The Italian Affair (7 page)

“Makes complete sense” Issy said impressed by his desire to search for new and exciting places.

“When I plan my trips, I go for the places that others don’t seem to go to as much. In fact after lunch, I’ll drive you through Positano but rather than stop there I think we should go to a little sheltered beach I know at a village nearby. We can swim and take the sun on the rocks hopefully undisturbed. Would you like that? It would be a perfect finish to a perfect day. I almost always end up on a beach on one of my special outings.”

“Yes I’d love to,” said Issy enthusiastically as she watched Netta from the corner of her eye bringing over yet more food. “Swimming has always been one of my favourite pastimes and some intense sun on my face and pasty white body is just what I need.”

“Ok, that’s settled then,” Dan said. “All we have to do now is somehow find enough room to eat this second course and then we can hit Priano. By the way you’ll notice how the fish meat just falls off the bone when you start to eat and that shows just fresh it is. I mean they must have just caught these two,” Dan said triumphantly as he put a piece of fish meat into his mouth.

“The vegetable has an interesting taste. It complements the fish but it is really bitter,” Issy said in a way which suggested she was not yet sure whether she liked it or not.

“It’s an acquired taste and it’s good for you,” Dan replied. “The Italians follow the seasons and what you eat in this type of restaurant is always fresh, because the food they serve is what nature makes available month-on-month. When you get into that kind of eating cycle everything tastes that much better because you know it’s straight from the ground or the field or the sea.”

“That is a wonderful way of looking at it. But however good this is I can’t eat another thing!” said Issy holding her stomach, in case it exploded. “I can honestly say I have never ever eaten like that in my entire life.”

“That sensation will pass in a moment you may even fancy staying for one of their famous desserts or a digestivo?” said Dan optimistically.

“What is a digestivo?” asked Issy laughing “it sounds like some kind of indigestion remedy.”

Dan smiled and explained. “It is. Along the coast, they make drinks to be taken after a meal one is called Limoncello which is a liquor made from lemons due to the abundance of lemon groves, and they also make one from herbs that comes from the mountains. That one is dark in colour. Just to warn you before you try either, that both are hugely high in alcohol content.”

“I definitely can’t eat a dessert, and, if I have anything else to drink I will literally fall asleep which could be dangerous if we’re driving round the coast this afternoon” said Issy. “Shall we just have an espresso and go to the beach you were talking about?”

“Ok good plan” Dan replied whilst making a sign to Netta that they wanted some coffee and the bill. “We can pick up an ice cream and some water before we hit the sunbathing.”

“Sounds good,” said Issy. “I just want to get out into the sea now and cool down.”

Swimming was something Issy did to relax and unwind. But there was always pathos when she swam. She’d never had the swim for her birthday that she’d been looking forward to with her father on the day he’d died.

So whenever she got into a swimming pool or into the sea she thought of Marigold washing up gloves and how things might have been had her father lived. The guilt of not catching him as he fell remained a recurring image and a source of deep guilt and sadness. And just for a moment in the bosom of Netta’s restaurant she thought she caught a glimpse of her father falling from the wall of photos onto the hard stone floor beneath them.

“Why now?” Issy thought as she fought with her memories. “Why here today?”

“Are you ok?” asked Dan concerned at the way her mood had so quickly altered.

“Yes. Yes sorry I’m fine. I was just thinking about the swimming and the sea and got carried away by thoughts from the past that’s all,” Issy said shaking her head to get rid of the black hole which – if she allowed it to appear in her mind – would slowly engulf her.

As they got up to leave the restaurant, Issy knew she couldn’t face telling Dan that bit of her past immediately. The affair maybe but not that, they hardly knew each other.

But even then in that restaurant Issy Mead knew Dan would eventually get to know everything about her past in time. Meeting him was just another of the many strange coincidences in her life that had started so many years ago and which helped her to somehow carry on despite everything.

Telling Dan about the day that changed her whole perspective on life was just a matter of time it was just a case of finding the right moment. Knowing that she had met someone she felt she could trust so instantaneously lightened the darkness that had started to descend and as they made their way out of the restaurant in search of some sea and sun the light shone as she looked up at him and caught his eye as he simply smiled.

Priano
– 4pm local time August 30th 1986

Issy and Dan stretched themselves out over lichen covered rocks protruding from the crystal clear blue waters in the recesses of a small cove, their bodies moulded into the peaks and troughs of the rock formation.

Dan wore a tiny pair of light blue swimming trunks, and Issy an old dark blue lycra costume that she’d had since she was in her teens.

A perfectly round hot yellow sun beat down on both of them. The only relief was their proximity to water, and the gentle breeze which ebbed and flowed with the undulating waves that lapped every few seconds against the elevated jagged shoreline where they lay.

Issy dangled one of her feet in the water lazily and listened. Apart from the sound of the sea, the only other audible noise was the low and constant screech of crickets camouflaged from view in the undergrowth.

To get to this secluded cove they’d had to climb down 100 steep steps hewn out of the coastline. The effort, the heat and the heavy lunch together with the Avellino wine had made their arrival all the sweeter.

After a few minutes of allowing the sun to soothe them and lightly toast their sacrificial bodies Dan stirred from his slumber with a question.

“Now no-one’s listening you’ll HAVE to tell me all about this married man you were involved with at university,” Dan said in a way which sounded like he really wanted to know everything immediately.

Issy opened her eyes and smiled sleepily before replying. “Why do you want to know? Maybe it’s best if I never ever mention him again and pretend it didn’t happen. Coming here is making it start to feel like it never really happened in the first place.”

“Well it did,” Dan said softly. “And it sounds like he made you very unhappy otherwise you’d not be running away from everything.”

“Yes you’re right about that,” Issy said slowly. “He and everything that happened at the end of our relationship made me very unhappy. And without doubt I am running away. I can honestly say the affair, as that is what it was, possessed me for almost three years. Even though I found out Jeremy was married early on, it didn’t stop me getting involved. I was powerless to do anything about it. He had such an unbelievably strong hold over me. Almost like an addiction.”

“Were you the only other person he’d had an affair with or do you think there were others?” asked Dan.

Issy turned her head to look at him surprised by the question. “I really don’t know. I never thought about it. When I was with Jeremy it was like there was no-one else in the world that mattered apart from me and him. It felt like that from the moment our eyes first met. I’m not sure if you can ever repeat what we had. We had what the Ancient Greeks would have called Agape. But who knows who else there was in his life apart from his wife it never crossed my mind.”

“Forgive my ignorance,” Dan said. “But what in heaven’s name is Agape?”

Issy smiled at Dan’s theatrical way of asking questions, and the way he needed to ask so many of them. She sometimes forgot that others weren’t as obsessed as she’d been by the ancient Greeks and to a lesser extent the Ancient Romans.

“Agape,” Issy answered trying to find a succinct way of describing it. “Is when you find love with a soul connection. That’s where the word ‘soulmate’ comes from. Agape is when you love someone with all your heart and all your soul.”

“Ah,” said Dan. “I get it. But where does the word itself come from?”

“It’s Greek,” Issy replied. “The Greeks believed there were four types of love. “The two main ones that describe the love within relationships are Eros which is sexual love or lust and Agape which is when you connect with someone’s soul. It’s the purest form of love there is.”

“How beautiful,” said Dan. “You’ve just explained in one sentence why I’ve never been in a relationship that’s lasted more than a few months. As my relationships have ALL been about Eros, I’ve never experienced Agape. Or if I have, I’ve not been able to open myself up to it.”

“Oh but if you had experienced it you would have been aware of it. That’s my precise point. Agape is something you feel for someone that is undeniable. It’s when you know you can’t live without the other person. I had it with Jeremy it’s just that I couldn’t have him as he belonged to someone else.”

“But none of us in my view belong to anyone” Dan said emphatically sitting up and facing her to stress his point.

“That’s what I believed but not anymore. I truly felt that I did belong to him and that’s why my heart feels like it’s been pulled out of my body and my soul is dead,” replied Issy.

“Ok, so if the relationship was THAT passionate and felt so right and Jeremy loved you as much as you did him, which I’m sure he did, why exactly couldn’t he leave his wife? Not all affairs have to end,” said Dan beginning to raise his voice in disbelief.

Issy looked at Dan again, the blistering rays of sun blinding her as she tried to explain.

“All I know is what he told me. Unless he lied, the reason he gave me for not continuing our relationship was that despite being stuck in a loveless marriagehe could not and never would leave it. He was staunchly religious and came from a long-line of almost aristocratic Anglo-Catholic families.”

“So he was from Brideshead Revisited?” Dan said beginning to chuckle despite the tragedy.

Issy smiled briefly too. “Yes pretty much. That’s why when I saw you reading THE book at school I couldn’t believe the coincidence. If you want to imagine Jeremy then all you have to do is think of Charles Ryder. The angst, the inner loneliness, the way he looked, the way he spoke, the way he dressed and the way he held himself.”

“Dark, brooding and unfathomable, he sounds just like the sort of men I fall for. And I’m sorry for laughing just then,” Dan said sheepishly. “I didn’t mean it. But what I want to know is where is this man’s courage? Why stay in a joyless union when life is short and love runs so deep and pure?”

“It was complicated,” Issy replied “really complicated. In the end that is what it came down to and I can’t say I know the full reasons why he finished our relationship. And I doubt now that I will ever know. But I am complicated too probably for different reasons. A lot of things happened in my life well before Jeremy arrived that made me susceptible to falling in love with him. Maybe in the end it was as much my fault as his I‘m only just trying to figure some of it out myself.”

“What sort of things happened in your life that made you fall in love with him?” said Dan who seemed reluctant to let the conversation end now they’d only just got going.

“Lots of really sad things as well as some quite funny quirky things, stuff that I’ve never told anyone before” Issy replied curling her toes at the thought of even trying to explain to a stranger.

“Well. You can‘t get away with saying something like that and then not sharing anything Issy Mead. Not with me around. Not now you’ve got me all interested,” Dan said propping himself back up on his elbows. “I’m even prepared to give up my siesta for you, and I don’t do that lightly.”

Issy squinted up at the sun to buy some time. Here she was on a beach with a man she’d met only that same morning, and she was about to tell him things that were personal, things that she’d never shared with anyone in her life – not even her immediate family – things that she had bottled up years ago. She had no idea if she opened them up now what would happen. The strategy to talk about them was just too risky.

As Issy finally lifted her eyelids and looked over at Dan, she stared at the random freckle formations on his face. Could she trust him? And did she really want to unburden her pain? Where would it get her if she tried to unpack her emotional baggage bit by bit? There were too many parts to her story and none of them fitted together in any logical sequence.

“IF I tell you some of my story I don’t want you to laugh or judge me on it Dan,” Issy said. “I don’t know who I am. I just feel all at sea. I find talking about personal stuff virtually impossible for some reason even now I don’t even know where to begin,” Issy continued nervously picking lichen out of the rock as she spoke.

“I would be honoured if you shared some of your complications with me” replied Dan quietly watching the nervousness in Issy’s hands as they fiddled with the rocks. “I am a master at unraveling things mainly because I’m complex too. But don’t feel you have to say anything if it makes you so uncomfortable. Only tell me if it is going to help you in some way.”