a ray of that sun which was so reluctant to come out. From the primary school came the shouts of children playing in the playground. The air was filled with the delicious smell of burned wood and of the fresh cod laid out on the fishmonger’s stall.
This was the place where he’d been born.
Simple.
Ignorant, perhaps.
But real.
He was proud to be part of that small God-fearing community and proud of his own humble occupation. And to think that until recently he had felt ashamed of the place, and when asked where he came from had always replied: ‘The Maremma. Near Siena.’ It sounded cooler. Nobler. More sophisticated.
What a fool I was. Ischiano’s a wonderful place. A guy should be happy to have been born here . And at the age of forty-four he was beginning to understand this. Maybe all that globe-trotting, all those discotheques, all those nights spent playing in clubs hadhelped him understand, restored his desire to be a true Ischianese. You have to go away from a place in order to find it again. Peasant blood flowed in his veins. His grandparents had slaved their lives away working that hard barren soil.
He passed his mother’s haberdashery.
A modest little shop. Tights and knickers neatly arrayed in the window. A glass door. A sign.
This was where his jeans shop would be.
He could see it now.
The pride of the village.
He must start thinking about how to furnish it. Perhaps he would need an architect, someone from Milan or even America to help him create the best possible effect. He would spare no expense. He must discuss it with Mama. Persuade her to take out a mortgage.
Erica would help him, too. She had very good taste.
After these positive thoughts, he got out the Uno and drove it to the carwash. He ran it through the brushes, then vacuumed the inside, removing stubs of joints, receipts, left-over French fries and other assorted rubbish that had collected under the seats.
He looked at himself for a moment in the rear-view mirror and realised that he hadn’t obeyed the first law: ‘Treat your body as a temple.’
Physically he was a wreck.
The months in Rome had affected his looks. He had stopped taking care of his appearance and now resembled a caveman, with that stubbly beard and that bristly mop of hair. He really spruced himself up before Erica arrived.
He got back into the car, drove out onto the Aurelia and after seven kilometres stopped outside the Ivana Zampetti Beauty Farm, a large concrete building by the side of the road, between a garden centre and a store that sells handmade furniture.
7
Ivana Zampetti, the owner, was a large woman, all curves and bosom, with black, Liz Taylor-like hair, a zip of a mouth, gappy incisors, a remodelled nose and greedy eyes. She went around in a white coat which allowed glimpses of firm flesh and lace, and a pair of Dr Hermann sandals. And she was constantly enveloped in a cloud of sweat and deodorant.
Ivana had moved to Orbano from Fiano Romano in the mid-Seventies and got a job there as a manicurist in a beauty parlour. Within a year she had succeeded in marrying the old barber who owned it and had taken over the running of the place. She had turned it into a hairdressing salon, renewing the furniture, stripping off that ugly wallpaper and replacing it with mirrors and marble and adding washbasins and perming hoods. Two years later, her husband had died in the middle of Orbano high street, struck down by a heart attack. Ivana had sold the houses he had left her in San Folco and opened two more hairdressing salons in the area, one in Casale del Bra and the other in Borgo Carini. One summer in the late Eighties she had gone to visit some distant relatives who had emigrated to Orlando and there she had seen the American fitness centres. Temples of health and beauty. Superbly equipped clinics that treated the whole body, from the tip of your toes to the topmost hair of your head. Mud baths. Solar beds. Massage. Hydrotherapy. Lymphatic drainage.
This was the place where he’d been born.
Simple.
Ignorant, perhaps.
But real.
He was proud to be part of that small God-fearing community and proud of his own humble occupation. And to think that until recently he had felt ashamed of the place, and when asked where he came from had always replied: ‘The Maremma. Near Siena.’ It sounded cooler. Nobler. More sophisticated.
What a fool I was. Ischiano’s a wonderful place. A guy should be happy to have been born here . And at the age of forty-four he was beginning to understand this. Maybe all that globe-trotting, all those discotheques, all those nights spent playing in clubs hadhelped him understand, restored his desire to be a true Ischianese. You have to go away from a place in order to find it again. Peasant blood flowed in his veins. His grandparents had slaved their lives away working that hard barren soil.
He passed his mother’s haberdashery.
A modest little shop. Tights and knickers neatly arrayed in the window. A glass door. A sign.
This was where his jeans shop would be.
He could see it now.
The pride of the village.
He must start thinking about how to furnish it. Perhaps he would need an architect, someone from Milan or even America to help him create the best possible effect. He would spare no expense. He must discuss it with Mama. Persuade her to take out a mortgage.
Erica would help him, too. She had very good taste.
After these positive thoughts, he got out the Uno and drove it to the carwash. He ran it through the brushes, then vacuumed the inside, removing stubs of joints, receipts, left-over French fries and other assorted rubbish that had collected under the seats.
He looked at himself for a moment in the rear-view mirror and realised that he hadn’t obeyed the first law: ‘Treat your body as a temple.’
Physically he was a wreck.
The months in Rome had affected his looks. He had stopped taking care of his appearance and now resembled a caveman, with that stubbly beard and that bristly mop of hair. He really spruced himself up before Erica arrived.
He got back into the car, drove out onto the Aurelia and after seven kilometres stopped outside the Ivana Zampetti Beauty Farm, a large concrete building by the side of the road, between a garden centre and a store that sells handmade furniture.
7
Ivana Zampetti, the owner, was a large woman, all curves and bosom, with black, Liz Taylor-like hair, a zip of a mouth, gappy incisors, a remodelled nose and greedy eyes. She went around in a white coat which allowed glimpses of firm flesh and lace, and a pair of Dr Hermann sandals. And she was constantly enveloped in a cloud of sweat and deodorant.
Ivana had moved to Orbano from Fiano Romano in the mid-Seventies and got a job there as a manicurist in a beauty parlour. Within a year she had succeeded in marrying the old barber who owned it and had taken over the running of the place. She had turned it into a hairdressing salon, renewing the furniture, stripping off that ugly wallpaper and replacing it with mirrors and marble and adding washbasins and perming hoods. Two years later, her husband had died in the middle of Orbano high street, struck down by a heart attack. Ivana had sold the houses he had left her in San Folco and opened two more hairdressing salons in the area, one in Casale del Bra and the other in Borgo Carini. One summer in the late Eighties she had gone to visit some distant relatives who had emigrated to Orlando and there she had seen the American fitness centres. Temples of health and beauty. Superbly equipped clinics that treated the whole body, from the tip of your toes to the topmost hair of your head. Mud baths. Solar beds. Massage. Hydrotherapy. Lymphatic drainage.
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