Page 28 of The Dolce Vita Divas
I thought back to Englandland and conjured up a completely inaccurate but very pleasing picture for her of snow, sparkling winters, chestnuts roasting by an open fire, hot chocolate and, of course, rosy-cheeked carol singers at the front door.
‘So you have Santa and presents and all?’
‘Yes, and the true meaning of Christmas too. Happy Christmas, not Happy Holidays. The Nativity, the three kings, that side of things.’
Raleigh smiled. ‘Yes, it’s real handy the way it’s all sorted at the same time, isn’t it?’
I tried to get my head round the thought processes behind this and failed.
And was Christmas really like that? Probably not if I was honest. What would it take to change things as far as that was concerned? To stop it being a mad, labour-intensive slog, which I was not sure anyone really appreciated. When people sat at the table with their phones next to them to see what other people were doing.
Just once I would have liked to have that picture-perfect event, with snow and sleigh bells and everyone being happy. A handful of glitter spread over my day, like an old-fashioned card with candles and lights and an advent calendar with pictures inside, not chocolate.
A new resolve grew inside me. That was something else that was going to change. This year I would switch off the Wi-Fi and confiscate everyone’s phones as they came into the house. And we would do things properly and actually talk to each other and to me. Perhaps this would be my version of No No parenting.
7
Now that the first meeting was over, I began to feel rather more settled. I tried to sort out my feelings. My reservations and worries had obviously been for nothing. Paulo and I had known each other many years ago, which for a short while had been one of friendship and occasionally brotherly teasing on his part at least. Well, most of the time. But then we had parted, and he had found a life and happiness with Ellen. That left us then in the category of old friends, and nothing more. Perhaps that was the way to look at it.
And such a long time had passed. Perhaps I was the only one who remembered the feelings of that first evening? And the night of the party? Memories tugged at the back of my mind and I pushed them away with considerable determination.
But why could I remember parts of it in such piercing and embarrassing detail when at the same time I found it hard to even remember Greg’s face? And we had been married for decades.
We sat there for a long time as the evening outside darkened into night. Through the window we could see the lights of a few fishing boats, and further out the flashier display of a cruise ship. We drank our wine and finished our meals and then at Paulo’s insistence we moved into a little sitting area, where the comfortable armchairs were placed beneath open windows, and the scent of the sea wafted in on the evening breeze and mingled with the delicious aroma of the coffee which magically appeared.
‘In England it will probably be raining,’ I said, ‘and the central heating would be on. It’s nothing like this.’
‘I have just bought a heated blanket,’ Susie added. ‘My circulation has got so bad, my feet are always cold.’
This continued into a discussion about English winters, and Raleigh countered with tales of tornados and thunderstorms and flash floodings in Texas, punctuated by the nailing heat of summer and the panic when the air conditioning had broken down the previous year.
‘It does get colder here in the winter months,’ Paulo said, ‘and last February it snowed. For half an hour. It caused a lot of excitement. Not like in England. I remember one winter when I was a student; everything shut down, the roads were blocked, and the trains didn’t run.’
‘I remember that too,’ I said. ‘That was an awful winter.’
‘Yes,’ Susie said, ‘do you remember, we found an old wooden pallet in the garden shed and broke it up for kindling.’
He nodded. ‘Ah, yes, of course. There was frost on the inside of the windows. The only warm place was all of us huddled up in front of that fire under a blanket.’
He smiled and sent me a twinkling look. I felt my face flush with embarrassment, and I ducked my head towards my wine.
He did remember some of it after all. And so did I.
We had all worn coats and hats in the kitchen, where the single glazing and the warped door frame let in the cold. Paulo had bought a huge blue and grey checked blanket from a charity shop to spread over us all in the evening as we watched black and white films in front of the fire, delaying the moment when we would have to go to our cold bedrooms.
His hair had been longer then, and dark, almost black. I had brushed it out of his eyes, telling him he needed a haircut, and he had laughed at me… I could even remember the warmth of our bodies under that blanket.
I looked away then, feeling very uncomfortable.
Stop it.
I had been a bit crazy back then; I could see it now. Leaving home for the first time, the unexpected freedoms and opportunities. During my first year I had started to drink too much to hide my insecurity and party all night to prove to myself how many friends I had. Nothing had seemed to really matter. Life had been a long, careless, unending journey to be filled with excitement and fun.
Then the shock when the following September he and Ellen had appeared, brought in by friends of friends, and moved into the attic room under the eaves of the roof. Together.
We had lived in a chaotic, noisy house which backed onto a railway line where the trains thundered through our lives so regularly that in the end we didn’t notice them.
People came and went, and sometimes we only knew because there was different food in the communal fridge with people’s name written on it, or some new trainers at the bottom of the stairs to fall over. Ellen was different; she was calm and organised. She’d turned their drab room into a haven of colour and comfort. With her serenity and her kindness and her character, which was so much better than mine had been back then. No wonder Paulo had found peace with her, had been attracted to her. No wonder he had chosen her, fallen in love and married her.
