Page 11 of The Dolce Vita Divas
Actually, they were really good. St Vincent did some passable hip swivels for which he was rewarded with some shrieking from a party of six at one of the front tables, and the Grenadines kept up a good beat.
‘Latvia. What a beautiful country,’ St Vincent said when they got to the end and he had got his breath back. ‘We were headlining on three river cruise boats. Such a great way to travel, and what lovely people. A Latvian invented blue jeans, they love beer, and they have the fastest broadband speed in the world. And what’s your name, sweetheart? Connie Jones? That’s a great name. I’ll remember that. It’ll come in handy later. Anyway, let’s get on with another great favourite of mine, “Build Me Up Buttercup”.’
Poppy, up on the stage beside him, encouraged the audience to clap in time, which they did with great enthusiasm. At the table next to us I saw a sprightly gentleman turn off his hearing aids and smile.
After about half an hour, and a spirited rendition of ‘Hunka Hunka Burning Love’, which caused some of the ladies at the front to have hysterics, St Vincent had a brief discussion with the Grenadines and then called Connie up onto the stage and sang ‘Me and Mrs Jones’at her, while she giggled and fluttered and her husband banged his palm down on the table and roared with laughter.
Across the table I saw Susie fiddling with her mobile and frowning. And then she looked up at me and mouthed ‘Wow.’
‘What?’ I mouthed back.
She passed her mobile over the table and pointed with some energy at the screen.
Excuse me for contacting you so informally. I hope this reaches you. As one of Ellen’s valued friends of so many years, I would like to invite you and Joanna to join me as my guests with the wider family at the Massimo Hotel for a celebration on Capri in October. I’m sorry I no longer have a phone number for Jo that works. I sent a letter to her old address, but it came back marked as not known. And I could not find her email address. Please could you let her know about this? Ellen’s funeral five years ago was very private, as you know, but we wanted to have an event which celebrated her life. And this year it will also be my mother’s eighty-fifth birthday. An event which deserves celebrating. The family and I would love you to be there as my guests. Kind regards Paulo di Massimo. RSVP. I will send you more details.
I felt a jolt of something, that made me feel cold all over for a moment.
Paulo.
I hadn’t let myself think about him for a very long time. Perhaps I had brainwashed myself into it. Not thinking about him, not caring, not wondering if my life would have turned out better or worse if we had been a bit older, a bit more grown-up when we met. What had happened to me in the intervening years? And him, how had he changed? How many years was it anyway?
I tried to work it out, counting on my fingers under the table.
My mood had plummeted in a few seconds with that message. One minute I had been happily tipsy, filled with the enjoyment of being with my oldest friend, laughing and relatively carefree. The next it was as though I had been hit on the head with something. A rock or a baseball bat, and I was suddenly sober.
As a teenager, relationships had been almost stress free, so disposable because there was always another keen young chap knocking at the metaphorical door of my life. It had been easy to forget and move on from them. But with Paulo it had been something very different.
Susie and I quickly knocked back our drinks, collected our things and left.
We headed down the corridor and away from St Vincent’s spirited rendition of‘the best Eurovision song contest winner of all time – who can forget little Lulu in that gorgeous frock? “Boom Bang a Bang”’.
I hurried after Susie, my unfamiliar heels catching on the carpet. I thought for a moment I might be sick.
Paulo had been trying to contact me. Ellen had known my email address – why didn’t he? Perhaps it was obvious.
‘A celebration,’ she said, blissfully unaware, ‘and a birthday party. I don’t suppose that would be very exciting, but isn’t it nice to be asked. I remember Paulo’s mother from their wedding, don’t you? She was very imposing. Like Maggie Smith with a bit of Sophia Loren mixed in.’
I nodded, remembering that Paulo’s mother had hardly spoken to me at that wedding apart from the usual small talk, but she had watched me from across the room, with eyes that seemed to know everything.
Back in my room I drew my curtains against the dark evening, but we could still hear the rain battering against the windows outside. Susie kicked off her shoes and perched on my bed, and I put the kettle on for some tea. How many times had I done that over the years?
After our first year at university, Susie and I had moved out of the halls of residence and into a shared student house as she had suggested. Such independence. That winter, the snow had piled up against the windows, and we had a log fire burning while we drank tequila sunrises and listened to slightly dated music on her portable record player. Billy Joel, Gordon Lightfoot, Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, Jackson Brown.
For a long time afterwards, I’d been unable to hear any of those songs without remembering. The emotional power of music when you least expect it can be terrible sometimes. I’d heard ‘What a Fool Believes’ once in the car when I was driving Jess and Kat to school and had to pretend I was sneezing to cover up the fact that I was crying.
After that first magical evening in September, when everything had seemed so exciting, so incredibly promising, I hadn’t seen Paulo again until almost a year to the day afterwards, when he had arrived unexpectedly to take possession of the attic bedroom of our shared house with his girlfriend, Ellen.
I could almost remember the feeling as we stood looking at each other. I think I felt the blood draining from my face.
‘You,’ I’d said rather foolishly.
‘You,’ he replied, sounding equally shaken.
He had given me a lopsided smile as Ellen looped her arm through his and looked around our untidy sitting room with a small smile on her face, probably thinking Paulo had brought her to a slum, no matter how cheap it was.
Ellen had been an art student, always seeking colour in her life. Her clothes were bright and eclectic, the posters in their room a random mix of Michaelangelo, Dali, Giotto and Lautrec. I remembered her as always smiling, her cloud of dark hair framing a beautiful face. Definitely the most attractive of the Three Amigos, as we came to call ourselves.
After the shock of meeting her and realising she was someone important to him, I could see she made Paulo so happy. No one could ever have taken her place. We had made friends with her for his sake. It still seemed impossible to imagine that she had died.
