples but at least I'd had years of smear tests to erode my dignity by way of preparation. Before our fertility tests the most intrusive thing a doctor had ever done to Roberto was tap his knee to test his reflexes.

  There's no need for me to go into exactly what we had to tolerate; as I said, everyone knows someone who has endured this modern torture. Everyone knows it's embarrassing, heartbreaking, painful, soulless and ultimately – for us at least – inconclusive. It turns out there's nothing wrong with either of us. When I first heard this I was delighted. If there was nothing wrong then we must be all right. We were told to take a holiday and have more sex. Naturally, we were happy to follow doc's orders. But after another year of going at it like rabbits and still no baby it dawned on me that being told there was nothing wrong with either of us was disastrous. If there was nothing wrong, how could we be fixed? And we did need fixing.

  We returned to the doctors and asked for more tests. We wanted to know what our choices were; we wanted more options. We were given an explanation that under other circumstances would have been almost funny. Ultimately, after prolonged consultations with a large number of experts, the diagnosis they settled on was 'unexplained infertility'.

  'What exactly does that mean?' asked Roberto. He didn't bother to hide his irritation and frustration. I took his hand in mine and gently squeezed. I wanted him to remain polite with the doctor. I wanted the doctor to know we were good and nice people who deserved a baby. I thought that showing any irritation might jinx us.