Page 9

T o say I hadn’t been looking forward to language classes would be an understatement, but after one whole week of non-stop Giulio, and a dismal Sunday lunch at the hospital with Ma, my face could really do with a break.

My cheeks literally ache from switching expressions all the time; scowling at Giulio when Ma’s eyes are on me, forcing a smile when they’re not.

Getting away from the pretence, even if it’s just for a few hours, is a welcome escape.

I find the school as easily as Nina said I would, just across the road on the corner of the street, the entrance tucked around the side.

It looks like any other apartment building, with its graffitied walls and mustard stucco, but there are no geraniums or bougainvillea spilling over the balconies, just a line of teenagers filing in through the main door.

I fall in behind a group of exchange students with matching backpacks and wait for my turn at reception, asking myself why I silenced that annoying little Duolingo owl.

Would I be more confident now if I’d completed the Italian course on the app?

Proper Italian, and not just the hybrid I speak with Ma and Pa.

‘Livia Nardelli?’ The receptionist repeats my name back to me, like she’s expecting me to tell her there’s been some mistake. ‘ Italiano?’

A wave of heat washes over me as I nod, resisting the urge to apologize and confess that, yeah, I have the name and look the part, but I’m a fraud. I’m the equivalent of a red-haired, freckle-faced Morag McDonald turning up to learn the chorus of ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

The receptionist switches to English, clearly changing her opinion of me as she points at the stairwell. ‘Second floor. First door on the right.’

Inside the classroom, the exchange students have already claimed one entire side of the U-shaped desk arrangement and are chatting together in a language I don’t recognize.

Posters of the Colosseum, the Spanish Steps and other famous landmarks adorn the walls and it’s crazy to think they’re nearby, beyond this street and these four walls.

But I can just imagine what Giulio would say if I took a day off to go sightseeing. Turista.

‘Ehi!’

I’m so lost in thought, it takes me a moment to realize the petite girl with the swingy ponytail is saying hello to me. I do the thing where I look over my shoulder then point awkwardly to myself, but she continues to nod and smile, revealing the whitest, wonkiest teeth I’ve ever seen.

I must be staring because she laughs, an even bigger grin splitting her face. ‘I know, I know, the teeth are...a thing.’ She holds out her hand. ‘I’m Kenzi. I saw you arrive by yourself and I’m on my own too, so...’

I stutter an apology. I feel awful – it’s like when people stare at my nose – but the truth is, it wasn’t her teeth that caught me off guard, it was her words, spoken in perfect Italian.

I may not be able to copy it, but I know a Roman accent when I hear one.

Her vowels are open and lengthened, like Pa’s, and the endings are dropped, too.

I give her the same quizzical look the receptionist gave me.

She’s every bit the Italian teenager – stylishly casual, and a little bit sophisticated. But her name...

‘I’m Moroccan,’ she says, as if reading my thoughts. ‘On paper, anyway. Where are you from?’

I must make a face because she quickly covers her mouth, though I don’t think it’s to hide her teeth – I’ve just met her, but she’s already giving off Isla-vibes.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I hate it when people ask me that! And now I’m doing it.’

I shake my head. ‘It’s fine. Really.’

Normally, I hate that question too, but somehow I don’t mind giving Kenzi the whole ‘born in Scotland to Italian parents’ spiel. And, anyway, I’m also curious about her. What’s she doing here when she’s clearly fluent – accent and all?

Before I can ask, a guy in mustard chinos and a creased T-shirt – creased as in you can see exactly where it was folded – walks into the room.

‘Salve a tutti!’ he announces, before hooking a thumb towards his chest. ‘ Io sono Massimiliano.’ Only he says it like this: I-o so-no Mas-si-mi-li-a-no, stretching out each syllable as if he’s spelling it instead of saying it.

He looks and sounds like a kids’ TV presenter , Inner Isla says.

I’d laugh, but there’s an A-frame whiteboard with the numbers one to ten in Italian on it.

Am I in the wrong class? Or worse, did Nina and Giulio put me in with the beginners?

But Kenzi’s here, I remind myself. Then Mas-si-mi-li-a-no explains, through a combination of melodrama and mime, that the teacher for the Intermediate to Advanced class had a fa-mi-ly e-mer-gen-cy – big sad face – and so he’ll be teaching both classes together – wild hand circling.

He doesn’t know for how long – points to an imaginary watch and shrugs.

‘Aiuto. It’s like charades...but you’re allowed to speak Italian,’ I whisper to Kenzi, sinking into my seat.

She does her own mime of someone looking supremely bored and we smother a shared laugh.

I check how everyone else is reacting to Mas-simi-li-a-no, and see a mix of genuine interest, mild concern and abject horror on the twenty or so faces around me. I’m pretty sure I’ve just identified the beginners, intermediates and advanced students based on that alone.

One boy in a graphic tee and cargo shorts is actually clutching his head, his silky black hair spiking up through his fingers.

We spend a painful hour going around the class making introductions, and another working on photocopies of the numbers one to ten.

Just when I’m sure I won’t be coming back, no matter how ungrateful I seem to Nina, we’re shuffled into small groups and I find myself sitting in a four with Kenzi, Graphic Tee Boy, who introduces himself as Ren, and Sofia, a Brazilian girl with a bright yellow mane of hair – yellow yellow, not blonde-gone-wrong yellow.

We start with the usual ‘how many brothers and sisters do you have?’ questions, but by the end of the lesson, the four of us are actually having a conversation.

Ren, who’s here to do a crash course before he starts culinary school in September, describes himself as a matcha crème br?lée – his way of saying he’s half Japanese, half French, and obsessed with fusion cuisine.

Then, for an uncomfortable minute, I wonder if I’m a deep-fried pizza. Yeah, not quite the same thing.

Sofia, unlike Mas-si-mi-li-a-no, talks at 100 kilometres an hour, although I suspect it’s so we don’t notice there’s some Portuguese thrown in.

I love how she just goes for it, though – guessing at words and making them up as she goes along.

We don’t catch everything, but the languages must have something in common because, between us, we piece together quite a bit.

Her Italian grandfather emigrated to Brazil from Bologna when he was young, and she gets Italian mixed up with Bolognese dialect.

A year older than us, she’s technically on a gap year to ‘explore her roots’, but she’s also putting off telling her parents university’s not for her.

She tells us this while answering the notifications popping up on her multiple social media feeds at the same time.

I’m actually smiling by the time we leave the classroom. It’s a little safe space where I can practise Italian without Nina staring down her Roman nose at me, the bar customers looking nervous, or Giulio waiting for me to slip up like I did with Signora Pedretti’s caffè .

Ren and Sofia peel off towards the Metro as soon as we’re out in the street, but Kenzi falls into step beside me.

‘That’s my nonna’s bar.’ My arms are wrapped around our new workbooks, so I tilt my chin towards it instead.

‘This one?’ Kenzi considers it as if it were a painting and I clutch the books more tightly, seeing it through her eyes – the tired old furniture, the dim lighting, the two elderly men playing cards outside.

A couple of girls hover in the doorway. For a second, it looks like they’re going to go in but, after a whispered exchange, they move off again, probably to the livelier bars down the street where young people are clinking their brightly coloured aperitivi , laughing and chatting before going to dinner.

‘Carino ,’ Kenzi says at last.

I wrinkle my nose. Cute? Does she mean Giulio? He’s sitting inside, bent over a textbook, completely oblivious. My face heats up at the thought, but Kenzi gestures to the outdoor tables and I realize she’s talking about the bar, not him, which makes me feel strangely relieved.

‘It’s nice that there are still places like this where older people aren’t pushed out. I could see my jad – that’s my mama’s father – coming here, if he ever went out. Not that he does...or will,’ she says, rolling her eyes.

I pause at Kenzi’s words. Where would the regulars go if Nina’s bar weren’t around?

Ma and Pa have been chatting non-stop about its finances on their nightly catch-ups.

And I’ve seen enough to know breakfast is the only time it’s actually busy.

The worry gnaws at me, especially with Giulio so easily slipping behind the counter as if he owns the place – could he be dipping into the profits too?