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Chapter Nine
Marta had turned up twenty minutes late (probably deliberately), so I now found myself sprinting down the road, to try and make it to my first Italian class on time.
Asking Marta to babysit was just as painful as I’d thought it would be. I’d spoken slowly and kept my language simple—‘You, stay with Leo tomorrow 5.30?’—but she’d kept on saying ‘non capisco’—that she couldn’t understand. I’d hoped she had a basic knowledge of English and would get the gist of what I was saying, but clearly she didn’t, which was fair enough. Even if someone spoke to me in Italian at one mile per hour, if I wasn’t familiar with the vocab, I couldn’t be expected to know what they were talking about.
So, once again I had to rely on my two crutches: Google and Lorenzo. I messaged him a translation I’d found online and asked if that was the correct thing to say. He replied with some corrections and said he could speak to Marta if I preferred, but I was determined to try. So I called her back and relayed the phrase. She still claimed not to understand, but eventually after repeating it several times, she’d said yes. I decided to send her a WhatsApp message, though, just so that I had it in writing. Couldn’t risk her saying I hadn’t asked…
Asking Marta was only stage one of the process, though. As much as I wanted to stop depending on Lorenzo, in the end, because of the language barrier, I still needed him to help me with stage two: briefing Marta on Leo’s routine.
Lorenzo assured me that she understood. Not too much stimulation in the evenings, bottle of the milk I’d expressed and left in the fridge as soon as she arrived, bath at seven, another bottle at seven-thirty, song or story at eight, followed by putting Leo to bed at eight-fifteen whilst he was sleepy but still awake. No picking him up after that, unless there was something really wrong.
Marta would probably ignore everything, but I had totrynot to worry. For the next two hours, I was going to focus on learning. Developing myself. Regaining some level of independence and control. If these lessons went well, then I’d be able to explain things to Marta all by myself.
Being outside on my own felt really weird. I could count on one hand the number of occasions I’d been away from Leo since he was born. And this was the first time we’d been apart and he wasn’t with Lorenzo.
It was fine.Totally fine…
I burst into the bar, mopping the sweat from my forehead.
Inside was pretty small. It had tiled terracotta flooring and wooden beams across the ceiling. As well as the dozens of bottles of wine and alcohol on display in multiple old-fashioned wooden shelves around the bar, the walls were lined with framed black-and-white photos of various people I assumed were important to the town in some way and posters which looked like they spanned decades.
A bar wasn’t a normal place to have a lesson, but I guessed that this was just the central meeting point and she’d take us somewhere else afterwards. Or maybe as it was our first meet-up, she thought a quick drink would help break the ice before we got down to the nitty-gritty.
Wow. That must be her.
A woman with vibrant blue hair cut into a sharp bob, with one side shaved and the other long, was sat at the head of the dark wooden table. She certainly stood out. I’d not seen anyone like that in this town. There were two other women sat with her. I went over.
‘Ciao. Are you Angelica?’
‘How did you guess? Was it my earrings?’ She chuckled, touching the sparkly red hoops dangling from her ears.
‘Well, actually…’
‘I’m pulling your foot,’ she replied. Pulling myfoot? Nowthatmademechuckle. Clearly she meant pulling myleg. Crazy for me to find her minor English mistake amusing. Just wait until she heard my horrendous Italian. That would have her rolling on the floor.
‘You must be Sophia.Siediti, per favore. Sit down, please.’ I pulled out the rustic wood-and-straw chair, then took off my coat. ‘Va bene. We are ready to start. First I want each of you to tell me why you are here. And I do not want boring answers about improving yourself, saying is for hobby or other garbage. I want to know whatreallyhappened. What was the moment that made you say,merda! I need to learn Italian? Was it when you heard the old ladies laugh at you at post office and you want to know what they say? When a creepy guy try to hit on you and you wish you could tell him to leave you alone, or because you want to know when your mother-in-law talk shit about you?’
Everyone’s eyes popped out.
Yes!I found myself screaming in my head. She was spot-on. I’dloveto know what Marta said about me. Then again, I knew it wasn’t good, so maybe ignorance was bliss...
‘Come on, ladies. Must not be shy.’
‘Well,’ chimed in a very prim-looking posh woman with short brown hair who was smartly dressed in a grey trouser suit. ‘We’re just here visiting my new husband’s parents for a few months and I simply wanted to keep myself occupied. Broaden the mind, so to speak.’
Angelica rolled her eyes. ‘We will come back to you…Holly?’ She glared at a girl with long wavy blond hair who was maybe in her late teens or early twenties. ‘What is your story?’
‘Oh gosh…’ She winced. ‘This is like,soembarrassing. Well, basically, I’m like, an au pair. I’m here because it’s where myamazingboyfriend Umberto lives, he’s like,sohot! Anyway, so, when I arrived, I might have told the host dad that I had twenty assholes instead of saying I was twenty years old…’
I snorted. I didn’t mean to. It just came out. Holly buried her face in her hands.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘No worries,’ she shook her head.
‘Ah, the famous confusion betweenanniandani… Yearsis easily mistaken foranusesif not pronounced correctly…and you, Sophia?’
‘Where do I start?’ I sighed, thinking about the dozens of awkward incidents I’d had since I’d arrived here. ‘If we’re talking about recent events, there was the time I was chased out of the supermarket by the unfriendly cashiers, and then when my baby was sick and I couldn’t communicate with the doctor and…erm, similar to Holly, I may have also told my mother-in-law that I likedpenis, instead ofpenne…’
