Authors: Marcus Sedgwick
I woke early and prepared for my ten o’clock meeting with the professor. I thought back to ’
51
and the Paris conference. Even ten years later the shame of my failure burned, yet Mazzarino had been impressed, according to the letters from his office. And he’d been reading about our progress with haemophilia with interest. I tried to picture the man but wasn’t sure I had him right; I could see a fifty-something, grey hair and bushy beard, but then wondered if that was Doure of Heidelberg.
I’d know soon enough.
I found my way to the campus easily, and arrived early, but made my way to Mazzarino’s offices anyway, hoping to brush away any offence I might have caused by my no-show at dinner.
What happened next took me by surprise, and threw me so much that I know I didn’t think clearly.
I knocked on a door and let myself in to find a secretary for the Department of Medicine looking at me expectantly.
‘
Lei parla Inglese?
’ I asked and was relieved when the woman smiled.
‘Yes, of course,’ she said.
‘Good,’ I said, ‘because that’s the total of my Italian.’
She politely ignored my apology.
‘How may I help you?’
I explained who I was and that Professor Mazzarino was expecting me.
‘There must be some mistake,’ she said.
‘No, no mistake. I’m sure. I have a letter here which . . .’
I trailed off as I fumbled in my briefcase for my papers, but she wasn’t listening.
‘No, sir. No mistake. The professor is away today, he has no appointments. Perhaps you have the wrong day?’
I was surprised enough not to be angry, not then, anyway.
‘Well, I suppose . . .’
‘Why don’t you come back tomorrow? The professor is here tomorrow. Leave me your name, please, and I’ll inform him as soon as he arrives in the morning.’
And with that, leaving my name and the name of my hotel, I stumbled back out into the streets, without even thinking to check my letter with her, or to see if she was the one who was meant to have invited me.
Trying to work out if I’d got the day wrong, or even the month, I wandered through the backstreets and finally came into a beautiful square, the Campo de’ Fiori, I think. I was by now getting angry at being stood up by the professor after flying to Italy to meet him, and cursing the lackadaisical nature of the Mediterranean in general, when suddenly I laughed. I was being foolish, for here was a chance for a pleasant holiday, and at someone else’s expense.
I sauntered into the square in a much better mood.
The campo was long and surrounded by elegant buildings, but what attracted me was the market in full swing in the centre. There were flowers, of course, but also fruit and meats and cheeses. There were stalls selling clothes and others selling trinkets of various kinds, some of them aimed at tourists, for sure, but much sold by locals, for other local people.
I slowed myself down and crawled around the market, taking in all the wonderful smells and colourful sights, and then, I saw a girl.
I should correct that; I mean I saw a young woman, with long, light brown hair, cross in front of me. One second she was not there, a moment later I could not take my eyes off her. She was fingering the material on a skirt hanging from a stall, idly, her head on one side, and then she drifted on.
I could do nothing but follow her.
What had happened to me? I have thought about it a lot, and though I would like to claim it was love at first sight, I have to confess that it was lust.
Something inside me just switched on, switched on again, having been asleep for a long, long time. I hadn’t been with a woman since Sarah died, and even when married I think I can guess that our physical life was no better than adequate. We did not have sex very often; she did not seem very interested in it, and once she became ill, not at all, and at that point nor was I any more. I just wanted her to be better. But she died.
I’ve often wondered why I married Sarah. We met at a college ball one summer; we dated for a little while. I think we got married because she wanted to, and because I thought I was supposed to. Then it became simply what we were doing, but I don’t think I ever stopped to wonder if I was getting married because it was the right thing to do, and certainly not if it was what I wanted.
She and I were close enough, I suppose, and I thought I had loved her, but when the girl in Rome walked past me, I think what had actually been stirred up in me was the memory of Marian.
I watched the girl in the market furtively, developing a sudden interest in oranges as she stood nearby in front of a high pile of aubergines and artichokes. I tried not to make it obvious I was trailing her, and at the time I don’t think I even realised that that was what I was doing. I was so taken with her that I was just pulled after her, magnetically. She stood still once more, her body adopting that curving stoop common to tall people, but which in her gave off powerfully sexual signals.
People passed by me, passing between the woman and me, locals, tourists, but they were no more than shapes and colours; suddenly the only living person in that whole square was the woman.
I saw that I was not the only one appraising her. Two stallholders, young men, stared at her blatantly, their Italian masculinity putting my furtiveness to shame. They were open about what they were thinking, and whistled at the girl. She appeared not to notice, or certainly did not react. One of the two men turned and caught me looking at her too, and winked, grinning from ear to ear. He turned back to stare at her some more as she moved away.
I followed.
She was barely dressed. She wore a light white blouse, open at the neck, with two or three buttons undone. It was clear she wore nothing underneath, and pathetically I found myself manoeuvring opposite her as she bent over to smell some flowers, in order to catch a glimpse of her. I did so and was rewarded with the glimpse of one dark nipple on a small pointed breast.
She straightened, and she caught me looking. For a brief moment our eyes met, and I knew she knew what I had seen. She showed no reaction, maybe just the slightest smile before she looked away. I, of course, turned and picked up a dreadful souvenir of cheap rosary beads, waiting for her to move on.
She did.
She was tall and slim, and if not beautiful, she was very pretty, with a delicate face, and an elegant neck. She moved gracefully and slowly, and I walked after her, trying to make my progress appear random. I didn’t know what I wanted. The stallholders did, for one of them made a rude gesture with his fist as I passed, leering, his eyes popping.
His friend laughed, and I followed the girl more directly as she left the square and headed down a small street heading east. The street was busy enough for me not to be noticed, and I ambled along, pausing when she did, taking her in some more.
She wore tiny denim shorts, torn from an old pair of light blue jeans, and had bare legs down to her knees. She had knee-length socks in light sandals, making her look younger than she probably was.
She stopped by a shop window and peered in, and I saw that her shorts were so brief that the curve of one buttock peeked out below. The skin was golden brown. She lifted a strand of hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear.
In that moment I knew I was seriously affected. I turned away from her, staring blindly into a shop window of my own, waiting for my heart to stop beating so wildly. I turned back and looked at her thighs again, and suddenly the image of Marian in her guest room at Caius came back to me. I remembered wanting to kneel in front of her and kiss her naked stomach, and now I had similar feelings towards this strange girl. I saw myself stroking her whole long naked body. I saw other things.
Turning away again, I waited once more, and this time, when I turned back, she was gone.
A desperate feeling of loss suddenly swept into me and I hunted for her. I ducked into shops and down alleys, retracing my steps, turning this way and that, but in the end I had to concede she had gone.
I cursed myself. Why hadn’t I just told her what I wanted, like the stallholders had? And then I knew why. Because she was half my age, because she almost certainly was married or had a boyfriend, because I would be unattractive to her, because a million reasons.
I slunk away and by twelve o’clock I found myself in a bar, sipping a long cool drink. And then she walked in, sat down at the next table, and looked straight at me.
She ordered a drink, knowing my eyes were all over her as she spoke to a young and handsome waiter. She fingered the topmost of the closed buttons on her blouse as she spoke, as if suggesting she was about to undo that one too. The waiter went away and soon came back with her Campari, but she this time ignored him, and he went away, scowling.
She fumbled in her bag, fishing for a pack of cigarettes. She found them, and dropped them. On the floor, right by my feet.
She bent over quickly to pick them up, and this time, as she straightened, she kept her eyes on mine as I gazed at the beautiful sight of both her breasts, realising she had somewhere along the line undone that button.
She smiled, and I smiled back, and that was how we met.
Chapter 4
Her name was Arianna. She was Italian, but spoke perfect English, and explained that her mother was English, and she had spent many summers in England, though her father was from Sicily.
I asked her what she was doing in Rome.
‘I’m studying art,’ she said, and lit a cigarette, offering one to me.
‘You shouldn’t smoke,’ I said.
‘Oh, and why’s that?’
‘It’s bad for you. I’m a doctor.’
‘But you’re not
my
doctor, are you?’
Even I, as old and out of practice as I was, could see that she was flirting, very openly. I found that I liked it. There was no pretence of what was happening, no games. For some reason she wanted to flirt with me and I was enjoying it.
I didn’t even care that I felt I was spouting awful clichés as I did my best to flirt back. I was pretty clumsy; it had never been, how to put it, my line . . .
She began to suck on the cigarette, blatantly teasing me.
‘What kind of doctor are you?’
I thought about telling her I was a haematologist. It didn’t seem like a great chat-up line.
‘The usual kind,’ I said, instead.
‘And what’s that? Kind? Caring? Or brutal and cold?’
She held my eyes again.
‘That depends,’ I said.
‘On?’
‘On what’s called for. A good doctor knows that every patient needs to be handled differently.’
I was more pleased with that one.
‘Oh. I see. And if I were your patient, how should I be handled?’
She had moved a little closer to me, and sat with her legs slightly apart, allowing a slight view disappearing up inside her thigh.
Then I wanted her. Quickly, soon. As hard as possible.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’d have to give you a full examination first.’
It was corny and clumsy, but I didn’t care, because it seemed to be working.
She looked me in the eyes again. Long and deep. Although she was young, I was impressed with her. If I’d noticed her to start with from pure sexuality, she wasn’t the young giggly type. She seemed mature, thoughtful. Intelligent even. I knew she could be dangerous too, though I couldn’t have explained how. But I didn’t care. All I wanted then was to be naked with her, in a more powerful way than I think I had ever felt before, with anyone else.
‘Do I . . . make an appointment?’ she said, her eyes twinkling.
‘Tonight?’ I suggested. Then more decisively, ‘Tonight. Nine o’clock?’
She smiled, downed her drink in one.
‘Via Farini. There’s a bar. La Bianca.
Ciao
.’
She stood, and left.
I was paying for both our drinks, no more than a minute later, when she came back in.
She grabbed my wrist with her delicate hand and winked at the barman.
‘We have places to go,’ she said, and laughing, I let her drag me outside.
It was lunch, and suddenly the streets had emptied as they always do in France and Italy at the stroke of noon.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked, but I wasn’t really interested. I was more interested in the fact that she was taking me down a quiet street, and then turning into a tiny alley, at the end of which was a little yard behind the back doors of some restaurant or other.
She pushed me against a wall and began kissing me hard.
I kissed her back and then pulled away.
‘What’s going on?’
‘You want me to draw you a diagram? You’re the doctor.’
Then there was no more talking.
We did it standing up, but before we did she took my hand and pushed it down the front of her shorts. She flicked the button open and pushed my hand further in, and up, tilting her head back as I did so.