Chapter 12 April 26th
After two weeks of putting up with my mother and her chaotic friends, I get a chance to be alone on the second Sunday there.
Everyone is going to Madesimo for the day except for me.
I’ve complained about an upset stomach so I spend most of the day in my room reading and watching my favourite Netflix shows that I never get to binge-watch at home because I simply don’t have the time.
At lunchtime, someone knocks on my door with a tray.
Delightful! It’s an asparagus soup with lemon chicken, string beans and tiny, perfectly rounded potatoes drizzled with olive oil and oregano.
Healthy but tasty. I gobble that up in six minutes flat and, then, smacking my lips, look around the room. I am now officially bored.
I go over to my mother’s room to look at the pictures on her dresser.
There is one of my kids, one of me as a kid, one of my father, believe it or not, and one of her and Aldo looking incredibly well.
Younger. As a matter of fact, they look much, much younger!
I take a closer look. In fact, it’s during their honeymoon.
I remember that photo. She’d dared to send it to us as a final slap in the face.
I swear, I don’t know how my father even speaks to her.
I don’t know how any of us speak to her.
By the afternoon, I’ve worked myself up into such a frenzy that I need to go for a brisk walk.
I’m not feeling adventurous enough to leave the compound so I just explore the halls and evening areas.
They look different in the light of day without the fairy lights.
I go down the stairs and start exploring the bowels of the building, stumbling upon a room with another piano in it.
I haven’t played the piano in years. I doubt I still can. I sit down on the bench, staring at the keys, like the first time my mother had tried to teach me.
I can almost hear her younger voice: You see, Livvie, this central key here? It’s called the middle C. The scales are made of octaves…
I was keen to learn, back then. I hung on her every word.
When she played and sang at the same time I thought she was a goddess of some sort, with her long, blonde hair and shapely but slender figure.
She sang a lot of ballads, and when she closed her eyes, I always marvelled at how she never needed to look at the keys.
‘It’s something that becomes second nature,’ she’d explained to me once.
Before I realise it, my hands are caressing the keys in a regular rhythm.
Those chords again. They have obsessed me for years after I refused to ever play or sing this song, or any other one, again.
I remember learning it in five minutes flat.
Of course I never knew that it would become the leitmotif of my life, haunting me despite the fact that I’d tried to push it back down into the shadows of my mind.
I’m playing the chords in a loop, endlessly, as if trying to psyche myself to get into the song.
But I can’t. The humiliation of that night is holding me back.
I cannot get over the loss, the fear, the sadness of my own mother abandoning me in the moment I needed her most, the very night of our mother-daughter act.
Without realising, I come back to the here and now, practically halfway through the song.
My fingers are stroking all the right keys at the right time, but somehow it just doesn’t sound like my mother used to play it.
Nor can I bring myself to sing it as I had that infamous night, between the sniggering of the students and the pitying eyes of my teachers.
It is precisely that memory, rather than other happier ones, that has stayed with me all these years.
It’s that moment of panic that had gripped me, when I realised I was on my own, just like the song said, that accompanies me even today.
Whenever I get upset, it’s the smell of popcorn, and not the taste of my tears, that fills my senses.
But tonight, sitting on this piano bench on my own, go figure, I’m knocking it out of the park.
And this voice that I’m not familiar with, a grown woman’s voice singing my childhood song, belongs to me.
I didn’t even know I could still sing. I hit the high notes like the song had been written for me, holding it even longer than necessary, just to prove to myself that I can.
I have lung capacity that translates to the stage and not onto the mountain paths, go figure!
I’m soon lost in the song, loving every single note, avoiding every single bad memory, because just this once, I want to jettison the weight of that night, the pain and sorrow.
When I’m done, I’m sweating like a dog, but I’m happy. I look around me, half-expecting someone to come out of the shadows and clap, telling me how surprised they are at discovering I have my mother’s talent. But no one claps. I am completely alone.
*
That night, I wake up drowning. Whatever I do, there is no air coming into my lungs.
I open my mouth wide but nothing is happening.
It’s as if the four walls have closed in on me, and my mother’s voice sounds like it’s coming through layers upon layers of mattresses, muffled by my own hoarse, desperate gasps.
And like in the movies, I see my entire life flash by me in those few seconds.
I see Cassie, just born, in my arms, and then Joe, and his very first smile. I see my father giving me piggy-back rides and Markus unloading items from a delivery truck into our oast house out back with his usual grin.
And then there are doctors in my room and my mother is sobbing and the next thing I know, an oxygen mask is slapped onto my face and they won’t let me speak.
Soon it is dark but there is a feeble light above my head and my mother’s face hovering over me.
‘It’s all right, love,’ she says. ‘You’re okay.’
‘Mmiodhsdnc,’ I say.
She frowns. ‘What’s that, love?’
‘Mudnfuoefu,’ I try again.
‘Yes, Mummy’s here, Livvie. Just try to get some sleep and tomorrow you’ll be right as rain. Don’t speak.’
Mmmm… motherfff.
I mean, what the actual F…? I had agreed to come to this place to get away from myself and my life and instead I’m having to confront every single one of my problems all in one go?
At home, I can make them go away. Just like not facing my deteriorating relationship with Simon is feasible, or downplaying my daughter’s resentment towards me, or my thousands of other issues.
As Markus always says, I am software on the inside.
Definitely hardware on the outside, no bones about it.
But inside? I’m pure mush. I am capable of solving only one issue at a time.
Which is funny because I am an amazing multi-tasker if we’re talking about practicalities.
Like most women, (on a good day) I can synchronise my laundry-hanging with my cooking and baking and homeworking the kids like a well-oiled machine.
I know what I’m doing. But throw in a personal emotional crisis and I’m lost. I can talk anyone down from a ledge but when I’m up there, that’s it. I just don’t do interior crises.
*
The next day when I’m wheeled back into my room, Mother is there waiting for me as expected. Her face is drenched in tears.
‘Oh, sweetie, I thought I was going to lose you…!’
‘I’m all right, Mother,’ I dismiss her, leaning away from her embrace. The last thing I need is her pity after all these years!
If she’s realised I’m avoiding her, she does a great job masking it by smiling brightly. I can’t stand it when she over-reacts, which is pretty much all the time.
‘The doctor says it was only a panic attack,’ I explain.
‘Yes, I spoke to him. He also said that if you wear a CPAP mask for the next few nights, you should be okay.’
‘Uh-uh. No CPAP.’
‘But, darling—’
‘I said no CPAP!’
Still fuelled by the adrenaline of thinking I was dying, I call home. I don’t plan on telling any of them what I just experienced, but right now I need a dose of home. Only Simon’s the one to answer the phone.
‘Have the kids eaten?’
‘Yep.’
‘Done their homework?’
‘Yep.’
‘Had their showers?’
‘Yep.’
So he’s actually doing his duty. Dad must have had a word with him. Perhaps he can learn empathy. Maybe there is hope for him after all. I should make a point of calling him regularly. If he doesn’t understand that it’s the decent thing to do, then I should set the example. And hopefully, in time—
‘Olivia, did you want anything? I’m sort of busy here.’
It’s useless. He lives in his own world. He is completely oblivious to anything outside his personal sphere. Not even the kids worry him, because he knows that my father, Markus and I have got their backs. He doesn’t need to do anything, in his mind.
I had sleep apnoea due to anxiety, I want to tell him. I thought I was dying. I’m still shaking a little. But I’ll be okay.
But instead I say: ‘No, just checking in.’
‘Right. Talk if and when something happens, yes?’ he says distractedly.
‘If and when something happens,’ I echo him and we ring off simultaneously. If anything, I feel worse.
*
The GP assigned to me, Dottoressa Micheli, sits me down to explain our next steps.
‘Now, you have high blood pressure which could be due to the altitude, so we’ll monitor that all week. In the meantime I suggest you wear a CPAP mask. It’s a—’
‘I know exactly what it is. No, thank you.’
‘But, Olivia—’
‘I said no. I’m not going to look and sound like Darth Vader.’
‘But your life depends upon it…’
‘Hardly,’ I snort. ‘I’ve lived this long, haven’t I?’
‘Pure luck,’ she says.
Eh? Okay. She’s a tough-love kind of girl. I can do tough love.
‘Thanks, but I’ll take my chances.’
‘You’d have to sign some papers relieving us of any responsibility …’
‘Then let’s. Thank you.’
She studies me. I know what she’s thinking. I know she’s right, but I didn’t come here to relax only to be told that I had life-threatening issues. What a load of bollocks.
‘If you change your mind…’
‘I won’t. Thank you, Dottoressa Micheli.’
*