‘Nothing. I had a fall.’
‘How did that happen?’
‘I was riding my bike.’
Should he tell her? Of course he should. If you don’t talk about your troubles with your best friend, who are you going to talk about them with?
He told her about being pursued by the Ciao, the Aurelia, the fall, the beating and Big Biglia’s timely intervention.
‘Biglia? The one who went out with that actress … ? What’s her name?’ Gloria was all excited. ‘And he hit those two bastards?’
‘He didn’t hit them, he thrashed them. They jumped on him, but he swatted them like flies. With a couple of kung-fu kicks. Ha! Pow, pow! And they ran away.’ Pietro had got really carried away.
‘I love Graziano Biglia. Fantastic! Next time I see him, I don’t know him, but it doesn’t matter, I’m going to give him a big kiss, I swear. Oh, I wish I’d been there.’ Gloria stood up on the bed and started doing karate moves and uttering Chinese cries.
She was wearing nothing but a skimpy violet cotton T-shirt which left her stomach and navel exposed and if you looked underneath … plus a pair of white shorts with embroidered edges. Those long legs, that pert little bottom, that long neck, those small breasts that pushed against the cloth of the T-shirt. And that short, towselled, blonde hair.
Enough to drive any boy wild.
Gloria was the most beautiful thing Pietro had ever seen. He was sure of that. He had to lower his eyes because he was afraid she’d guess what he was thinking.
Gloria sat down cross-legged beside him and, suddenly concerned, asked him: ‘Did you hurt yourself?’
‘A bit. Not much,’ Pietro lied, trying to put on the impassive face of a hero.
‘I don’t believe it. I know you. Let me see.’ Gloria grabbed his trouser belt.
Pietro pulled away. ‘Don’t worry, it’s only a scratch. It’s nothing.’
‘You idiot, you’re embarrassed … What about when we’re at the seaside, then?’
Sure he was embarrassed, it was different here. They were alone, on a bed, and she … Well, it was different, that’s all. But he said: ‘No, I’m not embarrassed …’
‘Let me see, then.’ She took hold of his buckle.
There was no getting out of it, when Gloria took a decision, that was the way it was going to be. Despite himself, Pietro was forced to lower his trousers.
‘Goodness, look what you’ve done … We’ll have to disinfect it. Take your trousers off.’ She said this in a serious, motherly tone which Pietro had never heard her use before.
A bit of disinfectant was indeed called for. The outer side of his right thigh was grazed and covered with blood and drops of pus. It was throbbing slightly. He had also grazed his calf and his hand, and his ribs hurt where they had kicked him.
What a mess I’m in … But in spite of everything he was happy, without knowing exactly why. Maybe because Gloria was now looking after him, maybe because those two bastards had got a thrashing, maybe just because he was in that doll’s room, on a bed with sheets that smelled so good.
Gloria went into the kitchen to fetch some disinfectant and cotton wool. How she loved playing nurses! She medicated him, while Pietro moaned that she was a sadist, that she was putting on far more disinfectant than necessary. She bandaged him up in rough-and-ready fashion, gave him an old pair of pyjamas and put him to bed, then drew the curtains and got into bed herself and started the video again. ‘Now we’ll watch the end of the film, then you can have a nap and later we’ll have something to eat. Do you like tortellini with cream?’
‘Yes,’ said Pietro, hoping that heaven was exactly like this.
In every detail.
A warm bed. A video. The leg of the most beautiful girl in the world to brush against. And tortellini with cream.
He snuggled down under the duvet and in less than five minutes was asleep.
119
To see Mimmo Moroni from a distance, on the green hillside, sitting under a long-branched oak tree with the sheep grazing beside him and that pink-and-blue sunset gilding the woodland leaves, you felt as if you’d stepped into a painting by Juan Ortega da Fuente. But if you drew nearer you discovered that the shepherd boy was dressed like the lead singer of Metallica and that he was weeping as he munched some Mulino Bianco Crumbly Delights.
That was the pose in which Pietro found him.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, already suspecting the answer.
‘Nothing … I’m not feeling well.’
‘Have you quarrelled with Patti?’
‘No, she’s … ditched me …’ Mimmo whimpered, and popped into his mouth another biscuit with a rich soft centre enclosed in light flaky pastry.
Pietro snorted. ‘Again?’
‘Yes. But this time she means it.’
Patrizia ditched him, on average, twice a month.
‘Why?’
‘That’s the problem, I don’t know! I haven’t got a clue. This morning she rang me up and broke it off without giving any explanation. Maybe she doesn’t love me any more, or perhaps she’s found someone else. I don’t know …’ He sniffed and sank his teeth into another biscuit.
There was a reason. And it wasn’t that Patrizia didn’t love him any more, let alone that a new competitor had stolen Mimmo’s sceptre.
God knows why, but whenever a partner ditches us, these are the first explanations that come to our minds. She doesn’t want me any more. She’s found someone better than me.
If our friend Mimmo had thought more carefully about his meeting with his girlfriend the previous day, maybe, and I repeat maybe, he would have found a reason.
120
Mimmo had left the house at about five o’clock in the afternoon, got on his motorbike and gone to pick up Patti.
He was supposed to be taking her to Orbano to do some shopping, to buy some Perla tights and a cream for skin blemishes.
When Patrizia had seen him on his motorbike she’d started cursing.
How was it possible that of all her group of friends she was the only one whose boyfriend didn’t have a car? Or rather, who did have a car, but whose shit of a father wouldn’t let him use it?
And it was raining!
But Mimmo was unperturbed. That morning he’d gone to the market in Ischiano and bought some army capes. He assured her that with those on they’d be as dry as could be. Patrizia had sulkily donned her helmet and climbed on that hog, which was as tall as a horse, as evil-smelling as an oil refinery, as dangerous as Russian roulette and as noisy as … what’s as noisy as a motocross bike with a broken silencer? Nothing.
And they might have reached Orbano without getting wet, because the capes did indeed do their job, but Mimmo couldn’t resist swerving like a maniac through all the puddles that appeared in front of him.
They had got off the motorbike soaked to the skin. Patrizia’s mood was worsening. They’d set off down the main street but after a hundred metres Mimmo had stopped short in front of the hunting and fishing shop. In the window was a titanium and carbon fibre crossbow to die for. He’d gone in, despite her protests, to ask about its price and technical specifications. It cost an arm and a leg. But among the bows, rifles and fishing rods he’d managed to find something to buy. There was no way he was leaving there empty-handed. It was a question of principle.
An air pistol on special offer.
Half an hour to look at it, half an hour to decide whether to buy it or not, and meanwhile the shops were closing.
Patrizia’s mood by now was as black as pitch.
Since they hadn’t been able to do any shopping (though Mimmo had eventually bought the air pistol), they’d decided to have a pizza and then go to the cinema to see The Courage of Being Melissa, the dramatic story of a Scandinavian woman who had been forced to live for a year in a pygmy village.
They’d sat down in the pizzeria and Mimmo had pulled up his legs and examined his boots. He was highly delighted with this purchase which he’d made earlier at the ma
rket along with the capes. He’d started explaining to Patrizia that those boots were hi-tech, identical to the ones the Americans had used in Operation Desert Storm, and that the reason they were so heavy was that, theoretically, they were proof against antipersonnel mines. And while she leafed through the menu with a bored expression on her face, to prove that he wasn’t talking bullshit Mimmo had taken the gun out of its box, inserted a pellet and shot at his foot.
He’d let out a blood-curdling scream.
The pellet had gone right through the vamp and sock and lodged in his instep, proving to him that there is often a discrepancy between theory and practice.
They’d had to run (hobble) to the emergency clinic where a doctor had taken it out and given him two stitches.
The pizza too had gone down the tubes.
They had reached the cinema at the last moment and had had to make do with seats in the front row, two centimetres away from the screen.
Patti was no longer talking.
The film had begun and Mimmo had attempted a conciliatory approach by squeezing her hand, but she had pushed him away as if he had mange. He’d tried to follow the film, but it was a total yawn. He’d felt hungry. He’d munched his popcorn, making a hell of a noise. Patrizia had confiscated it and then he’d pulled out his ace, a brand new packet of strawberry-flavoured bubble gum. He’d put three strips in his mouth and started blowing bubbles. A glare from Patrizia had made him open his mouth and spit that huge sticky ball of gum on the floor.
When the film had finished they had mounted the motorbike (in pouring rain) and returned home. Patti had alighted and disappeared through her front door without giving him a goodnight kiss.
The next morning she had called him, curtly informed him that he could consider himself single and hung up.
Perhaps for many girlfriends all this would be quite enough to end a relationship, but for Patti no, it wasn’t. She loved Mimmo unconditionally and the night would cool her rage, but what had driven her to that extreme gesture was the fact that when Mimmo had spat out the bubble-gum in the cinema it had landed right in her crash helmet. When she’d put it on, the gum had fused indissolubly with those long flowing locks treated with restructurants and extract of pig’s placenta.
The hairdresser had been obliged to give her a cut which he euphemistically described as sporty.
Gorilla in the mist
But this time too, as always, Patti would let a week go by and then end up forgiving poor Mimmo.
Patrizia Ciarnò, in this sense, was a certainty. Once she’d chosen you, she would never leave you. And this was because at the age of fifteen she’d had a nasty emotional experience which she still hadn’t really got over.
At that age Patrizia was already well developed. Her ovaries and secondary sexual features had undergone a massive hormonal bombardment and poor Patrizia was all tits, thighs, bum, love handles, acne and blackheads. And she was going out with Bruno Miele, the policeman, who was then twenty-two. Back then Bruno had had no thoughts of becoming a policeman, his ambition was to join the San Marco battalion and become a tough, no-nonsense commando.
Patrizia was deeply in love with him – she liked assertive boys – but there was a problem. Bruno would go and pick her up in his A112, drive her into the Acquasparta woods to boff her, take her home again when they’d finished and that was it.
One day Patrizia hadn’t been able to restrain herself any longer and had burst out, ‘Look, what is this? All my friends’ boyfriends take them down to Rome on Saturday afternoons to look at the shop windows and the only place you ever take me is the woods. I don’t like it, you know.’
Miele, who even at that time displayed a rare sensitivity, had proposed a bargain. ‘Okay. Let’s make a deal: I’ll take you to Civitavecchia on Saturdays but you’ve got to wear this when we make love.’ He’d opened the drawer in the dashboard and taken out a gorilla mask. One of those latex-and-fur things people wear at Carnival time.
Patrizia had turned it over in her hands and then, in bewilderment, asked him why.
How could that poor bastard Miele explain to her that if he saw Patrizia’s porno-star body, that long glossy hair and those marble protuberances, his dong grew as stiff as a table leg, but if by some mischance he should catch sight of her acne-ravaged face it suddenly went as limp as an earthworm.
‘Because … Because …’ Then he plucked something out of the air: ‘It turns me on. You see, I’ve never told you, but I’m a sadomasochist.’
‘What’s a sadomasochist?’
‘Er … it’s a person who’s into kinky stuff. Being whipped, for instance …’
‘You want me to whip you?’
‘No! What are you talking about? It turns me on if you wear the mask,’ Bruno had tried, unconvincingly, to explain to her.
‘You like doing it with monkeys?’ Patrizia was in despair.
‘No! Yes! No! Look, just put on the mask and don’t ask so many questions,’ Bruno had snapped impatiently.
Patrizia had thought it over. As a rule she didn’t approve of sexual deviations. But then she remembered what her cousin Pamela had told her: Pamela’s boyfriend, Emanuele Zampacosta, known as Manu, a cashier at the Co-op in Giovignano, got off on being peed on, but despite this they had an excellent relationship and were getting married in March. She’d concluded that after all Bruno’s perversion was fairly innocuous. And the game was worth the candle. He would take her to Civitavecchia and besides she loved him very much and you do anything for love.
She had accepted. And so, whenever they went into the Acquasparta woods, she’d put on the mask and they’d have sex (once when there was a thick fog, Rossano Quaranta, a sixty-eight-year-old pensioner and poacher, had passed by and found a car hidden among the oaks and being a bit of a voyeur too had crept up and seen an incredible sight. Inside the car were a young man and a large ape. He had raised his shotgun ready to intervene, but had lowered it when he had realised that that pervert was shagging the gorilla. And he had walked away shaking his head and muttering to himself that there was no limit to the dis gusting things some people would do nowadays.)
Bruno Miele, however, had not kept his side of the bargain.
They’d made only one trip to Civitavecchia, then he’d started finding excuses and had finally taken her to watch him playing table football. And he even pretended he didn’t know her.
Patrizia, in despair, had written a long, heartfelt letter to Dr Ilaria Rossi-Barenghi, the resident psychologist on the weekly magazine Heart to Heart, telling her how badly things were going between her and Bruno (she omitted the bit about the mask) and saying that despite everything she loved him to bits, but felt she was being treated like a whore.
To Patrizia’s infinite surprise, Dr Rossi-Barenghi had answered her.
Dear Patti,
Once again we find ourselves up against the kind of problem our mothers faced before us. But today, having acquired a greater awareness and a little more knowledge of the human mind, we can hope to bring about a change. Love is a wonderful thing and it’s good to be able to share it in a frank and equal relationship. We women are certainly more sensitive than men, and perhaps your boyfriend isn’t yet capable of expressing his feelings freely. However, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t demand from him what is right. Don’t let yourself be crushed by his egoism. Stand up for yourself. You’re very young, but precisely for that reason you mustn’t always give in to him, and if he really loves you, in time he’ll learn to respect you. Today your boyfriend knows that he can easily control you, but actually it is you who are giving him this impression. In matters of the heart it pays to play hard to get, my dear Patti! Be true to your virtues and you’ll see that your Bruno – who, to judge from what you tell me, is a sensitive soul underneath it all – will come to worship you. Good luck!
Patrizia had followed the doctor’s advice to the letter. At their next encounter she had explained to Bruno that things were going to change. He was going to have t
o give her red roses and take her to dinner at the Grandfather’s Barrel pub and then to the cinema in Orbano to see Terms of Endearment 2 with her girlfriends. And she was not going to wear the ape mask when they made love any more.
Bruno had opened the car door, ushered her out and said: ‘Get lost, you ugly bitch. Me go and see Terms of Endearment 2? What do you take me for, a poof?’ And he’d driven off in high dudgeon.
Now, having learned from this nasty experience and Dr Rossi-Barenghi’s advice, Patrizia had organised her relationship with Mimmo in such a way that she would never find herself abandoned like a fool and with a broken heart.
121
Pietro was seeking his brother for a very precise reason, namely to ask him if he would go and speak to the deputy headmistress. He had thought up the scheme with Gloria’s help. And it seemed workable.
At first she’d tried to convince him that her mother could go. Mrs Celani adored Pietro and said he was the nicest little boy in the world. She would have been delighted to do it. But Pietro wasn’t so sure. If Gloria’s mother went, it would be further proof that his parents didn’t care about him, that his family were all crazy.
No, it wasn’t a good idea.
Finally they had come to the conclusion that the only thing for it was to send Mimmo. He was old enough, and he could say that his parents were too busy, so he had come instead.
But now, seeing him there crying like a baby underneath a tree, he wondered if it really was such a good idea. Still, he had to try, there was no alternative.
He told him he’d been given five days’ suspension and that they wanted to speak to a member of the family. But Papa had refused to go and said it was nothing to do with him.
‘So you’re the only one left, you’ve got to go and tell them I’m a good boy, I won’t do it again, I’m very sorry, you know the sort of thing. It’s easy.’
‘Send Mama,’ said Mimmo, throwing a stone a good distance.
‘Mama …?’ Pietro echoed him with an expression that meant: are you out of your mind?