8. THEO
8
THEO
Each of us is afraid to speak on the car ride to Tirumapifort, the tennis-cum-nightclub outside of Chivasso. Jo is driving with both of his hands clenched tightly around the wheel as if to prove his focus is so entirely on driving that he can’t start the conversation. This is fucking awkward. Jo, Dante and almost every member of the Savoy family are notorious talkers. Almost all of them. Dante sits in the back, preoccupied with a cigarette, but even the exhales of his smoke are off; cut short with tension.
‘Is Matilde still fucking with those yellow wristbands?’ I ask; it is the only thing I can remember about the club. Yellow wristbands, strapped so tightly around your wrists that your fingers begin to go numb after only a few minutes of her putting one on you. It is a silent force that makes people leave before Matilde has to kick them out.
‘Matilde is a fucking cunt. I pray every night she falls and drowns in the pool,’ Dante says while rolling the window down and spitting.
‘Fuck that old hag,’ adds Jo, who has relaxed to one hand on the wheel – progress. I lean into the cushioned seat while Dante laughs, feeling a bit lighter.
Silver Pozzoli blares on the speakers as we circle the club parking lot a few times. My eyes shut, trying to steady the anticipation as Jo tries to find parking in the full lot. The engine shuts off and Dante pokes his head between the seats.
‘Alright, fuckers, il re e tornato ! ’ The king has returned.
Fuck me. Not this again. My hands itch for another drink.
The music we’d heard in the car seems faded by the time we reach the entrance. Everything is eerily the same; the red gravel is still as vibrant as it was the day I left. Without warning, Matilde appears, hustling towards us from the bushes behind; she looks like a witch as she waves the plastic bands frantically above her head, shaking her head with annoyance at us.
‘Just because you little boys can’t find another place to wet your dick does not mean you can enter for free!’
‘Excuse yourself, Matilde. I’m a father now,’ Jo says. ‘There will be no dick wetting for me.’
‘That makes one of you,’ she huffs, looking now to see who’s in our group.
She hasn’t seen me yet. I brace for the impact. Matilde has known me since I was running around here with chocolate gelato dried around my mouth. I grimace. And she caught me fucking Chiara that one time.
‘ Ma guarda ,’ she shoves the bands in her apron pocket and a few fall to the gravel. ‘You came back to us!’
In no time, her face is inches away from mine so I can see the ageing lines on her forehead, deep and creased with years of rushing about in the sun.
You forget about the people on the outskirts when you’re rushing out the door. The ones you order coffee from each morning, the ones you see at the gym. I feel guilty for forgetting Matilde when she saw so much of me growing up.
I clear my throat. ‘Only for you, Matilde. Does this mean I’m excused from the yellow-band tax?’ I say to lighten the mood. Fuck. Having anything to do with Matilde’s sadness makes me want to punch myself.
Her voice is gravelly. Disappointed. ‘You should have stayed gone.’
She gently pats my face and I flinch at the roughness of her palm or maybe how right she fucking is.
‘Fuck off, Matilde, how much for your three favourite cherubs tonight?’ Dante begins to unbutton his shirt, swaying towards her.
She looks at the three of us and then once again at me, her eyes watery and iridescent, and nods. Matilde might be God running a tennis club.
‘For you cherubs, 100. Pay for Theo, too.’ Matilde winks at me, looking me over one last time before peering behind me at the forming line.
‘Thank you, my love,’ I say while she straps the plastic band around my wrist. But it is so loose that with the slightest movement of my hand, the band almost slips off.