Trouble Me

That last night on the Island, we have dinner at the hotel. Freshly washed and scrubbed,  I'm wearing my  divorce party dress and my favourite boots. I feel more human than when I arrived in Rome, less raw, less as though I'm danging over the edge of a cliff.  Somehow, whatever is below doesn't feel like it would be a briar patch but I also feel like survive the fall. I didn't know that when I first arrived but the dead that visit me here, tell me their stories, they have been kind, comforting in a way I'd forgotten the dead can be. 

I've been spent the last hour in my room dancing to Serge Chaloff and I feel ready to face the world again, even if my body is rebelling and I am wearing breast pads. Apparently, my body thinks its 2001, 2010 or 2011 or even 2015.  By Thursday,  I'll have a face-to-face appointment with my GP, who is as baffled as I am. By Thursday, I'll be longing to have disappeared into the hazy ether sorrounding Naples.  The GP will look at me in wonderment.

'I've never seen anything like it! And they are so warm...definitely inflamed. Are you sure there is no possibility you might be...'

'Yes, Dr N. I am quite sure. Almost two years sure. Before that it was 4 years. The only sex I have engaged in is with myself. Maybe one or two make-out sessions involving people, but strictly under the shirt but over the bra.'

'And that doesn't really count, does it?' She's trying not to laugh. 

'The hell it doesn't. I have a vertible library that ensures self pleasure definitely counts.  And yes, it's okay, laugh.' I blow my nose.  It's funny and a bit sad, certainly a mystery.  Blood work is ordered swabs are taken, just to be sure. 

'Maybe we should order another mamogram, just to be sure. And we'll send you back to the Endocrinologist. Something...it is not right.'

Later, after yet another panic attack, I break down and write to one of the school mums, who happens to specialise in breasts.  I'm scared. And in pain. I make sure of cabbage leaves.  One would hope it would be the discomfort from the second part of the root canal. 

One would hope. Alas, it is not.

All feels a world away that I have not even imagined  on Sunday and I am still just me, on this lovely island, in this erotically infernal heat. After dinner, A opts for bed. I decide to have a sidecar, sit out by the water stretch out, sip my sidecar. The German couple smile as they walk passed me and she nods approvingly at my boots. 

I tilt my face into the night sky.   Later, I am chatting to Enzio, the pianist when my fictional hotel boy friend arrives. He is very dashing, in his linen suit. He laughs and holds out his hands, twirls me. I giggle, and inform him that he is my fictional boyfriend. 'Oh, I AM delighted to be of such service.' He works in digital media, is married to the lovely S, originally from Dublin who ran away to Rome in her early twenties. They  have been together 18 years. He was desperate to marry her; they had been together 4 years and she ordered him stop asking. 3 years later she is devestated. 'You've stopped asking!' 

'But you...ah.  you told me to stop asking. This,  Cara Mia...it does not mean that I stopped wanting you as my wife.  Now, I will just request you marry me. please, these tears no more.'

They were married at the hotel in the olive grove four years ago, S tells me, linking arms. Later she dashes off, 'Well, one more...I know I said just one, but...'

'She has these moments...it's her Irish genetics.' He shrugs ruefully. 'What is the word? Fey?  Too much near the surface. But this time, I read the fine print. I know the conditions. I know her heart.  This time, well...'

Then there is the babymooners. She is an elementary teacher, he works in legal for a hedge fund. We are swapping a few stories about trading floors, when the two older women from Saturday's photos appear. 'You look divine!' The blonde leans into kiss my cheek. 'I can't decide which dress I like better; this or the gold!'

I laugh. 'Why choose?'

By the end of the evening, she has told me at length about her accidental coming out at a neighborhood picnic, how she and the other woman were together 14 years, then another long term relationship that ended over 10 years ago. She runs a thriving business ('$80 million in turnover!' She elbows me). And then this woman, Rachel, walks into my house in Myrtle Beach and I know! I am so desperate to be near her, I try to get her to stay over the first night.  And she got so irritated with me! "You're behaving just like a man would!" So I had to dial it back.'  The woman in question is an actress, is striking with a quiet charm. She smiles at me, then at J with a deep, genuine affection. 'Goddamnit, why I am I telling you how I much I love this woman?' J slams her tumbler on the counter. She tucks hair behind my ear. 'You're witchy.'

The bartender looks at me smiling, I look around the room. 'Thank you for sharing with me.' I order a whiskey, go back to my room, sliding into my new PJs, book in hand, humming Trouble Me to myself.  

Monday morning, we sit next to J and her love-light. Easy chatter. 'You're coming to the beach though? You can't really be leaving today?!' The holiday comraderie is sweet. The Babymooners appear, same conversation ensues. Introductions are made, hugs are given. No details exchanged. It's blissful, this level of anonymous intimacy.

Arriving in Naples, the city is abuzz. It is barely 11am when we arrive and it is already 40 degrees.  I'm desperate for quiet to finish

We wander towards the School of Archaeology. There is a crazy looking antique store I am desperate to check out. In addition to the dress and silk PJs  I found for my daughter's birthday, as well as the dirndle and dresses I found for myself in Rome,  I've found the ring I (almost an ourorobos have been looking for, unexpectedly, and a beautiful pair of earrings, as well as paste bracelet in late deco - almost mod - style. But I am looking for something distinctive for my uncle, which I find in an exquisitely kitch mother of pearl and ebony carved carp.  And of course a gorgeous marble carved skull, to Mort and Maxwell company. 

The shop owner is on his way out. '20 minutes, maybe.' I take him at his word. We go for a coffee and a snack, sit and watch the world go by, out of the heat.  It occurrs to me that Naples is abuzz in a way that Rome simply isn't. It reminds me of the way I prefer Vauxhaul, Bethnal Green, Turnpike Lane, Finsbury Park, Soho to the more refined or governmental areas of London. 

When he returns, he shakes his head at the sight of me. I am potentially his worst best nightmare. He can tell I am going to touch stuff. I'm going to have questions. 

The shop is everything I have longed for, a treasure trove of the creepy, weird, delightful and disarming.  He has an impressive collection of netsukes, as well as religious iconography bordering on the obscene. There are film props and machetes, strangely layered sculptures, art nouveau vases and an array of lamps and lighting that make me wish I were renovating something nearby.  He finds me irritatingly endearing and had taken an immediate shine to A.  As I pr purchases, he gestures to a mannequin witba gasmask and what looks like an iron cross. It is disarming on so many levels.

 There is a small slit about the size of a pinky finger in the pelvis of the mannequin. 'Guardare, guuardare!' He says before pulling me over to a photo album. I look at the photos, look at him, raise my brown, go back to the mannequin. And inside the mannequin is a world of pornographic figurines....a veritable diaorama. He is so pleased with himself and his creation, I can only laugh. 'You filthy old man! I knew I liked you.'  He beckons A and I explain she needs to look

 'Well...that was unexpected.'

As we negotiate my purchases, he picks up a gorgeous silver figure which turns out to be two separate female forms that two can be repositioned. I smile and shake my head. He shrugs, pats my cheek. 

It's only after he has bustled us out the door I realize I have forgotten my sunnies. I had taken them off to climb up the questionably safe ladder to see his workshop. Small price to pay for such a ln afternoon.

We continue walking, back to the Spanish Quarter, down the Marina and the more 'stately' buildings, before looping back and sitting to watch the world go by.  Dinner is at a local trattoria owned by Antonio, whose delight in A is beautiful to watch. 'Definitely Italian men for me. The next one, Italian.' I laugh. I haven't decided. I wouldn't say 'no,' but I'm not quite ready to say 'yes.'

 

On the flight home, delayed and overpacked, everyone is frazzled, including a pilot trying to get back for his evening flight to Edinburgh. He's just had coffee that morning with his father in Naples and it turns out his mother lives literally up the road from my uncle. A few minutes later we're back to our respective activities. I'm reading my book when he clears his throat.  'I'm married,' he says. 'That's wonderful!' 'Yes, married!' He says it so emphatically, I almost ask if they are newlyweds. Then I realise he thinks I find him irresistible. Bless.

How is it that by Thursday, I'll be contemplating when I can next run away? When I can just vanish into being one self?