Last updated on 13/11/2024
Chapter 8. The Final Days.
Part of my novel The Road to Ancona.
The twelfth day. In the days before the end of the holiday, the mood amongst the holidaymakers changed. Gradually it began to dawn on them that the day of their departure was drawing near. The girls had to explain to their newly acquired Italian boyfriends that they would soon be returning home to England. Some of them were desperate to get the experiences they had missed out on so far or had not yet accomplished or had (as the case may be) and were sad to be saying goodbye to their newfound sweethearts.
The adults spent hours in the local souvenir shops searching for gifts to take back to their family members and friends. Some were particularly keen to take home records of the music they had heard in Cattolica. Nothing like it was played on the radio at home and tunes of this kind were not available in the local record shops. It was the music they had heard in Italy that would most remind them of the time they had spent there.
The accommodation at the hotel was constantly changing as groups left and new tours arrived. Dave and Nick were given a room of their own and the boys had a bedroom to themselves at last. In the afternoon it began to rain so the boys stayed in the hotel lounge. Kate came in. She was wearing a sack dress (a long one-piece costume popular in the sixties). For some reason, it appeared to have a bit of a bulge in the middle.
‘Hello, Kate. Are you pregnant?’, Richard said jokingly pointing at the middle of Kate’s dress. She laughed and asked him for a light.
Michael said to the others, ‘By the time she gets home she probably will be.’ Kate looked at him in disgust; she puffed on her cigarette. ‘I don’t suppose you have exactly been acting like a saint Richard,’ she retorted. They exchanged a few more quips and sarcastic comments and then Kate said, ‘Fancy a walk down to the beach, Richard?’ Richard looked through the large window of the lounge and saw that the rain was easing off. The pair disappeared through the door, leaving Michael alone in the lounge. He got out his little notebook and began to write about his walking trip on the road to Ancona. He wrote:
Being a writer makes me different to other people. They keep asking me why I am always writing things down in my notebook and I try to give them serious answers but I don’t think any of them understand. For me, writing helps to sort out my thoughts and feelings. In my notes, I can record what I have seen and done and how it has affected me. I write about what other people have said and done and what I think about them. Italy is a wonderful place and I am so glad I came here. I have really fallen in love with the country and its people. I want to capture all these experiences and feelings before I lose them. I am like a pot into which all the life of the holiday is poured. I cannot keep it all in my mind; there is just too much of it and everything changes all the time. In my notes, I feel that I can just about keep up with what is happening. But there are times when I struggle to take it all in. Everything is so complicated at times, even the things that seem to be simple. I use my notes to attempt to understand what it means.
He was there for quite a long time, writing his thoughts, until he noticed that his book was almost full. He set off into the town to look for a new notebook. He was walking along the Via Guglielmo Marconi when we saw a beggar sitting at the side of the road. In front of the vagrant, an old cap was placed, containing a few coins that people how thrown into it. Two girls were walking by, eating snacks out of paper bags. One of the girls decided that she did not like the packet of snacks in her hand and she bent down and dropped it in front of the beggar. He picked it up and started to eat the contents. Michael saw this and was reminded of something he had read about people starving in the midst of plenty; he decided to write about this as soon as he found a new notebook. It proved to be a long search; writing pads and notebooks were not in high demand in Cattolica. After an hour of searching, he found newsagents and they had a small stock of lined pads, so he purchased a couple of them.
Michael sauntered back to the hotel and sat in the lounge, scribbling about beggars and the ills and shortcomings of consumer society. None of the teenagers were around and he needed to rest from his long walk around the shops. Although the sun had come out, he decided to stay indoors and do some writing. Michael wrote in his notebook:
It is good that we have seen so much history on this trip. If we had not gone to Rome, Assisi or San Marino, it would have been much less of an experience. Without these visits to places of great importance, the holiday would not have been so good. If we had spent two weeks just in a holiday resort it would have been boring. We could have flown directly to Rimini from England and stayed there seeing nothing but the cafés and bars and having nothing to do all day but laying around by the seaside. I don’t think I would have enjoyed a holiday like that.
That night, at dinner, Richard, Kate and Michael sat together. Over the meal of chicken and potatoes, Richard was reluctant to say what he had been doing that afternoon. In answer to Michael’s questions, his replies were vague and evasive. Michael wondered what the two of them could have got up to while they had been away. By the time the dessert arrived, Michael had figured out, in his own mind, what they might have been doing; his conclusion was that they had been having sex somewhere. He was about to ask more interrogative questions when Sandra arrived at their table. She said, ‘Any of you fancy coming to the nightclub with me and Giovanni?’ Richard glanced at Kate who nodded, ‘Sure. We’d love to come’, he replied. Michael was left out.
Richard asked, ‘What time are you leaving?’ Sandra asked them to meet her at the main entrance at nine o’clock. Richard stood up and said, ‘Right. I’m off to get ready’ and with that, he walked out of the dining room. Michael was now alone at the table with Kate.
Michael said casually, ‘Richard’s a nice lad isn’t he?’
‘Yes. He’s quite a lad. How long have you known him?’
‘We were at school together,’ Michael replied.
‘So what made you two come on holiday together?’
‘Well, we both thought it would be a bit of an adventure. This is my first time abroad; my first time on a proper holiday, in fact. We felt that going on a package tour would be safer than trying to go it alone. We see a lot of each other back home and we found we both had an interest in Italy. We both have jobs so we could afford a holiday and when we found this one it looked like it would be a good deal for both of us.’
‘Richard thinks the world of you, you know,’ Kate said. Michael had heard this before from Carol.
Kate continued, ‘I know he can be a bit of a sod at times. That’s just his way. He can be a bit self-centred but really he does care about you very much.’ Michael remembered Carol saying much the same thing but he wanted to know if anything had been going on between Kate and Richard. He wanted to ask Kate about her relationship with Richard but found it difficult to get to the point.
‘It’s funny you know,’ Michael said, ‘we are as different as chalk and cheese but somehow that kinda works for us – in an odd sort of way. I think why I like him so much is that he is the complete opposite of me.’ He planned to follow this with more questions about what Kate thought about Richard.
‘Yes, we have noticed,’ Kate said with a smile. ‘What I can’t understand is how you put up with each other. Richard’s always trying to be the life and soul of the party, the star attraction, and you’re always writing in a notebook and seem to be lost in thought pretty much most of the time. What do you write about in that little notepad?’
‘Oh, I’m keeping a record of the holiday. I make lots of notes about what we have done what we have seen and things that are of historical interest. Because this is such an amazing adventure. I want to record it all so I can look back at it – in years to come.’
‘My word! Will I be in it?’, Kate asked.
‘Well of course. I make notes about everyone – even people like Mavis and Betty – and what they do. Like the time the two fat women had to stop the coach to go to the toilet at the side of the road and when they came back their dresses were all torn and covered in bits of bramble.’
Kate giggled. Michael was just about to launch into his questions about how Kate and Richard were getting on when Kate stood up and said, ‘Well, I’d better go upstairs and get ready. Are you coming to the nightclub with us?’ Michael thought for a moment; Richard had not asked if he would be coming with them before he disappeared. ‘Well, if you two don’t mind … yes, I would like to come. Would it be okay if Carol comes too?’
‘Yeah. The more the merrier, as they say.’ With that, Kate left the table and went back to her room. Michael had missed his chance to get into a conversation with Kate about Richard. He would just have to assume that they had been up to something. Michael looked around the dining room but could not see Carol. He went to the lounge and found her sitting on a sofa reading a book.
‘Hello Carol,’ Michael said, ‘Have you got anything planned for tonight? ‘
‘No. Not really. I heard it was going to rain tonight so I thought I would stay here and do some reading. What about you?’
‘Richard and Kate are going to the nightclub. They asked me if I wanted to come. Well, I don’t much like going on my own so I thought you might like to join us.’
‘Aw. I’m so sorry but I really don’t feel like going out, to be honest. I feel really worn out. I want to rest up tonight and get ready for packing and the journey home tomorrow. And I have a load of postcards to write. Why don’t you go, you won’t be alone – you’ll be with your friends. I am sure you will meet other people when you get there.’
Michael was a bit disappointed that Carol did not want to come out but understood how she felt. He let her get on with her reading and went back to his room. Richard wasn’t there, even though he said he was going to get ready. Michael ran the shower. Fortunately, the water came out warm and it wasn’t even the usual dirty brown colour. The recent rain must have replenished the cisterns and flushed them out, he thought. He felt a lot better after his shower. As he was drying his hair there was a knock at the door. He put the towel around his middle and pulled the door open a little. Dave stood outside.
‘Ey up Michael. Y’all right, cock?
Michael opened the door further and the lanky Mancunian lad walked into the room.
‘Oh sorry. I didn’t know you weren’t decent,’ he said looking at the boy’s towel.
‘It’s not a problem Dave. I was just getting ready to go out. We are all going to the nightclub. So, I thought I had better smarten myself up. Where’s Nick then?’, Michael asked.’Oh, he’s upstairs on the bed catching up with ‘is beauty sleep. Yeah, I know, he’s got a lot of catching up to do,’ Dave said with a grin. Michael wanted to dry himself off and get dressed but couldn’t figure out how he was going to do this with Dave in the room. He hesitated, saying nothing, and then Dave said, ‘Look, don’t let me stop you if you’re wanting t’ get ready. Don’t mind me. You know what I’m like.’
Michael was reminded of Dave’s habit of walking out of the shower with no towel around him. So he just pulled off his towel and started sorting through his suitcase looking for clothes.
‘You’ve gone a nice colour,’ Dave said looking at the angry pink sheen on Michael’s back. Dave was usually taciturn and never said much unless he had to, but now he seemed more relaxed and friendly, even chatty.
‘Yeah but it itches like hell,’ Michael said holding up a T-shirt and trying to decide if it was clean enough to wear.
‘You got anything t’ put on it?’ Dave asked. Michael glanced at the bottle of camomile lotion on the bedside cabinet.
‘Well, I have as it happens. But Richard won’t put it on for me and I can’t seem to get my arms round the back to do it myself.’
Dave walked over to the brown bottle and picked it up. ‘Sit down on the bed then’, he said. Michael was a bit surprised but sat down on the side of the bed. ‘Turn round’, Dave said and started to pour some of the thick white liquid into his hands. He started to massage Michael’s back with the lotion; it felt cold at first but very soothing. Dave rubbed the fluid into Michael’s shoulders, where the skin had started to peel.
‘You’re a bit like me’, Dave said. ‘I don’t tan. But then I don’t go out in the sun. I only get up when the sun’s gone down.’ He worked the lotion over Michael’s lower back where it looked particularly red and angry.
‘You’re a night-time person,’ Michael said, enjoying the soothing balm as it calmed the itching sensation. ‘You’re still as white as the day you arrived.’
‘Yeah. Very true, mate. But then I’m not bothered. When I get back t’ Manchester I’ll look the same as everyone else and no one will ever think I’ve been on holiday.’
Michael felt the lad’s hands working their way over his back; his touch was gentle but firm as he smoothed the camomile and worked it into Michael’s skin. Michael began to enjoy the soothing sensation of Dave’s large warm hands massaging his back. Suddenly, he leaned over grabbed the towel and placed it over his lap, fearing an embarrassing situation was about to happen. Dave noticed this and said, ‘What’s up mate? You enjoying this a bit too much,’ and chuckled. Dave then rested his hands on Michael’s shoulders and said, ‘Well I think that’s you done.’ Michael swivelled himself round to face him and then put his arm around Dave’s shoulders. ‘I have kinda got to like you over these two weeks,’ he said, ‘even though I was a bit peeved with you two at first.’ He smiled and said, Thanks, Dave. I feel a lot better now for that.’
‘That’s OK mate. Hope you enjoyed it.’ He looked down at the towel on Michael’s lap, sniggered and said, ‘Well, by the looks of it you certainly did.’ Michael’s face went bright red; he didn’t know what to say. He quickly pulled his arm from the lad’s shoulder and looked away. Dave said, ‘Hey! You’re not going all coy on me, are you? Listen, mate, we are all boys together. There’s nothing for you to be embarrassed about.’ Michael warmed slightly to the northerner’s casual directness. Dave and Nick had been a source of inconvenience and irritation ever since they were billeted together on the first night of their stay. But now, Michael was beginning to like Dave; he had a rough charm that was appealing and a brusqueness that he found attractive.
Michael turned and looked at him. He noticed, for the first time, the clear blue eyes under the messy mop of black hair that hung over his face. He had not realised that the Mancunian was actually quite handsome. Michael smiled at him and Dave smiled back. Dave pulled him closer to him and hugged him with his right arm. Dave said, ‘You don’t want t’ take any notice of me. I’m a regular guy, me. I know I’ve been a pain in the arse for you two. I’m sorry if us ‘ave got in your way a bit. Never wanted that t’ happen, like. Things ‘ave just ‘appened on his ‘oliday and ‘cos we’re not used to it we didn’t know any better. Hope you’re not mad at us.’
‘Mad at you!’, Michael exclaimed, ‘no, of course not. No way. You might not believe it but I like you … and Nick. Why should I be mad? It’s not your fault.’ Michael thought he might have said the wrong thing; so he hurriedly added, ‘It’s been nice to have you around. Richard can be a bit of a pain at times. You might have noticed how he treats me sometimes.’
‘Yeah. He can be a bit of a bastard at times. But then so can Nick, with me. It really doesn’t bother me that much. I give ‘im as good back.’
Dave lifted the end of the towel and rubbed it over Michael’s dripping hair. ‘There. That’s better,’ he said and gave Michael a slap on the shoulder. ‘You’d better get a move on if you’re going out.’
Michael stood up, his towel dropping on the floor and pulled on his shorts. ‘Listen, Dave, we are going to the nightclub. You and Nick want to come with us?’
‘Okay. Sounds like fun. I’ll go and wake Nick up and see what he plans to do tonight. We’ll meet you in the lobby at nine then?’
Michael nodded and the lad opened the door and disappeared through it. Michael finished getting dressed and combed his hair in the mirror. He felt a lot better for having had a wash and the lotion had curbed the irritation of his burnt skin.
Nine o’clock soon came and the teenagers set off from the Britannia to the nearby nightclub. Richard and Kate however were nowhere to be seen. Sandra was walking with Giovanni; he had his arm around her. Dave and Nick were talking to Michael but none of them had any female companions tonight. The dance floor of the nightclub was completely deserted when they arrived. It was only twenty minutes past nine and things did not begin to warm up until well after ten. A disc jockey played pop songs over the sound system, making occasional comments in Italian as he introduced the next track. In one corner sat a group of old women drinking coffee; they had been cleaning the place and now sat to gossip for a while before going home. A group of young waiters were smoking in another corner.
It started to rain through the vine-covered trellises, so everyone moved into the lounge area in the main building and sat in groups chatting and enjoying their drinks. When the shower eventually stopped, some couples took to the floor to dance the Twist. Michael ordered a glass of Moscato, although, by this time, he had become a little bored with it, probably because he had consumed rather more of it than was good for him over the past two weeks. The three lads sat at a table and talked, as the nightclub started to warm up. Dave and Nick agreed that this was not really their scene; back in Manchester, they never went to clubs, preferring to spend their evenings out in the local bars and pubs where they felt more comfortable. Michael was curious to know about Manchester; he had never been there but often watched Coronation Street on television and thought it must be something like that.
‘You don’t want to watch that rubbish,’ Nick said contemptuously, ‘Manchester is nothing like that. That programme is made by people in London who ‘ave never even been t’ Manchester. They think that everyone walks around wearing flat caps and ‘eadscarves. It’s a load of crap. Dave and I went down to London once for a day. We thought it was just like home. The people there looked the same as in Manchester and it was no different.’
‘So, what do you do, up there?’, Michael asked.
‘I work as a fitter in a garage,’ Dave told him, ‘and Nick works in a plastics factory, finishing mouldings.’
Michael was impressed; he seldom met people who were, (what he called), ‘manual labourers.’ Nick interrupted the conversation to ask, ‘Fancy a pint then Mike?’ He waved at one of the waiters who came and took his order for three pints of lager. There was some discussion as to what a ‘pint’ was. They settled for whatever was the local measure – litres or something like that.
‘Back ‘ome,’ Dave said, ‘we always drink beer – in pints. It’s what we do. We drink this lager stuff over ‘ere because it’s all they ‘ave. Mind you, I could get used t’ it. Am not keen on wine though, me. It gives me the runs.’ Nick laughed, he said, ‘Yeah. A pint of that stuff and you’re up all night on the bog.’
The evening did not bring the usual round of frivolity and fun that Michael had known on his previous visits to the club. The girls were all dancing with the lads they had come with and there were no ‘spare’ girls hanging around for the three boys to try their luck with on the dance floor. They decided to go back to the hotel. Michael found Richard and Kate in the lounge watching the television. ‘What happened to you two then?’, he said as he arrived at their sofa. They were sitting with their arms around each other. ‘Oh, we decided not to go; the weather didn’t look too good so we thought we would just stay here. What was it like?’, Richard asked.
‘A bit dull really. Not as good as it was the last time we went,’ Michael explained as he sat down beside the pair. ‘All the girls were with their boyfriends, so I spent the whole evening with Dave and Nick.
‘Dave and Nick!’, Richard exclaimed, ‘Oh! so you’ve pallyed up with them! You like a bit of northern rough do you?’, Richard said sarcastically and Kate laughed.
‘Well, actually, they are quite nice when you get to know them,’ Michael retorted. Richard said nothing and turned his face to the television, pretending to watch the film. Michael sat looking at the pair, wrapped up in each other. He felt like a bit of ‘gooseberry’ so he stood up and said, ‘Right then. I’ll be off to bed’ and walked away from the sofa towards the stairs.
As departure day approached, the mood of the tour group grew sullen. Two weeks had flown by but to some of them – Richard and Michael in particular – it had seemed like a long age since they sat on the train to London. Michael noted:
For the young, the passage of time is very different. Their lives are led at a faster pace. Their days are shorter than they are for adults. The weeks are like months to them. Two weeks felt like two years. For many of the younger holidaymakers, the dream was at its most intense towards the end.
‘We dream just before we wake up,’ Michael told Carol during one of their long conversations. ‘Our minds begin to work rapidly and then we open our eyes.’ He had read something along these lines in a book about psychology he had taken out from his local library. Many new relationships had been formed over the two weeks and the time for separations was approaching. The teenagers continued with their frivolities although now, with a new sense of urgency. The Italian boys were keen to consummate their liaisons with the English girls. On the penultimate night of the holiday, they were all sitting together in the lounge. Renaldo and Giovanni invited Kate and Sandra to accompany them to the beach. The girls declined their offer; their parents had taken to checking that they were in their rooms by eleven o’clock, over the past couple of days.
‘Come to the beach with us. We can walk in the moonlight,’ Renaldo said.
‘Sorry. We can’t do that tonight,’ Kate replied. ‘We are leaving in the morning, so we have to get a good night’s sleep.’ They were all disappointed and wished they could have gone to the beach and walked with each other.
Earlier that day, Michael and Carol went to Mario’s for one last coffee. Michael had been thinking about the camomile-rubbing session with Dave. What had been a very ordinary event began to take on additional significance for Michael. At the time, it had seemed like a perfectly innocent favour. It was not something that Richard had ever agreed to do; even though he was Michael’s best mate, Richard had always refused to rub anything onto his friend’s back, even in the privacy of the hotel room. Michael thought it a little odd, therefore, that a complete stranger had offered to do this for him. But then they were not complete strangers; they had been sleeping in the same room for several days and Dave had been in the habit of walking around the room naked after a shower. Something that Richard would never have done. Michael wondered why he had enjoyed the back-rubbing session so much; it had calmed the angry soreness of his sunburn and the massaging of Dave’s large, rough hands had been very relaxing but why had it led to an embarrassing excitement in his loins? He felt a little confused by the experience. He had not liked either of the northern lads and regarded them as an intrusion on his time with Richard. Michael’s fondness for Richard was partly because he was good-looking, as well as being fun to be with. He realised that he also recognised that Dave was, in fact, quite handsome and had a rough masculine appearance that he found equally appealing. Michael understood that he was a very innocent teenager who came from a background that was very simple and knew nothing of the ways of men. He resolved to talk to Carol about Dave; he thought that she would understand more than he did about what had happened and could explain the significance of it to him.
Michael said, ‘I was in my room having a shower before we went to the club, and Dave came down to see me. Well, you know I am suffering a lot from sunburn? Dave offered to rub some camomile lotion on my back. I’d asked Robert to do this but he refused. He won’t even rub oil on my back when we are on the beach.’
Carol responded, ‘That’s a bit odd. We girls are always rubbing oil on each other’s backs, on the beach and in our rooms before we go out in the morning. Nothing unusual about that. You share a room with Dave and Nick don’t you?’
‘Yes, we used to. But they have got their own room now and Nick was asleep upstairs when this happened. Dave massaged the camomile all over my back and it felt very nice. He was very gentle in the way he did it. But then, something embarrassing happened.’
‘When Dave was giving you a message, you mean?’
‘Yes. I don’t quite know how to put this … but well, I got a bit over-excited by it.’
Carol laughed. ‘You mean it turned you on?’
‘I had to cover myself up with a towel. But I don’t understand why that happened. I know Dave is actually quite a handsome lad. In fact, I have grown to like him a lot more now than when we first met. I feel a bit confused by what happened.’
‘Well, it sounds all perfectly innocent to me, Michael. Dave didn’t try anything with you, did he?’
‘Like what?’
‘Did he try to touch you somewhere, you know …?’
‘No. He was very friendly and gave me a hug but he didn’t try to do anything else. I don’t think he has designs on me; it’s not like he fancies me or anything. It’s just like … well, I think I enjoyed what he did more than I should have.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about it, Michael. Has Richard done anything like that with you?’
‘No, of course not. We are very close mates and we spend a lot of time together but there’s nothing more to it than that.’
‘So, what are you confused about? You like girls, don’t you?
‘I like you. We get on so well together. I have been thinking about whether I like boys too; that’s what’s confusing me.’
‘Well, maybe you do. We’re only sixteen. My dad says that teenagers can get confused about things, at our age. He’s a petty wise old thing, my dad. He’s been around and knows about all kinds of things. If he were here now, I imagine he would say, ‘It’s all part of growing up.’ It’s the kind of thing he has said to me before.’ Michael felt reassured by what Carol had just said; it made sense to him.
‘Oh, thank you so much, Carol. I think that has put my mind at rest. So much has happened to me during this holiday and I am struggling to take it all in, sometimes.’
They talked about people, about experiences and what it was like to be young and free and in the sunshine in a foreign land. Going on holiday abroad had been a watershed experience for Michael. Carol had been on holiday with her parents before, including trips to Spain, so being in Cattolica was not that new or different for her. The two friends talked long into the evening until Carol said, ‘Well Michael, we’d better get back and get on our with our packing.’
The night before departure day, people were in their rooms packing up their belongings, ready for an early start the next morning. Everyone seemed to be leaving with more clothes than they arrived with. Space had to be found in suitcases for the gifts and souvenirs that had been collected in the resort and on the excursions. They all wanted to take home their trophies and icons; the little fragments of their holiday that would remind them of things they had done and which they could use as visual aids when they were telling their friends about every last detail of their Italian holiday. Several members of the party owned cameras and had used many rolls of film.
Although Michael had taken an old camera with him, he did not use it much. He had only one roll of black and white film in it and knew that getting it developed at the chemists would cost him a lot of money. His uncle had given it to him after he purchased a new one; it worked reasonably well but Michael knew little of its settings and was content just to press the button and hope for the best. In any case, he preferred to capture images with his pen. His notebooks were filled with snapshots of people, places and events, stored in his juvenile scribble. The other holiday-makers who had cameras were always taking snaps of each other, he noticed and seldom pointed their devices at buildings or scenery. They wanted their albums to be about people, so they could explain who was who and what they were doing. Had Michael been able to take many more photos and have them developed, he would have filled several albums with shots of historic sites, the Italian landscape, Swiss mountains and the broad expanse of the Adriatic Sea.
Before the holidaymakers began their journey home, someone took a picture of the whole group, outside the Britannia. When they got back, Michael was sent a copy of it. He noticed he was the only person wearing dark clothing. Everyone else wore light-coloured clothes but he, alone, wore a dark brown top. He thought he stood out – the one who was different to everyone else. Most of the men in the photo wore shorts but Nick and Dave were wearing dark blue jeans. It was a very mixed group of adults and young people but Michael was glad to have been sent it, to remind him of all the people he had met on the trip (those who were still there at the end of the two weeks.)
For many, especially those who did not have cameras, it was about the keepsakes and memorabilia they had picked up. They took back with them paper napkins printed with the names of the hotels where they had stayed. Many had purchased postcards; as Betty said,
‘These postcards are better than photos. You’d never get a view like that with a camera.’
‘The first thing I am going to do when I get home,’ Mavis said to Betty, ‘is have a nice cup of proper tea. These Italians have no idea how to make tea. They might know a thing or two about coffee but when it comes to tea they have simply no idea.’
‘I’ll be glad to get home and get some fresh air at last,’ Betty replied. ‘I’ve spent weeks with nothing but the smell of burnt rubber and shit up me snot-holes.’
Mavis replied, ‘I don’t know how they get the coffee to smell like that. They must keep it hot for ages. I wouldn’t be surprised if they put it on the night before so it would be ready in the morning.’
As they walked back to the Britannia from the cafe, Michael said, ‘I will really miss you, Carol. Without you, this holiday would have been totally different. You have been my rock.’
‘Well I hope we will stay in touch when we get back to England,’ Carol replied. It was a moment of warmth and recognition and Michael put his arm around Carol’s shoulders as they walked. She responded by putting her arm around his waist. Michael had discovered a great deal during his holiday but the one thing we had gained, more than anything, he thought, was the friendship of Carol and the realisation that friendship with a like-minded person could be so rich and fulfilling. Deep inside, Michael knew that he loved Richard and he knew why but he was too shy to admit it to anyone; ‘we are like brothers,’ he thought to himself, ‘but like most brothers, we are locked in combat most of the time.’ Carol was the one person for whom he felt no rivalry; she had accepted him just as he was and needed no proof as to what he could do or who he was. He was her soulmate and she needed no further evidence of who he was other than him just being himself. He said, ‘Richard is always posing and acting to win the regard of others; for him, life is one long round of theatre; he has to act out all the time, doing what he thinks other people want to see and hear. You rarely get to see the real Richard. His real face is always hidden behind the mask.’
‘Oh. That’s very profound!’, Carol said and smiled at him with that look she often gave him when he had said something weighty. ‘You’re right though. Richard is a poser. The only time I saw him come out from behind his mask, as you put it, was when you came back from your walk to Ancona and he went into a rage, simply to hide the fact that he was so upset about what you had done.’
‘Yes. That surprised me a lot,’ Michael responded. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’ He fell silent for a few moments, as he thought through the events of that day. ‘I told you, didn’t I, that I was planning to run away? The one thing that stopped me was the thought of not seeing you again – and my parents of course – and that you might actually be upset if I disappeared. Plus all that stuff the old priest said to me about the meaning of life and the need to find out who we really are.’
‘Well of course I would have missed you, Michael. And your parents would have been devastated if you had disappeared while you were away on a foreign holiday. I mean, no one had any idea what had happened to you. There would have been a huge search, the police would have been brought in to find you and you would have been brought back to Cattolica to face the music.’
‘I didn’t think of that. I was so caught up with that romantic idea of living in Italy and becoming a new person. I just didn’t think about anyone else until right at the end. Then I realised that you just can’t walk away from your life. It’s like the old priest said, you have to find your true self and that takes a whole lifetime. Something like that.’
Carol said, ‘Do you remember that time we were at the cafe and you said you felt that coming on holiday had made you feel more grown up?’
‘Oh yes. I did say that, didn’t I? But, it’s true. I feel like a different person from the youth who stepped off the plane in Basel. It’s alright for you; you’re used to it. But for me … it was like flying to the moon. Abroad for the first time ever. Flying. Staying in a hotel. Being away from my parents. It was all so much at once; so many new things happening to me for the first time. I thought I was prepared for it all. But, clearly, I wasn’t.’
They arrived back at the Britannia, kissed each other goodnight and went off to their rooms. After he had finished packing, Michael spent a few moments catching up with his notes. He wrote:
Being a writer makes you a different person. Other people take photos and collect souvenirs but these don’t tell the whole story. Keeping notes about what you do, what people said, things that happened… it brings it all back and helps you remember how you felt about it and what it all meant. I am so glad I took the time to write everything down as we went along. I will never remember all these details when we get back. I suppose it is possible that one day I might even turn these notes into a book. Everyone thinks I am really odd because I do all this writing. It’s not the kind of thing that holidaymakers would usually do. For them, it’s just another holiday. For me, it has been the greatest experience of my life. When I get back, I know I will write many poems about the experiences I have had. These two weeks have created many very strong emotions in me and I need to express them with my pen.
Michael went to bed and his dreams flooded over him. He dreamt about Romans, the ways of simple fisherfolk, strange houses with shuttered windows, dancing to tunes never heard before and singing songs in made-up Italian words, meeting people from foreign lands and Manchester … and his dreams repeated, in this way, for most of the rest of his adult life.