Last updated on 12/04/2023
Chapter four – final part
Exploring Cattolica
The fourth day. Michael was fascinated by the local language. He collected as many words as he could and was particularly adept at imitating the way they were spoken. He even began to acquire an accent when speaking in English. He imitated the way Chico spoke – in a kind of simplified English with words in the wrong grammatical order, his sentences peppered with missing conjunctives, emphases being placed on the wrong syllables, absences of certain parts of speech that would be proper in spoken English. But then Chico did not learn his English at a school; he picked it up from those around him and if they were wrong he would be wrong too. Michael found this rather charming. His spoken sentences began to imitate the way the Cattolicans spoke English. He did not fully realise he was doing this; it just happened – his way of empathising with the natives.
Chico had become the representative for Galaxy Tours last year. He had little in the way of formal education and had learned a little English when he did national service in the Italian army. Galaxy hired him because they were desperate for locals who could speak some English. Chico was not a good organiser; he had never worked in an office but had the kind of ready wit that enabled him to think on his feet. To him, being a tour rep was like being on permanent holiday. He had a huge dislike of Galaxy Tours but as long as they kept paying him he was ready to do their bidding. The only thing he really liked about his job was that it gave him the opportunity to travel to parts of the country he had not been to before, as he sat on the coaches with the holidaymakers, ferrying them to and from the airports in Italy and Switzerland. He also loved the endless parties, the welcome nights, the trips to the nightclubs in town and of course the succession of girls that came with them, even though he was already engaged to be married to a local girl. He appeared to be a mine of local information, although he made up most of it. He was a good-natured shark.
Michael wrote copious notes in his book about the buildings. He was particularly fascinated by their sun blinds and shutters. He noted in his book:
The windows of the Hotel Britannia, have green blinds made of wooden slats that are sealed into the frames of the windows and can be raised or lowered from inside each room. Most of these are left half closed – positioned in the middle of the window to block out some of the glare of the sun and reduce the heat that enters the room. Inside, the light is quite remarkable; the reduced sunlight being reflected by the whitewashed walls. Nearly all of the rooms of the three story hotel have balconies; on these are yellow plastic chairs. Few people bother to use them because they are always out – either at the beach, the shops or the cafés. In any case, the area around the outside the building is set with tables and chairs, each with its coloured parasol. The water that comes out of the hotel’s taps is often yellow in colour and has a distinct aroma of rusty iron. There are times when no water comes out at all and then, when it does start to flow, it is a dirty orange colour and clouded with sediment. Occasionally the lights dim, as the power supply is interrupted. The sink has two taps; both supply water at the same temperature – tepid. Several times I have noticed a very unpleasant smell coming from the plug hole in the sink. More than once the bottom of the shower cubicle has filled up with water because the drainage has become blocked. The people in the adjacent room left the shower running – they turned it on and nothing came out, so they went down stairs to discuss this with the manager. After a long absence, they returned to the room to find that the water had come back on and the whole room was flooded; in fact there was a maid outside in the corridor trying to mop it up.
Michael liked the shower – his home did not have one – only a bath. When the shower did work, he enjoyed it a lot, even though it rarely gave hot water. The northern lads also enjoyed showering – for the same reasons – though Dave had a rather alarming habit of coming out of the cubicle – dripping wet and stark naked – and walking around the room looking for his towel. Michael was a little taken aback at this; although, he did look at the lad’s lean and muscular body and admired his masculinity. ‘You can tell he’s masculine,’ Michael thought to himself, ‘it sticks out a mile.’
Michael noted that many of the Cattolican buildings appeared to be modern – mainly those in the areas that accommodated the holiday-makers. Occasionally he found one of the older houses, a traditional family home, and tried his best to catch a glimpse of the interior, through an open door or a window that did not have its blinds fully down. The external walls of these traditional homes were often rendered with coloured plaster. The windows were mostly rectangular though some of the wealthier homes had ornate heads to them (Michael used what ever words he could; he had no knowledge of architectural terms.) He would spend time walking around the town, exploring its narrow alleyways and soaking up the atmosphere of the small resort that had previously been a fishing village. Over the days of his stay, he fell in love with the place. Its marked difference to the drab terraced houses of his home appealed to him greatly.
Days were spent on the beach; nights were spent in the bars, cafés and nightclubs. The best thing about the resort, for the teenagers, was that life never stopped; it slowed down a bit in the early hours of the morning but soon came back again as the sun rose and the locals started their work. There was no need for the teenagers to do anything but the novelty of the resort attracted them and they were curious to explore and sample the delights it had to offer.
Apart from Chico and the Italian lads, who were after the English girls, Michael seldom met any of the locals, other than when they served him his food and drinks. He had tried to talk to local people when he was on one of his walks through the town but either they did not speak English or they were wary of teenagers. Michael studied the local people as he walked through the streets. He watched them as they rode on their scooters and mopeds; he looked at old men and women, dressed in black, sitting on chairs in the sunshine, usually outside their houses or the gates of their apartment blocks. He studied the young waiters as they worked in the bars and cafés and wondered what kind of lives they might lead, especially over the winter months when the tourists were not around. What did they do then? he thought To him, the English were inoculated against foreign culture by the way they stuck to their own way of doing things. English customs were a kind of life support system, he thought, that helped them cope with the differentness of the continent but which also acted as barriers that denied them any real experience of European life. He tried to learn a few of the local words and would use them in his sentences; it was his way of empathising with the local people. His speech affected an accent in which he mimicked Chico’s way of talking, planting occasional Italian words into his English sentences. He would use words like ciao, saluti, grazie, per favore, l’acqua minerale, caffè, latte, and vino in his sentences (spoken in English; he never managed a whole sentence using only Italian and he rarely spoke anything to the local people other than asking for drinks or food.) Mario was the exception. Michael would talk to him for hours because his English was quite good and he seemed genuinely keen to talk about his home village, its history and the way of life led by the local people. He liked the English teenager who was always interested to hear what he had to say. He was impressed that someone so young and from another country was interested in his stories.
Michael passed most of his time in the company of the other teenagers; occasionally he would wander off on his own. He preferred being with just one person at a time; unlike Richard who was always in the middle of a group. Michael could enjoy the life of the gang at times, when he was in the right mood. When everyone was laughing and joking, he could have just as much fun as the others. One evening the group of youngsters was in the hotel lounge. They decided to hold a seance. They were soon laughing and screaming. They all held hands and had placed beer mats, with letters written on them, in a circle, spinning a bottle in the middle. They took it in turns to spin the bottle and seeing on which letter it stopped. The girls seemed to laugh all the time; they would laugh at the slightest things. Sometimes they would get over excited but the boys also did. On a particularly rowdy evening, Michael jumped up on one of the coffee tables and tried to balance a flower pot on his head. The group expressed much merriment at his comical behaviour, mainly because it was him and they were seeing a side of the teenager that was previously unknown. They egged on his antics until the hotel manager, Ricardo, intervened and told him to get down from the coffee table. ‘Hey! Bambino!’, he shouted. Michael stepped from the table and put the flower pot back in its place. They could be naughty at times but generally they were well behaved and did what they were told.
The group would take a break from the beach at midday when the sand got too hot to walk on. They would often gather at Mario’s café. The girls ordered hot dogs which came with slices of toast instead of the more familiar bridge rolls. Michael decided to show off and asked for a slice of strawberry gateaux. The girls would not let him eat it in peace. They kept sticking their fingers into it and at one point, as Michael held it up to his mouth to take a large bite, Kate pushed it and it went all over his face. They all thought this was hilarious. As Michael took a sip of his drink, they made loud slurping noises; it was simple things, such as these, that made them laugh so much. At one point Kate made a very rude remark about Sandra’s sausage; this made Michael laugh so much that he sprayed the cola he was drinking all over the table. He tried to escape from their constant interference by moving to a table on the other side of the café. The group followed him and continued with their taunts and annoyances. It was all in good fun. A French guitar player appeared and began to strum out popular songs on his instrument. The teenagers began to sing along to any of the melodies they knew. Michael loved this; music was an important part of his life and he was very fond of group singing. He was more than pleased to join in; if he did not know the words he would just vocalise ‘la, la, la.’ The musician sang ‘Lontano lontano’, by the famous Italian song-writer Luigi Tenco. Michael loved this and some of the waiters stopped and stood listening to it until he had finished. He drew enthusiastic applause from the audience. Michael asked one of the Italian waiters to translate it for him and copied part of the lyrics into his book:
And far away, far away in the world
in a smile on the lips of another woman
you will find that my shyness
for what you teased me a little
And far away, far away in time
the expression of random face
will make you remember my face
That evening, Richard took Michael and Kate for a ride on one of the tricycles he had seen earlier. The large cumbersome machine had a green canvas canopy above it, edged with yellow fringes. The three teenagers sat on its seat in the middle, the boys on the outside with their feet on the pedals. They careered round the roads bumping into things and laughing themselves silly. Even Michael enjoyed himself; what cemented his friendship with Richard was his love of teenage amusements and having fun. They shared a similar sense of humour and a delight in being silly. Whereas Richard was of an even temperament, being consistently much the same all the time, Michael was frequently subject to moods; he could be sullen and self-occupied but at other times he would come out of his shell and enjoy the fun he was having with his friends. After nearly an hour, they took the machine back to its owner. Michael felt very happy; for once he was in high spirits.
‘That was huge fun,’ Richard said after they had left the rank of tricycles. ‘Did you enjoy it Kate?’ Kate laughed and said ‘You guys are nuts. The way you were driving that bike, I can’t believe you didn’t kill someone.’
Towards eight o’clock, the group returned to the Britannia for dinner. Dinner at the hotel that night saw the whole company of young people together. Michael’s main concern was with trying to decide what the meat on his plate actually was. He was convinced it was rabbit. He was relieved that, even in Italy, potatoes were the same as they were back home. The teenagers had gathered together on a table. Chico appeared and placed two bottles of sparkling white wine in the middle of it.
”Ere you go,’ he said, beaming munificently. ‘With compliments of Galaxy Tours.’ He placed the bottles on the table and left. Richard wasted no time in tearing off the gold foil from the neck of one of the bottles. He placed his thumbs on the head of the cork. ‘I learned to open these at my cousin’s wedding,’ he said, ‘only, then, it was real champagne.’ The cork shot from the bottle, with a sound like gun shot, startling the nearby diners, and landed on the other side of the room – in Mavis’s bowl of soup. She shrieked like a scalded cat. The teenagers saw this and burst into howls of laughter. Richard rolled about so much he fell off his chair. When he had regained his composure, he stood up and proposed a toast to the tour operators. The teenagers took took large gulps from their glasses. Then Jane stood up and proposed a toast to Chico; more gulps were taken. The evening progressed in this fashion and by the end of the meal the teenagers stumbled out of the restaurant in an inebriated state. Their stomachs were stuffed with chicken and potatoes and their faces flushed with the wine. In the lounge, the group threw themselves on to the sofas and easy chairs and began to laugh and joke about the meal they had and the cork landing in Mavis’s soup bowl. Kate wanted to know why Chico had given them the bottles of wine.
‘It was because we had to share a room with two lads from up north,’ Richard explained. Jane feigned an expression of shock and said, ‘Oh! So all you boys are sleeping together!’ The group exploded into laughter. Richard rose to the humour, ‘Well our room is poorly furnished. There’s only one bed so we all had to get into together,’ he fibbed. More uproar. ‘Chico bribed us with free bottles of wine. He said to us, on the first night, that if we all slept together he would look after us.’ The group descended into prolonged laughter.
In the lounge, Richard offered to buy the whole group a round of drinks. While he was at the bar, Michael stepped into the limelight. ‘Does anyone know what was in the soup tonight?’ he asked.
‘I was told it was vegetable soup,’ Carol explained.
‘I found a pea in mine,’ Kate said.
Jane responded ‘Mine tasted like the cook had peed in it.’
Sandra explained that she had asked the waitress what was in it and was told it was vegetable soup. ‘They probably scraped all yesterday’s left-overs into a big pot and boiled it up,’ Sandra suggested. The remark evoked a chorus of ‘ugh’ from the teenagers.
‘And then the cook peed in it!’, Jane exclaimed and everyone laughed uproariously.
‘Yes, and you should see what he stirred it with,’ Sandra remarked. The laughing continued.
Richard returned with a tray of assorted drinks. Jane said ‘Michael’s been making us all laugh.’
‘He’s quite a little raver when he gets pissed,’ Richard said handing out the glasses from his tray. ‘One drink and he’s anybody’s,’ he added.
‘Aye up Richard. Seeing as you’re all sleeping in the same bed, it looks like your luck is in tonight,’ Jane exclaimed. There then followed an explanation of what Richard had missed. Just then the two northern lads appeared in the lounge. The group cheered at them and beckoned them over. They pulled up chairs and sat down. ‘You been having a good time?’ Sandra asked them.
‘We’ve been out to a café over the road for supper,’ Dave said. ‘We couldn’t face that stuff they serve up in the hotel.’
‘Yea. We had fish and chips at Mario’s.’ Nick added.
Marios café was close to the hotel, situated on the side of a low hill. It became the favoured haunt of the English teenagers. Mario became accustomed to the behaviour of his young customers; he knew what they did was all in good fun, if it at times it was difficult to tolerate. But, Mario was a man who had, in his youth, been a bit of a tearaway and, as long as they kept coming and kept spending, he always welcomed his young English guests. Chico, the tour guide had rented a room over the café so that was an added incentive for Mario to be nice to his unruly English customers. It had not taken Mario long to discover that this English customers wanted fish and chips; having found out how to cook this strange dish, it became a popular addition to his menu and quickly out-sold pizza and spaghetti. The clientele also asked for hot dogs; since no rolls of the correct shape were available locally, he served the saveloys between pieces of toast.
Sandra went over to the hotel’s jukebox and put on some music. The teenagers told each other a lot of jokes; it was something they did whenever they were together in a group. Kate told this one:
‘A young man asked his girl friend’s younger brother if he could give him a lock of his sister’s hair and offered pay him one pound for it. The boy replied ‘give me a fiver and I’ll give you the whole wig.’
Sandra’s favourite was: ‘A woman once asked her husband if he believed in lie detectors. The husband replied ‘yes of course I do. I married one.’
Nick told a story about a woman who went into a shop to buy a washing machine. The salesman told her that one particularly expensive model would pay for itself in no time. The women replied, ‘Good. When it does have it delivered.’
You might have thought that Michael was not one for telling jokes. You would be wrong. His favourite was:
‘A very refined woman went to a posh dinner party. They all had plates of food served with large helpings of Brussels sprouts. Half way through the dinner the woman lets out an audible fart.’ A peel of laughter came from the enthralled youngsters. ‘The diners looked up from their plates. So, she looks at the dog, lying on the floor near to her and says in annoyance, ‘Fido!’ A little later she lets out an even louder fart. To divert attention, she looks at the dog and says, ‘O, for god’s sake Fido!’ Five minutes later she lets out another huge fart, which rang round the room. She was about to say something when the dog’s owner saidl, ‘Quick Fido, get away from her before she shits on you.’
A roar of laughter exploded from the teenagers; some laughed so much they had tears rolling down their faces. Others started to choke on their drinks. Teenage humour, in those days, was invariably vulgar; the ruder the jokes, the more they liked it.
Richard’s one was: ‘Agnes married and had 13 children. When her husband died, she married again and had 7 more children. Again, her husband died. So Agnes remarried and this time had 5 more children. Alas, she finally died. Standing before her coffin, the preacher prayed for her. He thanked the Lord for this very loving woman and her dead husband and said, ‘Lord, they’re finally together.’ One mourner leaned over and quietly asked her friend, ‘Do you think he means her first, second or third husband?’ The friend replied, ‘I think he means her legs.’
The evening continued in much the same vein; rounds of drinks were purchased from the bar as soon as the previous ones had been consumed. The collection of bottles and glasses on the table grew steadily. More jokes were told and the noise grew louder as the party continued. Gradually the group fragmented into couples. Richard cosied up to Jane. Michael was deep in conversation with Carol. Dave and Nick were talking to each other. After an hour or so, Richard and Jane stood up.
‘We’re going to the beach,’ he said to the group and with that they disappeared towards the main door. Carol took Michael’s arm and said, ‘We’d better go with them or we might be missing something.’
At the beach, Richard and Jane lay down on a secluded sunbed in one of the darker corners of the area. Failing to spot where they had gone, Michael and Carol shook off their flip-flops and paddled in the sea. They walked along the shoreline arm in arm, talking about the evening and the people who had become their friends.
‘You have met several new people since you arrived, Michael; who do you like the best?’
‘You, of course. You have something that all the others lack – a mind. You think about things. That gives us both something to talk about.’
‘Why are you always writing in that little notebook, Michael?’
‘I am keeping a travel log, a detailed account of everything that happens. In years to come, I want to look back and remember the first great adventure of my life in as much detail as possible.’
‘Are you going to turn it into a novel then?’
‘I might do. I’ll just keep it as a memento of my journey and read it when times get hard or when I am feeling glum.’
The pair walked along in the placid water, enjoying the sultry atmosphere of the warm night and talking about the many things that they had seen and heard over the past few days. Feeling tired, they returned to the Britannia, leaving Richard and Jane on their secluded sunbed. Passing through the hotel, Michael noticed the two northern lads still in the bar. He said goodnight to Carol and made his way up to room 25, looking forward to falling asleep before others came in. He lay awake for a while thinking about the evening and his eyes were just about to close when the door opened and Dave and Nick came in.
They were chatting in their heavy Mancunian accents; when they saw Michael in bed, Dave said ‘Ey up, the virgin’s asleep already.’ Nick replied, ‘Well, ‘e’s laid ‘is kecks nicely on t’end of t’ bed.’ The lads peered at the apparently sleeping teenager. Nick walked over to look at Michael’s face to see if his eyes were shut. ‘Don’t mither ‘im,’ Dave said, ‘e’s been out on t’razz and now ‘e’s shattered.’ The lads left the sleepy teenager alone and started to undress. Nick said, ‘Should we leave t’light on; t’other one’s not back yet?’ Dave replied ‘Na. Best turn ‘im off; t’other one could be out all night. He’s taken ‘is bint down beach.’ Nick turned off the light and the two lads got under the duvet. In the dimness of the darkened room, Michael was squinting through his half-closed eyes; he could just make out the two lads as they pulled back the duvet from their bed to get under it and thought he saw, from their silhouettes, they were both naked. They snuggled down and began whispering to each other and moving about. Michael strained his ears hoping to hear a few words they were saying. Both of them were giggling quietly as they lay besides each other, rustling the duvet, doing something together. Michael was intrigued about what they were up to but he could see very little of the lumps under the duvet in the next bed. He heard Dave say, ‘Gerroff meh.’ Followed by Nick’s voice saying, ‘Aw, come on sexeh.’ Some groaning and giggling followed but Michael’s eyes closed and he fell asleep, not stirring again until the sun came up the next morning.
Day five. The next day it was very hot. Michael and Richard went to the beach to sun themselves on the rocks of the breakwater. As the boys walked to the beach, the sun made Michael squint and hurt his eyes so he purchased a pair of sun shades – the kind that had silvered glasses that were like mirrors. Richard had by now already turned a rich brown colour and his short fair hair had been bleached completely blond.
As they walked Michael asked, ‘And where did you get to last night? I woke up and you were not in your bed.’
‘I was with Jane of course. We stayed on the beach the whole night.’
‘Oh! Did you? So what were you doing on the beach all night?’
‘Oh Michael! You need to ask? What do you think we were doing?’
Michael did not reply; he might have been a bit slow at times but he knew what his friend had meant. He thought of saying something about Dave and Nick in bed last night but decided not to; he regarded Richard as being a bit prudish and old-fashioned in his attitudes even if he was not, in his behaviour.
The boys arrived at the breakwater. They found a large flat rock, lay their towels on it and settled down to enjoy the sun. ‘You had better put some lotion on Michael. You will burn up if you don’t.’ Michael took his advice and began to ply his arms and legs with the orange oil. He turned to Richard and said, ‘Will you rub some oil on to my back, please.’ ‘No way,’ Richard replied with an exasperated tone, ‘not in front of all these people. They will think we are pansies. You should have asked Carol to do it for you before we left the hotel.’ Michael thought that was typical of Richard; he was so straight-laced at times. Admittedly, it was not the sort of thing that would have been acceptable on Blackpool beach but here in Italy! And they were not exactly in the middle of a crowd of people, Michael thought.
‘Why ever not?’ Michael asked. ‘No one will see us out here on these rocks.’
‘Oh do stop being a pain Michael,’ Richard said. ‘I just don’t want to rub your back with oil. It’s not the kind of thing men do to each other.’
‘Well, that really is ridiculous. The girls are always rubbing each other with cream and no one thinks anything of it.’
‘Yes but if we started doing that people would start to talk. You are so naive sometimes, Michael.’
Michael covered his back with his towel and sat crossed legged on the rock with his back to the sun. Richard lay full length on his towel. Michael sat watching the people on the beach and children playing in the shallow water by the sandy shoreline. It was not long before he began to feel over-heated and bored with doing nothing. He stood up.
‘Richard. I’m going into town to buy some postcards.’ He didn’t bother to ask his friend if we wanted to come too because he knew him well enough. So he just said, ‘Ciao’, picked up his bag and walked off down the breakwater.
Michael spent some time gathering postcards and souvenirs in the stalls and shops that lined the main road. When his cash began to run low he walked back to the Britannia and sat in the lounge sipping a glass of iced lemonade. Sandra found him; she said, ‘We are going to Marios. Come with us.’ Michael downed his drink and followed her to the main entrance where Carol and Jane where waiting. The group walked the short distance to the café and sat down at a table under a large parasol. They looked at the low building which served as a kitchen. One of the waiters, who was leaning on the servery, noticed them and walked across to take their orders. The girls ordered glasses of Pepsi and bowls of strawberry gelato. Michael had been studying the menu. ‘I’ll have the lobster,’ he said to the waiter, much to the amusement of the rest of the party. While they were were waiting to be served, Pat came and sat down with them. She and her parents had arrived yesterday so she was still trying to find her way around the unfamiliar resort. ‘You settling in all right Pat?’, Sandra asked. Pat nodded and said, ‘This money takes a bit of getting used to. Everything is in thousands. It seems like you have to be a millionaire to buy anything round here.’ The girls giggled. ‘Have you met Michael yet?’, Jane asked. Pat waved her hand at Michael and said, ‘Hi. Have you been here long?’ ‘Nearly three days now,’ Michael replied. ‘Did you come with your parents?’, Pat asked him. ‘No. I am with my school friend Richard,’ he told her. ‘Oh! Where is he then?’, she asked. ‘I left him on the rocks sunbathing. He’s a real sun worshipper you know.’ ‘Good for him. I hope he gets a lovely tan. It’s not for me though,’ Pat replied, ‘My skin won’t take it. I prefer to keep cool and stay in the shade.’
The waiter arrived with Michael’s lobster. It was served on a plate surrounded by mashed potato that had been pipped into carefully sculpted shapes and with it a single mussel. The sad-looking creature sat on the plate with a melancholy look in its eyes. With it came an aluminium teapot; out of its lid, two pieces of string hung down, attached to the bags inside. There was also a tiny steel jug containing milk. Michael left it to brew. ‘These Italians have no idea at all about tea,’ Michael announced to the group around him. ‘They have never seen a packet of tea leaves in their lives.’
Pat agreed with him. ‘It’s tea bags all the way,’ she said. ‘Mind you, the coffee isn’t half bad though. Except of course at the hotel where it’s left to stew for hours and tastes of rubber. You have to come over here if you want a decent cuppa,’ she added.
Michael picked up the lobster and looked it in the eyes. He had never eaten one before and had no idea how to get into it. Jane demanded to see its death certificate. Everyone laughed and banged on the table. ‘It looks like it died of constipation,’ she said, reigniting the mirth. Michael turned the crustacean towards Sandra and said, ‘This is going to be fun. Any idea how to eat it?’ Sandra laughed and said, ‘It’s looking a bit sad with those googly eyes. Why don’t you give it a cup of tea? You might cheer it up a bit.’ The table roared with laughter. Various comments were made about the poor pink creature. Michael pulled off one its claws and started to attack Sandra with it – she screamed and pulled away nearly falling off her chair. She was okay about eating meat but was not used to consuming animals that looked like they were still alive. After a good deal of joking and seeing that the boy had not the slightest idea how to deal with it, Pat said, ‘you really need a little hammer to get it open.’ She waved to a waiter, who ambled over. Pat spoke to him in perfect Italian and he went back to the kitchen. ‘Wow!,’ Jane said. ‘So you can speak to them in their own language’. Pat explained that her parents were of Italian extraction and she had learned the mother tongue when she was a child. The waiter returned to the table and placed a tiny metal hammer at the side of Michael’s plate. Michael stared at it with a bemused look on his face. Pat walked over to him and began to hit the shell of the lobster, breaking it into pieces and revealing the white meat inside. ‘Not many people know how to tackle a lobster,’ Pat said and walked back to her seat. Diane disliked the sight of the little creature being bashed to pieces. ‘I’m going to report this to the RSPCA,’ she said mournfully. Michael began to pull pieces of flesh from inside the shell with his fork. It tasted a bit like how Cattolica harbour smelt, he thought.
The tea was ready, so Michael opened the lid and pulled out the bags by the pieces of string attached to them. He poured some milk into the cup and then tipped the teapot over it. The water gushed out through the loosely fitting lid and went all over the saucer and the table. The girls all laughed. Michael cleaned up the mess with one of the paper napkins from the table and continued with his meal. Pat ordered a bottle of Sangiovesi – a sweet red wine that she liked. The waiter delivered it with a clutch of spare wine glasses and Pat asked Michael if he would like to try a little. ‘Mmm … that’s very good,’ Michael said. ‘And it goes very well with the lobster,’ he added.
They talked about the people who were staying at the hotel. Michael explained that the teenagers had been talking about the two fat ladies – Mavis and Betty. He said, ‘One of the girls suggested they were like cows and cows make a noise called bellowing. We all laughed at this idea. From then on we always referred to them as ‘bellowing’ – on account of their loudness.’
Betty was the more dominant of the two fat ladies; she was always trying to keep Mavis in order. They were travelling with their husbands; two small, sheep-like men who were mere appendages to the over-bearing females. Mavis was in her late thirties and presented herself as being something of a clown; the teenagers viewed her as being loud-mouthed and rather stupid. To her, the world always appeared to be very nice. That is why she became the butt of everyone’s jokes. Both of them wore the most awful clothes – cheap cotton dresses printed with garish colours and flowery designs. Michael saw them as being like the fat, big-breasted women he saw on those postcards, sent to him from English holiday resorts, by his relatives.
Richard appeared. Jane said, ‘Oh Richard! You do look brown!’ He pulled over a white plastic chair and sat next to her. ‘Michael has just eaten a whole lobster,’ she told him. Richard was just about to make a sarcastic comment about Michael looking the same colour as the lobster when Jane said, ‘Oh and meet Pat. She arrived yesterday and she can speak Italian.’ Richard lent across and shook hands with Pat. ‘So then Richard. I hear you have been sunning yourself on the rocks all day.’
‘Yes. Going for the burn. I don’t want to get back without a tan.’
‘Of course. There’s no point in coming all this way for the sun if you don’t go back with some of it on your skin,’ Pat said.
‘So, has Michael been behaving himself?’, Richard asked.
‘He’s been making us all laugh. What with his strawberry gateaux and then his lobster. It seems he’d never eaten one before and Pat had to cut it up for him,’ Jane explained with a grin.
Jane looked at Richard’s brown face and arms and said, ‘Have you been using tanning oil then, Richard?’
‘Yes. I bought a large bottle of it as soon as I got here. You can’t get it at home; there’s no demand for it in our local shops. Probably because we never get any sun.’
Carol said, ‘You’re not going brown then Michael?’
‘No,’ he replied, ‘I am just going the same colour as the poor old lobster. When we were on the breakwater, I asked Richard if he would rub some lotion on my back but he refused’.
‘Oh why is that Richard?’, Carol asked.
‘It’s not the sort of thing boys can do to each other.’
‘Why ever not?’ Pat commented. ‘You are only rubbing it on his back! I can’t see anything wrong with that.’
‘We wouldn’t hesitate to rub oil on to each other’s backs,’ Jane commented with a laugh.
Carol said, ‘Why can’t you rub oil on Michael’s back? You know he’s going to burn up with his fair skin. After all, he is your best friend.’
Richard frowned and took a sip from his drink. He felt like they were picking on him.
‘It’s okay for you girls to do things like that,’ Richard retorted, somewhat testily, ‘But if boys started doing it people would start to gossip about them.’
‘Oh what nonsense!’, Pat said. ‘You should see what the Italian boys get up to with each other. They don’t give a damn about anything. They can hug and kiss each other and no one gives a toss about it.’
Sandra joined in, saying, ‘Yes I have noticed that the Italian lads are a lot more free and easy over here. They can get away with things in Cattolica that they wouldn’t be able to do in England. I often see the local lads walking around hand in hand, just like they were a couple. No one blinks an eye about it.’
Pat said, ‘It’s just the way that Italians are; the lifestyle is so different here compared to England. We are all much more relaxed about everything. The English are so uptight.’
The group continued their conversation until the sun began to go down and they made their way back to the Britannia for dinner. Nothing that anyone said, however, changed Richard’s mind about how he would behave.