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 â the pizza boys and their foreign girlfriends â take to frequenting a wine bar after work, I find myself not minding the younger oneâs hand on my thigh beneath the table; my animated conversation with his girlfriend does not falter. I have gone a little crazy â 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 eveningâs 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 Annunzioâs 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 Annunzioâs favourite meal, the tomatoes at their peak of ripeness, their glossy egg shapes sliced vertically and arranged over the cheese.
All Annunzioâs 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 â 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 waterâs edge to sit watching the boats. Annunzio tells me stories from his life over his baby whisky; I spoon pistachio-green
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 â the pizza boys and their foreign girlfriends â take to frequenting a wine bar after work, I find myself not minding the younger oneâs hand on my thigh beneath the table; my animated conversation with his girlfriend does not falter. I have gone a little crazy â 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 eveningâs 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 Annunzioâs 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 Annunzioâs favourite meal, the tomatoes at their peak of ripeness, their glossy egg shapes sliced vertically and arranged over the cheese.
All Annunzioâs 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 â 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 waterâs edge to sit watching the boats. Annunzio tells me stories from his life over his baby whisky; I spoon pistachio-green
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