16. Rome, October
ROME, OCTOBER
When we exchanged our first text messages, Jean was gossipy and warm. The Sotheby’s party was “a bit stiff,” but it had been nice to meet me, she said.
I’m having a party of my own next week , she wrote. I’ll be sure to call you along. You could bring a friend!
At the time, the idea excited me: the prospect of showing off an art-world contact to Mary.
We were in that stage of early adulthood where it was exciting to have an eccentric, older friend.
The girls at the Melrose school collected these characters like currency; they were always being wined and dined by mysterious, childless grown-ups, and I wanted one of my own.
The scene at Jean’s house was delicious when I conjured it: the glamorous expat bringing fabulous people together in her salon.
I imagined turning up with Mary, getting drunk, and gliding around the room, charming all the guests.
But Jean’s crowd would impress us, too. Mary would say to me in awe: Where on earth did you meet her? ”
So when Jean kept up the conversation over text, asking kind questions about how I was settling into the city, I responded enthusiastically.
Just climbed the Palatine! I gushed, sending a photo, thinking of the invite. It was important she didn’t forget meeting me.
The hill of broken ceramics. So apt for you! And how’s your modeling contract? She followed the question with an emoji of an artist’s palette.
I replied with an image of a girl shrugging and an upside-down smiley face. For a few hours, she didn’t respond, and then, sometime in the middle of the night, when I found myself wide awake, Jean followed up with a single heart.
When the evening of Jean’s drinks party came, it turned out that no one from the Melrose could make it.
They were all going to some prearranged dinner that I hadn’t been invited to.
Deflated, but still curious, I took the tram over to Jean’s apartment in the Ghetto alone.
The heavy front door was left ajar, so I entered the building without needing to be buzzed in.
The door led into a shadowy courtyard, which was silent and dark, apart from a few glowing windows which shone from the apartments above.
I listened carefully for music or voices.
Nothing. I brought out my phone to check Jean’s flat number, but then I heard footsteps emerging from a staircase on the left side.
Through the portico, a figure of a petite young woman emerged.
Her long blond hair was slightly matted, and her coat was held carelessly in her hand, as if she’d left in a hurry.
As she approached me, I noticed her eyes were swollen and her nose was lightly running.
“ Buonasera ,” I said. “ Cerco Signora …”
“You can speak English,” the girl sniffed impatiently. “I’m English.”
“Oh, great. I’m looking for a woman called Jean Guest? She’s also English.”
The girl stared at me, her expression a mixture of envy and concern, before stepping aside. “It’s up there,” she said, pushing her way past. “Fifth floor.”
Jean gasped as she opened the door.
“Goodness, what’s wrong with you, Gus? You look pale!”
Her white shirt had a stately collar, stiff and risen. She wore it tucked into pleated cream trousers, and there were orange velvet house slippers on her feet. In her immaculate presence, I felt instantly grubby, like I needed to change clothes or slip out of my skin entirely.
“Paler than usual?” I tried to pass it off with a smile, though I could feel myself grimacing. My hips were locked with pain. Earlier that day, my period had started. My cramps had begun as I sat still for Mary, and the climb up to Jean’s piano hadn’t helped.
“Come in, come in,” she said gently, beckoning me into her apartment for the first time.
“I just met an English girl outside,” I said weakly, gesturing behind me. “Is she coming?”
“Ah,” Jean said. “Not yet. I thought it would be nice to have a bit of catch-up time together first.”
I took in my surroundings. It was calm and warm inside Jean’s apartment. The air smelled of heated butter and pasta starch. Taking my coat, she offered a seat on her pale blue sofa.
“Is it cramps?” she asked as I lowered myself stiffly.
I startled. My family never talked about bodily things; I hadn’t even admitted to my mother when I started menstruating. But it was Jean’s uncanny insight that took me aback, the fact she had instantly guessed the source of my pain. For a moment there, on the sofa, I felt transparent.
I nodded shyly. “Just came on.”
“Nasty business,” she said, going back out into the hallway.
“I don’t miss mine.” When she returned, she passed me a thick, chalky tablet and a glass of water.
“Strong enough to knock out a horse,” she joked gently, putting on her gold-rimmed glasses to read from the back of the packet.
“ Perfetto .” She surveyed me for a few moments as I gratefully drank and sat backward.
“Why don’t I run you a quick bath?” she suggested softly. “That always used to help me.”
I protested, said not to fuss. I was thinking of the drinks party and that it was probably rude of me to accept, but the more she insisted, the stranger it seemed to decline.
The shower in my moldy bathroom in Termini barely produced a drip of water.
Suddenly, I felt desperate to submerge myself, get a good hair wash, and feel properly clean.
“Are you sure there’s time?” I asked meekly.
Jean smiled, happy to have won me over. She left the room, and then a moment later, I heard the volley of water running.
It was relaxing, sitting there in her beautiful living room; a crackling recording of an old aria was playing, bookshelves lined the walls, and among the artworks, there were framed posters from famous nineties art exhibitions held at the Barbican and the RA that I had once read about.
But, apart from a few silver bowls of nuts and olives which had been arranged on side tables, I couldn’t see any signs of a larger party happening.
I was calmed by this prospect of a smaller, more intimate evening than I had anticipated.
I leaned backward on the sofa and closed my eyes, feeling the tiredness and relief wash over me.
Then Jean appeared again, touching me lightly on the shoulder. The bath was ready.
Her bathroom was small and tiled with high ceilings; a pink cubicle of Italian kitsch. Candles had been lit. And on the side of the bath, she had arranged a cold flannel, a carafe of ice water, and a glass of red wine.
Half dazed, I thanked her. Jean only smiled and pinched my chin.
“I’ll leave you be.”
Years later, I think back to this moment and I want to scream.
I see myself lowering my body into the water, as if it were a pit of snakes.
But, at the time, I wasn’t perturbed by the odd intimacy of Jean’s offer.
I was just grateful for the curative warmth of a good bath.
My skin prickled and turned puce as I lay with my knees stuck out of the surface, letting the water lap into the diamond shape between my legs.
My body loosening, I stared at the whorls of plaster in the ceiling, replaying the way Mary had spoken about the dinner they were all going to, wondering if Vincenzo would be there, too.
I found myself constantly obsessing over the seriousness of their relationship.
He was always traveling, so none of the other girls had met him, but Mary seemed preoccupied with his messages.
Slipping down further, until the water plugged my ears, I devised my own messages to Mary that I’d send during the party, once I had a few drinks in me.
When I sat up, I rinsed my face with water once, two times.
The heat was searing and nice. When I opened my eyes, Jean was there, standing beside the bath.
“Jean!” I shouted in a panic, trying desperately to cover myself with my hands. “Can you get the fuck out?”
“Oh!” she cried, fleeing from the room. “Sorry!”
I tried to laugh away my reaction.
“No, I’m sorry,” I called, pulling out the plug hole. “You made me jump.”
“I didn’t mean to shock you,” she said from outside the door, sounding injured. “I was just letting you know that you can take your time. I called the drinks off.”
“What?” I said, stepping away from the draining bath so that I could hear properly. “Why?”
“You didn’t seem up to it.”
I dried myself off quickly, then dressed in my old clothes and the spare underwear she’d left behind for me in a little pile by the sink.
It was such an absurdly kind gesture, I thought, to find fresh things to wear.
I began to feel terrible that Jean had changed all her arrangements for me, for the fact that I had then snapped at her.
When I went out into the kitchen, Jean was preparing a meal. She gestured toward a round glass table, and I sat down.
“What about the party?” I protested again. “You know, I can just leave. Or stay. Just let them come. I’ll try not to be the specter at the feast.”
Jean explained that she had only invited her neighbors.
They were, in her words, “relaxed, simple people” and “very authentic” and that they didn’t mind the sudden change.
However much I insisted, Jean was adamant.
So, instead, I overcompensated, speaking rapidly, complimenting her house, the smell of her cooking.
I thanked her for the clothes she had lent me and made a joke about my prudishness in the bath, blaming my upbringing.
Jean blinked when I said that, looking at me with interest, the candle flames reflecting in the lenses of her glasses.
“In what way, repressed?”
I reflected on her question. “Maybe not repressed but disembodied. Anything physical was completely avoided.”
Jean blinked again, more gravely. “I’m guessing they were religious?”