Free The Catastrophist: A Novel by Ronan Bennett Page B

cheek. “I am already loving you.
Ti amo
.”
    She felt me slide away. I did not have to say anything, she
felt
it. There was the evidence. I could not help myself; it was worse than embarrassing, it was cruel. We fell silent while it sunk in for her that there were limits to this. My heart was low, I felt empty and weak.
    We walked slowly back to the terminus. There were few words. It was cold and damp on the trolley-bus and I put my arm around her. Her spirits could not be tamped down for long. She pointed to a notice—
No Spitting
—and said she had never seen this before on a bus. She thought it very funny and was amused by my embarrassment. She said I should be proud of my hometown. But what’s there to be proud of in this bitter, hard place? I asked her about Italy, where I had never been but about which I had read much. I asked her about Florence and the Palazzo Vecchio, about Venice and St. Mark’s Square. She told me about the foundation of the Communist Party of Italy, about Gramsci, Togliatti, the partisans and the
svolta di Salerno
. She talked as though I had knowledge of these people, these events. On my return to London I went to St. Pancras library.
    The following morning I left my mother’s house in St. James’s and went to meet her at the Abercorn in Castle Lane. She was not there when I arrived. I waited, and I began to get nervous. Forty minutes later I paid the bill and was on my way out to go round to the hotel when she entered. She beamed a broad smile, embraced me and sighed.
    “Where do you want to go?” I asked softly.
    “I don’t care.”
    As long as she was with me she didn’t care. I was filled up with happiness and confidence. I could see brightness in the gray wash of the day.
    We hired a car and set off west. It was drizzling and cold and filthy. We came out of the fog on the Glenshane Pass to see the sky, blue and slate, bending dramatically over Lough Foyle. We stopped in Derry. I have family in the city, but for reasons to do with family I did not go to see them. Instead we went to a pub in Shipquay Street, where we sat among the shoppers at a rough wooden table and had a bowl of stew, white pan bread and a glass of stout. The atmosphere between us was warm and intimate and funny. I surprised myself by being relaxed and talkative.
    We crossed the border and arrived in Carrigart, not by any design; we were going where the fancy took us. We parked by the strand and walked and kissed. There was a piercing veer to the December wind, my uncovered head felt the squeeze of its vise. Her long nose was red and wet and cold. She told me she loved camping, that if she’d brought her tent we could have pitched it here. I said I was too old for that. She was twenty-six.
    We found a hotel. Before we entered she produced from her pocket—she never carried a handbag—a thin gold band. She grinned as she slipped it on her finger. Her preparedness set up sudden doubts in me. Who is she? How often does she do this? She took my arm gaily and we marched up to the desk. I forget what name we used.
    In the room we took off our clothes almost at once. She had a small, slight body; it was not so bony then. She came by getting me to be still and holding me tightly by the waist or buttocks and rubbing herself against me. She came quickly and, it seemed, easily. She made little noise. The pattern was quickly established. After wildness and abandon she would slow me down with a whisper to be still. The sex would continue afterwards, though the first time she whispered to me she was coming I came with her. But once I got used to her I let her come in her own manner and stayed hard inside her afterwards.
    We had sandwiches and then went to the pub where I heard more of her likes and dislikes, and their vital declaration. Milan had too many banks and the people spoke with arrogant accents; Turin’s buildings were too big and in any case fascist, though they were not as bad as the university in Rome—a true