Chapter 5
5
CALLUM
The great news about the way the heavens are emptying their guts onto us is that the crashingly loud rain prevents us from hearing each other speak, so we just can’t talk.
As I take the occasional glance at Emma squelching along next to me, I can’t decide how I feel. Angry? Nostalgic? Bereft all over again? Impressed that Emma had an umbrella and has managed to keep it from blowing inside out the whole time and that her flip-flops are clearly in fact the right footwear for this because it’s like we’re wading through a stream?
I do know that I’m incredulous. As in, how can we – I – possibly be in this ridiculous situation?
Emma stops and says something that I can’t hear, and then points left down an even smaller lane than the one we’re on. She’s been guiding us the whole way via Google Maps from under her umbrella and I just have to hope that she’s good with directions. I try to remember whether or not she used to be when we were together and realise that I just don’t know; we didn’t really do a lot of wholesome activities like country hiking.
After a few more turns it becomes apparent that Emma can indeed read a map on her phone correctly, because we’re standing outside the hotel.
We follow signs to the reception through an archway into a courtyard with a sheltered passageway all round the outside.
‘This is like cloisters when you visit an abbey or cathedral,’ Emma says.
‘I think this is an old abbey.’ I point to all the intricate stone carvings on the pillars around us, and the church-like building opposite.
We come to the reception and I say, ‘Maybe I should wait out here.’ I can’t politely go inside anywhere when I’m as wet as this.
Emma looks at me and clamps her lips hard together as though she’s trying not to laugh, and then after a couple of moments says, ‘Yes, maybe that’s best.’ She definitely laughs as she goes inside without me, and fair enough.
The door to the reception is a huge, ancient-looking, solid oak one, but I can just about see her through a little window to the side, and she’s doing a lot of gesticulating and nodding. She checks something on her phone and my own phone vibrates very shortly afterwards.
I extract it with difficulty from my sodden pocket and discover that Emma has sent me a message. It says:
FYI: I had to say we’re married. Don’t think sleeping in the communal area is a goer.
I’m about to reply with a lot of question marks when the door opens and Emma emerges, followed by a monk.
‘Hello… darling.’ Emma does some absolutely ridiculous grimacing and eye-rolling at me with her back to the monk. ‘This is actually a monastery and the very kind monks very kindly allow guests to stay in some of their rooms, the last one of which you booked, and this lovely man, Father Davide, speaks English.’
‘Please don’t worry about dripping on the floors; they are all stone. We are delighted to welcome you,’ Father Davide tells us in excellent English as we walk along the far side of the cloisters from where we arrived. ‘I hope you’re enjoying your honeymoon.’
Honeymoon? I look at Emma.
‘Yes, we are,’ she says. ‘I was just explaining to Father Davide, darling, that the reason I don’t have a wedding ring is that it didn’t actually fit very well because you got it as a surprise for our wedding and it’s at the jeweller’s being resized but I’ll be wearing it every day as soon as we get back to London.’
‘Exactly,’ I confirm politely, giving her as much side-eye as I can without Father Davide seeing. Presumably he said he could only host a married couple in the same bedroom, but even so.
‘Where have you visited so far?’ Father Davide asks Emma.
As I listen to her describing what presumably have been her travels around southern Italy and her plans to go on to Florence and the Cinque Terre and the Alps, I’m struck by how well-thought-out and concrete those onward plans seem, and how much sightseeing they involve. I think I need to ask Emma about that when we’re alone. Hopefully they’re just the product of the same fertile imagination that came up with the wedding ring story.
‘And here we are.’ Father Davide opens a low, narrow door with a flourish and indicates that we should go ahead of him into the room. It’s whitewashed and contains two narrow, single beds on opposite walls and one small chest with two neatly folded white towels on it. ‘Perhaps you would like to leave your suitcases here and I can show you where the bathroom is.’
The bathroom is a long way along the corridor and up a flight of stairs and along another corridor.
‘It’s almost en-suite,’ he tells us, grinning broadly at his own joke.
‘It’s perfect; thank you so much.’ Emma sounds so sincere that I’m wondering whether she genuinely means it.
Father Davide escorts us back to the bedroom and then leaves us, asking us to let them know soon whether we’re planning to join them for dinner.
Emma and I stand staring at each other for a long moment.
‘I can’t see how we can do the communal area sleep thing,’ she says eventually.
I nod.
We stare at each other some more.
Then Emma says, ‘It’s lovely here. We could be sleeping in the van tonight. Could be a lot worse.’
It could be. We do have a roof over our heads and – since realistically we’re both going to have to stay inside this room overnight – we do have two beds.
It could be better, though.
We could, for example, be a good couple of hundred miles further north towards England by now and be staying in a nice hotel with separate en-suite bedrooms.
‘I might just go and have a shower,’ I say.
Emma nods vigorously. ‘Good plan.’
As I get dry clothes out of my case, I realise that, now that we’re going to be on the road for an extra day, I’ll have to buy some more underwear and socks. The hotel did all my laundry for me, but I only came with four days’ worth of clothes and I’m going to have to change completely right now.
Which reminds me…
‘You mentioned spending the night in Florence,’ I say. I saw on Google Maps earlier that Florence is only about three hours from Rome in good traffic. ‘And also you referred to the Cinque Terre and the south of France earlier.’ That’s a bit of a detour from the fastest route to London. ‘I’d expected that we might have got further north today had it not rained? Beyond Milan, maybe into Switzerland?’ If we don’t do eight hours a day (or a lot more than that at Emma’s driving speed) this journey is going to take a very long time.
Emma shakes her head. ‘That’s a really long way.’
‘Only eight hours’ driving?’
‘I can’t drive for eight hours in one day. And I’ve never been to Florence before. So I was planning to arrive there mid-afternoon today and do some sightseeing for the rest of the day, before leaving in the morning. Obviously that will be delayed by a day now.’
‘Oh.’ Oh fuck. It’s sounding like the plans she told Father Davide about are actual ones. ‘And what’s your plan after that?’
‘I was thinking the Cinque Terre next.’
‘Okay. Great.’ I’m not an Italian geography expert but I’m pretty sure that the Cinque Terre are tourist-magnet pretty villages in the north-west corner of Italy and not on a direct line from here to London. ‘And then…?’
‘I was thinking the Alps and a night in Chamonix, and then two or three nights travelling up France to Paris, some sightseeing there, and then home on the ferry.’
‘Oh. That sounds…’ That sounds like a very, very long time on the road in the company of someone I do not want to be with, but to whom I can only be grateful. ‘It sounds great.’ I look at her looking at me with her eyebrows raised, waiting for me to say more and… God. What a farce. ‘So I’ll go and have my shower, then.’
There is no shower. It’s a bath, with no shower attachment of any kind. Unless Emma’s changed a lot , she will not appreciate that.
I take my time because I could do with some space from Emma to sort through my thoughts. Unbelievably, because it feels like a lot has happened today, it’s still only twelve thirty, as in there’s the whole of the rest of today to get through.
If the rain doesn’t let up, we’re both going to be stuck inside all day. I cannot spend the whole time with her, obviously. I’ll find somewhere separate to sit and do some work. I will also recheck my alternative travel options.
Back in the room, I find a note from Emma:
Gone for a walk. See you later.
Weirdly, because I should just be pleased that she isn’t here, I’m immediately annoyed, because now I’m going to worry about her. How have her family and friends coped with the terrifying thought that someone who’s gung-ho (stupid) enough to drive without windscreen wipers has been on this big journey alone? Anything could happen to someone travelling solo.
I decide to go for a walk myself. I need some lunch and I’d like to check that she’s alright. I mean, of course she is, but just in case.
And once I know that Emma is okay, I’m definitely going to spend the afternoon working.
I don’t have too much time to fume because I find her sitting with a Kindle on a stone bench in a corner of the cloister.
‘Hey.’ She looks up just as I approach even though my shoes have echoed on the stone as I walk and she must already have known I was here, and I get the strong sense that she would happily have ignored me if she could have got away with it. And that’s obviously a good thing, because I don’t want to engage either.
‘Hey.’ I realise that I’m an idiot because now that I know she hasn’t gone off on any kind of lunatic expedition by herself, I have no need to talk to her. I’m also an idiot because I want to provide an excuse for looking like I’ve followed her here. ‘Just on my way to find some lunch.’
‘That’s where I was going but the rain seems to be getting even heavier, and also we’re in the middle of nowhere and I think it would be quite a long way to anywhere that sells food.’
I nod and find myself sitting down next to her, before immediately regretting it. I’ve placed us in a conversation-having situation.
‘You know what I might do.’ I stand up again. ‘Go and ask if they might have a little bit of food they could spare for lunch.’
‘Good idea. Thank you.’ Emma’s half-smile has the ridiculous effect of making me want to see one of her full smiles. Her face is – always was, still is – beautiful in a very classic way, which is lovely to look at, but which is not what got me the first time we met. What got me was her smile, her real one, when she’s properly amused or happy. It’s wide, it’s cheeky, and it has this hint of naughtiness, and when she laughs you can’t help laughing too.
I say that; I imagine I could help laughing now if she laughed, because this day has not amused me so far.
‘Okay. I’ll report back in a minute.’ I turn round and Father Davide’s standing right behind me.
‘I should have offered you some lunch,’ he says. ‘Would you like to join us for some soup and bread?’
Emma and I say simultaneously that that would be wonderful. Clearly, it’s our best option.
A few minutes later, we’re seated in a hall at a long, oak refectory table with several monks and other guests of the monastery.
Introductions are performed and Emma and I are described as newly-weds on our honeymoon.
As one of the monks ladles steaming minestrone into bowls for us, Carla, one of the two American women sitting opposite us says, ‘Oh, I adore love stories. How did you two meet?’
Emma and I glance at each other at exactly the same moment and then away.
I’m still floundering, my mind fixed on when we actually first met, and how – as a previously commitment-phobic twenty-one-year-old – I looked at Emma and thought, that’s the girl I’m going to marry , when Emma speaks.
‘We were walking our dogs in the same park in London and the dogs started playing together and we started chatting and one thing led to another.’
Well. I have never owned a dog. Emma clearly doesn’t have a dog with her on this trip but maybe she has one at home. Maybe she met a different boyfriend while dog walking. I have to say that I don’t really like the idea of her putting my head onto a different boyfriend-meet.
‘That is gorgeous ,’ Carla tells us. ‘What kind of dogs do you have?’
‘Cockapoos,’ Emma says, not looking at me.
‘Both of them?’ Carla queries.
Emma nods. ‘Yes. That’s probably why they got on so well initially.’
‘They must be so pleased to be living together now,’ Carla says. ‘ Cute .’
‘Yes, really cute,’ Emma says.
Yeah, not that cute if she and her actual partner or ex both have cockapoos.
‘What are their names?’ asks Laura, Carla’s friend.
‘Um, Pasta and Bread.’ Ha, okay; Emma has clearly invented the dogs and has taken naming inspiration from the table in front of us. Ridiculously, that makes me want to smile.
‘Pasta and Bread?’ Laura echoes.
‘We like our carbs,’ I contribute.
‘And so do the dogs. Pasta and Bread,’ Emma says.
‘That’s a huge coincidence,’ Carla points out. ‘That they were called Pasta and Bread before you met.’
‘Well, that ,’ says Emma, not missing a beat, ‘is what got us talking properly. When we discovered that we had such similar taste in dog names.’
I nod soulfully. ‘Meant to be,’ I offer.
‘Exactly,’ Emma agrees.
‘So cute,’ Carla says. ‘When did you first know that you were in love?’
What? For God’s sake. No one asks questions like that.
‘It was one day when he thought he’d lost Pasta. It was the way he was shouting Pasta, Pasta , Paaaaastaaa ,’ Emma tells us all. ‘There was something very endearing about it. The way he cared so much.’
‘I do care,’ I say. ‘Anyway, who would like more bread?’
‘Or Bread.’ Carla laughs uproariously at her own (remarkably poor) joke and then wags her finger at me. ‘You aren’t getting off that easily. When did you first realise that you were in love with Emma?’
Completely lacking in inspiration, I tell her the truth. ‘The first time I saw her smile.’
And then, because having said that, I really cannot look at Emma for a while, I stand up and ask where the nearest bathroom is, and take myself off for a fake toilet break.
By the time we get back, Carla and Laura are describing their recent stay in Sicily and Emma’s doing an excellent impression of hanging on their every word. She might even be genuinely interested in their descriptions of each meal they’ve had for the past week, from the way she’s tilting her head to one side and nodding.
When they finish describing their meals, she bombards them with questions about every other imaginable facet of their holiday until we finish eating, at which point Emma says, ‘What a wonderful vacation,’ before turning to the monks. ‘Thank you so much; that was delicious.’
Then she stands up, so I do too, in my capacity as her new, devoted, dog-owning husband.
‘Thank you. Wonderful soup,’ I agree, and then we walk out together.
I can’t help dipping my head to say, ‘Dog walking?’ into her ear as we go. ‘Pasta and Bread?’
‘I know,’ she says cheerfully. ‘I can’t believe my own genius.’
The second we’ve left the hall, she says, ‘So I was thinking I would read this afternoon if the rain doesn’t let up.’
‘Perfect.’ I’m pleased that she seems as reluctant to spend the next few hours with me as I am to spend them with her. Very pleased. I am not going to worry about what she might get up to if the rain stops. I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’s an adult. She can look after herself. ‘I have work to do.’
‘Great, then. See you later.’ And off she goes back to the corner of the cloister bench that she was on before.
As I walk back to the room to get my laptop, I get a text from Emma:
I’m thinking we should meet in the room to go to dinner together?
Good idea.
The first thing I do when I get back to the room is email Janet about alternative travel options before starting some googling of my own.
It feels as though we’ve been on the road on a fairly arduous journey for many hours. In reality, though, we aren’t that far out of Rome and only half a day has passed since we first saw each other this morning, and therefore my travel options are extremely similar to how they were first thing: there are still no alternatives to the camper van other than walking and hitchhiking. And, according to Janet, in many European counties, including Italy, hitchhiking is illegal on roads where pedestrians are banned (like motorways), and in Italy it is also illegal to hitchhike at motorway service areas. And I don’t fancy doing anything remotely illegal, because I like being a lawyer.
So until tomorrow, at least, when we will hopefully reach Florence, if not further, I think I’m going to have to gratefully accept my ride with Emma.
By early evening, I’ve accomplished some actual work. I’ve also called Thea for a chat, which always makes me feel better, and I feel that I’ve pretty much come to terms with the weirdness of seeing Emma again.
Obviously this evening we’ll have to eat dinner together, but once we’ve left here, I doubt I’ll have to talk to her as much; for the remaining time we’re on the road, we can listen to music in the van. All good. Totally fine.
And when Emma rattles the door handle a lot before coming into the room, I am fine .
I’m still fine when she says, ‘I thought it would be weird for a wife to knock on the door of the room she’s sharing with her husband; hope that was okay,’ and I nod and say of course it’s fine, which of course it is, and then she follows up with: ‘Have you seen the gorgeous blue, blue, cloud-free sky outside?’
‘As in, the rain’s finally let up?’
I hadn’t seen; I’ve been engrossed in reviewing a contract for the last hour.
‘Yes, exactly.’
‘Oh my God, so we could… go?’ I do of course feel grateful to the monks for taking us in. But I also really just want to get home and I don’t want to share this room with Emma, for so many reasons. ‘I mean, obviously I’ll still pay the monks. And for dinner, too. We can find a garage on the way or in Florence to fix the wipers.’
‘Yes. Although…’ She looks at her watch. ‘It’s getting late.’
‘It’s only seven p.m.?’
‘What time does it get dark, though?’
‘Oh, okay. Sorry; I hadn’t thought that you might not like driving in the dark.’
I suppose night-time driving is the same kind of thing as driving anywhere near the speed limit on the motorway, so it makes sense that she might not like it. And I cannot complain, I remind myself; I am lucky to have this lift.
‘Well, no, it’s…’ And then her eyes shift away from mine. And she says, ‘Yep.’
I feel my eyes narrow as I watch her. She was definitely going to say something else.
‘Emma?’
‘Mmm?’ She isn’t looking at me at all now; she’s busying herself pointlessly neatening her already perfectly neatly placed Kindle and sunglasses on the little table between the beds.
‘Do the lights on the van not work?’
She sits up straight on her bed and looks me right in the eye. ‘Most of them do work.’
‘But some don’t?’
‘Just the back ones. As of literally yesterday.’
I stare at her as I feel a wave of real fury wash over me.
I make a huge effort and say, very conversationally, rather than yelling , ‘You know you’re an idiot?’
‘Oh, please.’
‘What do you mean oh, please .’ I’m veering more towards the yell than the conversational now. ‘Broken windscreen wipers, back lights not working. That’s dangerous .’
‘It’s only dangerous if you drive in the rain or the dark. I never have to drive in the dark, like I’m not going to do now.’ She smiles at me as though her words are entirely logical and acceptable. I’m sure they aren’t, but in the moment I can’t work out why not.
‘The rain, though?’ I say. That’s definitely dangerous.
‘I didn’t know it was going to rain and in my defence it’s rare for the weather forecast to be that extremely wrong and as soon as it did start to rain I stopped driving.’
‘We were very lucky that there was an exit so soon.’
‘We’re fine, though?’ She shrugs, with a palms-up hand gesture.
‘I mean, you might well not have been. We have no way of knowing what might have happened. God. What else have you been doing while you’re away?’
My mind’s boggling at how much danger she could have been putting herself in if she’s this… I mean, the word is reckless.
‘You sound like Samira,’ she grumbles.
Samira. I haven’t thought of her in a while. I’m transported straight back to the last time I saw her, me and several others – people I’d just met, I think – standing on the bar in a pub in Mile End doing shots shortly before getting kicked out by the landlord. Then Emma talked him into not calling the police and she shoved me into a cab, where I think I started singing, and she talked the driver into agreeing to take us home, despite my very obvious extreme drunkenness.
Weirdly, the look on Emma’s face now is not dissimilar to the one she wore then: a mix of defiance and disappointment. Disappointment in me . I brush away the thought that, if she wants a travel companion who’s willing to do anything , knowing the old me she might have imagined that I would be ideal. I am no longer the old me, and the new me is certainly not that reckless.
‘So we—’ I realise that I’m not leaving her until she has the van properly sorted at a garage ‘—need to get the wipers and the lights sorted before we go anywhere.’
‘ Obviously I was going to. I was planning to go in France – the south of France, as soon as I crossed the border – because as I told you I speak French and I do not speak Italian, but now I’m obviously going to get the wipers done tomorrow morning and I will obviously get the lights done at the same time.’
Unlike when we were young, it will make no difference to the rest of my life if I piss her off, so I say, ‘You really need to be more careful.’
‘Well, luckily,’ she says, a little snippily, ‘at the moment I seem to have you here to ensure that.’
‘That is lucky,’ I agree. Not for me, though. This whole situation is one of the least lucky things that’s happened for a long time. At this rate, I’m going to be so worried about Emma that I’m going to end up sticking with her for the whole of the rest of the journey, however long it takes.
She glares at me and opens her mouth and then closes it again and then visibly takes a deep breath. ‘So, dinner?’
She leaves the room and sets off at a very good pace along the corridor, before slowing down and waiting for me.
‘Remembered I’m your husband this evening?’ I ask.
‘Yup.’ She isn’t laughing.
I nod.
And then we walk next to each other, in uncompanionable silence, along the corridor.