Last updated on 21/10/2024
Chapter 7. The Road to Ancona.
Part of my novel The Road to Ancona.
Day eleven. Michael struggled through the last week of the holiday. The heat, the constant feeling of exhaustion, the incessant itching of the sunburn on his back, the continual emotional upheavals of his experiences, everything seemed to get on top of him. He enjoyed moments of frivolity with the group but he always had Carol to talk to if things were weighing on his mind. His excessive consumption of alcohol did not help; he rarely drank at home and now he was smoking all day too and drinking lager and wine from dawn to dusk. He felt sick all the time. Even so, he ate regularly and happily tried new dishes; he had adventurous tastes when it came to food. But the local bacteria had got into his gut and he battled with an upset stomach pretty much all the time. Richard was totally obsessed with everyone else, so Michael thought. Which was true. His friend was a gregarious party animal. Michael’s sufferings were not Richard’s main concern.
‘It’s your own fault,’ Richard said, on a regular basis. ‘I told you to make sure you put sun-tan oil on before you go out in the sun. If you’re burning up, it’s your own fault.’
‘Well, would you put some Camomile lotion on my back tonight?’
‘No way. What do you think people would say if they knew I was rubbing your back,’ Richard said haughtily.
Richard was not the world’s most sympathetic person, particularly where Michael was concerned. Carol had left Cattolica with her parents, who had decided to go on an excursion for a few days, so Carol had to go with them. She would have preferred to have stayed in the resort with her friends but the parents would have none of it.
‘You’re coming with us and that’s final,’ Carol’s dad said after a protracted argument about the excursion arrangements. So, Carol disappeared from Michael’s life that day and left him with no shoulder to cry on and no one to talk to. Michael compensated by writing in his notebook. His long hours of solitude were spent working through his woes with his pen. He wrote:
Life has got on top of me now. All the time I feel sick, not just sick in my stomach but sick inside, in my head and in my heart. I know that Richard is my best friend but at times I feel he ignores me and is simply not interested in anything I say to him. When he is around I struggle to get his attention; when he is not around I miss him. I wish he would spend just a little more time with me and pay attention when I talk to him. He is forever going off with people, such as Jane or Kate and even Stewart, and not telling me where he is going or when he will be back. I am so glad that I have Carol as my friend; she means a lot to me and without her company, the holiday would not have been as good. But now she has gone away and I am left with nobody. There is no one other than Carol who I can really talk to. I think there are times when she does not understand what I am saying but, even so, she tries to appreciate my point of view and she asks intelligent questions.
As the day wore on, things got steadily worse for Michael. He became overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness and nausea. Richard was nowhere to be seen and most of the others had gone to bed to sleep off the weariness of the recent long excursions and the late nights they had been having. Michael felt fed up and frustrated. He is tired of writing. He decided to pack a few things into his knapsack and go on a long walk. He did not tell anyone where he was going. No one was around to tell, at the time, anyway. He set off with no idea where he was going or for how long he would be away. He found himself on the Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, one of the main roads that ran through the centre of the town. It led to the main trunk road that headed south towards Pesaro and then to Ancona. He walked over the bridge and up the steep hill to Gabicce Monte. He walked along, turning things over in his mind, trying to sort out the conflicts that were eating at him, wrestling with the issues that consumed him. An agony of despair gripped his mind, desolation had taken hold of him. Tears ran down his face and he felt as though life no longer meant anything to him. He kept on walking until he came to the top of the hill. Having left the built-up area of Cattolica, he found himself in a picturesque setting of gently undulating hills, smoothly rounded and patterned with neatly lined vineyards and small areas of cultivation dotted with tiny white houses topped with red-tiled roofs. It looked to him as though it had been painted, like a rustic medieval picture, and its tranquillity gave him a little peace. The scene suggested to him the timeless essence of rural Italy. From the top of the mount, he could see the calm blue sea stretching into the distance, small boats leaving behind them trails of white foam. Looking at this beautiful, serene scene, Michael’s problems seemed pointless and stupid. He thought, ‘These hills have been here for a thousand years, tilled and cultivated by many generations of people, each with their own histories of love and pain.’ He felt small and insignificant in its expansive magnificence.
He resolved that he wanted to discover the real Italy, not the resorts that had become industries for the tourist trade, the hotels and restaurants that were factories for holidaymakers. In Michael’s mind, an image had developed of the native Italy, untouched by the holiday business. He wanted to become a local; live like a local; he wanted to become one of them and share their way of life. He made his way down a quiet, winding lane that led from the top of the Monte. As he walked, he dreamed of staying in Italy for the rest of his life. He wanted a new life, to become someone else, to leave behind his English roots and start again here in this land where he felt at home and where the people were relaxed in their simple way of life. His life appeared, in his mind, like scenes from a fresco; motionless people caught in actions frozen in time, scenes set in lines and colour, life depicted in stylised moments. The pictures he imagined told stories of people preaching forgiveness and the futilities of life, of wise old men sharing their learning with the young, of saintly individuals explaining to animals and birds how they should lead their lives.
The winding lane brought him to the Autostrada that ran along the coast towards the port of Ancona. The traffic roared along it, filling the air with noise and dust. Michael followed its course until it led towards the town of Pesaro and there he turned off, not wanting to end up in another area of houses and shops with crowds of people going about their daily business. He needed the solitude of the rural areas.
Michael walked; he had no idea where he was going and was completely consumed by his thoughts. He imagined himself sleeping in a field that night. He was far away from the resort; alone and totally dependent on his wits and his determination. As he walked he saw himself running away and hiding in the hills of the Italian countryside. He wondered about how he would survive, learn to speak the language, where he would live if he could find work to support himself … but then his thoughts turned to the people he would be leaving behind and would never see again – his parents, Richard, Carol – and what they would feel if he never came back. Would they miss him? he asked himself. Would Richard be glad to see the back of him?
Michael wondered if he was secretly in love with Richard. Not in love with the real Richard, he thought, with his vulgar jokes and irreverent behaviour but with an idealised version of him. This ideal version was like that of an ancient Greek statue. A bronzed youth with a beautiful face, admired by all but lacking any kind of philosophy to add depth to his physical form. This idea was just one of many troubles that weighed on Michael’s mind during his walk. Michael imaged that people thought him odd; rather out of place, someone who just did not fit in. Maybe, here in Italy, he thought, he could become a different person. Maybe the Italians would understand him and his ways, unlike the English who did not. He saw the local people as being more accepting, more forgiving, more given to a live and let live attitude, people who reflected spirituality in life in a way that his compatriots did not. Michael’s mind was in turmoil, wrestling with the problems and difficulties that consumed him and ate away at his heart and mind. He followed the small roads and lanes of the countryside, having no idea where he was or where he was going.
Several hours after he started his walk, Michael came to a small brick-built chapel beside the road, a decaying hut from which the paint was peeling and the white plaster was falling off in pieces. The sun was lowering and bathing the world in soft golden light. The door to the little building was open so Michael wandered inside, hoping to find somewhere to sit down and rest. It was cool and dark inside and his eyes took some time to become accustomed to the lack of light. There were no windows; the only light was that from the open doorway. He sat down on one of the wooden pews in the middle of the tiny church; it was a simple place, with bare walls and an arched roof. He could see a crucifix at the end of the aisle, with a painted carving of Christ, fixed to the wall above the small altar. The symbol of a man nailed to a cross spoke to him; it seemed like his whole life was a cross he had to bear.
He sat there for several minutes, feeling glad of the coolness and a place to rest his now aching legs. He took the knapsack off his back and placed it beside him on the pew. A feeling of contemplative calm came over him. He had been walking for several hours and had no idea where he was. Having left Cattolica, he knew he had been walking south, following the coastal road towards Pesaro but had turned off and headed into the rural heartland of the area. He felt hungry but had brought no food with him; in the countryside, there had been no shops or roadside stalls from which to buy anything to eat. He began to think about what he should put in his notebook; trying to organise his thoughts into writings. His mind went over the ideas that had come to him during the walk. He revisited his longing to leave England and to settle in the country he was in, in its rural heartland and become a new person, someone quite different from the Midlands teenager that he was when he left home. The more he contemplated his situation, the more he began to have misgivings about the idea of running away. Hunger and weariness gnawed away at his determination.
The light coming in through the open door suddenly dropped; he turned round and saw the shape of a man, silhouetted against the brightness of the doorway. The shape suggested he was a priest wearing a round-brimmed hat. The man stood just inside the church, his eyes getting used to the darkness after the sunshine outside. He saw Michael sitting on the pew. He was surprised; few people ever entered this place. The old priest walked slowly towards the young boy. Peering down at him he said something in Italian which Michael did not understand. Michael said, ‘I have come here to rest’. The priest recognised the language and replied to him in English.
‘Bless you, my son. This house of God is open to all travellers who seek rest. Have you come far?’
‘From Cattolica,’ Michael replied. The old man had known the town when it was just a fishing harbour before the developers moved in and changed it into a resort for tourists.
‘Cattolica,’ the priest said nodding his head. ‘My father was a fisherman there when he was a young man. He had his own boat and made a good living from the sea.’ The priest sat down in the pew behind Michael. ‘I went to school there when I was a child – many years ago’, the priest said slowly, with a wistful note in his voice. ‘Many pilgrims used to stop there in those days. They were going to Rome to visit the shrine of Saint Peter, you know.’ The old man talked slowly and deliberately. ‘Everything changed in Cattolica when Bonaparte arrived there.’ The priest removed his hat and wiped his forehead with his sleeve.
‘Bonaparte!’, Michael exclaimed. ‘Why did the emperor of France arrive in Cattolica? Did they have packaged holidays in those days?’
‘No. No. Lucien Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon. He hated the noise and crowds of Rimini and much preferred the peace and quiet of our small fishing village. It cost a lot less, in those days, of course. He found space and time to think and ate with the local people. It is said he preferred the simple pleasures of fisherman’s food to the lavish banquets offered by the grand hotels in Rimini.’
Michael liked what he was hearing; it had a ring of authenticity to it. Stories about history and great people in times long past fascinated him. But the old priest was curious to know something.
‘So, why are you here my child? What brings you to this church? We seldom see holiday-makers in here. It’s not on the tourist map. How did you find this place?’
‘I was walking. I needed some time to myself, so I just walked along the road from Cattolica. That was about four or five hours ago. I found this place and the door was open, so I came in to rest my feet. My legs are aching. You don’t mind do you?’
‘No. No. Of course not, my child. The house of God is open to all. These chapels were built for pilgrims. They were created to offer rest for the weary, both the aching legs and the weariness of the soul.’
‘My walk has been a pilgrimage, I suppose,’ Michael explained. ‘I felt I needed to get away from everything. This is my first time in a foreign country. It takes a lot of getting used to. Things were getting on top of me. People, their constant problems, their incessant irritations … I can understand why people in the past went on pilgrimages. They must have got fed up with life and wanted to search for something … for solace.’
The old priest said, ‘They went on pilgrimages as an act of devotion to our Lord. Their journey was taken for the soul; it was a spiritual journey,’ the priest explained. ‘Like life itself, it was a journey and they made it to find themselves.’
‘I think that is what I have been doing,’ Michael said thoughtfully. ‘This whole holiday has been about finding myself … trying to work out who I am. I have been thinking about the purpose of my life. What I am here for.’
The priest nodded thoughtfully. He looked at the strange, fair-skinned teenager in front of him, trying to gauge the expression on his face in the gloom of the tiny chapel. The priest continued, speaking in slow and measured statements, ‘God has put all of us here for a purpose. My life as a priest has been a search to find and understand what that purpose is. Even now, in my old age, I do not fully understand it. It is one of the great mysteries of our religion. But you … so young! Your life has only just begun. I never thought about such things when I was your age. Life for me then was about living. Just living. There was no time to think back then. It was only later in my life, that I started to think about the meaning of our existence. As I read the Bible and talked to priests, a whole new world opened in my mind. That’s why I became a priest. Well … one of the reasons. The Catholic church is not a college of philosophers. We are not here to become wise and learned. If that happens, it happens. We are commanded to serve. Our lives must be devoted to the service of the church.’ The old man looked thoughtful for a few moments.
Michael was somewhat wary of the old man. He looked at his wrinkled face and grey beard but his eyes stared at him in a way that was kindly and inquisitive. Michael remembered the friars he had seen in Assisi. He imaged them as leading a life full of prayer and peacefulness. Perhaps this old priest used to be a monk, Michael thought.
‘Perhaps that is why the youth find it so difficult, these days,’ the priest continued. ‘They have no sense of purpose in their lives. Nothing to shape and guide them. So many young people have abandoned the church now. They come to us when they want to get married and we bury them when they are dead. But, so often, we do not see them between these times.’ The old priest looked sad for a moment. He peered at the teenager in the pew in front of him and noted the tiredness in his eyes. He continued, ‘We cannot escape what we are born into. We are who we are and few can change that. Our Lord has ordained a life for us, a place in the world that He has given us and we must bear the cross that He lays upon our backs. Suffering is given to us to open our eyes to the truth of the world and to make us deeper and more loving people.’
Michael was deeply moved by what the priest was saying to him. The dark clouds in his mind lifted as he listened to the words spoken by the old man, in his slow and deliberate manner. To Michael he was a voice from the past, almost as though he was a ghost that had come to minister to him the wisdom of the ancients; he listened intently, soaking up the words of the old priest, totally absorbed by what he was hearing. But then, he noticed that the light was fading away.
It was beginning to get dark outside; Michael said goodbye to the priest and thanked him for his time and for being allowed to rest in his little roadside church. He began to walk back to Cattolica. He turned over in his mind all that the old man had said to him. His words have given him comfort and solace. His churning anger and fears had been calmed by the slow and thoughtful things that the priest had said to him. Michael’s mind dwelled on all that he had been told about the purpose of life. He felt that his life should have a sense of purpose and he needed to discover what that should be. Michael resolved that he would spend the rest of his life searching for what his existence should be about. If he could not find himself in Cattolica, he thought, he would not find himself anywhere not even here in Italy. He realised that he was not strong enough to run away and start a new life. He felt weak and insecure and needed the presence of the people on whom he relied.
Michael arrived back at the Britannia very late that night. Richard was furious. ‘Where the hell have you been Michael?’, he said, as his friend appeared in the lounge of the hotel. ‘We have all been worried sick here wondering where you had got to. Why did you go off without telling us where you were going?’
‘I went for a walk,’ Michael said sheepishly. ‘I felt I needed some time to be alone and think about things.’
‘Well next time you want to be alone, would you mind telling us where you are going? Half the hotel has wasted their day looking for you,’ Richard said angrily. ‘And would you mind thinking about other people for once?’ Michael was surprised that his friend was suddenly so concerned about him.
‘Oh! I thought you would be glad to see the back of me,’ Michael said.
‘I’d be happy to see the back of you if I knew where you were going,’ Richard retorted testily.
‘Did you think how worried we were, not knowing where you had gone? For all we know you could have been abducted or fallen down a cliff somewhere.’ Richard ranted on for some time while Michael looked at him with a mixture of admiration and pity. After his spiritual experience and pilgrimage into the unknown hinterland of the Italian countryside, Michael went to Mario’s and got drunk.
Having returned from the trip with her parents, Carol found him there, satting at a table with a bottle of wine and a pizza. She had been told about about his return and the scolding he had got from Richard. She sat down with him and looked at his tired face.
‘Richard said you went for a walk and that’s why you were missing for most of the day. Where did you go?’, she asked. There was a silence, during which Michael looked thoughtful.
‘I went on a pilgrimage,’ Michael said taking a sip from his glass. ‘Things have been getting on top of me lately so I just took off. I walked along the road to Ancona. I needed to be alone and to think about things. It was like going on a pilgrimage.’
Carol asked, ‘So, what did you think about on your pilgrimage?’
‘Lots of things, Carol. My mind has been in a bit of turmoil recently. I even thought about running away and staying here in Italy. But then I found an old church by the roadside and went in to rest and then this old priest came in and started talking to me. He talked about his life and what it was like when he was young. It was just a chance encounter but it helped me a lot. I feel like a lot of things have been sorted out in my mind now.’ Carol felt his emotion as he spoke. She said, ‘Richard was really worried about you. I think he really cares about you a lot. After all, he is your best friend. Apparently he was very angry with you when you got back, so I’m told. But that shows how much he cares about you; he wouldn’t have got so upset if he didn’t. Someone said he gave you a right roasting when you got back. That shows how much he cares about you.’
Michael began to cry. He had never thought how much he would be missed, least of all by Richard. Carol put her arm around his shoulders and spoke comfortingly to him. He was exhausted by the long walk and the wine was stirring up his emotions.
‘You have a very good friend in Richard. Even though he can be beastly towards you at times, he is really very fond of you. He just doesn’t want to show it.’ This made Michael weep even more.
The two friends talked until Michael’s bottle was empty and Carol realised that he was too inebriated to make any more sense. She walked back to the Britannia with him and took him up to his room. He kissed her goodnight, went in and fell into a deep sleep.