Page 49 of Wanting Daisy Dead
I’m drinking coffee at a pavement café in Sicily with an English girl called Abbi. We’ve been having a conversation about our plans to travel to Rome. Both too old to be backpackers, we have the kind of wanderlust that sometimes hits in your thirties, when you realise one day you will die.
Like me, Abbi is fairly new to Sicily, and despite loving the place, her job working for a car hire company isn’t her idea of la dolce vita .
I love my summer job teaching art, and took it in the hope that the university might extend the contract to autumn, but talking about Rome with Abbi has given me itchy feet.
The teaching work isn’t as I imagined it anyway. My students consist mostly of the teenage offspring of rich Americans. They are fun and lively, but their interest in art is minimal and it is clear they’d rather have sex, smoke dope and party than learn to paint.
I enjoy the work, and love being in Sicily, but my life is a mess.
Two years ago, at the age of thirty-four, I left my home in England when everything started to unravel.
I had to get out. But running away is never the answer, and guilt etches itself on to your soul; it nestles in your organs and becomes part of you.
The guilt I carry is like the freckles on my face – a fundamental part of me.
So, still seeking some kind of escape from the past, I talked about travelling to Rome with Abbi for a few weeks in the naive hope that another escape might finally exorcise the past. But today, as I sit at a pavement café drinking coffee, I suddenly see this man – and I can’t explain it, something shifts inside me, so much so that I wonder if, instead of travelling all the way to Rome, I should stay here, on Sicily.
I’ve never seen him before, but there is something about him, the way he walks, not swaggering, just quietly confident, strolling through his town.
I assume he’s from here; he has the dark, brooding good looks, the easy sophistication of the Sicilian male who knows where he’s going.
I smile at my own assumptions – he might not be like this at all – but something deep down tells me this gorgeous man strolling through town might just be the person to help me forget.
For a little while, at least? Perhaps I simply fancy him, but it’s weird, I feel drawn to him in a really primal way, like the stars have collided and created this bright flash of recognition, of familiarity: Ah, here he is, this is who I’ve been waiting for.
After flailing around in the wilderness, I finally see a chink of light.
I know it sounds crazy and weird to be mooning over a total stranger – and it is!
And even as I’m drinking in his dark good looks, and well-cut suit, I’m inwardly reprimanding myself for being so stupid.
Unable to stop looking, the sight of him gives me this overwhelming rush – I’m slightly out of breath and agitated.
What’s wrong with me? My tummy is swirling, and as much as I tell myself to stop being silly, I can’t.
I love the sensation, the sheer madness of this, and I’m already addicted.
I continue to watch from behind my menu as the object of my affection stops to gaze into the Dior window.
Taormina, the town in Sicily where I’m living, is rich in history, but also shiny with wealth and luxury.
Chanel and Versace compete for attention on the high street, while billionaires’ yachts wait in the harbour, ready to move to the next Mediterranean haven when they grow bored of this one.
But this is an island of contradictions, and the high-octane glamour and hedonism is always overshadowed by Etna, the brooding volcano – waiting, threatening, unpredictable. It grounds me.
‘So, I’ve planned our route,’ Abbi is saying, as she unfurls an over-large map and waxes lyrical about the Pantheon and the Colosseum. I tune her out as I watch him wander into the designer boutique.
‘Are you listening?’ Abbi rips into my daydream. ‘I said, I planned our route.’ She brandishes her phone, with ‘Be Kind’ emblazoned across the case in gold lettering. ‘I’ve kept all the receipts for the maps and stuff, so I’ll work out how much you owe me.’
‘Great,’ I murmur, already having second thoughts about the trip. Abbi can be quite pushy, bossy even, and I don’t always have the energy to stand up to her. ‘Do we really need all those maps? I mean, it isn’t the Victorian era, we have Google?’ I suggest.
‘Mind you don’t spill coffee on this,’ she says, ignoring my comment and unfurling the concertina of stiff paper on to the table, glasses on the end of her nose, like some despot planning world domination.
‘The Basilica, Santo Stefano Rotondo, and, ooh, Chiesa di San Carlino alle Quattro Fontane,’ she gasps.
As my doubts about this trip and Abbi are growing by the minute, her ecclesiastical word salad isn’t exactly selling it to me.
I gaze at the long, narrow high street, studded with achingly cool designer boutiques built into the ancient stonework. But having no savings, paying off debts from my previous life, and with only a temporary job, I always have my face pressed against the window of life.
‘You have to be rich to be here,’ I remark, staring at the wealthy tourists from behind the expensive coffee menu. Abbi isn’t listening, too engrossed in her takeover of Europe, starting in Italy, one pope’s tomb at a time.
The man is now emerging from the boutique with a white paper bag – ‘DIOR’ written on it in gold.
I can only imagine what delicious designer gorgeousness is inside that hallowed bag.
As he begins to walk up the high street and nearer to where we are sitting, I feel my tummy flip – he is even more handsome close up.
His furrowed brow and expensive-looking jacket suggest class, and enough money to shop at Dior, and yet his shoes jar slightly.
They are more like walking boots, dirty and worn.
How intriguing . He has an air of mystery about him.
I’ve always had a weakness for unfathomable men.
Abbi continues on about train times and student hostels, conjuring memories of cramped bunkbeds and the stench of overcooked cabbage. I’m suddenly distracted, my heart skipping a beat as the man wanders over to where we are sitting and pulls out a seat at a table close by.
‘Imagine running your fingers through that dark hair, and unbuttoning that crisp white shirt,’ I murmur, mesmerised.
‘What?’ Abbi has her finger pressed on the map, her phone in her other hand.
‘Him – he’s gorgeous!’ I flick my eyes over to where he is sitting. For a moment, she drags herself away from dead saints to take a sidelong glance.
‘Mmm. Good-looking, but isn’t he a bit old for you?’ She screws up her nose.
‘I like older men.’
Her eyebrows raise momentarily before she returns to her map.
‘ Un caffè e un cannolo, per favore ,’ I hear him say to the waitress.
His voice is like a warm summer by the sea, and my shallow heart thumps in my chest. I don’t know this man, he could be anyone, I’m being silly, but when the waitress returns with his order, I see the way she looks at him and feel a tiny pang of jealousy, like a cocktail stick in my heart.
I think I may have imagined this, but when I catch his eye and smile, his eyes smile back, and I let my eyes linger a little too long on his.
Watching him take a bite of the crisp, sweet cannolo, I study his lips and wonder what he would be like to kiss. I also wonder if a man like that could erase the dark shadows that loiter in the corners of my life.