Amore and Amaretti (8 page)

But ice creams are not enough. In the end David always slides back into his impenetrability, his head bent over the sewing machine, his Middle Eastern cassettes swirling mystically, his secret soldier's self tidied away. And yet I know that softness is there – I have listened to him describe the colour of taste, and the taste of colour, and known exactly what he meant.

It is about one and a half hours by train from Florence to Riccione. I am taking a brief vacation with a German girl I barely know, beautiful Simone, who is staying in our apartment on a camp bed in the cramped living room. We are booked into the Hotel Souvenir, a modestly priced establishment a short walk from the beach.

It is August, the middle of summer. Riccione is one of the most popular seaside resorts on the Riviera Romagnola, the stretch of coast running from the Po River Delta to Cattolica. I read somewhere that it is known as
‘la perla verde dell'Adriatico'
– the green pearl of the Adriatic – but there is nothing pearly-green about the flat, lank ocean. So accustomed am I to the majesty and the beauty of Australian beaches – transparent water and infinite expanses of fine white sand, towering waves and bush-backed dunes – that the vision before me of neat, endless rows of deckchairs, umbrellas, chaises longues and towels seems to be a colourful cartoon. Furthermore, we are required to rent our small allotment of sand. We choose the cheapest option, a tidy space on which to extend our beach towels. Simone immediately unhooks the bra of her bikini and offers her oiled Teutonic limbs to the sun, and I am aware of the bronzed gods bouncing a soccer ball nearby glancing over towards our spot at regular intervals.

I am delighted anyway, regardless of my inability to take this concept of beach seriously. Hundreds of bodies stand waist-deep in the muggy, murky water engaged in conversation and laughter, surrounded by children who flop and thrash inside flotation devices. All along the tree-lined seafront boulevard stand hotels, side by side, their gardens cooled by awnings and parasols with chairs facing the sea.

Simone is vain and moody, I realise quickly, and yet her company is agreeable, even if the desultory conversations we conduct in our flawed Italian never touch on topics deeper than clothes and men. After hours of comatose sunbaking, we sit out the front of our hotel spooning cherry and turquoise-coloured
gelato
into our mouths from long shapely glasses, and in the evenings over a carafe of Trebbiano we eat seafood, scooping up the spicy sauces with thin ovals of bread called
piadina
. We catch the bus to Rimini, fifteen minutes away, and prowl around the historic centre of the old town, which dates back to the first century before Christ. My hair is bleached nearly white, and we flaunt our lubricated tans beneath skimpy beach dresses, but every evening when we set out for dinner I notice how effortlessly Simone slides on cream linens and fluttery silks, transforming into the chic and sophisticated European woman I will never manage to be.

The circle of cross-cultural visitors widens: Danish, American, German and Irish friends; Amanda and her sculptor husband, Rex; occasionally Raimondo, who has become my anti-Marie-Claire crusader – or, more accurately, the great Vicky-and-Gianfranco supporter, despite my protestations of never again, never again. Raimondo, who loved us as a couple, loves to reminisce about the summer night the three of us – he, Gianfranco and I – headed off from the restaurant as drunk as lords and drove to Viarreggio singing
‘Maremmo maremma mare'
the entire way, fell asleep on the beach upon arrival, and awakened mid-morning, as fiercely sunburnt as we were hung over.

An Australian friend visits and we play endless rounds of Travel Scrabble, dreading the moment we hear the metallic clank of the ancient lift as it reaches our top floor and the grilled door grinds open, releasing an interruption in the form of visitors.

One Sunday night the lift cage bears unexpected visitors. I know Antonella vaguely – she is the sister of a friend – but I had only heard about her Sicilian boyfriend. Cesare towers over everyone. His thick hair, as black as his eyes, cascades past his shoulders. They interrupt each other to tell me about the restaurant they have bought at Portoferraio, on the Isle of Elba; it is to be called Robespierre and will focus on seafood. They are currently interviewing, and am I interested in coming over for the summer as assistant chef? There is an apartment organised for us all to share, right in the heart of Portoferraio, a five-minute walk from the restaurant.

I have been to Elba once, for several days of sunshiny holiday in the early stages of Gianfranco. I remember the ferry across from the mainland, a little island you can drive around in three hours, yachts bobbing lazily in the port, an ocean transparently blue. I consider the cosy eventlessness of my life. I am conscious, mostly, of bovine contentment. Wherever I end up, in whatever city or country, I am always soaking clothes in a bucket in the bathroom, spraying on tester perfumes in department stores, planning a new diet and keeping gloomy diaries. Each morning I buy
La Nazione
from the same news-stand and gulp down a tepid cappuccino from the corner bar; lately at night, standing in front of the refrigerator as the rest of the apartment sleeps, I have found myself eating mascarpone straight out of its tub as if to feed some bottomless pocket of emptiness. Because I never seem free of that little pocket, I say yes.

Per non litigare occorre rimanere celibi

In order not to have arguments you should remain single

The view out of my bedroom window is of the faded, peeling yellow buildings with wooden green shutters and the squat boxy entrance to the
panificio
where we buy bread rolls and loaves for the restaurant. There is a plaque to Victor Hugo on the wall of the town hall, and a pizzeria called Garibaldino.

Robespierre has three-cornered hats for lampshades and a wooden guillotine at the entrance, built by Cesare. It has clothed tables inside and out. For the opening Gianfranco catches the ferry over and spends the day creating culinary art. A whole baked fish with potato scales reposes on a platter; overlapping curls of crimson prosciutto spiral into a tower crowned by a basket of parsley sculpted out of an orange; prawns, shrimps and scampi tumble amongst radish rosettes. We await the arrival of our new chef, Annunzio.

Annunzio, a widower, comes from Cecina on the mainland, where he lives with his only daughter. He looks like a villain from an old-fashioned melodrama, with his slicked-back hair and his bloodshot eyes and his huge nicotine-stained teeth; spittle glistens and sprays when he speaks. Elastic braces stretch around his great belly and he wears long-sleeved undergarments and sad, iron-creased jeans with open-toed sandals and socks. Struck by his ugliness and his oddness, I am briefly daunted by the prospect of sharing a flat with him. Annunzio is nearly ready for retirement, but he has decided that Robespierre shall be his swan song. We are a strange quartet: Antonella and Cesare prickly with sexual tension and drug-induced mood swings, la Veeky on a yoghurt diet grimly determined to put Gianfranco behind her, and gentle, humming, yarn-spinning, eccentric Annunzio.

We settle in. Quickly I acquire a boyfriend, part-owner of the Garibaldino pizzeria. He takes me to open-air discotheques around the island, then back to a parked caravan, where he efficiently makes love to me. I am also flattered by the attentions of his
pizzaiolo
, who is ten years younger than me and who, despite his Dutch girlfriend, comes to park himself on his Vespa outside the back door of Robespierre to flirt with me. He is dazzlingly beautiful. After a while, when the four of us – the pizza boys and their foreign girlfriends – take to frequenting a wine bar after work, I find myself not minding the younger one's hand on my thigh beneath the table; my animated conversation with his girlfriend does not falter. I have gone a little crazy – a combination of a languidly hot summer, the sense that nothing taking place on the island is real, and a pathetic need to be loved.

I buy a second-hand pushbike, and each afternoon at the end of service pedal along the streets that lead to my favourite beach. I step out of my sticky, sweaty, oily work clothes and plunge into the crisp ocean, where, after swimming vigorously for some time, I float on my back, weightless, deaf, eternal. When I return to my neatly folded pile of clothes, I stretch out on the towel and promptly fall asleep, for precisely one hour. Then it is time to bicycle back to the apartment, to shower and dress and prepare for the evening's work.

Mangia che ti passa

Eat and you will feel better

Annunzio soaks his underwear in Omino Bianco bleach; returning to our apartment, I see the line of large, blindingly white, square underpants and billowing singlets that marks his bedroom window. Each evening before work, he and I pause briefly for a
spumantino
at the same bar.

At night, after Annunzio and I have scrubbed the kitchen down, we set up a small table and two chairs out the back of the kitchen and have our dinners. I only ever eat two things, which I alternate: char-grilled swordfish with Annunzio's lemon-olive oil emulsion drizzled over the top, or bulgy buffalo mozzarella sliced with ovals of sweet San Marzano tomatoes and spicy basil. This, too, is Annunzio's favourite meal, the tomatoes at their peak of ripeness, their glossy egg shapes sliced vertically and arranged over the cheese.

All Annunzio's movements are ponderous. He rotates his thick fingers slowly over the plate, salt and pepper scattering. The basil leaves, the new green olive oil and, then, the slow messy business of eating – teeth clicking, oil spraying, bread sopping up the juices and gumming his conversation. We both eat too much bread and drink too much wine, and then wander, two unlikely friends, down to Bar Roma at the water's edge to sit watching the boats. Annunzio tells me stories from his life over his baby whisky; I spoon pistachio-green
gelato
into my mouth from a silver dish and feel safe and very young.