Messy, Wonderful Us

by Catherine Isaac

  We drink Aperol and dine on pizza that tastes only as it can under a topaz Italian sun, with a hot, thin base that yields to the soft, tangy topping. But I can’t help noticing that Ed does not eat as much as he usually would. This bothers me enough to suggest a dessert – twice – and when he declines, wonder if this is the time to try and talk about him and Julia.

  But the conversation instead drifts to wine and travel, to a funny Tweet I read earlier, and the fact that Shakespeare chose to set Romeo and Juliet in nearby Verona without ever having set foot in it. Eventually, as the light fades on the bustling square and is replaced by the collective glow from dozens of candle-lit tables, I tell myself that if Ed wants to talk, he’ll do so when he’s ready. He doesn’t need me to prompt him. He’s decisive enough without that.

  ‘So what’s your plan in the morning, Miss Marple?’ he asks, as he gestures to a waiter for the bill.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, what happens if you knock on the door and this Stefano guy answers? How are you going to spring it on him that you’ve got this mad idea that he might be your father?’

  I fortify myself with a sip of my drink. ‘Do you really think it’s a mad idea?’

  He pauses, his blue eyes softening in the candlelight. ‘I just hope it is, Allie. For your sake.’

  ‘Well, logic tells me that all I can do is come straight out with it and introduce myself as Christine’s daughter. Every time I think about meeting him and announcing what I found in Grandma Peggy’s drawer though . . . God, I am dying inside, Ed. How am I going to just come out and say: “Hi, I’m Allie Culpepper. I have reason to believe you slept with my mother and – guess what – I could be your daughter.” ’ I shudder.

  ‘What are you going to do if someone else answers and he’s not home?’

  ‘I thought perhaps I could tell them I’m a solicitor working for Christine Culpepper’s estate and that I’m trying to track down Stefano regarding her will. Does that sound believable?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. Though he might hope he’s about to inherit a mountain of cash.’

  ‘Well, whatever happens tomorrow, I need to stay flexible about how I handle this.’

  He fixes his eyes on me. ‘You mean you might wimp out of it altogether?’

  I shrug. ‘Maybe.’

  Total inaction is becoming an increasingly attractive prospect. Yet I couldn’t live with myself if I leave Italy knowing nothing more than when I arrived. If there’s an innocent explanation behind what I found in Grandma’s house, I need to know what it is, for my sake and for Dad’s.

  A rush of heat behind my eyes takes me by surprise and, as I blink it away, my throat begins to ache. I take another sip of my drink, feeling mute and self-conscious, aware that Ed is looking at me. He reaches across the table and fastens his fingers softly onto my forearm. The gentle pressure of his palm pulses underneath my skin as I lower my eyes onto the dark sweep of hair on his tanned arms, the way it disappears into the soft lines inside his elbow. I swallow hard as a text arrives on his phone. At first I assume it’s another from Julia, from whom he’s received a few since we arrived, but ‘Mum’ flashes up on the screen. A second passes before he withdraws to pick it up. He reads it briefly and starts to compose a response.

  ‘Does your mum know what’s going on between you and Julia?’ I ask.

  He shakes his head. ‘No. She thinks I’m away on business. She’d be distraught if she knew. The happiest day of my mother’s life was when she got to wear her insanely proportioned hat to watch someone make an honest man of me.’

  I smile into my drink. ‘It was big, that hat.’

  ‘The size of the Death Star.’

  ‘She looked lovely though,’ I add.

  ‘She did,’ he concedes fondly, through a smile that quickly disintegrates.

  *

  After dinner, the town is still busy as we step through a set of ancient colonnades and make our way along the pale stone cobbles towards the lake. The tiny peninsula has a timeless beauty that seems all the more special from the fact that it’s so alive today. That in the shadow of a fortress and ancient Roman villa, la dolce vita seems to carry in the air, along with the uninhibited laughter of friends and the intensely sweet fragrance of Italian woodbine.

  The water lies muted and still as we stroll back to the hotel via the wide promenade that runs alongside the lake, the lights from the opposite shore twinkling under an eerie, moonlit sky. After a few hundred metres, the bustle of the town gives way to the hot, gentle sounds of night, of lapping water and chirruping crickets.

  ‘I realised after I’d given you my wash bag that you probably saw the tablets in there,’ Ed says suddenly.

  I glance at him briefly and continue walking, focusing on the gecko scuttling ahead on the dry stone wall beside us.

  ‘That’s your business, Ed,’ I say, then catch myself. ‘But, of course . . . if you want to talk about it, that’s fine. I’m all ears.’

  We take several more steps in silence. The only sounds are the soft thud of my sandals on the ground and the sway of the high palms above us. My eyes drift to the pillows of lantana that tumble from the rocks and I breathe in their faintly sharp, botanical scent.

  ‘Julia suggested a few weeks ago that I should go to the doctor,’ he says. ‘She thinks I’m under stress.’

  ‘Are you?’

  His jaw tightens in the shadows. ‘You could say that.’

  We pass a bench on which a couple in their fifties sit closely, talking in whispers. Their hands are entwined with such casual affection that it’s as if every crease in every digit of his has found the place where it’s most comfortable in hers.

  ‘He prescribed anti-depressants.’ Despite Ed’s matter-of-fact tone, I am totally floored by this. Maybe part of me suspected that that’s what they were when I saw the pills, but I simply couldn’t correlate that idea with the man I know.

  ‘Are you taking them?’

  He shrugs. ‘I tried. They didn’t work.’

  I feel wrong-footed to learn that a medical professional has deemed Ed’s mental state to be this bad when, I, his best friend, hadn’t even realised. I am annoyed with myself, determined to make up for my failure.

  ‘You’ve surely got to give these things time, Ed,’ I say.

  ‘They won’t work.’

  ‘They work for other people,’ I argue. ‘What makes you think you’d be any different?’

  ‘Because stress isn’t really the problem, Allie. I only got them to keep Julia happy.’

  I am contemplating my next sentence, when I become aware that he’s looking at me. ‘Anyway, they give you wind.’ He smiles, clearly determined to lighten the conversation, but I purse my lips.

  ‘They do!’ he insists. I just shake my head.

  ‘I think you could live with the odd fart if it stops you throwing away your marriage, don’t you?’ I reply sternly, and he doesn’t really have a response to that.

  *

  When we arrive back at the B&B, I stop at reception to see if my bag has arrived and discover to my increasing concern that it hasn’t. Ed heads up to the room as I sit on a bench outside, trying to find enough signal to phone the twenty-four-hour helpline on the form I was given at the airport. Heat rises from the tarmac as I wait to be put through, the Sexy Shop sign blinking intermittently, lighting up the street and the odd car that passes. I am on hold for twenty minutes before finally reaching someone who tells me to try again in the morning because he’s just the security guard.

  I return to the room to find it thick with heat and moisture, with Ed fast asleep. I drop my bag on my bed and pause momentarily, watching the tiny trembles of his face as he sleeps, the way his shoulders gently rise and fall. I creep to the window and push it wide open, deciding that the odd traffic sound is preferable to suffocating heat. I return to my bed as he stirs lightly and turns over onto his back. As the silver light of the moon rains on his face, my insides soften.

  I get ready
for bed in the bathroom, finding Ed’s shower gel to be an effective if abrasive make-up remover, before returning to slip off my trousers and slide under a thin sheet, quickly submitting to a plunging sleep. When I wake in the dead of night to find someone walking round the room, I’m gripped by an electrifying panic. I sit bolt upright and fumble for the light, beading with sweat as I am confronted by a semi-naked man opening the door. It turns out to be Ed.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Sorry, couldn’t sleep. I’d just gone to the bathroom,’ he says. ‘It must be thirty-five degrees in here.’

  I click off the light mutely, allowing my adrenalin to subside as I curl onto my side. He treads past me and silently sits on the edge of his bed, gazing out of the window. The last things I see before I close my eyes are the bare contours of his back, the freckle just below his shoulder blade, the angles of his triceps.

  I sleep like a baby for the rest of the night and, when I wake the following morning I stretch out, feeling luxuriantly relaxed and rested. Then I roll over and do a double take. Ed is still gazing through the window, in exactly the same position as he had been hours earlier.

  Chapter 19

  A few weeks after the frog incident in science class, we discovered that Ed lived on the same bus route as me. Our houses were miles apart, his in an area I’d never set foot in. But on the odd afternoon, he took to hanging back after school so we could walk to the bus stop together, before climbing to the top deck, where we’d sit at the front. I was unnerved and suspicious about this at first. I’d never have been brave enough to seek out a boy and couldn’t work out why he’d want to be around me. But I liked it all the same.

  ‘Aren’t you worried about people getting the wrong impression about you and me?’ I asked him one day.

  His nose wrinkled in such a way that made me embarrassed for asking. ‘No. I’ve got a girlfriend. At least . . . I think so.’

  ‘You mean Bernadette?’

  He nodded, looking troubled. Bernadette McGovern had a reputation as a man-eater, which is quite an achievement when you’re only thirteen.

  ‘She’s asked me to take her to see a Jennifer Aniston movie.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s fussy. She can’t be if she wants to go out with me.’ I laughed. He was always making me laugh.

  Ed was an unusual breed in our school. Academically, he sailed through everything, but managed – at least at first – to keep the company of a select group of friends who were far cooler than mine. They were the kind of kids who wore the right trainers, said the right things, even walked the right way, with a swagger that underlined one indisputable fact: they were awesome and they knew they were.

  But he was part of that group, without ever being central to it. It felt as though they were on a glittering carousel that he only ever ran alongside, without fully leaping on. And there was the odd occasion when he was subtly ostracised altogether, such as after the school signed him up to a government scheme to promote modern foreign languages, meaning he took thirteen GCSEs instead of nine like everybody else. In our school, this was the opposite of cool and he found himself adrift from them, something I knew bothered him more than he was prepared to admit.

  Whatever their opinion though, personally I found him to be rare and stimulating company. He talked about books and movies in ways I’d never encountered, deconstructing them in a manner that I hadn’t the breadth of thought to consider. He broached questions of science that went beyond what we learnt in the classroom: the ethics of animal testing, genetic editing, whether humans have the right to colonise other planets. His opinions were bold but carefully thought out. He was prepared to accept he didn’t know all the answers.

  By the time we were fifteen, Ed had dated several girls. It felt as though I’d blinked and overnight he’d become a heart-throb, the boy everyone wanted to go out with. His blossoming love-life cemented my suspicion that I was lagging horribly behind and the only way to handle all the fuss around him was to pretend to be entirely blind to his attractions.

  It was true that when he started coming over to my house to revise for exams, it wasn’t only because of the warm feeling we had when I’d light a joss stick on my dressing table and we’d pontificate about the periodic table or the new Verve album. The simple fact was that nobody else was prepared to devote as much energy as either of us to studying.

  ‘Is Ed your boyfriend these days?’ Grandma Peggy asked once. She’d popped in while I was making us a peanut butter sandwich after school and the question nearly made me drop the Sun Pat.

  ‘Grandma!’ I hissed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It is possible for two people of the opposite sex to have a purely platonic relationship, you know,’ I lectured her, under my breath. ‘There’s nothing romantic going on between me and Ed. Not now. Not ever.’

  ‘The lady doth protest too much,’ she said, raising her eyebrow archly, as my face flared.

  But there were occasions when he’d sit on the end of my bed, and the way his lips moistened when he concentrated on something would elicit the same flutter in my belly that only Leonardo DiCaprio had been capable of previously. I never thought anything would happen between us though. I wasn’t deluded.

  The closest I got to my own romantic action at that age was a single humiliating fumble at a house party with a boy called Adrian Graves. He wasn’t what you’d call a hunk, but he had a pleasingly unremarkable face, with ears that protruded slightly and mousy hair that fell into his eyes. Nobody else fancied him. I wasn’t sure I did, but that night he paid enough attention to me to make me think it’d be convenient to reciprocate.

  Our kiss, and the brief wrestle that followed, happened in a downstairs toilet when he was drunk on Cinzano Bianco. It was underwhelming, yet for reasons known only to him, when it became common knowledge at school on Monday, he decided to tell everyone that I had ‘tits like fried eggs’. The comment was flippantly made, a cheap laugh, but salacious and public enough to spread like wildfire. The school I’d never loved suddenly felt like a more noxious enemy than I’d ever considered it, my mortification all the more intense from the fact that it was true: I barely filled an A cup.

  I told Dad I was sick the following day and I wasn’t lying: I actually was nauseous. I couldn’t eat. Anxiety gnawed at my bones as I lay in bed, cocooned under the quilt, rising only late in the afternoon after the doorbell rang. It was Ed, who followed me up to my room and sat on the end of the bed, while I tried to maintain the gastroenteritis story I’d spun.

  He listened to me silently, processing the lies, before saying, in a voice I didn’t recognise: ‘I heard what happened.’ His jaw pulsed and anger radiated in his eyes. ‘Adrian Graves is a dickhead. I’m going to say something.’

  ‘Don’t!’ I hissed.

  ‘Then I’m going to do something.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I feel like fucking killing him.’

  The ferocity of this sentiment excited me, but he misinterpreted my reaction.

  ‘You know . . . you can cry, Allie. It’s okay to cry.’

  I blinked up at him. ‘I never cry.’

  It was true. I hadn’t cried when I’d broken my arm on a trampoline. I hadn’t cried when I watched E.T. I hadn’t cried when my mum died. So I certainly wasn’t going to cry over Adrian Graves.

  I went to school the following day. I straightened my back and wore an expression of defiance that made my face ache. And, after a torturous morning, I made it to the queue in the canteen, preparing myself for a deluge of abuse from the other kids. But Ed appeared by my side.

  ‘Would you like to go and see a movie with me this weekend?’ he asked loudly.

  A ladle of baked beans sloshed onto my plate and I became aware of a dozen jaws dropping. ‘Yeah. Okay.’

  He took me to a Saturday morning showing of Casablanca at the art house cinema in the city centre, a film I’d doubted would appeal to any of the girls at schoo
l he’d dated. I’d been slightly put out by that at first, that they’d been worthy of The Matrix, when all I got was some ancient, crumbly movie that only cost a pound to watch. But just under two hours later, we both left the theatre spellbound by the suspense, the tenderness, the wisecracks. And Humphrey Bogart’s final, iconic words: ‘I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’

  Chapter 20

  Wearing an overpriced thong and dousing my armpits with Ed’s deodorant, unsurprisingly, does not alter how grubby I feel in the same jeans, top and Converse as yesterday.

  ‘I think we need to move to a hotel with air con tonight,’ Ed says, as we emerge from a bicycle hire shop a few minutes away from the B&B.

  ‘But I’ve already paid for another night at this place,’ I reply, wheeling my bike to the side of the road. ‘I realise it’s not five-star luxury, but you don’t think it’s that bad, do you?’

  He ignores the question. ‘I saw a hotel up the road that looked nice. I’ll give you any money you lost.’

  I tut. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t need you to spend your cash on me.’

  ‘Fine. Why don’t you just humour me on the other hotel, then?’

  I purse my lips. ‘Well, I hope it’s got a view over a busy main road and a Sexy Shop sign. That’s all I’m saying,’ I tell him haughtily, as I pedal off onto the road, leaving him behind.

  We’re not on the main drag for long, instead finding a route on the wide promenade along the shore of the lake. We slip along a tree-lined path in the whispering breeze, dodging dog walkers, children on skateboards and the odd gecko that scurries out of our way. The heat is dry and pleasant, the water a milky shade of blue as it laps onto the rushes at the edge. But the peaceful scenery is at odds with my mood as we close in on our destination.

  ‘It’s the next turn off, Allie,’ Ed says. I slow down and feel my pulse racing as I wait for him to scrutinise the GPS on his phone. We take a left down a quiet residential street, heat shimmering on the tarmac as we freewheel in silence, listening to the purr of our tyres on the road and the hiss of sprinklers on front lawns. To my foreign eyes it’s hard to place the kind of area this is. There are middle-of-the-road cars parked in driveways of neat, modern apartment blocks and houses that are neither grand nor shabby. We finally arrive at the address, 36 Via Esposito, to find a house that is detached and compact, surrounded by clipped hedges. The walls are painted butter-yellow and there is a thin veranda above the front door, room for a clutch of flowerpots but no chairs.