An Unexpected Affair (10 page)

Antipasto

I
am starting this book in Italy. It’s the only place to begin. It’s where everything really started to unravel. In the end it all came down to being in the wrong place at the wrong time or, eventually as it turned out, being in the right place at exactly the right time.

This book is about me. Almost all of it is true, but it’s easier to write it in the name of someone else in case the pain of what happened stops me from writing everything I need to say.

My story is about deep loss and coming through it the other side. It’s also about finding true love with a lot of help from the Ancient Greeks, Charles Ryder (think Jeremy Irons Brideshead Revisited), Heathcliff (my all-time romantic hero) and my best friend Dan. I know, bear with me. My mind doesn’t always work like yours but what I discovered might help you.

The story is called The Italian Affair for a hugely important reason. That one sentence has enabled me to understand what life is REALLY about. It tied up the loose ends and provided me with the final pieces of the jigsaw.

Hopefully, by the time I die the memories I leave behind – because that is the only thing that will remain of me – will be a testament to those three words. It is my epitaph.

Stay with me as I write. It will take a while to warm up, as the memories this story evokes sit deep within me and often I don’t even recognize the person that was. Even as I start to type I am not sure how much of the past I will need to reveal to explain the present. Just thinking about it all now overwhelms me. It was touch and go at one stage as to whether I could carry on. It would have been so easy to have curled up and died.

Yours Issy Mead

PART I –
Primo Piatto

Naples – 3pm local time August 28th 1986

“What a bottom,” hissed one of the olive-skinned men, as Issy Mead was finally approved as perfectly legitimate and fit for entry.

Staring at her peachy arse as she walked on by in a light beige cotton dress, the Neapolitans controlling the borders continued to talk about her bum until it was a dot on their horizons.

That’s how much they liked it. “How odd,” Issy thought “that she should suddenly be attracting such unwelcome attention. No man had ever studied her in that way before apart from one.”

She pulled at the dress whilst struggling to shake off dark lusting looks that bored into her body.

Oxfam didn’t always sell cotton and, whatever the fabric, it clung to Issy like a second skin as thousands of her perspiration ducts unused to temperatures of what felt like one hundred degrees started to work over-time.

“What a bloody cheek,” Issy said to herself as she simultaneously walked forwards, smiling at her own irony.

But there was no time for offence, or even prolonged humour, because as soon as she got into the baggage reclaim area a throbbing scene of travel chaos sprawled itself out in front of her.

Despite the name, luggage seemed thin on the ground. There was no information, and only one carousel, being given a good kick up the backside by a small chain-smoking Italian man with a very large moustache.

“Miserable pig,” he shouted at the conveyor belt without taking the cigarette out of his mouth, thrashing about and waving his arms in the air in an attempt to get things moving.

Miraculously after only a few minutes, this mad approach worked, and the carousel spluttered slowly to life before haphazardly spewing out suitcases, one after the other.

“This clearly isn’t an airport where you want to be carrying anything important,” Issy thought nervously as bags that weren’t hers started to make slow circuits in front of her.

And then she remembered. “The letters, please God. Don’t let me lose the box of letters,” Issy screeched at herself in silence as she despondently stared at the conveyor belt. Seconds of anxious waiting turned into minutes that felt like hours.

Issy’s agitation at potentially losing the only bits of her past she had left in the world intensified until a familiar-looking black suitcase eventually appeared.

Jostling to remain upright, it was only recognisable by the big yellow “Ban the Nuke” stickers which looked much less politically charged than they had at home.

But it was not just the relief of seeing her bag, or the words on the stickers, that screamed for her attention. It was the colour so vivid in its yellowness that triggered her back to childhood.

It happened sometimes this way. A moment in the present which propelled her back fifteen years, when things beyond Issy’s control had unfolded and she had not been able to stop any of it from happening right in front of her.

“Oh shit,” Issy thought as the carousel randomly picked up speed. The sudden familiar sour taste of panic arrived back in her mouth from somewhere below her waistline. Her only task was to grab the bag and the letters from the throng

She reached her hands out from the crowd to take her battered suitcase but it was too late. She’d missed her slot.

Weaving in and out of the crowds, Issy started to jog as she kept her eyes focused on the Ban the Nuke stickers which had, bizarrely, only a few moments before, reminded her of the pair of Extra Large Marigold washing-up gloves that her father had died in.

“Fuck,” she said out loud she had to get the bag before it disappeared from view. Or worse someone took it.

Issy checked the panic attack threatening to overwhelm her as her legs automatically picked up speed and ran alongside the carousel.

As she clenched her nails into her fists, the familiar sensation of self-inflicted pain crushed into her palm. It was an old habit and retribution today for not treating the letters with more respect.

“Don’t even for one second allow those stickers to disappear from view,” Issy demanded of herself as she finally found another gap in the crowds of eager British holidaymakers and threw herself at her suitcase.

Huge relief surged over her as she embraced it. Smoothing down her dress and her hair she steadied herself before walking shakily through customs and into the arrivals hall.

Unbearably hot, an excitable crowd of Neapolitans pushed forwards to welcome loved ones home. Above the scrum of embracing couples and screaming families, Issy spotted a huge big white sign with the name ISSY MEAD written across it in bold capital letters.

“Christ, that’s subtle” Issy muttered as she walked towards it. “She’d come here to escape and be incognito for a while” she thought ruefully. As she got closer, Issy could see that the sign was being held up high by a short Neapolitan man who peered out from underneath it, sporting a big moustache over an even bigger grin which seemed to get wider and wider as she drew nearer.

As Issy finally stood in front of the person she thought must be her driver, she tried to respond to his apparent delight but no words came out of her mouth.

Trying harder to focus, she stared intently at the writing on the board. She recognised the name, but no longer knew or understood the person who answered to it. Or why, in God’s name, she had chosen to come to Southern Italy on a hot Saturday afternoon in August when her shattered heart belonged somewhere else.

“Ciao, it eez a pleasure,” the small Italian man said with a heavy Italian accent, his moustache twitching with every syllable. “I am Gennaro.”

“Hello, nice to meet you” Issy replied smiling, despite her parched mouth. “I am Issy Mead.”