Chapter Text
“Love is the seventh sense which destroys all other senses.”
– Anonymous
Cover art by Patties92, neon_fox, Vapidus, ExitThroughTheGiftShop, sparklingjoy, Pufosenie23 and neon_fox.
The window is open and the AC’s on, but the bedroom air is still so hot and humid it’s like lying in a giant mouth. In fact it’s more than hot. It’s stifling – as if the entire city is slowly boiling and gasping for breath. I can feel sweat starting to gather at my neck and hairline, but even though I’d be more comfortable if I moved away from the heat of your skin next to mine I know I’m not actually going to.
“So,” I finally announce into the darkness. “So…”
I’m speaking very slowly and carefully, labouring over each syllable so there can be no possible mistake. It makes me sound stilted and unnatural – a bad actor reciting lines he never properly learned – but despite the way my own voice in my ears is making me cringe I can’t quite stop myself. There’s also the way you’re tilting your head every time I say ‘so’ and there’s a bit of me that wants to see how many times I can make you do it before you realise I’m being a dick on purpose. Then I’m tempted to make a stupid joke about you resembling a bobble head to hide how nervous I am before deciding there’s no real point. Mostly because you don’t look like a bobble head (as opposed to poised and thoughtful) and the only one who’s going to come out looking bad is me (while repeating ‘so’ on a loop with all the dignity and gravitas of someone having a seizure). You probably don’t even know what a bobble head is.
“Will,” you say, and the sound of your voice finally snaps me out of it and forces me to clear my throat – even though I know in advance that nothing’s going to come out except another ‘so.’
“S-o-o-o,” I eventually manage. This time I drag it out for a bit of variety; in the darkness I can see you tip your head again. “So.” (Deep breath). “What you’re saying…what you’re saying is you want to get married?”
You don’t bother replying to this; partly because of how much you despise stating the obvious, but also because awkward silences never bother you. We could probably be here until morning and you’d still just be lying there, watching and waiting in endless stretching silence with that same faint smile on your face. Not for the first time it reminds how much you enjoy seeing me uncomfortable so I duck my head to deny you the satisfaction, burrowing away until it’s impossible for you to clearly see my face. This is ideal because it eliminates all opportunities for eye contact but also means you can’t translate my expression (mission accomplished). Then I just lie there fidgeting while trying and failing to work out what to say next. But it’s difficult so I can’t, and I don’t even realise how franticly I’ve begun to gnaw my bottom lip until I feel your hand against my face to make me stop.
“Will,” you repeat.
So you have broken the silence after all: the first response you’ve made that’s genuinely unexpected. In fact it’s surprising enough to make me roll over again and pull myself upright. Despite the heat of the evening the sudden blast from the fan is uncomfortable and I huddle slightly then tug the sheet over my head. It then occurs to me (a bit too late) that this is giving me an unfortunate resemblance to ET in the basket…possibly you think the same because you start to smile before reaching up to pull it away. Not that I can blame you. You may not have many limits but proposing to a grown man wrapped naked in a sheet might reasonably be considered one of them.
“Look, I’m not saying no,” I reply eventually. “I’m definitely not saying that.” There’s a pause: it obviously occurs to both of us that I’m not saying ‘yes’ either. “I’m just…I’m not sure. It’s a big step. There’s a lot of things to think about.” You raise an eyebrow, clearly inviting me to elaborate on what these things could be. “I mean I’ve already been married once,” I add. “It feels so different with you.” Quite possibly this is the understatement of the year; maybe of the century. For a few seconds I grind to a halt then just shrug and add, rather lamely: “I’m afraid it would change things.”
You’re still not saying anything yourself and by now your silence is making me uncomfortable. It’s deliberate of course: a standard therapy technique to push someone into blurting escalating degrees of honesty. I clear my throat again, trying to make my voice sound as confident as possible, but I know it’s not particularly convincing. In fact if I’m honest it’s not convincing at all…I’ve probably seen porn films with better acting.
“I suppose at least when they arrest you I could get conjugal visits,” I add. You raise your eyebrows politely and so I just sit there and try to work out why I’m making a joke out of it, particularly a shit joke that’s not remotely funny. It’s still true though. For a few seconds I have an image of Freddie Lounds writing articles about me being a prison widow before remembering that I’d hardly be visiting your cell as opposed to sitting in the one next to it.
Even this doesn’t make you reply, so eventually I just give up completely and slump back onto your chest again so you can wrap your arms round me. This feels much more comfortable because I’ve always liked getting hugs from you (even though I’ll never admit it) whereas you seem to like administering them (even though you’ll never admit it either). It’s actually turned into a bit of an elephant in the room by now, a sort of ‘look at all this reciprocal giving and receiving of hugs: aren’t we just the pair of sad, sentimental old bastards?’ scenario. You’re very good at it though. No one would think that to look at you – not in a million years – but you really are. It’s partly because you do it like you do everything else, which is with complete dedication and focus. Plus you always throw in little garnishes, like stroking my back, nuzzling my throat, or brushing your lips against my hair, so a hug from you always end up as an event in its own right.
“Have you been struck dumb or something?” I say eventually. To emphasise the point I reach up and prod your jaw with my finger. “You’re never this quiet.”
I’m half-expecting you to ignore me again in service of being as aggravating as possible (in other words, your ongoing quest to achieve maximum levels of dickishness), but instead you press your lips against my finger and when you speak your voice has that fond, amused tone that always makes it sound as if you’re smiling.
“On the contrary,” you say. “I prefer to listen to you.”
“No you wouldn’t,” I say gloomily. “Anyway, I’ve run out of stuff to say about it. I’ve actually started thinking about something totally different.”
“So what are you thinking about?”
“Freddie Lounds.” I pause for a few seconds, weighing up whether I want to self-identify as a prison widow before deciding no, definitely not: not at all. “It’s nothing,” I add. “I'd rather not talk about it.”
“That’s good,” you say politely. “I'd rather not hear about it.”
I laugh at this then pretend to punch your shoulder before settling down again and wrapping both arms around your chest. You sigh contentedly in response and I lean up to nudge your jaw a few times with my forehead. “I love you,” I say. “Even though you’re awful.”
This makes you smile; you’re always weirdly tolerant of me telling you how awful you are. “Although even if we did there’s no way I’d take your name,” I add. “So don’t even think about it.” I think about it myself for a few seconds then give a full-body cringe. I suppose the modern thing would be to double-barrel them but there’s no way I’d do that either (because, not to put too fine a point on it, it sounds shit).
“I’m not double-barrelling them either,” I now say out loud. “It sounds sh...ocking.”
“Indeed it does,” you reply. “For once we seem to be in total agreement.”
“I suppose we could make a portmanteau name. Grater. Lecham.”
“No,” you say firmly. “We could not.”
This makes me laugh again, although even as I’m doing it I know that the joking is nothing more than an avoidance strategy – and that you know this too – but, at least for the moment, neither of us are going to call it what it is. Then after that I don’t say anything at all and just lie silently in the darkness with my eyes fixed on nothing. Married.
*****
Looking back on it now, I think the part I remember most clearly was the flight out America: mostly because it might have been the closest I'd ever seen you to being genuinely nervous. But then of course I was nervous too, possibly even more so, because after everything we’d been through it seemed so perverse yet so probable that something so mundane as a checkout desk would be the thing that finally brought us down. That journey was perhaps one of the most excruciating moments of my life, and I spent it marinating in a miserable brew of fear and fatalism that grabbed me by the throat the moment the cab arrived for the airport and refused to let go again the whole time after. The main way I coped was by attempting to stage-manage every detail – everything from where we sat to who carried which bags – but while it must have been incredibly irritating to put up with you never once complained about it. I even devised a needlessly elaborate scheme that I was a military vet (to cover for my scars and air of wary paranoia) while forcing you to pretend you couldn’t speak English (because I was concerned your accent was too distinctive to speak out loud) and which meant you ended up mute for most of it while I alternated between silence and a snappy, snarling impatience that was exhausting for both us but still preferable to the fear it was designed to cover up for. Even when airborne I couldn’t relax and spent most of the flight gazing numbly out of the window, imagining how the roaring grey waves of the Atlantic would turn into the deep dreamy blue of the Mediterranean and how the former was a kind of graveyard that should have had us both at the bottom of it with crumbling sea-salt bones. ‘We’re going to get caught; they’re going to catch us’ was running through my head the whole time and even when the plane had landed in Italy I still couldn’t accept that they weren’t going to find a way to stop us; that we were really going to get away with it. But they didn’t, did they? And so – we did.
In fact it was only after arriving that I began to fully understand how my obsession with escaping America meant I’d never really paused for long enough to plan beyond it and consider what ‘getting away with it’ would actually mean. All I knew at the time was the most literal sense of putting an ocean between where we’d started and where we ended up. But then we crossed the ocean and that was that – and a whole new scope of issues presented themselves instead. Things like finding somewhere to live, something to live on and, most of all, working out how to do it together. It was clear none of this would be straightforward, but then I think we both knew there was no chance it could be when the spectre of the past still lingered in every word and glance like a third person in the room. That old tension and rivalry was still there and even now it’s never fully gone away. If I’m honest I’m not even sure I’d want it to, because without it I know we’d be less intense and therefore less connected. Instead we’re like sandpaper, chafing off one another’s rough edges every time we touch.
Most of the time these tensions get bleached away by the sunlight, yet they’ll often come out at night to prowl around again; mostly in my dreams, which seem to feature you with embarrassing regularity. I’d like to say that these are dewy and romantic but of course they’re not. Often you’re trying to hurt me, or I’m trying to hurt you, and I’m still not entirely sure which of these scenarios feels worse. If I could I’d prefer to ignore it, but there’s no doubt there’s still a part of me that’s unsettled by you and what you’re capable of – just like I know there’s a part of you that remains wary of me as the only person who could realistically bring you down. I also know another wariness of yours is the idea that one day I could leave you, and just like my dreams it’s an impulse that mostly comes out at night. It makes you cling to me while I’m sleeping so I’ll wake to find your arm slung possessively round my chest or a hand gripping my shoulder, and while I’ll often pull away because it’s too hot or uncomfortable you always come after me to do it again. Instead I’ll end up rolling you over so I can lie against your back and cling onto you instead, and although it’s a simple solution it always seems to make you happy.
To be honest I don’t really know which of these has the most influence on us: your wariness or my fear. It rarely seems to happen now that we’ve grown more used to each other, but to begin with they managed to collide quite often. The first time was the most dramatic. We’d been arguing over something, which as a strategy is always fatal because it’s impossible to argue with you. You just get that aloof, closed-off look which provokes me into growing more outlandish and aggressive in an attempt to get a reaction. The cause was so trivial I’ve forgotten what it was by now, but at the time it felt incredibly weighty and serious and I remember standing there bristling at you with a voice stretched taut and thin with barely suppressed outrage. Eventually you made this quick movement forwards and it immediately triggered something in my brain – just the sight of you coming towards me with that cold, dead expression on your face. Later on you told me that you’d been planning to leave the room until I’d calmed down, but of course I didn’t know that at the time and instead pounced straight at you and twisted your arm back, hard enough to feel the delicate bones in your wrist grind together. You were surprised then, I think: you kept staring at me. ‘You look terrified,’ you said finally. ‘Did you really think I was going to hurt you?’
There was a long painful silence and then I’d shrugged and let go. ‘You really think I would have let you hurt me?’ I’d said, mocking and defiant as if the idea of you getting the upper hand was too absurd to be taken seriously. Secretly I was sorry, but I still couldn’t bring myself to apologise for it. Instead I vanished upstairs for the rest of the day and it wasn’t until much later in the evening that I finally went into the living room and curled up next to you on the sofa and put my head on your knee. I didn’t say anything and neither did you. You just started stroking my hair with one hand, pausing every so often to brush my cheek with your thumb, while I took your other hand in mine and clung onto it. I stayed still for so long I nearly fell asleep but then abruptly and shockingly, with no warning at all, I found myself beginning to cry. It was possibly one of the mortifying experiences of my life but I just couldn’t stop myself. It was the contrast, I think. It was like I could see us in the past, with all that horror and misery, and the comparison to the present moment was too overpowering to process. It wasn’t just grief for all the suffering, but also a sense of loss for everything I’d been denied since I first met you: for all the good experiences I should have had, but didn’t. Ideally it would have been elegant crying like something from a poem – a single tear trickling over my cheekbone – but this was brutally despairing and unrestrained. You didn’t say anything the entire time: didn’t tell me to pull myself together, or offer any lying platitudes about how everything was fine. Instead you just gathered me into your arms and held onto me, my head tucked beneath your chin as you ran your palm up and down my back. Then you started speaking very softly in a foreign language because you knew how soothing I find your voice and it was a way to give me the comfort of it without any pressure to reply or even process what you were saying. Mostly it was in Lithuanian, which felt very profound at the time because it’s your native language and one that’s somehow closest to the heart of you. That was months ago now but it still seems like we often communicate like that: silently yet sincerely, in the gaps between the words.
In fact that scene on the sofa was probably a bit of a watershed moment because since then things have been slightly more straightforward. Not exactly romantic – at least not by most people’s standards – but possibly not that far off. We even fell into a routine of snug domesticity pretty early on, which I’d never have thought I’d like so much yet by now has become a comfortable comingling of space that’s almost impossible to imagine being without. They’re always very small things yet are still oddly reassuring regardless: our shoes sharing closet space, for example, or your coat cosily draped over mine while hanging on the same hook, or even something as simple as assorted cufflinks, watches and loose change strewn together in a heap on the desk. I also enjoy the way we casually borrow each other’s things without ever having to ask: you using my razors or shampoo because you can’t find your own, or me grabbing one of your shirts first thing in the morning then wearing it all day with no one else being aware of the switch. Even most of our disagreements have devolved into the surprisingly stupid and mundane; an especially long running one being that you keep wanting me to pose for a nude drawing and I keep refusing you permission.
“No!” I said the first time you asked. It was the type of tone I use with dogs – kind but firm, slightly patronising – and you apparently felt the same because for a few seconds it seemed like you were struggling not laugh. “No way. Are you kidding me? That’s the cringiest thing I ever heard.”
You promptly looked disappointed, but I refused to budge, and in the end just let you draw candid pictures instead as a sort of compromise. This has resulted in countless sketch books filled with me doing the most boring crap imaginable: reading or walking or frowning at my laptop, or even me just staring into space. Some of them make me look vaguely angelic with huge eyes and a pensive mouth, but in others I look wild and feral. “Oh well,” you said when I called you out on it. “They always say a portrait is a greater reflection of the artist than the sitter.” I never see you draw yourself and you claim that you find my likeness more intriguing than your own, which I suspect is a metaphor for something even though I can’t quite figure out what.
“Why should it be a metaphor?” you replied. “Why is it so implausible that I find you interesting?”
“Because you’re a narcissist, that’s why. No one’s more interesting to you than you.”
You started smiling then, eyes gleaming slightly in the lamplight like a cat. “And there you have it,” you said. “We’re both such a rare breed: I’ve always felt I can understand myself better through understanding you.”
I was about to make a sarcastic reply, then caught sight of your face and fell silent as it struck me that for once you were being sincere. In this respect you’re surprisingly good at being one half of a couple; much better than I am if I’m honest. You can be unexpectedly gentle and attentive with lots of long gazes, soft touches, and a tender tone of voice that calls me things like dearest, darling and my love. I don’t call you anything except your name, but you never seem to mind. Endearments don’t suit you somehow: I’ve auditioned several possibilities in my head by now but none of them seem to work. Occasionally I’ll call you ‘tesoro’ because it’s easier in another language, like a shield to hide behind, and because I’d once overheard a teenager say it to her boyfriend and it seemed funny applied to you because it was so inappropriate – a bit like putting a satin bow on a Rottweiler. Only it was obvious you liked it so much that the joke never really wore off, and over time it seems to have mellowed into something more serious. It translates as ‘treasure’ or ‘precious’ so I suppose it’s not entirely inappropriate anyway.
“The precious,” I’d said later, to hide how self-conscious I felt. “Like Gollum.”
Naturally you didn’t get this because you have no pop culture references at all. It was clear you’d guessed it was unflattering though, because in revenge you started calling me ‘piccolo’ – probably because you wanted to see how long it would take me to work out what it meant and have a tantrum.
“I know you think you’re hilarious but you’re not,” I’d said once I’d had time to confer with Google. “So you can cut that out right now. I am not little.”
You’d glanced at me over your coffee mug then delivered on of your more feline smiles. “No beloved,” you’d said with exaggerated sincerity. “You’re just not entirely large.”
I hadn’t replied at all to that, but instead just bided my time then waited until you walked past before pouncing on you and clinging onto your shoulders like a rabid monkey. You’d started smiling then; you always like it when I’m ridiculous. One time early on you explained why. ‘It’s because you’re being playful,’ you’d said. ‘It’s always predators who are the most playful Will, because they have the confidence and the leisure for it. Prey, on the other hand…prey is never secure enough because all its resources go towards survival. Look how playful a cat is compared to a bird; or your own dogs compared to the sheep they like to chase so much.’ What you didn’t add was ‘look at me and how much I enjoyed taunting you and your FBI friends’ but it was obvious you were thinking it. I didn’t care though. If anything speeches like that just encourage me to be more impulsive. Admittedly I don’t do it all that often, but sometimes I can’t help myself – it’s like a sudden explosion of high-spirits that makes me madcap and excitable. To be honest the sensation was so unfamiliar at first that it took me a while to recognise it for what it was: happiness.
In fact in the early months of arriving in Italy the only small snag amid so much contentment was a growing sense of wanting someone else to witness it – and which was one of the reasons I found myself falling into an unlikely correspondence with Mr Haversham. Even the act itself feels weird because I so rarely use a pen now that my handwriting looks cramped and spidery, but I have to send him letters because he can’t use email. Of course he’d got it into his head that I’m off in Europe with my ‘young lady’ so in his replies he always asks after her. The first time he did it I was going to say that I’m single but found that I couldn’t bring myself to write it down. It’s ridiculous really, but I couldn’t; I couldn’t fathom you not being there, even when the person representing you was imaginary. So now I just use the letters as an excuse to tell him what you’ve been doing instead. I like having an audience I can gush about you to, even when hiding behind an avatar, and I regularly waste pages and pages describing the way your skin goes olive in the sun, or how you know virtually every street in Florence, or the time I surprised you with tickets to La Traviata and the way it made you smile. I enjoy describing them because they’re important, these little details; these little glimpses of You. I think most people see you more as a brand or a concept than an actual person. You’re so intelligent and imposing with that indefinable air of menace that you have, so it’s the little details which help to make you more human and knowable. It’s a way to see behind the façade and learn to understand you: that you’re not just this detached, unearthly representation that people admire, and are afraid of, but who’s totally removed from the rest of us. You’re so much more than that, and I can’t believe it took me this long to see it.
Of course Mr Haversham always thinks this gushing is cute, even though it’s actually pretty mortifying and I’d die of embarrassment if you ever saw the letters yourself. ‘You’re very smitten aren’t you William?’ he says in his replies. ‘You’ve obviously got her bad.’ Then he’ll usually follow it up with something sentimental and declaratory like ‘Young love is a wonderful thing!’ even though neither of us are remotely young and only someone as ancient as Mr Haversham would ever think we were. Even so, I can’t deny I like the way it sounds: romantic and dashing, with the sting of long hot summers and making out in fields and car seats, or a school locker room that smells of sweat and chewing gum. Besides, it doesn’t matter if the young part is wrong because the rest is true and surely that’s the most important half. Because we are, aren’t we. We’re in love.
In this respect I’ve probably overdone it because Mr Haversham seems to think I live in an Ingrid Bergman movie and has become a bit insatiable for details. It also meant I was forced to come up with a fake name for you because I could hardly keep referring to ‘My Girlfriend’ in the way someone would reference My Car or My House. At first I was briefly tempted by Annabelle, simply because it was such an absurd pun; or even Hannah from that time he overheard us having sex and I had to improvise. But while it’s impossible anyone would ever see the letters I’m still too paranoid to risk it so ultimately just referred to the imaginary girlfriend as Anna instead. This seemed like a good choice of name – solidly forgettable and roundly American-sounding – and even compelled me to elaborate an imaginary back story of her growing up on a farm in Maine surrounded by dogs and picket fences. Mr Haversham promptly got more besotted than ever and at one point started asking for photos, meaning I had some quick explaining to do about how ‘she’ hates having her picture taken, even though you’re so vain you love it and I’m the one who’s camera-shy. Mr Haversham seemed to find this coyness not only charming but completely believable, most likely because he’s never heard of selfies or Instagram and grew up in an era when woman’s ankles were considered risqué. ‘Young ladies like sweet things don’t they?’ he wrote in his latest letter. ‘Should I mail her some peanut butter candy? I don’t suppose they sell it in Europe.’ I told him not to bother but he did it anyway and I still ended up giving it you, even though I knew you’d hate it. It was during the Mardi Gras and I was sitting on your knee (I was pretty drunk at the time). “Look what Mr Haversham sent you,” I said. “He thinks your name is Anna.”
As predicted you weren’t remotely impressed with the chocolate, even though I know you secretly quite like Mr Haversham for looking after me in that time beyond the cliff when everything went black and it was just a hellish stretch of waiting before you finally came back. But I still caught you inspecting the parcel when you thought I wasn’t looking, thoughtfully running a finger across the US postmark like you were remembering that old apartment and the time you’d spent with him hearing how I’d failed to cope when we weren’t together. Feeling how you felt then? Who knows: perhaps you were, perhaps not. You’re so difficult to read sometimes and of course you’d never say so either way. Naturally you never went so far as to actually eat any of the candy yourself so I ended up devouring it all in one go on my own, licking the chocolate off my fingers afterwards like a teenager. It was greasy and gorgeous and tasted like home, and it made me think of Mr Haversham with his arthritic fingers and his ordinary life and how strange it was that this eminently nice old man had now become a tiny part of it: the beautiful, terrible Story of Us.
*****
It’s now been nearly 12 hours since your ‘By the way, let’s get married’ bombshell and in the entire time I haven’t mentioned it once and neither have you. It’s actually pretty ridiculous. I can’t help it though, because I don’t feel ready to say ‘yes’ and in the absence of that what else is there to tell you that you’d really want to hear? It’s times like these that I feel the full weight of my own emotional constipation, although to be fair it’s not like you’re any better. In fact if anything you’re even worse. I don’t think you recognise what your emotions are half the time – they could punch you in the face and you still wouldn’t know. You’d probably just punch them back then machete them or something. There’s also no doubt that the situation has the potential to grow very messy very quickly, but while I might agonise over this I suspect it’s yet another thing that won’t bother you. In fact it certainly won’t, because messes never do: your solution is always just to make a bigger mess that cancels out the first one.
It’s my turn to pay the rent this month (always cash; always untraceable) and while I’d bitched endlessly beforehand at having to go, the memory of last night’s silence makes me glad at an excuse to leave the apartment and avoid the numerous awkward conversations that I know are still lying in wait. The relator’s office is several miles away, which will let me stretch the journey out enough to sprawl across the entire afternoon, but while the distance is usually a source of annoyance it’s not the reason I dislike going. Ironically I was the one who found it in the first place although the location, while inconvenient, has always bothered me far less than the agent himself. It was clear from the start that he was suspicious about a cash payment, and after nearly an hour of wrangling (and me playacting Dumb American Tourist to an extent that was borderline painful) he agreed on the condition of an added fee to the rental price; allegedly for ‘administrative inconvenience’, but really because he’d guessed my options were limited and felt he might as well make a profit off it. At the time I was too relieved to have found someone willing to give us a home to feel like it was worth arguing over, but when I told you about it later you narrowed your eyes into little slits of disapproval before wordlessly retrieving your coat and vanishing from the hotel. You were gone for ages, and when you finally came back you just sat down in the same chair again and stretched your legs out in front of you like nothing had happened.
“The rent will be the original amount,” you’d said in a calm way that suggested the matter was settled; and it certainly seemed to be, because a raise in price has never been mentioned again. It’s just one of countless issues that makes me feel uneasy, although admittedly the agent has never seemed unhappy about it. Quite the opposite. In fact if anything he’s slightly coy and ingratiating, and if I didn’t know any better I’d say he was flirting with me. It always makes me anxious about what you might do to him if you find out, but if you’ve picked up on anything you’ve never referred to it. I suppose it’s possible he’s like that with you as well; maybe he’s like that with everyone because he thinks it’s charming? Fortunately he’s out the the office when I arrive so I just give the envelope to his secretary instead, who accepts it with a polite ‘Grazie’ before slipping it discreetly into a drawer. She urges me to have some coffee afterwards, but while I know from experience how good it is I’m too keen to leave to say yes. Mission accomplished I swivel round to make my escape before – oh shit – the door flies open and the agent comes walking in anyway. He gives his secretary a weird little smile before turning round to face me, and there’s something about it that gives me an unpleasant feeling that he asked her to delay me as long as possible if he wasn’t in the office when I arrived.
“Salve, signore,” he says now.
I open my mouth to reply then realise I can’t remember what his surname is and promptly have to shut it again. Matteo…something. I’ve never bothered to learn how to pronounce it properly so it’s always failed to stick in my head. In the end I just stand there without answering and he smiles again then gestures at the wall behind him. “You like our new artwork? A very exclusive piece by Gianni Lombardo. It arrived from Rome this morning.”
Reluctantly I make a pretence of admiring the picture, which is a truly hideous rendering of…something. Actually I don’t even know. It looks like it could be a figure on beach, but the frenzied smears of yellow paint manage to resemble liver disease more than anything else. I want to say ‘That’s one of the worst things I’ve ever seen in my life – and I’ve seen corpses’ but eventually just substitute a vague humming noise instead.
“A future collector’s item,” continues Matteo. He turns to the receptionist, who gives a disdainful little sniff as if to say ‘don’t bring me into this,’ then swings back round again, beaming away like it’s a new born baby on display instead of sundry bits of crap on a canvas. I wouldn’t actually be surprised if that’s its official title. Crap on Canvas by Gianni Lombardo…
“Um, yeah,” I eventually manage. “It’s…neat.” It’s definitely not the most flattering choice of adjective (charming, elegant, evocative) although judging from his confused expression he doesn’t even know what I mean. I suppose he’s only aware of ‘neat’ as a synonym for tidy and doesn’t understand that I’m attempting to be nice about his godawful artwork. Even so, I can’t be bothered to explain it.
“Well, it is good to see you Signore,” he finally adds when it’s become obvious I’ve run out of shits to give about the painting. “You are well, yes? You look well.”
“I’m fine,” I say. With an effort I force myself to add “Thanks,” but draw the line at asking how he is in return. Likewise I don’t want to use to his first name as if he’s a friend, although I know I wouldn’t want to use his surname either even if I did know what it was (which I don’t). As he gives me a rather oily smile the urge to tell him to fuck off is briefly overwhelming, but I know I can’t justify being so hostile without a proper reason. I actually wish I could but I can’t: my problem, fundamentally, seems to be that I’m a bastard trapped in a nice person’s body (unlike you, who’ll gleefully engage in epic bastardry for absolutely no reason at all). Of course there’s also the need to stay on his good side for the sake of the apartment, but in spite of all that my capacity to remain polite is becoming a serious struggle. As a distraction I start to mentally categorise all the swear words I can think of that start with a B (balls, bastard, bullshit…). It’s like a form of mindfulness. Sort of.
“And your friend?” he adds. “He is well too?”
He always does this: refers to you as my ‘friend’ with just enough emphasis for innuendo while never being obvious enough to get called out for it. Not that there’s much I could really say. What could I say? Lean up and whisper ‘Actually we have sex’ right in his face? Surely he must already know…unless of course he really is that dense and sincerely thinks we’re a pair of Dude Bros who loll around with our Playstations all day in his overpriced apartment.
“He’s fine,” I finally reply through gritted teeth. To liven things up a bit I now start adding some transatlantic ones (bloody, bugger, bollocks…). “He’s…” Briefly I fall silent as I struggle to think of something appropriately bland that you could be doing: it’s like Mr Haversham again with yet another version of you that doesn’t actually exist. “He’s enjoying the concert season,” I eventually add. Not that you are: you couldn’t give a shit. According to you the local auditorium is ‘provincial’. We visited once a few months ago and you spent the whole time wincing at the wrong notes.
“Oh, eccellente,” replies Matteo. He sounds animated, clearly eager for every last scrap of information. “I didn’t know he was musical. He has never mentioned it.”
I stare at him for a few seconds, trying to picture you having cosy conversations with him about your various interests before giving it up as impossible to imagine. He stares back for a few seconds then starts to subtly manoeuvre himself in such a way that I won’t be able to get to the door without brushing past him. He catches my eye as he does it then smiles again, innocent and unassuming.
“Gabriella,” he says, without turning his head. “Did you offer a drink to our client?”
The secretary gives a little sniffing noise of assent and I abandon restraint and shove past him rather roughly to get to the door. “In a rush I see,” he says, pantomiming regret. He makes a quick movement with his hand like he’s about to touch me, but he must see something in my face because he stops almost immediately before stuffing it into pocket as if to prevent it misbehaving any further. There’s an awkward pause then he shrugs and gives a little laugh. “You Americans are always in a rush,” he adds. “Always somewhere to go. In Italy we like to take our time.”
I snap “I have to get back,” then watch as his eyebrows elevate up his forehead in what’s a clear invitation to describe the reason. Of course I do have a reason (namely ‘I’d rather gnaw my own feet off than talk to you anymore, you tedious shit’) but seeing how the truth is hardly an option I substitute it for an incredibly half-assed lie about expecting some guests.
“Guests!” replies Matteo. “Ospiti, how nice. From America?”
“From Kyrgyzstan,” I say: because fuck it, why not?
There’s another small pause – it’s clear he’s never heard of it. “How interesting,” he says eventually. “Kyrgyzstan. Is that where your friend is from?”
I have a sudden awful feeling I’m going to laugh. I suppose your Italian, while flawless, must sound fairly exotic to him when filtered through your smoky accent (although admittedly Kyrgyzstan is still a bit of a stretch).
“It’s good we still get visitors,” continues Matteo. As he’s speaking he retrieves his copy of La Nazione and waves it in my direction – at which point the smile promptly withers away from my face and I no longer feel like laughing at all. “Many people have been put off. Bad publicity, you know? You must tell your guests not to be afraid and that the police will do their job.”
Reluctantly I now force myself to glance at the front page, which even my grade school-level Italian is able to translate as the discovery of a fifth body, courtesy of Il Macellaio. The first time I heard the name I assumed it was some kind of synonym for evil or cunning – I think I’d got it confused with ‘Machiavellian’ – but it turned out to not translate to anything more imaginative than ‘The Butcher’. In a way I was glad: elaborate nicknames always lend a level of power and mystique that’s entirely undeserved and at least butcher was suitably sordid and brutal. The killings first started about six months ago and I remember you saying from the very beginning that they had a serial killer on their hands. After the second murder I was inclined to agree with you – although it wasn’t until the third victim was discovered that Omicida Serial began to regularly appear in the headlines. It’s always so hard to hold your attention that I assumed you’d lose interest in it after a month or so, but up until now you never really have. And neither have I: although I know the source of our interest is very different.
Matteo is really staring at me now, dark eyes crawling up and down in a way that makes me think of beetles with shiny black-backed shells. “I hope you and your friend are not worried,” he adds. “This one is a Bad Hombre, as the Americans say, but he will soon be caught.”
“Americans don’t really say that,” I tell him. Or do they? I’ve never really known what ordinary people say. But then you don’t say it and neither do I, and it’s been ages since I’ve had much interest in anyone else. But deep down I know that I am worried, even though it’s not for the reason he thinks. Because while I’m not afraid for our physical safety (I’d like to see the Bad Hombre that would dare take you on after all), what genuinely scares me is the attention such a sensational case might attract. Yes it’s unlikely, but I know from bitter experience that it’s not impossible. And so as the deaths mount up and the headlines get darker, my thoughts grow more persistent and troubling: What if they ask for help from the FBI? What if Jack turns up in Italy? What if-what if- what if…
“Well, let us hope that there are no more stories,” adds Matteo. Briefly he brandishes the paper again. “Nessuna nuova bella nuova, as we say in Italy. No news is good news, yes? What would you say in America?”
“’m not sure,” I say. “Lock and load?”
The sarcasm is obvious but he still starts laughing merrily like I’ve just crapped out the best joke he’s heard all year. He’s always seemed a bit obsessed with me being American; most likely the result of a diet of movies and sundry pop culture that’s lent the concept a degree of second-hand glamour it doesn’t really deserve. It’s a phenomenon I’ve seen fairly often in the more secluded parts of Europe and is a complete opposite to you (who, despite having chosen to live there, still treats my Americanness as an endearing form of disability that’s unfortunate but can’t really be helped).
Matteo now smiles at me again, expectant and encouraging. Eager, in fact – almost like he’s hoping I’ll start whistling The Star Spangled Banner as a bald eagle swoops through the window. It’s a stark contrast to your own amused disdain at anything transatlantic, and at the thought of you I feel a sudden rush of fondness that’s quickly followed with a sting of guilt at having stayed away so long. I should have been home hours ago by now; you’re probably wondering where I am. Of course it’s also possible you’ve been in some kind of Memory Palace coma the entire time and didn’t even notice I’ve left, but either way I’m consumed by an urge to see you that’s powerful enough to transform me into one of The Rudes and leave Matteo rhapsodising about America to an empty room so I can shove past him and run down the stairs two at a time to go in search of the nearest station.
Having spent all afternoon wasting time it’s now typically perverse that once I’m in a hurry time decides to turn round and bait me right back: which means the bus doesn’t come, and the traffic is terrible, and by the time I finally get home it’s well into the evening and already getting dark. The apartment is eerily silent when I open the door and for a few seconds I think you’ve got bored of waiting and gone out yourself before seeing your coat is still hanging up. The simplest thing would be to shout for you, but I’m feeling too self-conscious by now so just sling my coat over yours then saunter down the hallway pretending to be casual. The kitchen’s in darkness and there’s no way you’d go to bed this early, so after a bit of awkward hovering I decide to check the living room and yes, sure enough – there you are. You’re stretched across the chaise longue with a book in your hand and an informal air of comfort that always manages to be endearing because it’s so unusual: shirt sleeves rolled back, hair slightly ruffled and long legs curled up like a cat. You’ve lit some candles in preference to electric light and the dull glow makes you look like something from a different age. A painting by Rossetti, perhaps: ‘Gentleman Deep in Thought’.
For a few seconds I just stand there staring at you. It’s obvious you’ve heard my footsteps but you don’t glance up from your book. “Hey,” I say eventually.
Instead of answering you turn your page over then raise your arm in a silent invitation for me to come and lie next to you. The sofa is a narrow one and there isn’t really enough room, but I still walk over anyway and jostle about for a bit until I’ve nearly pushed you off the edge and can hook my legs around yours. The motion causes my watch to catch your shirt cuff and you frown slightly then unfasten it with your free hand and put it on the table. The quickness you do it with promptly makes me smirk to myself, because I know you hate that watch. It’s incredibly cheap and tacky (digital display, plastic strap) and the mere sight of it always drives you insane. Your own watch is a slim wafer of gold around your wrist and you’ve made repeated attempts to let you buy me something similar, which I keep refusing with equal enthusiasm. Possibly I’m being ungrateful, but it’s easy to imagine that what starts with a watch would end up with you trying to control my entire wardrobe and it feels like an important boundary to establish early on.
Having disposed of the offending watch you wait until I’ve gone still again then prop the book on my shoulder and rest your cheek against my hair. I crane my neck a bit so I can have a look. The pages are wilted with age and printed in something that looks like Latin, and the whole thing’s so incredibly boring that in the end I just give up and start fidgeting about instead as a sign that I want some attention. You make an amused sound in response then nudge the side of my face with your chin.
I return the pressure then settle back against your shoulder, doing my best to avoid the sharp edges of your collar bone. The silence feels oppressive, yet while there’s so much I know should talk to you about I still can’t quite find the words. Instead I just close my eyes and relax into you, enjoying the way our breath has synchronised like we’re inhaling each other’s air. At some point I’ve started stroking the back of your neck, rubbing my thumb across it in an absent-minded way just above your shirt. I do this quite a lot; I think it’s a weird kind of muscle memory from owning dogs for so long (sometimes I’ll even scratch behind your ears). But it’s obvious you like it, so I’ve never made any effort to stop. As dumb as it is, I suppose it must be a bit of a novelty for you. You’re used to the type of touches which are intended to either hurt or persuade, whereas this is done without expectation of anything in return except to make you happy – casual and affectionate, and coming from a place of care rather than fear or conciliation.
To prove the point I increase the pressure on your neck then give your hair a playful tug. “I love you,” I say quietly.
Next to me I feel you tense a little before reaching round to cradle my face in your hand, gently pulling it forward until our foreheads are pressed together. This is your way of saying I love you too, although you’ll rarely say it out loud. Sometimes you do, but more often it gets expressed in gestures or looks. These looks can be very intense: it’s as if ‘I love you’ isn’t sufficient and what your eyes are really saying is ‘I’m obsessed with you.’ I call them your manic moments and I’m only half joking. It’s when you stare straight into my face, extremely focussed and forceful, and I know you’re thinking about the trail of bloody footprints that led us here. It only ever lasts a few seconds before you seem to snap out of it, but it’s always very powerful when it happens, as well as vaguely unsettling in how raw it is.
I now shift round to give you a clearer view of your book, then flop backwards so I can squint up at you from beneath my hair. The sun is starting to set and as the light spills through the window it bathes your skin in shades of burnt gold, persimmon pink, and a deep smoky crimson the same colour as blood. There’s a low thrum of music from your laptop and the violins match the pounding of the raindrops on the skylight the same way as a heartbeat. By now I’ve grown very soft and sleepy, which I know you’ll enjoy because it lets your controlling streak come out and you can pick me up and move me around in a way I’d bitch about endlessly when I’m fully awake. Exactly on cue you now reach down with both arms and tug me upwards until I’m half on top of you and staring straight at the skylight overhead. I make a half-hearted attempt to complain about it, but ultimately decide not to bother because I’ve just caught sight of us in the rain-streaked glass and am struck by the way my reflection is overlaid with yours. It’s arresting and almost eerie – lips, skin, breath, all blended together like twin souls in a single body – and it reminds me all over again of that uncanny sense of you as an extension of myself.
Next to my eyes are the glimmer of yours and as I watch you reach up to trail your finger along my cheekbone. “Look, beloved,” you say quietly. “Look what we made.”
It’s an abstract comment that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, but I understand immediately what you mean. Of course I do; I don’t need to be told. You mean: after everything that happened, after all the horror and madness…we still made Us.