Page 17 of One Hot Summer

“Look, you can’t think about that now.” I put her phone out of reach. “Firstly, you will never be homeless. Too many of us love you too much to let that happen. And don’t get worked up over what he’s doing. I told you at the start of this break-up that things will likely get worse before they start to get better, but they will get better. You’ll see.” I pulled some clean tissue from my pocket and wiped the tears from her face.

“Losing the home that I worked so hard for was supposed to be the worst part of all this. That should have been it. Things were supposed to be on the up by now. I’m this close to getting a new house. A house all of my own. I even got that promotion at work last week. Karma seemed to be working in my favour. And then it’s two steps forward and ten steps backwards.” She scrunched up the tissues which had been clenched in her hands, and threw them at the bin, missing.

“Hey, you have taken a hundred steps forward over the last few months. Look at you! You’re going to own your own house, that’s huge! Plus, you’ve just been promoted with a huge pay rise. That’s amazing! Yes, you want kids, but can you imagine if you’d had them with that wanker? He still would have betrayed you. You’d now be a single mum, sharing a bed with a baby in my spare room. And the best news is, now he’s no longer your problem.”

She sighed, so I continued.

“You shouldn’t be upset that he’s going to be a dad, you should be sad because that poor child will be raised by them on that awful estate. And it doesn’t matter how young she is, if she can live with herself, knowing how he is treating you, then it says a lot about her. They’re welcome to each other.”

She managed a little laugh.

“Look at the bigger picture. Look at what is going on in your life at the moment. That should be your main focus. We need to plan on decorating your new house when you get the keys, shopping for furniture and knick-knacks. But most importantly…” I had a serious look on my face and waited until she took notice, wondering what I was going to say. “Most importantly…” I brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. “What do you want from the chippy, because I am bloody starving?”

I am pleased to report that the Italian buses felt a lot sturdier and safer than the taxi ride we had experienced from the airport. The first bus we got on was packed full of people, but we managed to find two seats together at the back. It was warm and sticky with all the bodies exuding heat around us, so I pulled out my trusty fan whilst Sarah seemed to be engrossed in something on her phone.

“Don’t forget, you’re the map,” I reminded her. “I don’t know where we’re getting off. Keep your head up.”

“That’s what I’m doing.” She showed me her phone. “The blue dot is where we need to get off. Anywhere near there will do.”

“Great. Although it’s so bloody warm in here it might have been cooler if we’d walked.”

“Don’t say that now, we have all these tickets to use up.”

It took only five more minutes to arrive at our destination. We pushed our way through the sweaty folk crowded onto the bus, and finally made it out into the fresh air. We were in the shade and a welcome breeze blew under our arms, relieving us of some of the early morning heat.

We had exited the bus onto one of the older, less touristy streets of Rome, so we were glad when we found a small shop that did not charge us the earth for a bottle of water. We grabbed one each, and after a difficult attempt at a conversation with the Italian owner, he convinced us to buy a hat each too.

“No roof!” he managed to say, talking about the Colosseum after we’d double-checked with him that we were heading in the right direction. “The sun, on your head? Hot. Bad.”

Two bottles of water, two hats and a handheld fan for Sarah later, we were ready. We thought he had just conned us into spending more money, and then we saw the Colosseum. He was right. There was no sign of shade anywhere, so we would have had the sun beating down on us for our entire visit.

We had ten minutes until we needed to be at the ticket counter, so we stood and stared at the impressive structure. I am not a fan of history, it never interested me at all in school, but even I could appreciate this sight. It took our breath away. Once again, there was a wave of cameras and selfie sticks around us. Even though it was early, there was a huge queue of people wanting to get inside.

“And that is why we booked our tickets,” Sarah said, pointing to the snaking queues. “Come on, let’s head to the ticket counter. I want to see if there is a guidebook I can buy. Ooh, I wonder if that old married couple are still arguing.”

“Hmm, maybe he locked her in the pits below and jetted off to a peaceful remote island.”

“Ha, possibly. As long as they’re not on the tour with us. Last thing we need is to hear someone else’s marital problems.”

My thoughts went back to Leonardo as we walked to the ticket counter. I wondered if he had ever been tempted to lock Maria in an ancient cell.

“Jenny, you would love my village,” Alessandro said while we were having our drinks together that evening. “It is a small village, but everyone is like family. And they all want to feed you. So, if you want to go for a nice, simple walk, go at night so no one see you. Or else, you must eat another bowl of pasta.” Sarah and I had been laughing at his stories all evening. “That is why I leave to come here to the city. My health! You cannot say no to a nonna with food. She will do this,” he pretended to hit the back of his head, “very angry if you say no.”

“Well, tell me how to get there,” I said with a laugh. “Food on demand? That sounds like my perfect holiday.”

“If you love food, move to Italy. Everyone want to feed you.”

“There’s my life goal,” I said. “I’ll need to convince Zack to move with me, though. Oh bugger, what time is it?”

“It’s almost nine o’clock.”

“I said I’d call him at nine. I’ll leave you guys to it, if that’s okay?”

“We can walk you?” Alessandro stood up.

“No, no, it’s fine. It’s only down the road.” I stood up and grabbed my bag. “Thank you so much for the drinks again, it’s been great meeting you.”

“You too, Jenny.” He kissed both of my cheeks.

---