Viva Roma!
Thanks for bearing with me. We're back.
Readers. I didn’t stop loving you. But since starting this newsletter I started making my living from writing. I’ve had a lot to learn, so it’s been pretty all-consuming. As is being a single mum to ND teenagers (who knew?!)
Today I’m taking you back in time. It’s a little different in theme. I’m easing you (and me) back into the scramble.
Thanks for offering to share some of your time with me. It means more than I can say.
Massive love,
Ann.
A reminder:
You subscribed to my newsletter about the long-shadows of coercive control. Here’s my first-ever post. I haven’t posted for *cough* a while. Soz.
I’ve taken a long break because there are, sadly, only 24 hours in one day. I’ll be back in your inboxes once a month, exploring coercive control, manipulation — the risk factors, experiences and consequences.
And with that, here we go!
It’s a thick sticky night and I’m totally lost. The red brick apartment buildings pull and push lamplight up the street. It’s half past ten, way past my bedtime. I am alone on a park bench.
On the train from the airport I felt conspicuously alone and didn’t want to be conspicuously alone so I read a Guardian weekend feature so amazing that I ended up the wrong side of the city, trying so hard to not look lost in the deserted station that I went bumping down railway sidings in the dark looking for the exit, my case heavy with Quality Streets cookbooks magazines Hula Hoops and I am tired and I’m scared of the sitting the standing smoking leaning bored waiting all the men outside the station I am absolutely in the wrong part of town and no-one in the world knows where I am. Including me.
And I am late. I am late for dinner with a lovely person who has invited me to Rome. She is a food writer I admire and, somehow, she seems to like me. She, with books and columns and awards, she tells me she likes my writing. I can’t fathom why; my project is messy and amateur hour and yet but.
Because even though it’s under two weeks until my then-husband and I tell our children that we cannot share oxygen, love or space a moment longer, I have run away to Rome, my vest top sticks to my skin, they’re talking about winding up the night, and I don’t know if I should turn left or right because my data —
“Sit, I know where you are.” she types. I relent. Stop.
I hear my name in the fullness of her confident voice. Her t-shirt glows white and the curl of her cheeks shine and I am being hugged and I am in Rome not at home where I was a few hours ago, working all morning I work all the time at my job I was too embarrassed to name and too broke to quit. Her friends — I know them from other events. They are smart and thoughtful and confident in a way I thought I once could have been. They smile. I try to be normal. To be with people, not Food Writers and Panellists. To quiet the voice in my brain that says “Why the fuck do they want you there? They’re smart they’re successful everyone knows that and you’re just a fuckup who can’t even arrive on time. You were calling customers about their veg box deliveries you fucking 37 year-old loser.”
Look. The bricks, the lamps and the shredded neon ads. “Shall we go back to mine for a glass of wine?” and I have already missed dinner, missed pizza and them. I say — yes please.
The quarter is, of course, full of the sounds of Italian city life; scooters, children playing, people chatting outside bars and gelaterias and echos up and down apartment walls.
We head through the street doors heavy and tall, up the stairs through courtyards. Through the kitchen, to the balcony. She serves me a bean soup, rich with beans, rosemary, chilli and stock. It is perfect. She apologises, the recipe is a work-in-progress. With her grater in my hand I pause and a text from the man I love it chimes around my brain — careful, don’t drink too much. I remind myself to breathe. To smile.
She pours everyone a glass of red. They talk about hidden clothes shops, Mexican cuisine, London chefs and boring writers deathly as their metaphors. The light is warm and soft as it should be; washing dries on lines across the courtyard as it should. The tablecloth is beautiful and I rest my hands and feel the grain of the fabric. They’re talking about a writer who I do not know but the heat has broken and, for once, I don’t give a flying fuck that I don’t know who or what they’re talking about.
-
I walk the five minutes back to my little box apartment, and stop for gelato with chocolate sauce. I take a picture, upload it to my Insta. I feel strange. Happy and quiet.
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When we first met — when I met her — I was going to endless food events. Climbing the stairs to Fortnum & Mason, sitting endlessly on the DLR to the Excel centre, scribbling notes at City university, I’d push open the door to a restaurant, an event call or conference centre. Every time — deep breath, look around and try to learn how to talk to people. A breather in the toilets to calm my nerves. Brush business cards against each other. I was building a life and new people and names and I realised I could never introduce these people to my husband. He wouldn’t know what to say. Over months and years I slowly, unconsciously, built a whole world that I kept safe and away. It’s led me here.
In the morning, I’m grateful to know how to do breakfast here. I shower, find to a bar. I pay extra to sit. I know where everyone else should move next, I know I grab a napkin and help myself to the pastries. I choose pear and ricotta. I try to eat gently and thoughtfully but, as ever, I make quick work of the grainy pear, the crisp pastry. I lean into the dark wood and stir sugar into a second, burnt, coffee.
The next day, for lunch, I order a roman artichoke. Like every day after a day trip to France I peel off the small outer leaves though these are burnt umber. My poetry critique book leans open and I try to take in the words about the poet who writes in fables and dreams, and the man who I thought was the man of my dreams told me he knew I’d love her. I think about the blue of his eyes and the softness of his hair under my fingers. Later, I ask him a question and he can’t be bothered to answer.
“Signora, you eat all the leaves with this artichoke”. The waiter looks a little sheepish, interrupting my reading and my complete lack of knowledge. I thank him. I smile and crunch into the bitter leaves. After a bowl of cacio e pepe, I tuck my theory back into my cheap jangling rucksack and head back into the sun to go somewhere.
-
That night, she apologises, “I’m sorry I said we’d cook together but it would be too late” and I, who am always running late and can’t make one day run in time I know but I do feel a little sad but I want I want to try to make it all okay.
Her partner sees my socks, diagonal black circles ringing around my feet. I bought them in Pop Brixton, in a rush. I curve my feet into the slats of the chair and tuck them underneath.
I dry lettuce leaves, bring out a bottle of barolo. She butters wodges of bread and smoothes an anchovy across the butter and I feel the flinch in my uneducated palette, but it is good, deep and satisfying. I do not embarrass myself.
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It’s my final day in Rome before taking the train to Turin. She’s let me leave her cases in her apartment.
She tells me - don’t give up. Find your voice. She hugs me, her kid waves goodbye.
But something in me has been dead for a long time. Her words of kindness just remind me how great the gap. I walk to the metro.
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On the train I work harder than I should on a project that shouldn’t take so long. I don’t look up to see the cities and countryside roll past. I pretend to not mind.
In Turin I catch the single tube line called, helpfully, No 1. It takes me to my friend’s apartment. In the city heat I drag my cases to her new apartment, the wheels echoing in my ears and the day’s motion pushes my spine down the wide road. As I drag my case I hear her children shout “she’s coming she’s bringing the holly hops!!!!”
I pull back the slatted apartment elevator gate and the squeaking bounces and there is the smile and I am danced into a deep and familiar hug.
Next month!
I’ll be talking confidence after abuse and economic hardship. I know, the jokes keep reeling in.
Big love for reading this far, thank you!
My reading list…
Summer holiday book spesh.
Inhaled the latest Julie Meyerson in 3 hours and 2 sets at End of the Road. The dynamics in the book will take a little time to unpack, I’m already re-reading. If you’re from a fractured family or have loved ones who are and you can’t understand what it’s like to push and pull with your family-of-origin, I recommend.
‘This Ragged Grace’ got me through a 48-hour cancellation-heavy journey to Shetland. Octavia Bright articulates the internal voice that so many of us struggle with. Recommended.
Like half the world I’m obsessed with ‘Kick the Latch’ and, having chatting briefly with Kathryn Scanlan at Daunt books, I can confirm she’s a thoughtful, kind person who listens deeply.
Re-reading Lucia Berlin and sharing her fascination for launderettes, laundry, and what we do with our pain.
Loved Morwenna Ferrier’s feature about authenticity checking second-hand clothes.
And, it’s not TV but my Public Service Announcement. Love learning about people? Watching ‘Couples Therapy’? If not, then, my god get on it. 4 seasons of intimate conversations about how we try and fail to connect with an intimate partner.
Magnificent. Thank you for writing something so beautiful, and sharing something so tender 💛