‘A bit,’ I suggested in a whisper.
‘A bit,’ she said calmly. ‘Alessia is so happy.’ She looked at me and shook her head. ‘Your son, if I may say so, is very funny. He makes us all laugh. It’s a real pleasure to have him with us. He’s such a generous young man.’
‘Fantastic. You’re a star,’ I said, without even realising I was talking out loud.
‘I’m happy to leave you my mobile phone number. Anyhow, we’ll call you again. Take care . . . You have a nice day too. Bye . . . Of course . . . Thank you. Thanks.’ And she hung up.
I jumped with my arms up in the air. ‘Hooray! You’re a star. You were exactly like Alessia’s mother. Do you know her?’
‘I know her sort,’ she said and slumped against the wall, squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again, and then she looked at me and vomited into her hands.
She kept on vomiting in the bathroom. Or rather, she tried to, but wasn’t able. Then she flopped down on the settee exhausted and took her trousers off. Her white legs trembled and kicked the air like they were trying to free themselves of the trembling. ‘Here it comes. Fuck, it’s here . . .’ she panted with her eyes closed.
What sort of illness did she have? What if it were contagious?
‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing . . . It’s nothing.’
‘What’s the matter with you? Is this illness catching?’
‘No. You don’t need to worry. Leave me alone. Just mind your own business like I’m not here. All right?’
I swallowed. ‘All right.’
She had malaria. Like Caravaggio.
She’d told me to mind my own business. Perfect. No problem. I was a master at doing that. I settled down to play Soul Reaver. I was still struggling to beat that same old mutant. Every now and then I couldn’t help stealing a look at her.
She couldn’t keep still for more than a minute. She was distressed, constantly changing position like she was lying on a carpet of broken bottles. She wrapped herself in the blanket then threw it off and fidgeted and flinched like somebody was torturing her.
It was driving me crazy the way she was doing these over-the-top groans. It sounded like she was faking it just to annoy me.
I put my headphones on and turned the volume all the way up, rolled over and faced the wall and stuck my head so deeply inside my book that I went cross-eyed. I read a couple of lines and then I closed my eyes.
I opened them two hours later. Olivia was sitting on the edge of the settee, all sweaty, jiggling her legs anxiously and staring at the floor. She had taken her cardigan off. She was wearing a saggy, dark blue vest and you could see her boobs hanging down. She was so thin, all bones, with long narrow feet, a thin neck like a greyhound and wide shoulders, and her arms . . .
What did she have in the middle of her arms?
Purple spots studded with little red dots.
She lifted her head up. ‘You slept, didn’t you?’
That place in Sicily where Dad wanted to send her . . .
‘What?’
The money . . .
‘Did you sleep?’
The way my parents stopped talking about Olivia as soon as they saw me . . .
‘Yes . . .’
The illness that wasn’t catching.
‘I have to eat something . . .’
She was like those people in Villa Borghese. Those people who sit on the benches. Those people who ask you if you have any change. Those people with beers. I kept away from them. They’d always scared me.
‘Can you give me a biscuit? A bit of bread?’
And now one of them was here.
I got up and took the bag of sliced bread over to her.
They were next to me. Inside my den.
She threw the bread down on the settee. ‘I want to wash . . . I disgust myself.’
‘There’s only cold water.’ I was surprised that I’d managed to answer.
‘Doesn’t matter. I have to do something, take control,’ she said to herself. She struggled to stand and went into the bathroom.
I waited to hear the water running and then I leapt to her backpack. Inside was a worn-out purse, a diary full of scraps of paper, her mobile phone – and some syringes wrapped in plastic.
7
I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. It was quiet, but if I stopped breathing I could hear Olivia in the bathroom, the cars passing on the street, the sweeping of the Silver Monkey’s broom in the courtyard, a phone ringing off in the distance, the pilot light in the boiler. And the smell of all that stuff piled up, the sharp, pungent smell of wooden furniture and damp rugs.
A thud.
I lifted my head up off the pillow.
The bathroom door was ajar.
I got up and went to see.
Olivia was on the floor, naked, white, bent over between the toilet and the basin, trying to get up but unable to do so. Her legs kept slipping on the wet tiles like a horse on ice. She had only a few hairs on her pussy.
I stood there staring at her.
She looked like a zombie. A zombie who has just been shot.
She saw me, standing there next to the door jamb and ground her teeth. ‘Get out! Get out of here! Shut that fucking door!’
I went over to get Countess Nunziante’s dressing gown and hung it on the doorknob for her. When she came out, wrapped in a filthy towel, she grabbed it, stared at it, slipped it on and then lay down on the settee. Without saying a word she turned her back to me.
I put my headphones on. One of Dad’s CDs was on. It was a piece for piano which lasted forever, so calm and repetitive that it made me feel far away, on the other side of a screen, like I was watching a documentary. Olivia and I weren’t in the same room.
My sister got worse and worse. She trembled like she had a temperature. She was a jetty against which waves of pain washed up. She kept her eyes closed, but she wasn’t sleeping. I could hear her whining to herself. ‘Fuck off. What a fucking pain. I can’t take this anymore . . . I just can’t take any more.’
The unchanging music kept beating away in my ears while my sister got up from the settee then lay back down again. She scratched her legs till they bled. She got up again, she fretted, she rested her head against the cupboard door, her face pulled tight in pain. She began inhaling and exhaling with her hands on her hips. ‘Come on, Oli, you can do it . . . Come on, come on, for fuck’s sake.’ Then she curled up on her side with her hands pressed up against her face. She stayed like that for ages.
I breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like she had fallen asleep in that uncomfortable position. But she hadn’t. She got up and began kicking anything within reach.
I pulled off the headphones, got up and grabbed her by the wrist. ‘You have to shut up! If you keep this up everyone will hear us! Please . . .’
She looked at me with eyes shot through with blood and hate and pushed me away. ‘Please, my ass. Fuck off! Put your shitty little headphones back on. You idiot.’ She kicked the porcelain dog, which fell over and smashed.
I begged. ‘Please . . . please . . . Don’t be like this . . . We’ll both be in trouble if you carry on like this. Don’t you get it?’
‘Get away. I swear to God I’m going to kill you.’ She shoved me against a glass lampshade, which shattered.
A blind rage engulfed me. My muscles tensed, and as though I were about to explode I screamed, ‘No, I’m going to kill you!’ And lowering my head I ran into her. ‘You have to leave me alone! Don’t you get it?’ I stretched out my arms and pushed her roughly.
Olivia flew backwards, tripped and banged her shoulder into the cupboard. She didn’t move, her mouth open, unbelieving.
‘What do you want from me? Get out!’ I growled.
Olivia moved closer and slapped me. ‘Bastard . . . You have no right.’
I’m going to kill her now, I thought, touching my flaming hot cheek. I felt a burning lump in my throat. I held back my tears, made two fists and jumped on her. ‘Get out, you fucki
ng junkie.’
We ended up on the settee. I was on top, she was underneath. Olivia kicked her legs and slammed her fists in the air trying to get free of me but I was stronger than her. I grabbed her wrists and screamed at her, centimetres from her face, ‘What the fuck do you want from me? Tell me!’
She tried to free herself but suddenly, as though she had no strength left for fighting, she went limp, and I fell on top of her.
I pulled myself up and moved away. I was shaking all over, afraid of what I could have done to her. I could have killed her. I began kicking boxes to calm myself down. A shard of glass got stuck in my foot. I pulled it out and hissed in pain.
Olivia was sobbing, her face pushed up against the back of the settee and her legs held tightly by her arms.
‘That’s enough!’ I limped over to my backpack, took the money out of the envelope and screamed, ‘Here you go. Use this. Take it. As long as you get out of here.’ And I threw the banknotes at her.
Olivia raised herself off the settee and picked them up off the floor. ‘You little bastard . . . I knew you had some.’ She grabbed her trousers, squeezed the money in her fist and closed her eyes. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes. Her shoulders shook. ‘No. I can’t . . .’ She let the money fall and put a hand over her face. ‘I swore I would stop. And this time . . . I’m stopping . . . otherwise it’s all over.’
I couldn’t understand a thing. Her words mixed with her sobs.
‘I’m a worthless piece of shit . . . I did . . . it . . . I did it . . . How could I?’ She looked at me and took my hand. ‘I fucking had sex with a disgusting pervert just to buy a hit. He fucked me in a car park. Go on, say it, say I’m worthless . . . Say it, say it . . . Please . . .’ She collapsed on the floor and she began groaning like she’d been punched in the stomach.
She’s not breathing, I thought, covering my ears, but her groans pierced my eardrums.
Someone has to help her. Someone has to come here. Otherwise she’ll die.
‘Please . . . please . . . help me,’ I begged the walls of the room.
Then I saw her.
Lying on the floor surrounded by the money, alone and desperate.
Something inside me snapped. The giant that had been holding me up against his stone chest had let me go.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry . . .’ I grabbed my sister by the arms and pulled her up from the floor.
She was out of breath, like she was choking. I didn’t know what to do, so I shook her and patted her on the back. ‘Don’t die. Please. Don’t die. I’m going to help you now. I’ll take care of everything . . .’ And little by little I heard a breath of air slide into her mouth and down her throat into her chest. Very little to begin with, then her breathing gradually grew deeper until she eventually said in a whisper, ‘I’m not going to die. It takes more than that to kill me.’
I hugged her and leaned my forehead against her neck, my nose on her collarbone, and I burst into tears.
I couldn’t stop. The sobs came in gusts. I would settle for a few moments and then it welled up and I cried even louder than before.
Olivia was shaking and her teeth were chattering. I wrapped her up in a blanket but she barely noticed. It looked like she was sleeping, but she wasn’t asleep. She was squeezing her lips together from the pain.
I felt useless. I didn’t know what to do. ‘Do you feel like a sip of Coke? A sandwich?’
She didn’t answer me.
And in the end I asked, ‘Do you want me to call Dad?’
She opened her eyes and murmured, ‘No. Please don’t.’
‘What can I do then?’
‘Do you really want to help me?’
I nodded.
‘You have to find me some sleeping pills then. I need to sleep. I can’t take any more of this.’
‘I’ve only got some aspirin, paracetamol . . .’
‘No, they’re not strong enough.’
I sat down on the bed. I felt embarrassed to just sit and watch her like an idiot without knowing how to help her.
I felt the same way about Grandma Laura.
A tumour had been eating her stomach for two years and she had had loads of operations and each time we had to go and visit her. She lay there, in that little hospital room with the fake leather armchairs, the People and l’Espresso magazines that only we read, the laminate on the furniture, the pale green walls, the dry croissants in the cafeteria, the grumpy nurses and their hideous white clogs, the disgusting tiles on the plantless little terrace. And her in that metal bed, pumped with medicines, her mouth open without her false teeth, and my parents watching her in silence, smiling with tight lips while they secretly hoped that she would die as quickly as possible.
I didn’t get why we had to go and visit her. Grandma barely understood who we were.
‘We’re keeping her company. You’d like that too’, my mum would say to me.
No, it’s not true. It’s embarrassing getting visits when you’re not well. And when you’re dying I bet you want to be left alone. I really didn’t get this thing about paying visits.
I looked at my sister. She was trembling all over.
Then, suddenly, I remembered.
What an idiot. I knew exactly where I could find the medicine.
‘I’ll take care of everything. You stay here, I’ll be back soon.’
8
Beneath a light rain, I caught the number 30 bus.
I’d been lucky. When I’d left the building, the Silver Monkey had been taking his afternoon nap.
I sat at the back of the bus with my hoodie pulled down over my face. I was a secret agent on a mission to save my sister and nothing would stop me.
The last time we had gone with Grandma to the hospital, shortly before leaving home, she had whispered in my ear, ‘Darling, go and get all the medicine from my bedside cabinet and hide it in my bag. Those bloody doctors never give me enough to ease the pain. Don’t let anyone see you though.’
I had managed to get them into her bag without anyone noticing.
I got off a short walk from Villa Ornella.
But when I stood in front of the clinic all my courage disappeared. I had promised Grandma that I would go and visit her on my own, but I’d never gone. I just wasn’t able to talk to her like we were still at her house. Those times I’d gone with Mum and Dad had been torture.
‘Come on, Lorenzo, you can do it,’ I said to myself, and I looked over at the car park. No sign of my parents’ cars. I bounded up the steps to the entrance of the clinic and cut across the hallway. The nun behind the reception looked up from the computer screen but she only glimpsed a shadow disappearing up the stairs. I ran down the long corridor. It took 3,225 steps. I had counted them on the day they had operated on Grandma. I had spent the whole afternoon in hospital with Dad as Grandma had been in theatre for ages.
I went past the nurses’ station. They were laughing. I turned right, and a walking dead man came shuffling towards me in his slippers. He was wearing light blue pyjamas with dark blue hems. White curls poked out of the V-neck of his cardigan. A fresh scar cut across his cheekbone and ended near his mouth. A woman lying on a stretcher was looking at a framed picture of a stormy sea hanging on the wall above her. A little girl came out of a doorway but was immediately pulled back in by her mother’s hand.
Room 103.
I waited for my heart to slow and then I turned the door handle.
The urine drainage bag was almost full. Her dentures were soaking in a glass on the bedside table. The drip hung from the IV trolley. Grandma Laura was sleeping in the bed with the bars. Her lips had fallen into her gaping mouth. She was so small and shrunken I could probably have picked her up and taken her away with me.
I moved closer and studied her, biting the inside of my cheek.
She was so old. A pile of bones covered by a scaly wrinkled skin. One leg stuck out from underneath the sheet. She was black and blue and as thin as a rake; her foot w
as crooked and her big toe was folded inwards like the bone was made of metal wire. She smelled of powder and antiseptic. Her hair, which she always kept held back neatly in a hairnet when she was well, was loose and lay across the pillow, white and long, like a witch’s.
She could have been dead. But her face didn’t show the peacefulness of a corpse, it bore a stiff expression of sufferance, like her flesh was shot through with a current of pain.
I went over to the foot of the bed and covered her leg with the sheet. The suede toiletry bag was in the wardrobe. I opened it and took out all the bottles and boxes of medicine and stuffed them in my pockets. As I was zipping it back up I heard a whisper behind me, ‘Lo-re-nzo . . . Is that you?’
I whirled around. ‘Yes, Grandma. It’s me.’
‘Lorenzo, did you come to visit me?’ A spasm made her face tighten. She kept her eyes half closed. The clouded eyeballs were surrounded by wrinkled folds.
‘Yes.’
‘Good boy. Sit down next to me . . .’
I sat next to the bed on a metal stool.
‘Grandma, I should be . . .’
‘Give me your hand.’
I squeezed her hand. It was warm.
‘What time is it?’
I looked at the clock on the wall. ‘It’s ten past two.’
‘In the morning . . .’ She moved and squeezed my hand softly. ‘Or . . .?’
‘In the afternoon, Grandma.’
I had to get out of there. It was too dangerous. If the nurses saw me they would definitely tell my parents.
Grandma didn’t speak, just breathed through her nose like she’d fallen asleep, then she rolled over in search of a more comfortable position.
‘Are you in pain?’
She touched her stomach. ‘Here . . . It never stops. I’m sorry you have to see me suffer. It’s so unpleasant dying like this.’ She was pulling her words out one by one, like she was looking for them in an empty box.
‘No, don’t die,’ I murmured, with my eyes fixed on her yellow drainage bag.
She smiled. ‘No, not yet. This body of mine does not want to leave yet. It hasn’t quite understood that it’s all over.’
I wanted to tell her that I had to run, but I didn’t have the courage. I stared at the garments hanging from the wooden clothes horse: the blue skirt, the white blouse, the dark red cardigan.