

#

#

# Recollection

By Pauline Macadré

Copyright 2020 Pauline Macadré

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favourite authorized retailer.

Thank you for your support!

J'ai souvent éprouvé un sentiment d'inquiétude, à des carrefours. Il me semble dans ces moments qu'en ce lieu ou presque : là, à deux pas sur la voie que je n'ai pas prise et dont déjà je m'éloigne, oui, c'est là que s'ouvrait un pays d'essence plus haute, où j'aurais pu aller vivre et que désormais j'ai perdu.

Yves Bonnefoy, _L'Arrière-pays_

Le vice-roi

Si tu t'en vas, il n'y a plus d'étoile pour me guider, je suis seul !

Doña Prouhèze

Non pas seul.

Le vice-roi

À force de ne plus la voir au ciel, je l'oublierai. Qui te donne cette assurance que je ne puisse cesser de t'aimer ?

Doña Prouhèze

Tant que j'existe et moi je sais que tu existes avec moi.

Paul Claudel, _Le Soulier de satin_

## Prologue

The cold sunlight burst against the glass he'd been leaning on, startling him awake. Outside, the panorama had changed, the trees greener, the mountains higher, more definite in the evening light. He had hoped to see their silhouette blur against a background of unstoppable darkness, willing to see the distant summits merge with the clouds and vanish in the same autumn haze that had already started to creep up on them, some nights, back in Tuscany. He had hoped that the journey back would lead him into blissful oblivion, that the geographical distance confirmed by the constant metamorphoses of the landscape would bring him the comfort of numbness, perhaps even a feeling of glorious anticipation at the prospect of a return that had already been postponed beyond what he himself knew to be reasonable. Travelling through the impressive Alps, he had imagined that his own gloomy thoughts would inscribe themselves onto the slopes and that he would leave them there, shed them as the train entered the blind tunnel, and be cleansed by the voyage through the entrails of the earth.

He was reminded of a pitch-black passage supposed to symbolize the womb of Buddha's mother, underneath a temple in Kyoto, and the eerie feeling of keeping his eyes wide open without being able to see anything, without getting used to the darkness enough to start making out something, anything. He had walked through it, unable to assess the distance, without knowing if his eyes were indeed open or shut or if the darkness had made him blind, until there, in the middle, glowed a stone supposed to grant wishes. As the train neared the mountains, the sunlight lent a golden hue to everything, and whatever he saw burnt straight into his eyes each time he dared look out the window, making him regret his wish.

There had been an elderly lady with him when he got on the train in Milan, but now the compartment was empty. He fidgeted, stood up to stretch his legs and slumped back down on the opposite seat, helplessly looking on as Italy escaped his grasp. He could not face what lay ahead, not in this light, not when the mountains against which the long serpent of a train was now precipitated looked so threatening. Better look back. He kept thinking of a sentence he'd read upon his arrival in Italy, and heaved a scornful sigh when he remembered how smug he had felt back then. ' _C'est un endroit où l'on attrape le bonheur comme dans d'autres on attrape la peste_.' No. He just didn't have the guts to deal with it, not yet. Outside, engulfed in the waning light of the sunset, the landscape was slowly slipping away, swallowed by the looming, incandescent mountains. Already the shadows were lengthening, until everything became shadow. The sky was still bright, but if you looked further away, it was almost night already. He checked his watch.

Who had written that? He'd been reading some of his favourite writers' notes on Italy, Stendhal, D. H. Lawrence, along with others. He had laughed at their infatuation with the country, expecting to be disappointed, using their words as one would read a guidebook all the while expecting to be better than them, and now the price he paid seemed too dear, and now he hated them for being right. But most of all he blamed Giono. He had always loved Giono's descriptions that took you on a journey through desert forests and sunburnt fields, riding alongside Angelo or crawling under the shade of maples stained with blood like butchers. He shivered at the thought. Giono had infected him with unreasonable expectations. Happiness was catching, the writer had tricked him into believing. Like a blessing, a treasure, or a disease. The part Giono had left out was how to deal with that happiness once you caught it, how to survive those expectations when reality not only lived up and matched but even surpassed them. What Giono had forgotten to say was that, going through the border when you left the country, you had to give it all back.

Matthew thought of what he was leaving behind. His lips twitched.

***

Even crossing the street was a struggle. He had pictured himself strolling through empty streets deserted by those who feared the stifling heat of the summer, but Florence was bustling as ever and made him feel like a proper fool. It had been but a couple of days and already he longed to go back to British summer rains, and tea, and everything he had been running away from. He had thought of himself as a literary traveller, not one of those stereotypical tourists that packed into museums and churches waiting to be amazed; and there he was, feeling tall and awkward and cramped, elbowing his way through the Piazza del Duomo like everybody else, sweating in his stupid flannels and wearing a panama. Two days in and he had forgotten why he had come to Italy in the first place. Peace and quiet, and inspiration. And solitude. Tranquillity of mind, above all else. He was walking in the footprints of Forster, drawn and fascinated and disgusted by Italy. He had given in, fallen for the usual Italian seduction and now he found himself gulping down espressos standing at the counter, greeting people he didn't know with an artificially perfunctory 'ciao' he emphasized too much, and making absolutely no attempt whatsoever at learning a single word of Italian.

So when he ended up at the station as if by accident, he did not exactly make a conscious decision to take a train to Lucca. He had rather felt compelled to flee the city where Stendhal had suggested young women would swoon just by looking at the walls of Santa Croce and, he had inferred, would likely end up into his arms. That had appeared to him as the easy way out, a kind of proactive forgetting of everything that was sure to have happened if he had stayed in Nottingham – but he would not think of that. A narrow escape indeed. After shoving all his stuff in his bag, he had popped into the church of Santa Maria Novella long enough to be amazed by the beauty of the frescoes – he had not fainted, but the heat, and the light, and the beauty were overwhelming; he had understood then what Stendhal had meant – and hopped onto the first train at the neighbouring station, feeling a wave of relief as soon as he found himself sitting in a carriage that was nearly empty. Alone at last, he mused. A couple of tourists, seemingly as exhausted by the heat and crowd of Florence as he was, were already nodding off and drooling in their sleep at the other end of the train. That would do. What had he been thinking, going to Florence in July. Self-deluded fool. Right now, as the train whizzed through the scorched Tuscan countryside, he once again felt exquisitely smug.

When the train stopped in Lucca, he simply got out and started walking. There was a music festival around town, and here also the streets were crowded, but the mood felt lighter. Most people seemed genuinely Italian, for one thing. Strings of girls were giggling as they passed by, some guy in his twenties sat in front of a church with his guitar, playing acoustic versions of whatever old American pop song, couples in their fifties shared a cup of ice-cream, sitting nearby and idly listening, exchanging satisfied glances filled with years of companionship. The air was milder, less stuffy. Perhaps the main difference with Florence was how happy everybody looked, happy and relaxed, not running after their own self-imposed tight schedule, not trying to fit in a visit of the towers of the Duomo in time before their guided tour of the historical centre. People lounged as if they had all the time in the world to be as happy as possible. Matthew had no idea what he was doing here. He had had no idea there would be a festival. He had never felt so lonely.

He listened for a while to the sound of the guitar, lost in his own thoughts as he vaguely contemplated giving up altogether and just going back. Where to? Florence was out of the question. England as well, perhaps even more so. Somewhere with the sea. Marseille maybe? An image of himself playing pétanque on the Old Port arose before his eyes. Then he remembered Hemingway's Basque country in Spain, and idly wondered if he was too late for the fiesta, having no intention of actually going anywhere. Did they still run in the streets with the bulls? He was distracted by some hushed whispers in Italian and glimpsed the group of tittering girls returning, looking both excited and anxious as if stumbling upon their crush. They reminded him of his own students, but they might have been only teenagers for all he knew; it was hard to tell in the evening light. The giggles were the same. They were stealing timid glances in his direction, pretending not to look. He raised his eyebrow and flashed a confident smile in their general direction. The smile ricocheted amongst them and resonated back to him in the riot of renewed giggles and barely suppressed shrieks it earned him. A wave of guilty satisfaction washed over him. That much still worked, then.

'Ciao tesoro', one of the girls boldly replied, stepping closer.

He held up his hands apologetically and ambled away.

***

He heard the familiar clatter of knives and forks, of breakfast being laid on the table, before he even opened his eyes. It took him a moment to focus, he had no idea where he was. He listened more closely still before he would actually allow himself to look around. There were voices coming from a room in the distance, as if from another world. A man and a woman, quietly arguing. Then laughter. Coffee being grinded. The familiar smell. He opened his eyes and stared, unable to make out any familiar furniture. The room was spacious and clean, which ruled out most of his friends' places, tastefully furnished and bright, which ruled out his own. For a minute there, he thought he was back in Lucca, the way the sunlight washed the walls. But then he remembered.

He got up, and realised he was fully dressed. He must have crashed and fallen right to sleep, although he could not remember how much they had had to drink last night. His shoes were nowhere to be found, neither were his socks. He remembered but didn't want to rejoice just yet, as he tiptoed out of the room, cringing when his bare feet hit the cool hardwood floor. The events from the day before had started flashing before his eyes, but he had to make sure the deep voice that echoed through the corridor really belonged to the face he was mentally associating it with. The floor creaked, but the voices didn't stop, coming from a room whose door stood slightly ajar, shedding a splinter of light that reached his foot when he paused, locating his dirty sneakers in the hallway. He hesitated. He recognized the unmistakably British accent, the warmth, the posh manner he'd resented at first, the way the sentences lingered on as the voice left them hanging on a noncommittal 'I s'ppose.' Bracing himself, he walked on, slowing down as he approached what seemed to be the kitchen, peeped through the slit of the door and froze.

There he stood. Casually leaning against the work surface, already clean-shaven of course, his strong jaw perfectly delineated, his hair still wet, slicked back. Samuel, unable to move, could not see the man's face from the threshold that held his steps back and prevented him from trespassing into a territory that was now disclosed yet still forbidden. Nor could he see the woman who must have been in the dining-room – how big was this flat? Were they still even in Paris? They were talking about something Samuel had no notion of, the words failing to make sense to him, as if they'd been speaking French. They were speaking English, though, and kept up a slight banter betraying warmth, intimacy, and resentment. Neither of them had noticed the intrusion yet, and for a brief moment Samuel imagined himself standing there for ever, silently spying on the couple's life and intently watching the man as he talked, and leant, and smirked, and ran his hand through the soft waves of his hair, but just then, as if he'd said that out loud, Matthew turned around and greeted him with a smile.

'You're up.'

Matthew's t-shirt clung to his broad shoulders exactly as it had when Samuel had first seen him.

'So it would seem', Samuel said. Then he added: 'unless I'm dreaming', and regretted it instantly, trying to cover his tracks, 'I seem to have misplaced my socks.'

Matthew glanced at his feet and burst out laughing, crinkling his impossibly blue eyes – they were still the same warm shade of blue they had been – and plunging them straight into Samuel's before turning them back to the woman who was still invisible in the other room.

'Young people can't handle their liquor nowadays', he said to her, adorable dimples appearing in the hollows of his cheeks. Then to him, holding out his hand as an invitation, 'Come meet my wife, Penelope.' High heels clicking on the ancient hardwood floors signalled Penelope had stood from the breakfast table. For a brief second, Samuel wondered about the kind of woman who'd wear heels for breakfast. To her, Matthew added: 'This is Samuel, who crashed into our spare room last night. Tell me, darling, did we use to be that reckless?'

A tall, lean woman in her early thirties came into view, a bright smile spread across her face, 'How d'you do.'

Samuel's heart sank as he leant forward and took the hand she had extended.

'What a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ma'am', he brought it to his face and brushed his lips against her skin in a soft kiss.

She let out a high-pitched laughter and turned to Matthew. 'Your friend is extremely well-mannered, husband. I'm glad you bumped into him, you might learn a thing or two.'

'Mmh', came Matthew's low grumble, but he couldn't stop smiling.

***

There was something in Samuel's smile that morning – the bus inched its way through the weekend crowds – something that had always disturbed her. She had climbed on the top storey of the double-decker bus, hoping to give in to the Christmas spirit, already feeling like a child as she had taken her seat on the front row, only to find herself facing Samuel's obnoxious frown, on the poster of an independent movie which now taunted her from the back of the bus right in front of her. Matthew had mentioned him before, perhaps too dismissively, but she'd never expected to find him, in the flesh, as if he had magically materialised out of thin air, in their flat one morning. He had just turned up, out of the blue, barefooted, so young and hungover, his hair all messy and sleep in his eyes, an adorable child, and they had immediately seemed so at ease with one another, as if they had been friends for years – which they had, in a way. The way he looked at her, and kissed her hand, charming and flirtatious even with her. His smile had seemed falsely shy, contrived, too confident, or so she had thought that day. With hindsight she wondered if it had been rather predatory, appealing to some part of Matthew she had neither glimpsed nor ever even suspected but which had always been there, carefully hidden, and had never ceased to tether them to one another. It wasn't just the night before, it was that the two men seemed to share a knowledge she would always be excluded from. Which they did, most probably. They all did, all those who'd spent that wretched summer in Tuscany. The same predatory smile had spread on Matthew's face that morning and introduced her to a new feeling she struggled to recognize at first, because it had never occurred to her before – jealousy.

It had started snowing, much to her dismay. She had dreaded having to come back from London, and she hated it even more now. She had never felt less in the mood for Christmas, and now this. Her hands were shaking, the gold ring on her finger feeling absurd. She tried to reassure herself. Old habits die hard, her mother had told her, give yourself a break. She had bought Matthew a Christmas present, which now felt like it was burning a hole in her pocket and she was mortified just thinking about it.

***

'You know Matthew's got an account on Instagram now', she said matter-of-factly.

She didn't say she'd been checking her phone, trying to figure out what he was doing out of the puzzle of the scattered pictures he would post randomly, of some street, some book. She didn't say that some days, she felt the day had not started properly until he'd posted a story or something about his morning run. She didn't say because she had felt stupid admitting it to herself.

He never showed his face, but that wasn't the point. It was better even because she preferred the feeling it stirred in her, the indescribable longing that would have been destroyed if her fleeting memories of his face had found themselves confronted and corrected by the reality of the present time. He would have grown older, no doubt, his features aged, perhaps more tired. Seeing things from his perspective made her feel closer to him than she had ever felt, even back then in Italy, and after that. She would look at the most random everyday things, the board of that damned treadmill of his, a country road showered by rain and his invisible laughter resonating in the background, a few lines of poetry – and so, looking at life through his eyes, on the tiny screen of her phone, she could almost see herself as he had seen her back then, at nineteen, sitting on his lap, sitting on that couch, that night. Hélène of Troy he had called her, wallowing in inconsequence, both praising and reproving her, driving men out of their wits, but that was just his way, wasn't it? Poeticizing everything, intellectualizing everything, always on the verge of giving a lecture as if he were living in a giant classroom and they were all just his disciples.

And how enthralling it all had been. Her entire life still bore the mark he'd left, so that she kept wondering what he would say whenever she saw something beautiful, so that even to this day, years later, she would feel as if she might collapse whenever he failed to post a stupid story on Instagram, as if he were still guarding her path, extending a gentle hand to prevent her from recklessly crossing the road under the wheels of an Italian bus driver. They had reached the Mont Royal, which unexpectedly rose before them, the heart of the city, the Sunday Tam-Tams echoing louder in their ears now.

'I used to think Daisy was the stupid one', she blurted. 'But I get it now. The way she stutters. Don't you remember? She stutters, and I've always wondered why, the way she says she's "p-paralyzed with happiness". Don't you remember? That's how it felt.'

'Hélène, don't...' Samuel murmured, but she had brushed his hand away from her face and angrily wiped the tear herself.

'Don't you ever feel like Gatsby?' she told him instead. 'He's the idiot. Desperately chasing the past.'

He did not reply, but she had not meant it as a question – she knew he did, they all did.

## I

The crude morning light was bathing the room when he finally woke up, his face burning and his mouth dry. The windows had remained wide open but the air already felt too hot on his naked skin. He lay there, motionless, listening to the noises that came from the streets, the morning vendors, the tables being set on the restaurant terraces across the square, the stillness of that transitory moment, when the early morning commuters have gone but the lunch crowd hasn't been unleashed yet. He focused on his own breathing, then noticed something different about the room, the sheets, the bed.

Last night, on the last night of the festival, Matthew had decided something had to happen. Neil Young was playing. He thought he might as well just go, he could hear everything through the open window anyway. The room he had booked in an old palazzo near the Duomo was incredibly cheap, but it was wasted on him, he felt. He had probably deprived a honeymooning couple from the luxurious, over-the-top interior decoration. Propped against the headboard upholstered in silk, under the painted mouldings whose bright blue and yellow contrasted with the soft ochres of Tuscany, between two gilded religious icons, a lush Persian carpet covering the mosaic patterns of the tiles, he would watch otherworldly American movies he'd missed during the year, Donnie Darko and Mulholland Drive and Magnolia on a computer he had placed on the nineteenth-century walnut and marquetry table, thinking of time passing, loopholes and the plagues of Egypt, waiting for the apocalypse to enshroud him and spit him out, that he might at last find inspiration for the book he was supposed to write. He kept waiting for life to start happening. A single in a double room, and absolutely no one to keep him company, no one to distract him. But none of these films made sense, they just plagued him with inconsistent and unresolved feelings, waking him to some emotion he was trying to put aside and bury into the dust that settled between the eroded cobblestones of the old town.

He had tried renting a car, tired of wandering in the heat of the city, of cowering in the shade of narrow streets and crowded terraces. He had driven deep into the countryside but there were always other people everywhere he went. He had sat facing olive groves, looking for divine inspiration, waiting for a miracle. The air burnt his skin, feeling as if he were entering water. He felt the eager frustration that precedes any life-changing event – something just had to happen. But nothing did. He was growing immensely bored. He visited churches and restaurants as if they were the same thing. Nothing happened. He was merely casting a shadow, haunting his own body, precariously perched on the threshold of existence, lost in the interstices of his own academic writing, a handwritten note scribbled in the margin of a lecture he meant to give one day. He couldn't allow himself to consider what was sure to await him in England, if he went back, but he knew he needed something – anything – something like an electric shock, like an ejaculation, or one of Woolf's matches struck unexpectedly in the dark that would propel him out of the contemplation of a nothingness he equally dreaded and felt irresistibly drawn to. He fantasised himself as a Heideggerian character, reflecting on the swaying of his own insignificant being. He boldly faced the perspective of inescapable death, indulged in the mute contemplation of an overwhelming Being (that was Heidegger alright), of an invisible (but that was Merleau-Ponty) irrepresentable (that Lyotard) and unattainable (Lacan?) sublimity who nevertheless urged him forward. He imagined a character who would read Virginia Woolf as a garde-fou, to keep from keeling over. He had become unable to think of his own life in his own words, unable to watch a film, take a stroll, or enjoy a plate of pasta without reflecting on the modernists, the philosophers, haunted (Didi-Huberman, perhaps, might serve here) by the perspective he had adopted in the PhD thesis he had defended last fall. Didi-Huberman, he relished the name, how it sounded like both Didier Bergman, or like Überman. He rearranged letters in his head. He pondered over the fall of man into a language that doomed him to think, that structured and framed his perception of the world, irretrievably severing him from any real feeling, sensation, emotion. He had designed a prison-house for himself out of modernist novels, French literary theory, German thinkers, feminist voices, and now he simply nursed extravagant hopes for one single moment to bring him joy for the rest of his life, one tiny crumb of Proust's madeleine he would then be able to nibble at for all eternity. He was immensely bored, but his boredom presented itself in the form of insufferable knowledge, endless aporias. Synonyms surrounded him from all sides. Long, longer words on which he choked, words that rang hollow. So on the last night of the festival, he decided to go out and douse himself in the festive mood. There might be a book there after all.

The streets seemed even busier than they had on the other days, as if everyone else had decided to come out, defy the endless pit of nothingness that threatens all life, and join the light-hearted glee.

He tried not to feel left out, although with hindsight it had been a foolish idea to travel on his own. Sharing is the key, he mused, sharing with somebody else – at least somebody else.

'Do you have a lighter?' the voice asked in an American accent.

Matthew looked up from his forlorn island of self-centred gloom and the kid was just a few inches away, gazing out from under a brooding, arrogant brow, not looking at him. He held out a match but the boy just leaned forward and waited for him to set it on fire. When the flame hit the cigarette he had been holding between his lips, the boy darted his incandescent black eyes and boldly planted them directly in Matthew's blue eyes, hurling them both into an awkward intimacy that lasted but a second and seemed to last forever. He had a full head of tousled dark hair and reminded Matthew of Alain Delon in Plein Soleil, with his high cheekbones and chiselled jawline, or some scrawny, younger version of him. Scarcely had the match crackled the cigarette alight when the boy strode away, barely even nodding, casually throwing back an affected grazie mille before he was swallowed back into the crowd. The match burnt Matthew's fingertips and by the time he had waved it out, the boy had vanished entirely, the crowd huddled close together as if a fin had but sliced the surface only to plunge back in the unseen depths of the waters.

He searched the unfamiliar faces for a lingering trace of him. His eyes alighted on a pretty face that had been turned back towards his instead of looking at the stage like everyone else. They seemed to be the only two people standing outside of life, looking in. He smiled. She hesitated, blushed slightly, smiled back. They just stood there for a while, lulled by Neil Young's 'Don't Let It Bring You Down'. She raised her eyebrows at him questioningly, raised her chin towards the stage and pretended to dance, swaying gently. He chuckled back, shaking his head. He was starting to think of some way to while the evening away or to abolish the ticking of time's clock with one, or several blows. It would be easier with her. He motioned in her direction to indicate he would be coming closer and she nodded, flustered.

'Good God, Matt! Is that you?'

Matthew started around.

'Dickie?'

The man immediately hugged him. 'Don't let anyone ever hear you call me that. I can't believe you're here. What on earth are you doing here?'

Matthew glanced back over his shoulder, but the girl too had vanished into the swarming crowds. He turned to face his old friend.

'Hiding, I suppose. Aren't we all?'

'I wish. I hate to break it to you, though, but you're hardly likely to be discreet, what with all those white clothes. Especially given your height – you're like a giant, you're actually reflecting the light from the stage. I believe you're all anyone can see.'

'It's called fashion', Matthew grinned. 'Not that I expect you to –'

'Fashion?' Richard echoed, cracking up. 'Some bird told you that? And you believed her? You're almost glowing, mate.'

'I know, right?'

'No, no, I meant more like a glow-in-the-dark toy kind of glow. You know, for kids.'

'A beacon of hope.'

'A bloody lighthouse. Not in a good way.'

Matthew's smile grew wider but he kept on, 'I'm trying to play against the odds here, and attract coolness instead. Sadly, that's not really working out well for me.'

Richard winced. 'Still as deluded as ever, I'm afraid. Don't flatter yourself, mate, I'm truly sorry, I really am, but you were never cool.'

'Like I said, the experiment has failed. Were you looking for me?'

'Like hell I was. I'm actually here rehearsing a play.'

'What, here?'

The man waved it off, 'More on that later. Are you still writing?'

'Hardly', he mimicked his friend's gesture, meaning don't ask. 'I've been hanging myself out to dry in the sun and walking at night with a copy of Dostoevsky's "White Nights", hoping love would find me. At least for the evening, but tough luck, all I found was you.'

'It's so good to see you, mate. Of all places', he was shaking his head and smiling, 'it's been too long! It has, I'm telling you, and you're not leaving my sight until you've agreed to meet me for dinner tomorrow, away from all the ¬–' he gestured around. 'You know I hate this. But Italy, you know?' He knew. 'I keep thinking of the modernists – Don't! Don't argue, I know you do too. God, the time we spent reading those boring old buggers back then, and now all I keep thinking is – how right they were, just how right they had been all along. What did we know, huh, we were just kids back then. I heard you were teaching, too – God I feel like I've missed out on... It's been too long, mate.'

'It's good to see you. I've been meaning to call, but –'

Richard dismissed him in his old familiar way, 'Don't even mention it. Life, eh? Happens to all of us. I never called. Time just flies, that's what they kept telling us and here we are, growing old.'

'Yeah, well. I'm just glad I ran into you. Of all places, like you said. Forster, Lawrence, Woolf, I can't stop thinking of them either.' He gave a heartfelt laugh. 'You know I do.'

'I've missed you too. But Neil Young! I should have known you'd be there. Even all the way out here in effing Italy... You will have to tell me, not now though, agreed. Which one was it we listened to at boarding school?'

Matthew gasped, 'How could you forget?'

'I haven't, I promise, but ... Ok so sue me, it's been a long time. Please just remind me.'

'Harvest.'

That's right. They were quiet for a moment, the music echoing around them, people clapping and laughing.

'So, no more Dickie, huh?'

'Jesus, Matt. I swear if you ever call me that in front of the company, I will not find it in my heart to forgive you. No one calls me that anymore – actually no one ever called me that, but you'd grown so tall when we were teenagers I was afraid you'd kick my ass if I told you. I go by the simple name of Richard now, which happens to be the name my parents so generously bestowed on me. I will condescend to accept Rich, but that's where I draw the line. No more Dicks, ok? People actually respect me.'

'Do they, now?'

Richard laughed good-humouredly. 'So how long are you staying in Lucca?'

'Indefinitely? I mean, I'll have to go back, eventually. I'm just putting it off.'

'All in good time, my friend. Look, meet me tomorrow night, and we'll talk some more. Really talk. Do you have a phone here?'

'I'm staying just across the square, over there. Look for the "Duomo B and B", that'll be me. I've been squandering my life in a room that's way too grand for me, so please, just call. Whenever. It might just give my days a sense of purpose.'

'I'll do that. Don't disappear, ok?'

'I won't. Not in this heat.'

'It's so good to see you.'

Matthew remembered Richard's earnest, blunt sincerity and couldn't think of a reason why they'd lost touch. He resolved to meet him the next day and his mood improved at once. The prospect of talking to someone from home, someone who knew him so well, and yet who had no ties to his current affairs, whose familiar insight he might actually benefit from, warmed his heart better than Neil Young himself could have done.

He had barely woken up when the phone rang. It was too quiet to be lunch-time already, it was probably still morning from the way the sun fell directly on the girl's shoulder, still asleep or pretending to be, lying naked next to him. The sound of her even breathing had mingled with his own – that was what felt different about the room that morning. He reached out and took a large swig of water from the bottle on the floor next to him, but he would still get a hangover. So she had found him after all, in the dancing crowd of Neil Young's audience. She had quietly slid close to him. 'Bad memory?' she had asked. He was still bewildered from the unexpected reunion, but before he could say anything she added, 'Chiodo scaccia chiodo'. He didn't know what she meant.

'What's her name?' she had asked him when they were lying naked afterwards, entangled in a sea of sweaty sheets that now smelled of her oddly familiar unfamiliar scent. He'd have to have them changed again in the morning.

'Her name?' he pretended not to understand.

'You know.' He shook his head, but she insisted. 'The girl you can't stop thinking of. I could tell you were making love to someone else, in your head.'

He thought her bold, the way shy people might sound when they're trying to impress. He sighed and leaned in to kiss her, to keep her from asking further questions or to keep himself from admitting the truth, but she gently pushed him away, gazing questioningly into his eyes.

'What are you doing, amore?'

She had placed her hands on either side, cupping his face, her thumbs stroking his cheeks as if he were a child. Her mouth was full, of a dark carmine, pulsing, hot like blood. He hovered gently over her, resting on his elbow, one hand holding her wrist firmly as he pushed past her concern and past her gentle strokes in order to place a firm kiss on lips that parted as she let out a soft laugh.

'You're the one I was making love to', he attempted to say against her smile, between kisses.

'Liar.'

He collapsed back on the pillow, unnerved and defeated. 'Stay if you want', he muttered. 'I need to get some sleep.'

She had rolled over him playfully, nibbling his neck, but he only brushed her hair away from his face, eyes resolutely shut, and threw an arm around her in a careless gesture that merely allowed her to sleep on his shoulder until the sun rose and she would have to leave.

'So, how about dinner, tonight?'

'Good grief, what time is it?' Matthew replied into the phone, throwing glances at the slender figure lying underneath the sheet next to him, her face turned toward the sun and yet perfectly relaxed, a mask of absolute poise. He had half hoped she would be gone by morning but there she was, breathing at a peaceful and even pace, reminding him of last night's misconduct, and yet she couldn't have been sleeping, not really, not when the light shone like that.

'Hello?'

The voice on the other end of the phone kept silent. There were murmurs, and muffled sounds, as if the handset had been dropped and was gently swaying, abandoned to the restless rustle of a different life he was allowed to eavesdrop on. Matthew tried to picture Richard, having already been up for hours, calling from a hotel lobby, surrounded with people and in a rush, while everything in his own room was so still and quiet.

'... sorry, I must be off', the voice was saying, although Matthew couldn't be certain whom Richard was addressing, his tone intermittent as if, having started his sentence mid-air as part of another conversation, he'd only just brought the receiver back to his ear. 'It's almost noon, you're not just waking up, are you?'

'I won't dignify that question with an answer.'

'Alone?' Richard snorted.

'Mmhmm.'

'Ha, you haven't changed. I'll leave you to it. Will you meet me at the restaurant on the square at 9 tonight? It's called Giglio, I think. Actually, it's right across from where you're staying.'

'I'll see you tonight.'

He hung up. The girl was pretending to wake up. 'Was this Penelope?'

He started upon hearing the name.

'What did you just say?'

'The mysterious girl. You wouldn't tell me her name, but you called it out in your sleep.'

He offered her to stay for breakfast but she had to get to work, she was already running late, which was a relief. He didn't ask after her job, she didn't say. Breakfast he could have managed, perhaps even a shower, some late morning sex, but her insistence had made him eager to be alone. She slipped on last night's dress and slung her sandals, dangling from her fingertips, over her shoulder. 'Go back to her, stupido', she casually threw in his face. Too casually, perhaps, her voice suddenly wounded. She had got the wrong idea, then. He looked up from the notebook he had already opened, pretending to take notes. She darted for the door, then rushed around, retraced her steps and leaned to peck him on the cheek. He saw the outline of her breasts through the cleavage of her light flowery dress and had the urge to embrace her and throw her on the bed again. 'Will I see you again?' he inquired.

'I doubt it.'

She laughed again and leant forward, waiting for something. He didn't refrain from kissing her one last time. Her lips tasted of pomegranate.

'Ciao darling', he called when she ran through the door, and then she was gone. He heaved a sigh, not feeling any less lonely than he had felt the day before, but at least now with something to look forward to.

It was still morning when he decided to venture outside and see for himself what all the fuss was about.

When Richard had asked him, the terrace was crammed, and at first he could hardly make them out, hardly tell them apart. They were all inside, sitting at the back, but they must have seen the two men approaching the entrance, for they all greeted Richard loudly when the latter reached the bar. Matthew heard them before he could even spot their joyous crowd. It was already late, the two childhood friends had been sitting and talking long after finishing dinner when Richard eventually told him about the bar, and the company, and would he mind joining them for a night cap? The phrase made Matthew chuckle. He had to catch up on his beauty sleep, he argued, his excuse, like last night, to escape. He would walk his friend to the bar and head back to his room. Tonight's flow of reminiscing had filled his already brimming mind and his head was still throbbing from the night's shenanigans – You're not seriously calling them that, are you, Richard mocked – and ironically, having spent the previous couple of weeks longing for company, he found himself longing for some quiet time alone to nurse his spirit grown feverish back to normal, or some version of normal.

'How old are you again?' Richard had teased him. 'You sound either twelve or seventy.' The truth, though he would never admit it to his friend, was he needed to ponder over the seed the girl had planted, or rather over the name he'd been avoiding but which she had dug out during the night. He felt he had been cheated at his own game: he had meant for her to help him forget, and somehow the wicked girl had managed to bewitch him and excavate his brain while he endeavoured to lose himself in the depths of her body. Was it possible that she had searched his eyes when he least expected it and yanked the most unwitting confession from him at the very moment when he was weakest and most sincere? Seducing girls had always been the easy part for him. Feelings, he couldn't afford. 'Alright, then', Richard conceded, as long as he promised he'd drop in on them during rehearsals and give them his two cents. He hadn't even mentioned Penelope, and indeed there was nothing to say.

They hovered near the entrance of the bar for a while, reluctant to say goodbye. Matthew let his eyes wander inside. Around the table at the back, there sat the boy with the cigarette. He must have spotted him, yet stubbornly ignored him – or perhaps hadn't even recognized him, he couldn't tell. 'That'll be my Romeo', Richard was saying.

Matthew had to double take.

'Romeo?'

'Yes, isn't he gorgeous? I mean, he's American, but you should have seen him on Broadway – everything about Broadway was off, and there he was, jarring against a background of wonderfully camp aesthetics, delivering the worst lines I've ever heard, positively radiant. He's just a kid, of course, he knows nothing whatsoever but I do believe he senses there's something special about him – all Americans do, though, don't they?'

Romeo was too pretty, now that Matthew could really see him, even in the distance, striking even in the slanting light of the bar. His face was too well-defined in contrast with the blurry atmosphere of the stifling evening, a mischievous ephebe, daring everyone who happened to set eyes on him.

'Is that your Juliet?' he gestured towards the table, meaning the girl at the other end of the table. A young and insipid Catherine Deneuve was sitting and gaping at Romeo the way Shakespeare must have imagined Juliet would, long blonde hair and sublime wide eyes. They both looked straight out of a faded old movie. Matthew took the girl in, her youthful candour, the desperate sparkle in her eyes, a Virgin Suicide waiting to happen – she'd be perfect as Juliet. Then he caught Romeo's eyes on him, burning him exactly as they had the night before, bold and arrogant. It wasn't just his delicate features; his slightly drooping eyelids gave him an air of being perpetually barely just awoken or of constantly looking down on things from his own blasé teenage detachment, while his doe eyes gently pierced you like arrows, chafing and soothing you at the same time.

'She's French. She's not even an actress, I found her in a pub in London, I think she's still a student, she was looking for a summer job. I stole her away, sort of.'

'You're not sleeping with her, are you?'

'That's really not my rule of conduct, as you're very aware. I was never like you' – Richard dodged Matthew's mock reproof – 'I mean I was never a player.'

'I don't sleep with my students.'

'Seriously?'

'Why would I?'

'Why not? I'm sure everyone already assumes you do, so you might as well...'

'That's not my thing. Besides, it's not challenging enough.'

'And you didn't just pick a girl up last night?'

'Aah but that's different.'

'How so?'

'She wasn't my student.'

The two men guffawed.

'How about Juliet, then?'

'What do you mean?'

'What do you think of her, as Juliet?'

'I don't know. Can she act?'

'Not very well. But I like that. She's just a child. I mean, she's nineteen, so. She's a couple of years older than Samuel, but she's still very youthful. She's got that guileless faith young people from the Old Continent have retained, unlike him who looks like a spoilt brat – mind you, that's exactly what I was hoping for. He's still endearing, in his own way. But she truly knows nothing about acting, which is just right for what I'm trying to do with this play.'

'Did you mean for your star-crossed lovers to be French and American? Historically, wouldn't it have worked out better if they had been French and English?'

'Listen to you, "historically" blah blah, how on earth do you manage to be so consistently boring?' Matthew chuckled, taking the hint, but Richard kept on. 'I really didn't do it on purpose, it just so happened. I want my Juliet to be the perfect ingénue until she meets a bold Romeo and then – bam. I mean, it's quite clear when you read it that their encounter changes everything and turns their world upside down, it does reverse the dynamic between them, the gender roles, the drive of desire, and leaves nothing untouched, contaminating their every word until the very potency of language is undermined and they have to devise a new one – at least, that's what I understand from Shakespeare. But I'm getting carried away. Won't you come in, tomorrow? It might be clearer if you see for yourself. And I think I could benefit from your perspective – you'll tell me if you think it's too much.'

Matthew raised one eyebrow at Richard's last comment, all the while keeping his eyes flush on the pair sitting across the room. They seemed to be observing one another, exchanging silences, soft sighs, curious glances like wild animals that had been sat at either side of a table until they might grow used to each other. The table resembled a pacifying tool placed there to tame them, a barrier preventing them from killing their opponent or a screen protecting them from too brutal an encounter. And yet, sat at the table, they looked both like two strangers constantly appealing to and fending off the other, and oddly enough like conspirators, shut out from everything else, negotiating the terms of their own relationship to the outside world from across the table which, like a dash – there – separated and united them. Would they sit still, would they try to escape? Was that what Romeo and Juliet had looked like, in Shakespeare's mind, like two sworn enemies finding respite only in the comfort of the other, in the promise that they could keep each other safe from a more frightening, more absolute, common enemy?

'It's hard to keep your eyes off them, isn't it?' Richard gloated, half-teasing but clearly relishing his own casting choices.

Matthew was startled out of his reverie. 'Do they know each other? They seem to be testing the water. I can't quite work out if the chemistry between them is genuine or made up?'

'Oh they know each other, but they're still wary. I suspect she's afraid of falling in love with him – he prides himself in having been voted "Most likely to break hearts for sport" in his school's Yearbook.'

Matthew snorted, 'For sport?'

'Look at him, so languid and careless. He'd drop your heart in a second and he wouldn't even know it.'

'Why would it be too much?' Matthew asked.

'Well, I think I might have gone too far', Richard immediately picked up where he had left off, although Matthew wasn't sure that's what he had meant. 'You see, I didn't want my version of Romeo and Juliet to be just a reworking of Baz Luhrmann's genius adaptation.'

'I knew you'd love that kind of thing.'

'I knew you'd hate it – which is why I need your opinion.'

'I don't hate it, I just... I'm sorry, do go on, I'm listening', but he still couldn't stop staring at these two, over there, still undecided about whether they should bridge the gap that held them apart and materialised itself in the table, or keep their distance.

'I think I may have made things very difficult for myself. I've chosen my actors for some unique trait and their ability to convey pure emotions, without really taking the time to ponder how that ability may be put to the best use. Some male characters end up being played by women ¬– Mercutio's a woman, for instance. Some characters it's just the other way around – the nurse. The same goes for their age. It just depends.'

'On what?'

'I honestly don't know, I wanted to be bold, but now I'm concerned I'm merely being gratuitous and unoriginal, like a teenager in art school. But perhaps it doesn't matter. Only Romeo and Juliet matter, the rest is just...'

'Silence?'

'... noise, it's just white noise. None of it matters but the feelings. I expect you'll think it's too much, and perhaps it is, but I've always thought the whole point of Shakespeare was smuggling truth and poetry on a stage, through these grand, universal plays that will appeal to everyone, to the happy few but also to... I mean, Shakespeare was popular in his own time, because he sugar-coated these raw feelings, these ground-breaking philosophical ideas. I don't think we should be afraid of going big. And I'm telling you, I want to go all the way.'

'Ok, ok, I'll come by – tomorrow, sometime this week. See what the fuss is about.'

Richard wasn't joking. The directions that were given when he joined the rehearsal that morning – although he had waited a few days, not wanting to appear to eager or desperate – pointed toward some pseudo-modern version of Romeo and Juliet Matthew felt completely unnecessary. Everything was caricatural, way overboard – the props, the set, the acting. The first fight between the Montagues and the Capulets was mannered and artificial, the music grandiloquent, the choreography too slow and unnatural. Matthew wasn't even sure what to tell Richard when the latter spotted him and joined him.

'So what do you think?' his friend asked.

'I'm not sure.'

'Horribly cringe-worthy, right?'

'You mean, that's on purpose?'

'Of course, you fool, who do you take me for? The play begs for it. The ludicrous jokes, the absurd display of violence, the unaccounted for, unceasing brawl between the two families – the play has always stricken me as starting off on the wrong foot, tricking you into believing you're watching the most conventional comedy, well-rehearsed to the point of disappointment. Romeo's conceits are worthless – what's that, "O loving hate", I mean, come on. Samuel, come over!' he beckoned. The boy merely raised his chin, a forlorn, blasé look on his face. 'Read me Romeo's desperate lines from the first scene.'

Romeo came closer without even looking at them and delivered his lines with the least possible enthusiasm, Matthew was appalled. Was that Romeo?

'O brawling love! O loving hate!

O any thing, of nothing first create!

O heavy lightness! serious vanity!

Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!

Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!

This love feel I, that feel no love in this.

_Dost thou not laugh?_ '

Shakespeare sounded off, pushed and rolled around on his thick American tongue. Almost vulgar. Matthew was beginning to see Richard's point. Samuel shrugged.

'There you go', the director continued, oblivious to Samuel's provocation. 'Benvolio's reply is unequivocal: "I'd rather weep" he says, sarcastic but also accurate. That's exactly how the audience should feel: heartbroken at how bad it is. Nothing genuine, nothing but fake, synthetic, microwaved feelings that would make Petrarch himself! weep at the insult of such ridiculous pastiche of lyrical, overly romantic poetry.'

'Ok, but then what?'

Samuel had wandered off, uninterested.

'Then what?'

'Yeah?'

Samuel had stridden to where Juliet was patiently reclining on the old red velvet couch that was meant to be the recipient of Romeo's endless ruminations. By the time the two men reached them, he had settled against her, between her arms, and there they both lay like a painting. They both looked bored, which irritated Matthew beyond what he was willing to show. How were they bored, rehearsing one of the greatest plays in the most beautiful country? All they had to do was reach out and gather the flowers of youth.

'Hey kids', he said.

Juliet looked up and smiled a soft smile. She had started stroking Samuel's hair, but the gestures were incredibly slow and gentle and like a dream. Her eyes lost their focus and glazed over, as if she hadn't meant to look at Matthew and, indeed, didn't really see him but looked past him, saw through him.

'Then, you ask, what happens is the lovers meet, and from then on, everything will collapse – I mean literally. The scenery and the pretence. And the costumes – I was thinking, maybe the actors could start with costumes, and then change to their regular clothes. Tracksuits, hoodies, etcetera, they could even take their shoes off and walk around in socks.'

'You sure?'

'No.' The two men chuckled. 'But I'm sure what I want: I want the stage to be naked, the directions to be pared down to a minimum, the feelings raw, the tears – real tears. I want the audience to forget they're all sitting in the dark surrounded by others, and think they have opened a random door and stumbled into the lives of real people. That's just the way the play evolves, in my opinion. That's the thing – I don't know how else to do it – there is no other way.

'Romeo meets Juliet', Richard continued, talking to himself. But by now, the two lovers, almost motionless on the couch, had directed their attention to his words and were listening intently. 'And when he meets her, he still tries to hold on to his absurd oaths, he swears by the moon, she calls him out on his bullshit. Five minutes earlier he was in love with someone else. But she changes everything. That's what I was telling you yesterday', both Samuel and Juliet, without knowing it, glanced at Matthew. He was very much aware that her eyes only lingered on his face a little longer.

'I want the audience to see how unprecedented their love is', Richard was saying, although Matthew only half-listened to him now. 'Their love is so new, they have to make up a new way of speaking it, a new way of expressing their immoderate emotions. And then everything is stripped bare of all the sham. The white noise disappears, all that is left is the immense despair of their impossible love.'

'Until they die', Matthew added.

He had been looking at Juliet's fingers almost imperceptibly moving through the boy's hair.

'Until they die', Richard granted, 'every night.'

The two lovers remained silent.

'What are you doing for the lovers' death?'

'Undecided. There won't be anything on stage but them, hardly any light too. But I don't know – should they weep silently, their bodies shaken by violent, repressed sobs, or on the contrary, would it be more potent if they cried out their despair? Again, I want the feelings to be naked, raw, brutal. I think, perhaps, it should be too much. Excessive, you know, a caricature of pain. Then, when you least expect it, the emotion will come out – true, ineluctable. What do you think?'

'It depends. Is it a conscious choice or some sort of resignation? Why do you think they killed themselves?'

'It's a political statement,' Juliet immediately blurted out. 'To escape the injunctions of the patriarchy.'

Matthew smiled to himself at her vigorous righteousness, but she had caught Richard's attention. He was staring at her in earnest.

'That's Juliet's initial intention, and precisely why Friar Lawrence helps her fake her death', he corrected, 'to deceive her father and elude the arranged marriage. But dying wasn't really the point, then, not at first – why do they actually commit suicide?'

'Isn't that dramatic irony?' she kept on, very down-to-earth. She was trying to get it right, not being an actress. 'Romeo doesn't get the letter, there's the big misunderstanding that drives the audience insane. He looks at her and all he keeps saying is that she doesn't look dead, her beauty is intact. I mean, the whole idea of death and the maiden is a classic, right? Sure, death might have fallen in love with Juliet which if anything is likely for people who believe in the music of the spheres and the power of asters,' so she had done her research, 'but in the end, he's still as blinded by his own romantic idea of love as he was in the beginning: he just contends, from this ludicrous romantic perspective, that – what's that he says? – that "unsubstantial death is amorous" rather than see the reality for what it is, if Death hath had no power yet upon thy beauty, if thou art not conquered and thy lips are still crimson, it's because thou art not actually dead. CQFD', she added in French. 'But Romeo just likes the idea of love more than he loves Juliet herself, which is ridiculous. Love doesn't really make you blind – love should make him see her, really see her.'

Samuel had been shaking his head, his ruffled hair surrounding his face like a dark halo, while she was making her point. 'That's because you're not paying attention to what Romeo actually says', he rebuked her. '"Shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh"? Romeo and Juliet are doomed from the start – they're the star-crossed lovers', he uttered the words slowly as if they were magic. His tone struck Matthew, who had expected him to be insufferable. 'You're being too reasonable, Helen', he pronounced her name in his American accent. 'They had to die, their suicide was unavoidable. They had no choice, no other literally viable choice. That's how it was meant to be. There's just no living after such love.'

She tensed and pushed him away by raising her knees against his spine. 'Spare me the lecture on the intensity of their love – you've never even been in love! You're as hopeless a romantic as your character...'

'Is that bad?' Matthew joked.

'You guys are missing the point', Richard was focused, on track. 'Why wouldn't they outlive their love? Why not just survive?'

Neither Samuel nor Hélène knew. Richard glanced at Matthew, who shrugged.

'They're stuck, aren't they?'

'You mean it's like, fate?'

'I mean, once a love like that gets hold of you, there just is no surviving it – even if you did, you'd only be dying in exile. A love like that is like a curse, a plague – actually Mercutio curses them. It strangles you. Think of what Racine said – huh? You kids might want to read your Racine over again', he was joking but there was no way the young actors could have known that. Richard loved it and was beaming, but Matthew only paused for effect. The kids duly impressed, he went on, '" _Ce n'est plus une ardeur dans mes veines cachée, c'est Vénus tout entière à sa proie attachée_ ". Love's a deadly poison. It's not the potion that kills them, it's not the dagger. "Thus with a kiss I die" Romeo says. She, too, kisses him before thrusting the sword. It's their love that kills them, doesn't it? The only remedy is dying.'

'Would you say they're sacrificing themselves for the sake of love?'

'Or are they the ones who are being sacrificed, like they're the victims of the stars, fortune, their families?'

'I always thought the key was in Friar Lawrence's warning,

These violent delights have violent ends

And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,

_Which as they kiss co nsume_ (Matthew paused as he didactically emphasised the word "kiss") _: the sweetest honey_

Is loathsome in his own deliciousness

And in the taste confounds the appetite:

Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

I don't know, though. I hate tepidness and comfort. If you're gonna burn, burn the candle at both ends – I mean literally. Make it quick. Romeo and Juliet did.'

Richard nodded. He pondered for a while, assessing the effect of his friend's remark on his chosen Romeo and Juliet who were trying to figure out how they would have to play dead. It escaped them.

'I just think it's silly', Hélène finally shrugged. She was trying to impress Matthew. 'They would have outgrown it. The plan would have worked if they had been more patient – the families reconciled. A nice, happy ending.'

'That's the whole point though – maybe they didn't want to outgrow it', Samuel argued. 'Haven't you ever felt like that? When you're so happy you just want to die to make the moment last forever?'

'I still don't get it, though. Why would anyone kill themselves?'

'Sometimes you don't have a choice', Richard added.

'You always have a choice', Matthew concluded.

'These are just two kids, you know. Two kids like yourselves, two kids like Matthew and I once were too.' At that, Matthew winced and pulled a comic face. 'They're fooling around and grappling with emotions that overwhelm them – haven't you ever been overwhelmed by love? It's so forceful it destroys everything else, minutes turn into hours, then into weeks, until you're not even sure how you're going to make it to the next day. This isn't some cliché bullshit, it actually feels like that. They're in something too big and intense and meaningful for them to fully grasp. Fortune's fools, haven't you ever felt like that?' Samuel assented but he seemed unsure. Hélène was silent, darting her eyes on Matthew's face, questioningly. Richard followed her gaze and continued, addressing him too, 'Don't you remember what it's like? Those are the same emotions we're still feeling now, but then they were all new. And your body is changing', he had now turned back to the two teenagers, 'and you don't understand what's happening. You don't need to be a genius to understand Shakespeare, his genius is that we can all relate. We're all just Romeos and Juliets who have survived our first loves. You just have to go with your gut.'

'Okay but then... How shall we play it?' Hélène insisted.

'Well. That's the easy part: you need to fall in love.'

Samuel and Hélène looked at each other, then back at Richard, bewildered.

'I didn't mean with each other, not necessarily.'

'What are you doing here?'

He had an inkling Samuel had followed him. He hadn't recognized him at first, but he could feel the boy's insistent glare provoking him once again. They were standing at the top of Torre Guinigi. The view extended to the Tuscan hills around Lucca, but Matthew had been gazing at another tower, Torre delle Ore, which he had just visited. From there, he had been intrigued by the trees that were planted atop the Guinigi tower, and he had rushed to climb up and see it for himself. There was a lovely garden that surprised you – a few trees whose sinuous trunks and foliage painted criss-crossed shadows on Samuel's face as he stood on the other side of the tiny terrace. They waited for the crowd of tourists to move around and down the narrow stairs, and moved closer to one another. They leaned against the railing.

'We're rehearsing a play', Samuel cheekily replied, provocatively missing the point.

'No but what are you doing out here here?'

'Visiting around. Getting acquainted with the suffocating, steamy heat that harboured murderous tensions between the Capulets and the Montagues. Weren't you the one who was supposed to know all about the secrets of Shakesp–'

'Oh for crying out loud, Why the fuck aren't you in Verona then?!'

Samuel raised both eyebrows and jerked his head back as if he had been splashed with water. Then, after a short while: 'What are you doing here? Out here in Italy?'

'I'm writing a book. Doing some research. I've no imagination so I don't want to leave anything to chance.'

'That sucks for a writer.'

'Fuck you.'

'I don't know man, it sounds boring as hell.'

They remained quiet for a moment, smiling. Samuel inhaled deeply, and winced. 'Why don't you like me?'

'What do you mean? I don't even know you.' But he was right. Matthew tried to make it up to him. 'Are you hungry? I'm starving. Let's get dinner.'

'It's only lunchtime.

'Ok, lunch if you like. Luncheon, even.'

They might have been speaking the same language, Matthew felt they were not on the same page when it came to sharing even the most basic everyday references.

'Why don't you call it that?'

He'd done it on purpose, though, to confuse the kid. He hadn't expected that Samuel, being American, might not get the implications of the word. Living in Italy, under the sun, not even pretending to work, the thought of the discrepancy, of something being at odds, had amused him – right now though, using that to mock Samuel made him feel cruel and pedantic.

'That's something a lot of people say in some parts of England. Perhaps more working-class people than you'd know.'

'Are you?'

'That's a word my family does use.'

'Oh.' Then, later, 'what do you call dinner, then?'

'Tea.'

'Well fuck me, that makes no sense.'

Matthew felt terrible, ashamed. He hadn't meant to make fun of his father's modest origins and add insult to injury – writing a thesis on Virginia Woolf had been bad enough. So was going away on this vain, literary trip to Italy. When his father had asked him how he intended to make a living, What do you want with books, he had said. What do you care for poetry. The two men climbed down the Torre, leaving the trees behind, and the view, and the pleasant breeze.

'So how about it, then?' Matthew made himself ask when they had reached the street again. He had no intention of actually having lunch with the obnoxious young man standing there, but he felt obliged to make good on his initial offer – one he had regretted as early as they had started down the spiralling stairs.

He needn't have bothered though.

'Nah I'm good', came Samuel's careless reply, his eyes invisible behind a pair of sunglasses. 'I'll leave you to it, let you find your inspiration or whatever. Ciao', he added with a dismissive wave, already walking away, piquing Matthew's pride.

Alone again, Matthew wandered the streets of the city, but something now disturbed him. He no longer felt like he was running from something, he no longer felt the need to fill a gaping hole in his life – now his thoughts had turned away from the hollowness in his chest and gathered around Shakespearian puns, the impending tragedy of a forbidden love, and Richard's company that had settled in the same city he had chosen at random – because of the olives – for the summer. Not that he had spent that much time with them, but it was the knowing they were there that tickled him, the awareness of their presence around him that prevented him from being a total stranger. Up to then, he hadn't been anyone to anyone – wherever he had gone, no one knew him. That feeling of absolute freedom was gone, and with it the loneliness, and that was enough to make him experience the city differently.

The streets were slightly less busy than they had been during the festival, but the air was still as oppressive. His shirt clung to his skin with sweat. He walked the narrow streets, large greyish cobblestones and amber walls, marigold walls, burnt ochre. He came to the piazza on which the festival had taken place – they were still dismantling the stage, which made him feel like something indeed had come to an end and he was outstaying his welcome. He took refuge in the Cattedrale di San Martino. A white curtain hung from an elaborate golden valance inside the central gate and blew softly, like a mantel dropping to the floor from the shoulders of a giant standing guard outside. The scorching sunlight only lent its pearly colour to the drapery that swung slowly, but the air was much cooler within. Matthew stood for several minutes trying to remember the name of the canopy, forgetting to look around. The curtain hardly moved, its large ivory folds seemingly carved in ethereal marble, the near imperceptible swaying and swishing of the marmoreal fabric, an eerie motion, a gentle rustle, swishing and swooshing on the cool floor, smoothed by centuries of feet shuffling in to worship their god, to find an answer, some sort of solace. The hoary folds of drapery gleamed in the solemn candlelight that rose within, yet barely kept the crude sunlight from outside at bay. The imperceptible swaying hardly disturbed the religious stillness inside, so that, staring at it, one was driven to wonder if it was but a figment of one's imagination, or if the curtain had actually moved. Matthew didn't even dare to breath. He became intensely aware of all that surrounded him, of the erratic dance of golden dust in the streak of light coming from a stained glass, of the faint scent of myrrh, of the marmoreal quality of the surface of appearances, marmoreal, more more real. People glided past him like ghosts, going about their business while he had none, plunging him in a state of timeless contemplation, of vertiginous unreality.

His stomach grumbled embarrassingly loud, bringing him back to his own body. Lunch, then. He started and decidedly strode out, having now found a renewed sense of direction. He allowed himself to look around and hesitate, pulling on a show for himself, studying the array of choices that stood before him, trying to regain his own agency. He chose. He sat. The waiter brought him a bottle of mineral water with the menu. Grazie, he smugly said. He perused the menu, pointed to a dish, pronouncing its name with gusto. Then waited. People strolled past the terrace. He searched their faces in vain, trying to read some truth between the lines of their features. The dish was brought, steaming hot, and placed on the table in front of him. The sweet taste of tomato deliciously mingled with the metallic taste of animal flesh, anchoring him to this table, this chair. Eating let the dizziness subside. People were still walking past, speaking Italian, speaking French, English. He shut them all out.

Churches were tucked away all around Siena, which reminded him of Rome, where you always seemed to chance upon hidden jewels and sanctuaries where to hide from everything else, everything that lay beyond the pale of beauty, beyond the peace achieved only through soothing rituals. They had left very early that morning, to avoid the heat and reach Siena before noon, but they had taken the time to stop on the way and contemplate the Piazza della Cisterna in San Gimignano, fenced in by medieval towers. Ivy creeping up the walls of ancient houses. Matthew couldn't help but think of the underground cistern, the opalescent chiaroscuro dancing on the surface of waters never seen, never swum, whose twinkling ripples echoed against blind walls right under his feet. The thought of this latent invisible layer of existence seized him.

They would all be staying together in an old villa, in the glorious Tuscan countryside outside the city. At first, the attraction of the treasures of Siena was superseded by the irresistible charms of lounging around the swimming-pool, surrounded by cypresses that offered but limited shade yet opened onto a tranquil olive grove that promised to inspire reverence and quiescence. The change of air was welcomed by all after days spent rehearsing in the stuffy theatre. Matthew wasn't sure why he had tagged along; he hardly knew anyone. But he had completely surrendered to the general mood of the company and so he offered little resistance when Richard invited him to join them on their escapade. He pretended, to himself at least, that he would use this as an opportunity for some further research – which subject he would investigate was still up for debate, with himself, but that really didn't matter. At least now he didn't need to find an excuse to stay. What mattered was that he no longer felt the urge to take control, and could just let himself be easily carried away along with everybody else, and that was such a relief.

He ventured into the old town alone the next day, walking for hours from quiet cloister to crowded church, stumbling upon winding streets descending until they seemed to disappear into the distant greens of grass and trees and bushes in the landscape, perpetually seen through a slightly blurred sheen as if a screen of hot dust danced before one's eyes. Between the high-perched foliage that lurched at the end of the lengthy trunks of pine trees, he saw the mosaics of rooftops the colour of dark honey – but all of a sudden, inexplicably, he felt the quiet sting of loneliness bother him once more, and thought of the others, drinking a decadent late morning Aperol around the large table on the terrace, next to the wide oval of shimmering water that filled the swimming-pool.

'I love those. They have them everywhere in Italy. I think there's one in my room.'

'Hm?'

Matthew had completely lost the thread of the conversation. He had been trying to make out why the sculpted figure of the saint made him uncomfortable. He turned back to Richard who was examining a postcard reproduction of a Madonna and child painting.

'These old gilded idols. That one's by Duccio. God, it's all so far away – didn't we study something like that in school? I can't remember a damn thing from those years. Except for the modernists of course; and us smoking on the fire escape. Is there one in yours?'

'There is, actually. But these are not idols, mind you. These are icons.'

'Blah blah blah...' Richard said.

'What's the difference?' Hélène asked.

'The difference lies in the distance inscribed within the icon.'

'The distance?'

'That makes absolutely no sense', Samuel huffed.

But Matthew had got everyone's full attention.

'So on the one hand, there are idols. They're images, right, but they supplant what they were meant to represent. Whereas icons suggest what they cannot represent.'

'Is that supposed to be an explanation?'

'Well that's to say idols erase their own origin so that the image becomes just that: it fails to open onto any other intangible dimension. If you start falling for the illusion, if you worship the image itself, which is devoid of any spiritual, or transcendental dimension, then you miss the distance, you fall into idolatry, that is to say blasphemy. In non-religious terms, you mistake the representation for the real thing.'

'That's like you thinking you know Leonardo DiCaprio because you've got his poster on your wall,' Samuel added with a smirk, for Hélène's benefit. But her eyes never left Matthew.

'Sure, in a way, you fall in love with the image you perceive of someone, even if it's a celebrity, because which your fantasy builds around them and they crystallise everything you've ever wanted, and then you end up failing to see the actual person.'

'You mean that's like Samuel choosing a specific brand of hair gel because he thinks it's going to make him look like a movie star, because he saw an ad on tv the other day?'

'Well in that case, your own identity is absorbed in the image itself. Only when it comes to God – that's the tricky part ¬– the real thing is intangible, unspeakable. It cannot be represented, it cannot be fixed, reduced to a mere image. And that's when the icon comes into play.'

'So what's an icon?'

'Well, icons succeed in evoking the essence of the divine.'

'Great,' murmured Samuel.

'They succeed because they don't pretend. Because instead of bridging it, instead of trying to overcome it, they acknowledge the distance it entails: they represent it best by exhibiting the impossibility of representing, they embrace its irrepresentability. The icon's very existence, its visibility, only serves what has withdrawn, what is invisible.'

'I still don't get it, though. It means that we can only see as long as nothing is shown, is that it?'

'No, I get it', Richard was saying. 'It means the icon is only a treacherous token of a higher being – but that's the only way it can ever be truthful. Then it betrays what it meant to represent – in the two senses of the term. It falls short, but it also gives away. We only get a mere hint of what escapes our grasp.'

Matthew nodded. Of course Richard would get it.

'Yeah, well, that's what I was trying to say. You see a lot more when you can't see anything at all. That's when your imagination takes over.'

'I guess. The problem, though, is that we're desperate for meaning. Not only do we see signs everywhere, but we want the meaning to be translated directly to us. We see something, we need to understand. That's what people are like.'

'Curiosity killed the cat', Samuel commented the way schoolkids do when they want to show off in class. Matthew ignored him.

'When Virginia Woolf visited Saint Sofia in Constantinople, what struck her most was how undecipherable the religious rites were to her and how past, known symbols had shed their original significance, how they now merely infused the passing of time, the loss of meaning, and materialised the palimpsestual ...'

'Incestual what?' Samuel's voice had an irritated, and irritating, edge.

'Palimpsestual – the way layers are superimposed, erasing previous traces or covering them with new inscriptions, so that you're left reading between the lines, retracing the steps of history to uncover previous signs, previous scars... Woolf barely even hears some ancient chants uttered in what she associates with primeval, inarticulate voices. She doesn't understand what the voices are saying, but it doesn't matter – for a moment, she's distracted from the general languor she had come to feel once the initial surprise of the sheer splendour of the cityscape had subsided. When she arrives in Constantinople, she first sees St Sophia "like a treble globe of bubbles frozen solid, floating out to meet us". However, the closer she gets to the former basilica turned into a mosque, the more disappointed she becomes: the place is packed with trivial ceremonies meant for tourists, in a mesh of insignificant, bland streets. "Imagination had done the work better already", she laments.

'Reality can only prove disappointing, she means. She speaks of oriental superstition – but then she also rejects the rigid dogmatism of Christianity which lulls believers. There's a form of distrustful mysticism to her writing which echoes not only the society she was living in, but ours as well. The revelation, when it comes, when Woolf hears the obscure chanting in St Sophia, doesn't strike like lightning, it isn't a case of let there be light, it's quite the opposite: the revelation is that "the true gospels," it seems, can only ever be "expounded in unknown tongues," in a "little language such as lovers use," "a cry, a howl," she writes elsewhere. Our languages, our systems of representation have become prisons we need to break free from, and only through the power of suggestion, of mere glimpses, of possibilities never actually fulfilled, can we...' he caught his breath. He had reached a threshold, he felt, now speaking only for himself, thinking out loud, and almost, almost reaching at something he had grappled with for so long. 'Doubts, uncertainty, always being on the verge – it's the tension that reveals much more than actual exposure. The revelation is that there can be no revelation. "The subtle lights revealed nothing but suggested more than can be drawn forth," Woolf writes.'

Matthew glanced at Samuel. He could not tell if he was talking too much, or if the matter was indeed of interest to the young man. He had got carried away, as usual, but Hélène had drifted closer still, and was still listening to him, even though he had stopped talking, enraptured by his words that still somehow floated between them, exactly like the last note of a musical movement still rippled in the air for a moment before silence settles in. Her eagerness encouraged him, as he always felt during a lecture, when the surrounding silence filled the room and coated his words with an attention so sharp he feared it would crack.

'There's a singular beauty in accepting something for its very unknowability', but he was now talking to himself. The infinity of everything he could not grasp, not touch, not ever possess, filled him with an unspeakable yearning that soared within him like a vertigo. '"The singular & intoxicating charm of Stonehenge to me, & to most I think, is that no one in the world can tell you anything about it," Woolf wrote, even before she went to Constantinople.'

'Isn't that like what Keats called "negative capability"?' Samuel casually threw his way.

So he had been listening, after all. His remark caught Matthew off guard, having lost himself in his own vain musings. For a single moment, then, he felt a connection, a comfort in the knowledge that they all shared the same limitations, and all had to deal with it.

'That's why I can't stop wondering what's wrong with this thing. I can't help it,' Matthew gestured at the altar.

They had been standing in front of an altar all this time, not really looking at one another and staring at the golden ornaments that rose before them. The room was so large and bright that it didn't feel like a basilica, but more like a hall, they felt. There was nothing sacred about the way the place felt.

'How come you know so many things?' Hélène asked in hushed whisper. 'I never know anything, and you seem to know so many things.'

Her voice was sad. Before Matthew could tell her that he had no merit – he had just written a full thesis on the subject – one of the guides approached them. They had been too loud, he figured.

'I see you're looking at Saint Catherine's head,' the old man whispered.

'Her ... head?'

'That's Saint Catherine's head.' He pointed at what had been a reliquary in front of them. He must have guessed they were wondering about it.

Samuel frowned. 'What, her head?'

'Si', the guide replied earnestly, gesturing once more towards the relic in front of them. They could see it now, shrunk, encased in a frame, the severed, holy head of the saint. 'La verita testa, si.'

There was her thumb in there as well.

'You don't say!' Matthew exclaimed, recognition clicking inside his brain, his previously unaccounted for unease now blown out of propotion.

Everything became unreal. The four of them exchanged panicked, hysterical looks, stifling the fit of giggles that had risen in their throats. The mummified, toothless head had been staring at them from her empty eye-sockets since the beginning of their conversation, but they were only really seeing it now, and with the realisation that the head wasn't a painted statue but an actual skull suddenly the whole room filled with the chill of impending death. They would be roaring, that night, upon retelling the incident to the others after dinner.

They had had to escape, almost immediately, thanking the guide for his willingness to enlighten them and bring them back to earth after their delusional excursus into idle contemplation of their own insignificance on the planet – calling them back to the fact that indeed, they, too, would die. They had fled and exposed themselves to the blinding heat outside, to the joyous sunshine that had risen high in the sky by then and instantly raised their spirits, they had collapsed in fits of laughter, overcome by the renewed conscience that they, right now, were very much alive, that they were on their upward course, the dawn of their lives – it was all just starting and it was so good to be alive.

The others looked at them and smiled, but they didn't really get it. 'You have to go', they told the others. 'You have to go and see the head for yourselves. Then you'll get it – speaking about it doesn't do it justice.' They were lounging on the terrace, in the pinkish twilight that had fallen with the night. They had found candelabras and placed them on and around the large table, so that their faces were half-plunged in darkness or lit from underneath by the flickering candlelight, which gave them all an unreal expression of solemnity, as if they had gathered to perform of secret ceremony, or had been sunk underwater.

'How's your book coming on?' Richard asked.

'It isn't. I can't write worth a damn.'

'What is it about?'

He told them. What he didn't tell them was what had been nagging him since Saint Catherine's head had cut him short, and he didn't have the heart to say anymore – didn't have the guts to confess his own doubts to his friend. When they had reached the villa, and before coming down to dinner, Matthew had gone to his room and there, opened his notebook to peruse his notes. These weren't notes for the novel he was planning to write, no, rather, these were quotes he had garnered over the course of his academic research and copied down in the hopes that, one day, they would magically inspire him, and allow him to write fiction. He felt exactly like one of Woolf's characters – there even was one like him, one that listed phrases alphabetically for the day when he would eventually manage to write it all out, map out the immense panorama of his most private thoughts, all his life, all his friends' lives.

That's not what Matthew wanted to do, though, he was fascinated by the mist that hung between the real thing and our perception of the world as we know it – what he wanted to achieve was the fragile, sublime balance between what can be said and what must be silenced. He read his notes over, starting with the ones that concerned St Sophia.

... some fine substance, thin as glass, blown in plump curves; save that it is also as substantial as a pyramid. Perhaps that may be its beauty. But then beautiful & evanescent & enduring, to pluck adjectives like black berries – as it is, it is but the fruit of a great garden of flowers...

[Lily's painting] She saw the colour burning on a framework of steel; the light of a butterfly's wing lying upon the arches of a cathedral ... Beautiful and bright it should be on the surface, feathery and evanescent, one colour melting into another like the colours on a butterfly's wing; but beneath the fabric must be clamped together with bolts of iron. It was to be a thing you could ruffle with your breath; and a thing you could not dislodge with a team of horses.

The thing about Proust is his combination of the utmost sensibility with the utmost tenacity. He searches out these butterfly shades to the last grain. He is as tough as catgut & as evanescent as a butterfly's bloom [Diary].

My great adventure is really Proust. Well – what remains to be written after that? I'm only in the first volume, and there are, I suppose, faults to be found, but I am in a state of amazement; as if a miracle were being done before my eyes. How, at last, has someone solidified what has always escaped – and made it too into this beautiful and perfectly enduring substance? One has to put the book down and gasp. The pleasure becomes physical – like sun and wine and grapes and perfect serenity and intense vitality combined. (letter – 1922)

Matthew felt moved beyond words. That was what he strove for, what he could never reach. That sensual experience brought about by words. He didn't say that to everyone after dinner, around the candlelit table – he merely told of a story he had had in mind for a while. But it was silly, he said, and besides, he couldn't write.

'I guess I'm too old now. I'll never write a masterpiece before I'm thirty. I might as well start mourning that dream', he chuckled. It was easier to lend himself to their mockery than say the truth.

'That ship has sailed a long time ago. I do believe you know', Richard slapped him on the shoulder. 'There's still forty, though. Less pressure.'

'You see, kids, that's what being thirty looks like: you start giving up on your dreams once you realize you'll never live up to the unrealistic expectations you set for yourself.'

'Are you talking about that hairstyle of yours?' Samuel huffed, pointing at Matthew's loose strand of hair that rested against one of his temples.

'Actually, my hair curls naturally', Matthew replied good-humouredly, although his pride was oddly stung. 'Life's just a series of disappointments and letting your parents down. Enjoy it while you can. As it turns out – it might be a while before you can let your hair down.'

The night was cool and splendid. The other members of the company retreated like shadows, leaving only the quartet to ponder over their nonsensical illusions and clinging to their dreams, to each their own. Matthew and his unwritten book, Richard and his cathartic play. What were the teenagers dreaming of, Matthew wondered?

They weren't, it soon appeared, as Hélène urged Richard to go back to their earlier conversation, their vision cut short by a wall of practicality. 'I want to go back to the final scene', she was saying, 'and the way we should play it.' She was obsessed with Juliet's death, with Juliet's pain, with the impossibility to see past the night's doom, but she lacked perspective. 'I just don't see it', she kept saying, 'I don't.'

Richard had been showing them some videos, to make his point. He had sat them in front of Pina Bausch's 'Café Müller' and told them to watch, watch and learn. 'This is the feeling I want', he had told them. They didn't get it, so at the end of the video, he showed them once more the passage when the dancer falls from the arms of the man who was carrying her and springs right up to kiss him, flinging her arms around him. The scene repeats, its pace quickening, as each time she is methodically positioned in the man's arms and keeps falling and springing up and kissing him again.

'I don't understand, why are you showing us this?' had been Hélène's pragmatic remark. 'Do you want us to copy the choreography?'

What Richard wanted was to achieve the same emotion created by the seemingly endless repetition of the same movement. He had seen something similar, in a version of the play he was still mad with jealousy over – there had been a dozen Romeos on stage, a dozen Juliets. There were all amateurs – except the choreographer, of course. How had he achieved something like that? It went like this: the Romeos would find the Juliets, carry the weight of her bodies, kill themselves. The Juliets would awaken, disentangle themselves from Romeo's corpses, drag his dead bodies around, as if trying to rouse him, lament, kill themselves. Only then, and that's the trick, the Romeos would wake again, run around and find another dead Juliet, drink the poison once more. The Juliets would rise again and the scene would be repeated again. And again. And again. At first, the impression had been almost ludicrous, the multiplication of characters on stage disarming the tension. But then, the repetition had started working its magic – there had come a point when the infinite streak of deaths eventually became too much to bear and brought you to tears. That was so clever, he said, he hadn't seen it coming. He didn't know how to make them understand.

'You need to feel that emotion', he kept saying, trapped in the repetition of his own words that failed to convey what he meant. He was at a loss for more suited words that would aptly translate his intention to them. 'You need to feel that emotion and then it will come naturally', he said. But Hélène still didn't get it.

'I don't see it', she said again. And again, 'I just don't see it.'

That's when Samuel rose and beckoned them to follow him inside. He didn't say anything, but reached into his backpack that had been abandoned and slumped on the floor. 'Just watch this', he told Hélène. He was holding a VHS. 'It's called, "Abandon".'

He slid the video into the recorder. The small TV in the corner buzzed awake. On the screen appeared a young woman in a white nightdress, under a greenish light. The quality wasn't very good. Notes struck on a piano were distorted and slightly jarring. A man came into view, unmoving as she slowly swirled around him. He stroke her face, as if trying to shut her eyes, taking her in, overcome by the frail terror that comes with the urge to kiss someone – which she did, jolting up on her toes and pressing her mouth against his, stretching her arms out wide to clasp them around his neck. Hélène glanced around like a scared little animal, first at Matthew, then at Samuel, and turned back to the choreography on the screen. As the woman leaned and gave in to the kiss, her feet left the ground and round and round she twirled, gaining momentum, round and round around the man who twirled and twirled in a whirlwind. The flutes had joined in, the strings, each time adding a new layer of emotions, likes waves crashing over them, each time leaving a thicker coat of mother-of-pearl foam. Two minutes in, with no warning, surprising even herself, Hélène burst out crying, overwhelmed. She saw, through the veil of her own unexpected tears, the couple collapsing, defeated, struggling to rise again only to fling themselves against the other, falling again, supporting each other, helping each other up, and then down. There you go, Richard would be thinking. The tears were her starting to understand. From now on, she might be able to cry on stage as well.

'What's that?' Matthew asked Samuel, when he felt sure the surge had quieted down and his voice would be steady again.

'I can't remember the name of the choreographer. It's from the nineties.' His own voice didn't tremble in the least. 'Something like that.'

How did he get the video? Samuel shrugged. He just happened to have it. 'Call it serendipity.' And the music? Mozart of course. 'What else? That much I know.'

They stood still for a while, stunned, aware of a stronger feeling of companionship between the four of them. Silence had crept over the entire house, even the song of the cicadas through the open French windows had faded out. Come morning, the intimacy would still be there. The easy intimacy that is created by merely sleeping in the same house with people who, until then, had only been acquaintances, by saying good morning, having breakfast together with strangers whose intrusion into your most private everyday rituals turned them into familiar faces, friends, overnight.

The next morning at breakfast, the rest of the company gradually drifted on the terrace like ghosts, filling the empty space that still lay between Richard, Samuel, Hélène, and Matthew. Richard had shown up around the same time as his friend – both early birds, both clean-shaven, hair slicked back, old habits inherited from years spent in the same boarding school. They fell back in step immediately.

'I can't believe you're still having soft-boiled eggs in the morning.'

'What can I say', Matthew sighed. 'I'm a creature of habit.'

He plunged a slice of rosemary focaccia in the runny yolk. Richard sat opposite him, setting his scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, mushroom and baked beans on the table before him, causing his old friend to burst out laughing. 'Come on, don't judge. Us Englanders need to bring our homes wherever we go. Hence the British Empire.' Matthew' eyes were still crinkled, his head still thrown back, his shoulders still moving up and down as he laughed wholeheartedly. When he straightened again, Samuel had come down, looking ridiculous in his low shorts and oversized sweater, headphones screwed on his head, holding his mp3 player, swinging his hips and chewing on his mouth in concentration.

'Would you just look at him?' Matthew said.

'I know what my Romeo looks like', Richard grinned.

'Is that what you want people to see? Do you think him capable of arousing the kind of emotion you're hoping for?'

How did he even end up playing Shakespeare? Matthew kept wondering. He couldn't tell why it bothered him so much. Last night, when the kids had gone up to bed – were they sleeping together? Richard insisted they weren't – Matthew had warned him, reminding him of Woolf's words at the end of Miss La Trobe's pageant. 'Reality', she muttered, 'too strong.' There must be truth, there must be a wall, she had written elsewhere. 'You've got to protect the audience, just look at Samuel! They can't take it.'

'That's just my point', Richard had replied. 'I too want to make them see, make an offering. But I can't just give the audience easy symbols that are so obvious that the spectators become parts of a well-rehearsed machine – that's the way propaganda works, that's the way the slime of politics invade literature and turn the audience into numb, passive, awe-struck sheep, led to the altar of their own demise. Woolf writes about that, too, you're just choosing the bits that prove your point. So am I, I know. I want them, the audience, to struggle, I want them on the edge of their seats, I want them hoping, against all odds, that Romeo and Juliet will make it this time. The kids don't get it, I'm afraid – you're right. They haven't been knotted and torn apart by love yet. That's another one from your beloved Woolf. You know you don't look at all the part of the modernist scholar either, but there you are. I trust them. And I do believe their innocence is what will make it work. They don't have a clue what's happening to them, that's what makes it so touching. It will work.'

Matthew didn't know which ending he had eventually chosen. Did they end up going with the exaggerated pathos, the loud crying, the unbearable screams of pain, or the subdued, repressed emotion?

The next morning, Samuel too showed up early. He found Matthew swimming in the bright blue pool and sat down close to the edge, his feet dangling from the side, toes wading and gently tapping the surface. He sat and watched as Matthew swam back and forth, watched the muscles of his back and shoulders ripple under the tanned skin, watched and waited, making the swimmer feel increasingly self-conscious. At last he stopped, barely out of breath, and hoisted himself out of the water to sit opposite the teenager. He shook his head, sending droplets of cold water flying through the air, across the pool even, some reaching Samuel, then finger-combed his hair back.

'What?' he eventually asked.

They were staring at each other, neither of them abating. It was still early, but already the sun felt hot on Matthew's wet skin, warm water trickling down his neck, between his shoulder blades.

'Why would you work out all the time?' Samuel answered after a while.

'What do you mean?'

'I saw you from my window. I can't seem to sleep in. I saw you sneaking out for a morning jog, a morning swim.'

'Oh so you've been spying on me then, have you?' Matthew teased, with a flash of his dimples, raising one eyebrow as his signature move, in mock flirtation.

Samuel tensed, but held up and waited for an answer.

'I guess I need to get something going for me. Girls don't care for nerds.'

'Tut tut, come on, that's the stupidest thing I've heard you say so far – and that's really saying something.' It was his turn to tease now. 'Besides, you're lying. I'm sure you don't even need to say anything to get them flocking to you like geese, like disciples.'

'My point exactly. I attract them with my exceptionally good looks, and then I dazzle them with my brains. It's a win-win situation. For me, it is.'

'Oh, so you're really going to tell me working out to please the ladies?'

Samuel wasn't buying it, and he pushed him, trying to get him to admit he wasn't only concerned with art and literature and philosophy.

'I used to be fat', eventually came the deadpan reply.

'What?'

'What?'

'I can't picture you being fat.'

'Then don't.'

'I just don't see it, you know? How a knowledgeable, superior, genius mind like yourself would care about his looks.'

'Well what do you know.' Then, after a moment, 'Nobody cares that I'm smart.'

'I mean, no offence, but humanities never struck me as going well together with muscles and stuff. I just think it's funny, you know, that you would...'

'Well I didn't think it humanly possible to be such a know-it-all while being so ignorant', Matthew cut him short, losing his temper all of a sudden. 'Let it go, will you?'

'Geez chill, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, man, I mean, you know, I meant it as a compliment.'

'Did you now. I'm sorry, what is it you actually mean?'

'Can you stop being so patronizing all the time? I'm young, I get it, alright? Not everything has to be a competition for who speaks best.'

They were both quiet for a while.

'You know what you're like?' Samuel eventually said, his face already crinkling with laughter.

'Please. Enlighten me.'

'You're like Clark fucking Kent. Glasses on or off. Although with you, it's a t-shirt and a book. Though I guess Superman wouldn't constantly bore people by talking about stuff that were written literally a hundred years ago.'

'There you go, then. I need my guns to distract people from everything I say. Maybe you should think about it, too – not everything you say is as smart as you seem to think.'

'Ouch – that actually hurt', but he was beaming. He checked himself and looked serious again. 'Alright, I'm sorry. It's just, seeing you work out all the time, it's making me feel skinny and inadequate.'

'I don't remember asking you to come and watch.'

'Fine. But say, for instance, say I wanted to look good naked. Would you like, show me? I figured, you might as well teach me how to, you know, get there, since you're always teaching me stuff I could care less about –'

'Stuff I couldN'T care less about', Matthew snapped. 'Otherwise it just means that you could, indeed, care less.'

'Forget it.'

'Oi boys!' Hélène's tinkling voice interrupted them. 'Will you stop arguing?'

Juliet had woken up and stood on her balcony.

'I'll come down for breakfast', she was saying. ' _Vous m'avez réveillée avec vos conneries_ – you guys woke me up! One of you get me a cup of coffee while I come down, make yourselves useful for once.'

When she appeared downstairs a couple of minutes later, she was wearing tracksuits and a cotton t-shirt for a pyjama that made her look so young. Matthew would try his best to remember that when, a few weeks later, she would show up at the door of his rental palazzo, back in Lucca, wearing a denim short and light blouse; he would try and think of her in the tracksuit pyjama.

'Sérieux', she was saying as she walked towards the table, 'it's too early for that kind of thing. There's no sense in fighting over nothing in the daylight.'

'Is it the lark, my love?' Samuel asked in a high-pitched, syrupy voice.

She poured some chocolate cereals in a bowl and ignored him, then added some dried slices of banana, then milk. Blue jean ba-aby, she was humming softly. Pretty-ey-eyed, pirate smi-ile, she gave Matthew a gentle smile and frowned a little as she reached the chorus, ballerina, munching her cereals like a baby girl between the lines, you must have seen her scrunch scrunch, dancing in the sand ... and now she's in me, she swallowed a large gulp of coffee, always with me ... tiny dancer ... in my ha-a-a-a-aand. Matthew looked upon her tenderly, this tiny, tiny ballerina, waltzing in over breakfast, wolfing down her cereals like a starving schoolgirl.

A schoolgirl – that's exactly what he would try and remember to trick himself into realising that the young woman in front of him was not yet the woman she seemed to behave like. Although it didn't do him any good. Ingénue, he'd twirl around in his head, and it would immediately become ingénue libertine like a singsong. One night, near the end of the summer, she would just show up, using what was so obviously an excuse that he should never have even let her in in the first place.

'What are you doing here,' he would ask, stupidly, 'I thought you were rehearsing with Samuel?'

'We had a fight, I can't stand him anymore. He's so full of himself.'

She had already managed to slip by him and plonked herself on the sofa, fiddling with the remote control.

'Do you have a drink? I think I could use a drink.'

He disappeared in the kitchen and came back with a couple of ice-cold glasses filled with gin and tonic. He shouldn't have been drinking, though. She had switched on the television, and in the darkness of the living room only lit by the streetlights, they had sat for a while, 'Eyes Wide Shut' was on, in Italian. He focused in the screen, even though he knew neither of them understood what was happening. He had the urge to place a hand on her knee, her thigh maybe, telling himself those were merely protective gestures. She kept stealing swift glances at him, but her manner was too stealthy to be flirtatious, she was more like a scared little animal caught in a trap.

Why had he let her in, with no reason? Seeing her like this reminded him of the endearing self-consciousness she displayed whenever he was around, which in turn reminded him of the indecent power he had over younger women and which, no longer feeling like the fat kid, he sometimes relinquished to and relished with impunity. He enjoyed seeing her bend over backwards to please him, assessed the great pains she took to impress him. He felt ashamed of it, all of a sudden, as he found himself under her candid eyes, feeling twenty all over again. He had stroked her hair that day as they were walking in the sun-washed streets with Samuel. He had felt like a teenager again, laughing in the sun without a care in the world, she'd grinned at him from behind her ice-cream cone and he'd thoughtlessly reached out and placed a gentle hand on the nape of her neck. There was a young man playing a sad tune on the accordion – isn't the accordion always heart-breaking? – something filled with nostalgic longing, Russian or Slavic perhaps. The tune was heart-breaking but it lifted their spirits as the score engraved itself onto their souls, without any of them realising it yet.

Now the air was still stifling although the sun had set, the streets were still bustling with tourists trying to stay out of the summer heat, chatter and laughter seeping in through the open windows, and he couldn't for the life of him focus on the film that played on television. He felt like taking yet another shower, though he had showered already when he had come back. He constantly had to check himself to stop staring at her bare feet on the coffee table, but she had caught him. The light from the screen played on Hélène's face when Matthew glanced at her. She'd been watching him. He was trying to focus on the memory of her face that morning, the old faded t-shirt she wore for breakfast, the way she munched on her cereals, the way seeing her like this had made him feel old, made him wish he had children. But no longer a ballerina, she now reminded him of Salomé, Salomé dancing the dance of the seven veils, Salomé asking for Iokanaan's head to be brought on a silver platter – was he to be sacrificed to the wanton lust of some kid who idly nurtured fantasies of screwing her teacher, who might even fancy herself in love with him?

'What are you really doing here?' he asked again. 'Did you and Samuel really have a fight?'

'No', she replied quietly. He might have imagined it. 'Je voudrais que tu m'embrasses' she then said in French as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

He wouldn't reply, his voice refusing to rise from the depths of the cistern that had him trapped. He kept silent because he knew he wouldn't be able to say No and sound convincing, but he couldn't say Yes and kiss her either. He kept silent, but that's all it took and then she was all over him, straddling him, her soft hair everywhere, her warm tongue sneaking into his mouth. Had he actually touched her leg or only just imagined it? He couldn't be sure now but for a brief moment he let himself be engulfed in her violent, inexperienced kiss. He stroked her hair again, smelled first her shampoo and then the salty fragrance of her sweat, which made him dizzy. He felt his body awaken to her touch and cupped his hands around her buttocks. She moaned into his mouth and pressed against him, but his hands felt too large, and her body too tiny, too new, too young. He remembered the first bodies he had touched, on the verge of adulthood, the way the skin stretched tight over lean muscles and bones. His hands moved back up to her shoulders, her thin and hard collarbones protruding, and gently pushed her away, forcing her to break the kiss.

She was panting, her heart racing, but so was he.

'We shouldn't', he merely said. 'I'm sorry.'

'Don't you want to?'

'No.' She looked hurt. 'Maybe. I don't know, that's not the point. I can't, you know I can't.'

'Why not?'

'I'm thirty-one. You're barely nineteen. I just can't.'

'Don't give me that. We're running out of time, everything will be over soon. I'm leaving in a few days.' She paused. 'Can you tell me you've never wanted this to happen?' Again he couldn't, and so didn't. 'You started this, the way you smile at me, always winking at me.'

He had been winking at her. That's just the kind of thing he would do. Couldn't help it.

'The other day, you...' her breath caught in her throat, something between a gasp and a sob, 'you touched me.'

'I'm so sorry', he repeated.

'What if we don't ever see each other again?'

'Look', he began, but there was a knock on the door.

They both started and stared at the door. The person knocked again, more urgently this time.

Samuel's lean silhouette appeared on the threshold when Matthew went to open the door. It was too dark within for him to see anything at first, 'Eyes Wide Shut' still the only source of light in the room. 'I need to talk to you, Matt, please', he let out as he burst inside. He was interrupted when his eyes landed on Hélène, slightly dishevelled on the sofa. He turned to Matthew who realised just then, following Samuel's gaze, that the top buttons of his shirt had popped, revealing part of his chest.

'I see', Samuel murmured.

They were both gazing at his chest, his shoulders and arms, still glistening from the swimming pool, over the breakfast table.

'You know what? I think it's almost too much', Samuel was saying.

'What?'

'Your muscles. You're almost too good-looking. Nobody is supposed to actually look like that, I mean, not in real life anyway. And besides, all this' – he gestured at Matthew's torso, at the fabric of his swimming shorts stretched around his muscular thighs – 'makes your calves look tiny. Like baby calves. Baby cows. Better try and exercise down there, if you know what I mean.'

Matthew chuckled, he no longer felt hurt or upset from Samuel's remarks. He shook his head gently, his full lips spreading over his perfect teeth, trying not to laugh.

Hélène had been running her eyes over his skin as she ate her chocolate cereals. 'I like it', she casually said. 'Although', she giggled, 'it is a bit too much.'

'Alright, alright. How about you kids focus on learning your lines for your performance and you let me worry about mine, sounds good? As a teacher, I'm always on display. Looking my best is not just important, it's part of the job. You kids just don't know what it's like – you'll see, when you're old and wrinkled like I am, and you need to grab people's attention still. You'll come to me and say, "Matthew,"' he paused and stared intently at them, 'you'll say, "Matthew. You were right." And it will hurt you to acknowledge my prophecy, and I promise I won't rub it in, I won't tell you I told you so, I'll simply, humbly say –'

'Oh do shut up!'

They were all smiling. How would he ever find the will to go back? Everything was so easy. He felt like an expatriate, washed up on the distant shores of Italy. The heat at night was oppressive, but the mornings bore such promises! They were supposed to go back to Lucca the next day, or the one after that – and then?

'I think I'll rent a car, drive around for a bit', Matthew told Richard when the latter had joined them on the terrace. 'I'll leave tomorrow, or the day after that, it doesn't matter, I'll just go when you go. I'll meet you back in Lucca in a few days, maybe a week.'

Samuel looked up sharply.

'Cool', Richard was slicing a sausage in two, dipping it in the yoke of his egg. Sunny side up this time. 'Where will you go?' he asked.

'I haven't decided yet. I might just go to the beach. Maybe I'll drive all the way down to Pompeii and see the ruins of the past. Maybe I'll just be here all along but I just can't stand your company anymore. I don't know.'

'Oh God, if it weren't for those wretched meetings I'd go with you. I'd love to see Naples again, drive along the Amalfi coast. Though I'm sure it's packed with tourists that time of year.'

'You're the tourist.'

'No you're the tourist.'

'You guys are so old', Hélène rolled her eyes, and laughed again. Her chin was glistening in peach juice, droplets running down her forearms.

'She's right, you old fart.'

'Old enough to drink, that's all that matters! Speaking of, who wants a drink? I'd have a drink.'

'It's not even noon yet.'

'So?'

'Why don't we all go to the beach?'

Hélène shrieked and ran towards the sea, only stopping when she had reached the waves. 'The sand is too hot!' she screamed and laughed. The sand was so hot that Matthew's feet felt like the soles were burning.

Children screaming, smothered in rubber rings, laughing with their little heads thrown back. Shimmering drops of sunshine scattered on the waves. Traces of sunscreen on the pages of a book nobody reads, grains of sand everywhere, sticking to one's fingers, scrunching between the pages of People magazine. Matthew's eyes stumbled upon a sentence that reminded him of someone's face and made his heart skip a beat, an infinitesimal tear within. Between two yawns, between two children shrieking, a word slipped between his fingers like a tiny vertigo. Where did that come from? No matter how many times he read the page again, trying to find the exact location of the magic word, trying to roll it around on his tongue, the miracle was gone, and he had missed it. Lying on a beach towel, he pondered over the subtlety of happiness, crushed by the heat, when some kid ran past him, throwing spurts of sand in his wake. Frowning, on one elbow, his glasses on his forehead, ready to tell them off, he was interrupted by the good-natured insolence of the children who just laughed and stuck out their tongues at him. And he still couldn't speak a single word of Italian.

'Can you put some on my back?' Hélène's makeup had been running with the water but she didn't care. Matthew took the sunscreen tube she was handing him. 'We shouldn't have come so early,' she added, 'it's too damn hot. How hot is it actually?'

'I don't know,' Samuel replied feebly. 'It's too hot.'

'When the sun starts to set,' Richard added, 'you'll see the light.'

'But it'll still be this hot. Who wants to go for a swim?'

'What are you thinking about?'

'Nothing. I'm just thinking, the light is incredible all the time around here. In Italy, I mean. Everything is strikingly beautiful under this light. Life is easy, even when the heat is killing us. Makes you wanna fall in love, you know.'

Around them, children were playing at war, running one after the other, building sandcastles.

'There's no tide around here, is there?'

'It's the Mediterranean Sea.'

'When I was a little girl, we would go to the Atlantic coast, and we would build forts to protect ourselves from the tide coming in. We'd replay the eternal struggle of man against nature – well man will always lose. We'd dig trenches in the wet sand, moats all around our pitiful, makeshift castles. We'd fortify the sand battlements. But we knew all along there was no point. The tide comes in. And the seagulls are laughing their heads off, up there, laughing at our meagre efforts.'

'How's the water?'

'It's quite warm, but I'm too hot. It felt like ice going in, especially after the beach. I couldn't go in at first.'

'Did anyone bring any money? I'm dying for an ice-cream.'

'There you go.'

'Cheers. Does anyone want ice-cream?'

'Hey, you're awfully generous with other people's money.'

They laughed.

'Nevermind. I can't eat a damn thing in this heat.'

'Ice-cream isn't food, it's ice-cream. Besides, I'm always hungry in Italy.'

'Well it's the summer. We don't fuss. A slice of melon, some prosciutto, and that's that. Not too bad.'

'What are you guys talking about?'

'Nothing. Food. You were quick, what did they say?'

'26 degrees. The air is 36. Well, the water was 26 at 1.'

'Told you it was quite warm. It's the Mediterranean Sea, and it's so hot.'

'You said it was freezing.'

'Did you watch the Champions League? Did anyone watch the Champions League?'

'Please not football again.'

They stayed silent for a while, their feet in the water, the towels abandoned somewhere on the beach, with their flipflops and books to keep them from being blown away.

'What is it?'

'What? Nothing.'

'Why are you smiling?'

'I'm not. Am I?'

'What's up?'

'It's nothing. I'm just smiling.'

Silence. The soft sound of waves.

'Do you want to play ball in the water?'

'Yeah, let's.'

On his way to Richard, who was already juggling the ball, Matthew's eyes encountered the set designer's. He winked at her. He had been pretending the sleep the day before, when she had snuck into his room after lunch. But he couldn't refrain from winking at her now.

'Aren't tired of hitting of everything that moves?'

'I'm not hitting on her, I'm just smiling. I'm smiled at, I smile back, I'm polite that way.'

'You're unbelievable.'

The sound of hitting the ball, splashing water, droplets clinging to the skin, peals of laughter. Samuel sitting silent on a beach towel, holding a book he wasn't reading.

'What are you reading?'

'I'm not.'

'Stop sulking.'

'I'm not.'

'You want to play ball? Matthew's exhausting. I can't keep up with that guy.'

Shrug. Matthew opened his eyes wide for Richard's benefit. 'That's kid's so annoying.'

'And what do you have to say about that?' Samuel asked.

They were standing at the foot of a languid crucifix. Samuel had been following him around ever since Matthew had left the beach, waiting for something, hanging on. He was usually babbling away nonsense but had barely said a word since breakfast, Matthew found it less difficult to have him hang about when he kept silent.

'What, Jesus?' he eventually responded.

'Yeah, Jesus. Crucifixion.'

'I thought you'd had enough of my lecturing you all the time.'

'I'm actually interested in this. I won't make fun, I promise.'

'I don't have all the answers, you know.'

'I don't want all the answers. Just tell me this. Why did Jesus have to die?'

'That's it? You're incredible, what do you mean? Besides the whole business of redeeming us from our sins? It's in the Bible.'

'Funny. Did he, like, die for us?'

'He died in our place.'

'Ok but then, why the cross? It's so... graphic. So sexy and violent.'

'Hm.'

'Why keep it as a constant reminder that we're guilty, and that we still need to atone for our sins? Then, why did Jesus die, if in the end it didn't work?'

'Have you heard of René Girard's theory on the scapegoat?'

'Have I heard of René Girard's theory', Samuel repeated, imitating him in an annoying high-pitched voice and emphasizing the French pronunciation of the name. 'Honestly why do you even ask, I mean, what do you think?'

'I don't know, you might have! I'm just asking. Jesus.' Matthew sighed.

'Ok, ok, sorry', Samuel mumbled. 'Go on.'

'Well, the scapegoat's the victim, you know what a scapegoat is? it's the target on which the general violence that exists naturally in any community concentrates itself. Eliminating the scapegoat, either by death or exile, thus momentarily restores the group's unity and harmony. Call it a rite of passage – the recognition of the violent act and the inscription of that violent act within the heart of any given society marks the passage from innocence to experience, from childhood to adulthood. The primitive, out-of-bounds violence that already existed then becomes a civilised, codified form of violence.'

'Where does all the violence come from?'

'From mimetic desire. From wanting what the others want.'

'How is that related to Jesus?'

'Well, that's the whole thing: violence is the foundation of the sacred. You could link that to Freud's myth of the collective murder in Totem and Taboo, where he explains that the Darwinian horde needs to kill the primal father before he can be mourned and retrospectively...'

'You've lost me.'

'Sorry I get carried away. The thing with Jesus and the scapegoat. You said it yourself, Jesus's death didn't work. His death actually exposes the fiction behind the myth. The mechanism of sacrifice is debunked by Jesus's innocence, because it reveals that the scapegoat was never guilty in the first place, only a... well a scapegoat, as it happens.'

'How is that new?'

'After the rise of Christianity, after the crucifixion, our modern societies have lost the possibility to resort to that kind of symbolic ritual in good faith – because it's been shown not to work, it's a sham. The problem is that the violence – the sins, or however you want to call it – that violence is still very much present, so they need to find new ways to expel it because it's such that it cannot, it will not be contained anymore. Which means that now, our so-called civilised societies are doomed to implement the same ritualistic, sacrificial violence except that its mechanism ultimately gets jammed, failing to bring about the peace and harmony it was originally meant to secure. You know Jane Ellen Harrison, the anthropologist?'

'Again: why would I?'

'Well you never know, I'm just taking a chance here. Call me an optimist. Anyway, Harrison. She contends that primitive rituals originally aimed at filling a space of uncertainty, in any case, they translate a desire, a hope founded on the promise of a future – a promise that has since been jeopardized by increasingly destructive conflicts on a global scale.'

'And Jesus right there, looking down on us from the cross of his agony. Like a residual trace of past, meaningless rites, reminding us that it doesn't work, and yet that we still have to pay for our sins. I feel like we're being cheated or something.'

'Right.'

'Can you imagine, though, the hangover it must have been, waking up three days after the party and you're lying in a tomb, wrapped in a shroud, all your friends thinking you were dead?' Samuel let out a loud cackle that reverberated against the church's walls. 'However, I'm not buying it. People don't come in here because they believe in God or whatever nonsense. People come in here because it's cooler than outside. Look at us. That's why we're here.'

He crept towards one Jesus Christ, craned his neck and stuck a cheeky tongue out, teasing and taunting the statue provocatively, moaning as he mimicked French kissing, slowly undulating his hips. Matthew huffed reprovingly, clenching his jaws and looking worriedly around to make sure no one had seen that, which amused Samuel immensely. He might have laughed, or pretended to pick Jesus's nose, if he didn't always feel like slapping Samuel. The golden light through the stained glass fell directly on the boy's exposed throat when, his head thrown back in laughter, his delicate Adam's apple protruding, he exulted.

'Come on, let's go back to the beach, meet the others. They must be waiting for us to go.'

But when they reached the beach, the whole gang had vanished. Other people were sitting where they had been sitting. The sun was a bit lower in the sky, but it was hardly even cooler. The children were still shrieking, and laughing, and playing splashing one another in the water. Matthew was dying for a shower.

'They must have taken the bus,' Samuel ventured. 'Come on, let's go back to the villa.'

His tone was different. They walked in silence to the stop of the bus that had dropped them off earlier, and waited. Matthew checked the timetables, but they were all out of date. He didn't have a watch. It must have been around six. The bus went deep into the Tuscan countryside. The air was still blurred with heat. Matthew had let Samuel take the window seat, and the boy was resting his feverish forehead against the pane, stealing glances at his neighbour, although neither of them said anything. They had never been alone together for so long. They were both getting the hang of such shared solitude.

But when they got to the villa, there was nobody there. Not on the terrace, not in swimming-pool, not in the small living-room that was still locked. Samuel disappeared inside for a moment, and Matthew popped his flipflops and dove straight into the pool. Samuel was looking at him strangely when he came back to the surface.

'What are you looking at? Isn't there anyone inside?'

Samuel shook his head. Then, suddenly, 'Can I come?' he asked.

'What, where?'

'With you? To Naples?'

'God no. I hope you're joking.'

'I'm feeling cabin-crazy these days, I think I need some fresh air.'

'Well, so do I. That's why I'm leaving. There's no point of even going if you're going to come too.'

'Please, please can I come along? I won't bother you, it will be like I'm not even there.'

'Why come at all, then?'

'Please?'

'No.'

They were silent again.

'What time is it? Are you hungry?' Samuel shrugged. 'Come on, let's get a drink while we wait for the others.'

When the others arrived at last, it was already a bit dark. Their barging in disturbed the complicit silence that had started to settle over the terrace. Everyone seemed to be talking at the same time.

'You guys are back already! Weren't you supposed to go and visit some church?'

'It's almost nine.'

'We had to take the bus, I thought we'd never get there!'

'We took the bus as well.'

'We were amazed as we were taken deep into the Tuscan countryside, Hélène kept saying how sublime it was, "Regardez, regardez, c'est sublime," and we were all saying how strange it was that we were unable to recognize anything.'

'And then Richard started going on and on about the beauty of landscapes that are rediscovered as if for the first time, he said, as if they were brand new and no one had ever seen them before, as if we had changed in the meantime, and you can't bathe in the same river twice, and anyway, it was sublime, that's true, but it took us a long time for one of us to realise we were on the wrong bus. We had got completely carried away, we were looking at the view flashing by, the names of villages, and none of us had realised they were not the same ones as on our way there. Anyway, the driver was really nice and he dropped us off at another bus stop so that we could take another bus to get back.'

'It all took forever as you can imagine, but we weren't really worried, we knew you guys were together. How long have you been back?'

'Britney Spears? Please tell me you're kidding.'

'Why? What should I be listening to?'

'Literally anything else. Ever heard of the Smashing Pumpkins? Radiohead? Anything. Madonna, even. Anything would be better than Britney Spears. I knew I shouldn't have let you come. Tell Richard he owes me.'

'What about P. J. Harvey?' replied Samuel, pushing the CD in the player, cutting him short.

'This Mess We're In' started playing on the speakers of the car, engulfing them in the soft and restless song, Thom Yorke's voice always on a razor's edge, Harvey's dripping with melancholy.

'Please don't let him come with me', Matthew had pleaded with Richard when the two of them had found themselves alone after the eventful tale of their return on the bus. 'Pretend you need him for something. What will I do with a teenager?'

Everyone else had disappeared.

But Richard, too, thought it would do Samuel some good, to get away for a few days and spend some time alone with Matthew. 'You might just knock some sense into the kid. He'll be good, when it's just the two of you and he won't have an audience to parade in front of. He won't embarrass you, I think, he rather looks up to you.'

'Does he now.'

So there he was, in the car with him.

Matthew threw rapid glances sideways. Samuel had closed his eyes. They had put the top of the car down, feeling excited like two teenagers, and the wind was gently ruffling Samuel's dark hair, and he was humming to P.J. Harvey's song which was thrumming with barely contained sensuality. Matthew could see the perfect outline of his profile, his sharp chin jutting out as he tilted his head backwards and turned his face up towards the morning sun. He saw him as if he had never seen him before – that was because of last night. Because last night, a few of them had improvised a scene from the play, under the dim street lights, in front of a spontaneous audience of sparse passers-by. Behind them the old medieval fountain of Fontebranda that sheltered dream-like basins behind ogival arches. The perfect setting.

It was the first time Matthew had actually seen Samuel act, the first time he had actually seen him plunge into Romeo and become someone else entirely. Something about the boy had lit up and radiated around him. The change in his face, in his posture, in his voice, shredded the curtain that had been veiling Matthew's vision, tore a large gash into the familiar image of a mindless teenager he had until then taken for granted, and presented him with a new glow.

The sun had left light freckles across his nose and on his cheeks, which he had never noticed before. Matthew now gazed upon the boy's face as if it underwent an uncanny metamorphosis right under his eyes, as if until then he had been seeing another face, made up of memories, fantasies, misguided expectations and prejudices, and was only now really seeing him for the first time.

'Will you look at the road?' Samuel murmured without opening his eyes.

Matthew timidly smiled to himself and turned to look at the road ahead, but soon enough found himself drawn again to his companion's face. His eyes flickered open. They weren't black, Matthew suddenly noticed, but a dark shade of green, sprinkled with little nuggets of gold, almost turquoise in this light.

'Seriously, will you look at the road? This is not how I'm supposed to die. You'll have to return me unharmed, otherwise you won't get your money back.'

They did stop in Rome on the way, having resolved to drive down to Naples, see the mountains, and Pompeii.

'Come on, I'll show you something', Matthew said, beckoning him inside a shop.

Samuel stifled a laugh as he discovered the place. 'Where the fuck are we?' They were surrounded by cassocks and chasubles on dummies or on display behind large glass panels.

'Gammarelli. Clergy attire. The Pope's tailor.'

'What?'

'Let's get some socks. My treat. What will you have?'

'Can I help you?' the man inquired sternly from behind the counter.

'Yeah', Samuel replied in an insolent voice. 'My friend here would like to buy me some socks. It's our anniversary, you see. Cotton.'

Matthew let out a single chuckle then put on a serious face again as the man gave him a dark look.

'Very well', he obviously made an effort to remain polite.

'What kind do you have?'

The man gestured at two different kinds of socks displayed under the glass panel of the counter. There were either red or purple.

'Cardinal or bishop, sir.'

'Oh, neither I'm afraid, I'm not ordained yet', Samuel replied without even looking up, mesmerized by the socks. Matthew again couldn't help but hold in a loud, whimpering laugh he tried to cover with coughs. 'I can't tell which I like best', he added, 'tell me, Matt, which one do we like better?'

Matthew pretended to study the socks carefully for a moment.

'I think we like the purple ones best. The colour is really flattering and it will suit your dainty feet.'

The man stiffened and flashed an angry glance in Matthew's direction, then back at Samuel.

'What? I do have dainty feet.'

'Bishop, then', the man replied.

Samuel looked up sharply. 'What? No, purple!'

Matthew exploded and laughed straight out. He placed a hand on Samuel's arm and addressed the cashier. 'We'll have two pairs of purple bishop socks, please. Size 12 and?'

'10.'

'Not so dainty, then, after all.'

They had tears in their eyes from laughing too hard by the time they reached the car again.

'Do you want some ice cream before we hit the road?'

Samuel shook his head. He was staring at his purple socks as if they were magic.

This time, Matthew wanted to choose the music. He had burnt a mix-CD with songs he thought would suit Italy. 'I can't believe how cheesy those songs are', Samuel grinned. That was when he thought he'd be alone on the trip, though. It had all the Italian pop classics, but more random songs as well, and French singers too whom he had heard Hélène hum over breakfast and would afterwards remind him of Italy for years. As the two of them now listened to the CD in the car, they had no idea the songs would haunt them forever. Only a couple of names had been hastily scribbled directly on the plastic case, the list left incomplete. Samuel took a pen and, as the songs came on, wrote down the remaining titles on a receipt he would then slide into the case.

'Sing along with me?' he pleaded. There was no malice in his voice, just pure enthusiasm.

'Not if I can help it', Matthew winced, although before long he had given in and was bellowing the wrong lyrics. He didn't feel embarrassed in the slightest, nor did Samuel make fun on him. They just sat there, side by side, singing in unison in the face of Italy that dared them.

A wave of exhilaration washed over him, a sudden urge to be sunk into the intensity of the moment and dissolve, to abandon himself to the excruciating softness and searing pain that came with the unexpected feeling of freedom, irresponsibility, and pure unadulterated happiness.

'Why do you write?' Samuel asked over the sound of the engine when their mad singing had wavered and hushed and their mood had fixed itself onto the gorgeous landscape slipping by. Was this the moment when he would start making fun of him again?

'I don't really. I'm merely collecting. Thoughts, places, beautiful things. It's a way of making sure I'll never forget.'

'Why would you want that?' Samuel's voice was genuine. He had turned fully towards Matthew and gazed at him out of his large, beautiful doe-eyes, now bathed in innocent concern. 'Some things you'll never forget. Some memories you know, even as you're forging them, will stay with you forever.' Then, as an afterthought, 'Maybe not everything is worth keeping with you and bringing along. Some things are better lost and forgotten.'

'Writing is also the closest you can get to anyone', Matthew kept on. 'Writing about someone you love is a way of owning them, of making them belong to you.'

'Isn't it also a way to destroy them? Isn't freezing them at a certain moment in time a way to kill them and make sure they don't survive beyond what you know about them? Kind of like the fear of missing out – on them?'

'I don't know. Maybe it is, maybe you're right. Sometimes I'm scared it will all blow away and slip between my fingers and right into oblivion, and then there'll be nothing left.'

'You mean this?'

'I mean everything.'

'I can't picture you being scared of anything.'

'Well what do you know.'

'This', Samuel eventually said, 'this will last. When everything else is dead and gone and forgotten, this will remain.'

Before them rose the serpentines of road that led up and deep into the mountains, signalling they were getting close to what they had been searching for – Naples, Pompeii, everything that awaited them there. Searching the ruins of the past like oracles trying to decipher omens for the future. The light was blue with evening. Matthew felt a certain wavering of his being, as if he were drawn into a pit of nothingness but for once, he wouldn't resist, the fall wouldn't kill him, he longed for it, yet couldn't gather what it meant.

'O that this too too solid flesh would melt', Matthew was saying over and over in his head. Which was absurd – Hamlet meant suicide, he wasn't torn apart by impenetrable desire. Was it supposed to be 'too too sullied flesh'? Ever since they had come back to Lucca, everything had been confused. Matthew walked around in a daze, unable to make sense of what had happened while they were away.

Because nothing had happened. Not on the surface anyway. They were treading soft, unsteady grounds. None of which on purpose. Samuel had gone back to assuming the same obnoxious teenage attitude he had let go of in Naples, which bewildered and infuriated Matthew, and poked at the inner turmoil that didn't give him a moment's rest since they had come back. He felt intensely aware of Samuel's every move, of his presence both acute and unbearable. Everything Samuel said would be getting on his nerves, and yet he couldn't help but seek eye contact, always asking the same wordless question as he peered deep into his eyes. Their hands had momentarily grazed on the stair banister in the dark one night – or was it an accident? He felt his thigh burning where it had brushed Samuel's under the table, for a brief second only before Samuel retreated and stung him with a sharp mockery or other.

Together they had walked the earth scorched by the sun, they had seen the ruins of the past, the relics of a catastrophe that had happened so long ago and yet had remained almost intact to this day. They had felt the eerie comfort of walking through the ruins and finding that the apocalypse was both irreversible, forbidding of ever going back, and that it lingered on forever. Together they had seen the petrified corpses hugging each other, the poignant embrace of the 'maidens' moulded forever in plaster, the screaming faces and contorted bodies bracing themselves for impending death. Together they had walked through the wasteland of a city that had been built right on the altar on which it would be sacrificed, not to some god or other, but heroically by an act of God himself – an act of God. Neither of them believed in God, but together they had stood silent in the deep trenches of the ruined streets, they had entered the remains of the buildings, blinded by a light so hot it almost made them fearful that the volcano would erupt once more, almost made them capable of smelling the sulphur. Together they had marvelled at the strange composition of the volcano rocks on Mount Vesuvius, they had tried to pay attention to the different names of lava, of pyroclastic flow, pumice and plume and ash and tephra, and phreatomagmatic eruptions, they had failed to remember. On the ground, in the deserted streets of Pompeii, filled with tourists yet forever empty of the life that had once inhabited it, so that the entire city felt like there were two time-frames colliding, together they had sat and felt the delicious heat of the sun that had risen. They had felt exposed, in the late morning, to a sun that had first risen like the promise of a glorious day, and now threatened to burn them alive. Like everyone else around them, they had tried to picture what life had been like, they had imagined themselves alone in the whole of Pompeii, trying to steal time away from the rest of the world, and they had found it impossible to maintain the same silent, mournful reverence throughout their visit, soon enough walking from one place to the next while joking about, enjoying the sun on their forehead one moment and the respite of the shade the next, checking the paper guide they had brought with them, smiling on, forgetting where they really were, two tourists like any other.

Everything had felt more intense in Naples. The simple pleasures of the body and the deep late-night conversations about life, and pain, and sacrifice, and discovery. Vain, large words like pigeonholes where they could store what they felt and have the false impression that it meant something, that their words meant something. After struggling with Romeo and Juliet, with Richard and Hélène, with their shared, debilitating inability to explain how love should feel, their words were now flowing freely. Samuel had left his cynical mockery in Tuscany like a snake sheds its skin, and was constantly smiling, honest, interested, more talkative than he had been until then. The unbearable heat lent renewed meaning to these emotions of the flesh no one need account for, and a certain poetic aura to everything they chanced upon, lulling them in a constant state of serendipity. The heat of the sun was enough, the taste of Italian food. Their feet hurt from walking, their heads from drinking cool sparkling wine, and it was good.

But now they never found each other alone anymore, even though Samuel was always in his way. Or at least he used to be. That's how it had seemed to Matthew, before they left, wherever he would look, there would be Samuel, hanging around. That was part of the reason why he had struggled to get away in the first place. Had he imagined it all?

They sat side by side over a late lunch with the others, not even looking at each other, surrounded by the scent of olives, of basil, of rosemary.

'Will you tell me what's going on?' Matthew asked. He felt old and stupid, waddling in shallow waters that were still out of his depth.

'Did you sleep with Hélène?' Samuel asked stiffly, staring right ahead. 'Last night when I surprised you?'

'No.'

'Liar.'

They were silent. Don't tell me you were just watching TV, Samuel might have been thinking. Eyes wide shut indeed.

There was no need in arguing now. Samuel hadn't heard the desperation in the voice that had protested, the voice that was eager to make sure he didn't get the wrong idea. He had vanished through the door before either of them could stop him.

'I needed to talk to you', Samuel said.

'Then talk to me. Now. Whenever. I'm here.'

'So you are.' Samuel sneered. 'But it's too late, isn't it? It had to be last night. It had to be last night.' Matthew kept his eyes down. 'What will you do, though, when you get back?' Samuel's tone was full of defiance.

'Do we absolutely have to?'

'Get back? Or have this conversation?'

'What will you do when you get back?'

'I don't know. I don't know what I want anymore.' Samuel's eyes glistened, but he wouldn't turn to face Matthew. 'I think I caught it.'

'What?'

'That Italian feeling.'

Matthew chuckled. He felt once again, all of a sudden, closer to Samuel. The cloud that had overhung their previous, sharp remarks, had seemingly passed.

'Anyone waiting for you in England ?'

Matthew hesitated, the answer on the tip of his tongue. There was no one. Not really. He had an inkling Samuel knew. Likewise, the shadow that had been cast over his life when he had arrived a couple of months earlier, the name he wouldn't say in his sleep, had dissolved into thin air. It all came rushing back to him as from a great distance.

'What will you do?' Samuel asked again, nagging him as he always did.

Matthew found it difficult to cope with the intrusion. He must have known, even then. He must have heard Matthew talking to Richard about Penelope. Around them the usual conversation droned across the table, the slight banter, the same easy companionship that had connected the rest of the company, but they didn't hear any of it.

'I'll do my best is what I'll do.'

The phone rang somewhere inside the house. No one paid attention at first, but then something in Richard's tone caught their ear.

'What are you saying?' Richard was saying into the phone.

Tension formed over the crumbs leftover from lunch grown cold, nibbled at, still on the table, ground pepper and flecks of grated parmesan cheese. Tense silence. Someone had died, they all gathered instantly the way you usually do upon catching a faint note in someone's voice over the phone, an unusual inflection. You just know. Something had happened. They strained to overhear the conversation on the phone but they couldn't catch the gist of it. Richard had his back turned to them, in the penumbra of the living room. He was leaning on his arm, raised against the window frame, his head slightly drooping in despair, shock, disbelief, as if someone had punched him in the stomach. 'Oh God', Richard was saying, 'Oh God.'

Richard hung up, white and aghast, his eyes wide open as if he had just seen something. 'The twin towers', he stammered. But he didn't know how to explain. 'We have to turn on the TV.'

They stared silently at the creases of the table cloth, the coffee still hot, curls of smoke dancing in front of their eyes. How long should the silence hang over the table? Richard went back inside and they all rose to follow him, a ghostly procession. He turned on the TV and time stopped – they all stared at the screen. 'Fuck', someone kept saying 'Fuck, fuck, fuck.'

'I'm so relieved.'

Matthew hadn't heard Samuel come in.

'I feel relief, and guilt. Both. It feels as if my fears have found an anchor and become fixated on this thing – now my anguish has a name, a date, an event', Samuel explained. 'Relieved because no one I know has died in the attack. Guilty because now we can't pretend nothing has happened. Guilty because I don't feel the compassion I think I should be feeling. I'm trying to – I just – I can't.' He paused and gulped, then took a deep breath, staring at nothing in particular. 'I can't understand what happened, it doesn't make sense – nothing makes sense anymore. When the towers crumbled, things stopped making sense. I feel guilty for wanting to stay here. Guilty for feeling angry that the attacks have burst our carefree bubble. I didn't know it was all so fragile. I thought it would last forever.'

He had come closer and sat down on the sofa, right next to Matthew, who didn't know what to say either. None of them wanted to go back but the tragedy had made it impossible to stay.

Samuel curled up against him and started sobbing softly. I hope he doesn't believe my heart is racing because I'm scared, Matthew thought. I am scared. But it wasn't because of the attacks. He had been shaken by the news, the landscape of his world had shifted. Something had burst, yet the fragments had settled. He had thought of Virginia Woolf, of shell-shocked soldiers coming back from the war unable to talk anymore, of Walter Benjamin's poverty of experience, of Hemingway's lost generation. His generation hadn't known the trauma of war, and yet here it was. Something had happened. It wasn't what you read about in books, it wasn't the tragedy of uncommunicability. Rather, it cleft life – divided it into a before and an after. Something superimposed itself onto your own life, your own experiences, your own doubts.

'You know what the Book of Revelation is called in French?' he eventually said, and placed a hand on Samuel's head. 'L'Apocalypse. It's something to do with the Greek and Latin etymology – don't worry, I'll spare you the details. Apocalypse means lifting the veil, uncovering something. Our eyes are constantly resting on the surface of a familiar world, made up of objects we only conceive in relation to the purpose they might serve for us, resting on the surface of people and landscapes and churches habit has made us blind to. We think of things, of haunted, empty places, we think we understand each other – we don't. Everything we ever have access to, the words we tell each other, they're all just part of the same obvious, treacherous, subjective reality we mistake for being true, for being shared by everybody else. Your hand, that wedge of melon on the table, the prospect of leaving Italy and going back – to England, to America – they're all just the same. They're just dividing us, crystallising our hopes and fears and experiences – to each their own. But then, sometimes an incident occurs, an oddity, something standing at the wrong angle, a lingering trace of some incongruity – Woolf said – I know, I know, just bear with me. She said, I feel that I have had a blow. What she means you probably know; she means something we all feel at one point or another: that moment when you sense the presence of something else. The moment when the ordinary, just for a moment, just for a moment, gives way to the truth. That's when you glimpse the real behind appearances, that's the moment when you sense there's more to our limited existence than just that – that's not just something you read in books, not just something the modernists felt or the scientists and philosophers from the first half of the twentieth century, when people started to get a notion of things and began to understand relativity and the subjectivity of each person's perception of time and space and the world and each other. Something signals back – and it's not that the end of the world itself ushers in a revelation of sorts. The very perspective suffices – the possibility that it could all tumble down and vanish, your own life, the entire planet. The problem though, as Woolf puts it, years before Derrida even existed and thought of différance, the problem being that "Whether we call it life or spirit, truth or reality, this, the essential thing, has moved off, or on, and refuses to be contained" so that we're left chasing, desperately, forever, the one thing that could give all some meaning, that ... ' but he himself couldn't stop.

Samuel sniffed, his breath slightly more even, which encouraged Matthew to keep going.

'Lacan links the real to the traumatic event that finds itself constantly repressed and constantly sought after, chased with endless chains of signifiers that only drive it onwards, and away. That means we only have words to make sense of things, we only have language, images, projections that fall short of the real thing. Our societies have to face increasingly violent crises we fail to make sense of. The First World War, the Holocaust, the terrorist attacks. These are traumatic events not just for one person but for an entire generation. Thousands and millions are slaughtered, and their sacrifice makes no sense. How do you account for the anomaly – how do you reconcile yourself with what can only be grasped as being a manifestation of the apocalypse? And we're out there, cut off from everything else. Italy has swallowed us – this summer was never going to last for ever. But something will remain. Amongst the rubble and hatred and destruction the Twin Towers have forced us to witness and acknowledge, bursting our little happy Italian bubble, threatening our very humanity by exposing its worst features, its blind, primitive violence, confirming our own nightmarish fears – annihilation of humanity will only come of humanity itself, man will craft its own destruction – amidst all the horror and anguish and images that are impossible to see' (Samuel kept thinking of the falling man, the falling man who had thrown himself out of a window. Don't weep over his death, Matthew had said, don't weep because by this act, by this single, desperate, heroic act, that man may have recovered his own power of agency, may have extracted himself from the great mass of anonymous victims, may have refused to be led to the slaughter along with countless other sacrificed innocent people. Sometimes dying is the one heroic deed in the face of the inevitable. You always have a choice. By committing suicide, that man might actually have saved himself) 'in the face of absolute demise, when everything we thought would endure tumbles down, there also comes beauty, whether we are willing to welcome it back into our lives or not.'

Matthew felt his own words lull himself as they lulled Samuel. In the end, it did not really matter what he said, he just needed to speak, needed to retrieve Samuel from the petrifying angst he had fallen into and nurse him back into the reassuring structure of language, needed to bring him back from the nightmares he'd been having and restore him to the possibility of making sense, to the ability of understanding the words Matthew whispered, of drawing his own conclusions, taking whatever he wanted, interpreting whatever symbol he found, making connections, re-engaging in the process, the quest of hermeneutics – that's what he needed, what they both needed to survive. Matthew held Samuel tighter and kept on talking until he felt Samuel loosen his grip on his shoulder, until he felt Samuel's head weigh heavier in the cradle of his neck, his breath growing deeper and steadier. He needed to speak for fear that if he stopped, even if only for a second, Samuel would fall, irretrievably, away from his grasp, away from the odd, familiar world; he feared the brutal confrontation with reality would destroy him and felt compelled to surround him with a cocoon of words that would protect him and keep him safe.

'This is one moment', he kept saying, 'this is one moment.'

## II

'So, Samuel', Penelope was asking, 'What exactly are you doing in Paris?'

'I'm in a play next week.'

'Oh', she was unimpressed. 'What play?'

Was there scorn in her voice?

He told her what play. Then added, for Matthew's sake, 'Shakespeare's taken hold of me, I'm afraid. I can't seem to shake the yoke of inauspicious stars just yet.'

'You mean you have played Shakespeare before?'

Was she doing it on purpose?

'I have.'

'Have you, now?' Matthew raised his eyebrows.

One eyebrow.

Samuel listed a few plays; he was bragging. Romeo, Puck, Benedick. Richard's production had propelled his career on the stage and he hadn't stopped working for the past five years. He was lucky.

'And who might you play this time?'

Matthew snorted. 'He plays Troilus of course. Don't you?'

Samuel shrugged.

'So what's your take on the play, then?'

She was testing him, Samuel understood. He could see the attraction, and at once cast a different judgement on their marital relationship – she would constantly try and prove herself worthy of his love, and that would now entail competing with Samuel, and outsmarting him. Was that what married life was like? He decided to play dumb.

'I don't have a take, us actors aren't paid to think – that's the whole point of acting, you have to forget everything you know, give up all your assumptions and beliefs, and just lose yourself. That's how you become somebody else.'

'You're saying actors are frauds?'

She was teasing him exactly as Matthew might have done, a few years ago. Hers was a much more aggressive game, though.

'I'm saying, I don't have a take on the play.'

'I've never read it', she backpedalled, perhaps because of the puzzled frown that had begun to form on Matthew's face. 'I'm just curious.'

'Well, it's the Trojan war', Samuel sighed, indulging her, trying not to sound exasperated. Because he wasn't, not really. 'Something you might know about, Penelope. Although, then again, you might not. You weren't there.'

'You're right, I wasn't. But that doesn't mean I wasn't right there all along, hidden in the wings, backstage, right there from the start. Waiting for the victorious war hero to come home. Weaving the days away to ward off unwanted visitors until he came back to me.' She placed a tender, protective, possessive hand on Matthews's thigh in a too familiar gesture which made Samuel uncomfortable. 'And come back he did. He was always coming back to me. After the plague, after the wooden horse, and after Circe tried to keep him for herself. Even after Italy, he came to me.'

The swift glance he and Matthew exchanged didn't escape her notice, Samuel feared.

One eyebrow; only this time, more like a twitch.

'You're lucky, then. As it happens, the play deals with just that – that, and the fact that it's impossible to refrain from falling in love even when they're all surrounded by the sheer chaos of the Trojan war. It could not be helped. Then again, I guess it never can.'

'Oh', Penelope said again, unconvincingly.

Matthew was being unusually quiet, but he came to his young friend's rescue, although even he couldn't have failed to notice how much more confident Samuel had grown.

'Troilus and Cressida's relationship might have given the play its title', he said, 'but scholars usually believe their love is in the background, as the play rather appears like a problem play, or a political one. Most of it is centred on the Trojan war, on the soldiers' courage, loyalty, honour.'

'Sure', Samuel replied, his eyes moving swiftly from Penelope to her husband. He wasn't used to standing his ground when speaking with Matthew. He used to be so impressed. Still was. 'But I do believe their story is central – it reveals the irresistible quality of attraction, and the irresistible features of some people – I mean Cressida is exchanged rather than stolen away, but she still becomes a low-key counterpart to Helen, doesn't she? Troilus claims he's all about truth, that's all he lives for. And then, he's made to witness Cressida's unfaithfulness. And then what. Is betrayal worse than death?'

'What I love most about this play', Matthew answered, 'is that it never really ends. It offers no satisfying conclusion. Isn't that lack of resolution what our lives ultimately boil down to?'

'"Men prize the thing ungained more than it is"', Penelope quoted.

Both men stared at her.

'I lied. I do know the play. You might be right in saying that Cressida becomes Helen's counterpart – but only in the sense that both are used as mere props to men's power and greed. In both cases the eroticized female body becomes the sensuous vessel of a political disease that infects the whole of Troy, of the Greek army, of proud soldiers who only want to preserve their honour. Actually that makes you both right. Because desire and war are one and the same – both corrupt the mind. Only in yearning do pleasure and satisfaction reside, and they're only fleeting. Afterwards, once the thing is gained, there can only come destruction and decay. Oh, isn't Greek mythology fascinating, though?'

They didn't believe her. Wasn't it Cassandra, and not Penelope, whose prophecies were doomed never to be believed? Samuel was no longer sure. She couldn't have spoken the truth – surely there was pleasure to be found in the deed itself?

'Don't you get bored of playing Shakespeare all the time?'

'That's a strange way to put it, why would I get bored?'

'I don't know. Youth?'

Samuel giggled, humouring her. 'Nah, I don't get bored. Actually – I don't think that I'll ever want to play anything else now.' He didn't tell her how passionate he had become about Shakespeare – how he was constantly finding out that it had everything, how each new play presented him with a new take on the world. Hell, each new performance revealed its own surprises as he, along with the audience, watched and witnessed as the words unfolded themselves like waterlilies. 'You'd think Britons wouldn't trust an American with their most precious literary treasure, but they can't seem to get enough of me. I'm still waiting for the day when they'll get me to play an American Othello.'

'Is it noon already?' she exclaimed.

Samuel was still barefoot, sockless, Matthew still leaning against the kitchen counter. She pursed her lips and air kissed him, before waving in the direction of Samuel.

'It was awfully nice to meet you', she said, not meaning a word of it. 'Best of luck for the play – I mean... Oh dear I'm sorry, is it bad luck to wish you well?'

She clearly didn't expect to see him again.

He smiled. 'Not at all.'

The first day of spring is really the first day of sunshine, when it's still cool outside but warm enough to open the window, and the gentle humming of the cars in the distance is merely reminiscent of the sea, and the waves, and the calls of stray seagulls. 'When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest', Hemingway had written about Paris. Not being able to sleep was another problem, Samuel found, knowing Matthew was on the other side of that wall, canoodling with his gorgeous wife.

They had met by accident, if there were such things. Having no idea what to do with himself, overwhelmed with the dizziness of Paris's myriad possibilities, he'd wandered to the most touristic place in Paris he could find, and buried himself in the ancient bookstore, Shakespeare & Co, and there he had been found, and had found him, before they got recklessly drunk in the daytime.

He hadn't recognized him right away, his figure looming in the poetry section, intent over some collection or other – and Samuel had almost thrown himself in his arms by accident, stumbling on a pile of books in a corner while attempting to reach for Hemingway's Moveable Feast and losing his balance just as Matthew was making for the till. But he wasn't Matthew to him yet, he was just some tall guy buying poetry, some lost soul like himself trying to find his way in literature.

The frame of his large shoulders, the outline of his shoulder-blades, of his round buttocks.

Samuel was taken back to the first time he'd indeed seen Matthew, ridiculously dressed entirely in white, white polo resting on his brawny chest, white pair of trousers, even his shoes were white, looking absurdly dashing even for Italy. Too handsome for his own good he had thought, too self-absorbed – the kind he envied and despised. He'd always been the scrawny kid, and there was the man. But of course the man had a notebook in his hand, and from a distance Samuel had watched him scribble some thoughts, pause, look around, completely at odds with everything surrounding him, the concert, and the waning light of that sickeningly sweet and stifling summer. Too smart for his own good, was what he'd later realised. He had been hungry for something but he didn't know what.

Matthew had bent down to slide a coin in the 'Feed the starving writers' slot under his feet in the bookstore's entrance – 'Always happy to help my neighbour in need', he said and nodded playfully to the cashier, who giggled, the fool. Matthew had grown slightly older – he'd completely lost the somewhat lingering boyish air Samuel hadn't noticed about him when he himself was just a teenager and Matthew had seemed like such a grownup, he hadn't noticed it until now that it was gone – and now Matthew simply exuded manly lusciousness. He was still his usual charming and flirtatious self, there was still the same mischievous twinkle in his eye, the same flash of dimples when he smiled. He was still the same perfect balance of inconsequential and reflective, of sunny, light-hearted, spontaneous exhilaration and deep, knowledgeable wistfulness. The combination was irresistible, and the cashier obviously didn't try and pretend otherwise. Most of the girls giggled and blushed when Matthew spoke to them, feeling flushed and proud as if they had been chosen somehow, and found anything he said both delicious and hilarious. Samuel felt funny.

'Poor thing', she replied, leaning forward. 'Think of good old D.H. Lawrence for instance. Clearly not fed enough. Or Beckett. Or Balzac.'

Matthew let out a hearty laugh.

Eyes crinkled, head thrown back. The adorable sound of his laughter. So handsome it almost hurt.

Matthew glanced up at the picture of Walt Whitman hanging overhead and gestured at it: 'Now look at old Walt. Do you think he ever grew hungry? Casting his bearded wisdom over us like a smug bastard.'

Samuel had felt that was his cue. He couldn't help it anymore. 'Yeah but he sings the body electric though. Show some respect.'

He could have sworn Matthew had recognized his voice, its American inflections, and was grinning.

Matthew didn't turn straight away and allowed a few moments to pass before he spoke in a husky voice, 'So we meet again. Have you been following me?'

'And what if I had?'

Samuel giggled but when Matthew eventually turned and faced him, squinting his eyes in mock suspicion like a secret agent, he nearly gasped. He was splashing them all with his luminous beauty.

'So cheeky, as always', Matthew simply said, matter-of-factly.

'Did you miss me then?'

'Shut up for once, don't ruin it', Matthew grinned.

Dimples.

Matthew's hand reached up to Samuel's face but stopped halfway up, then hovered over his shoulder. He looked as if countless thoughts crowded his mind; his eyes filled with words he chose to hush, which rose and fell softly like snowflakes, like ashes. Years of silence hung between them. He slapped Samuel on the shoulder instead and let his hand drop to his side again, collecting himself.

'Are you hungry?' he said as if they hadn't just met unexpectedly five years after saying goodbye on a train platform in Florence. 'Come on, I'll take you to dinner.'

'Dinner?'

It was barely noon. Matthew smiled. 'Come on. You get to pick where we're going.'

'I know exactly what I want.'

They headed out. Outside, they both chuckled in disbelief, shaking their heads like a pantomime of what people would do when they're grateful for an unexpected twist of fate. For the first time, Samuel noticed the soft yet slightly self-conscious beam Matthew's eyes shed around him – the bathing sunlight revealed their intense shade of periwinkle blue and a brooding, unfathomable depth. He was at once plunged back into the memory of that first night in Lucca, during the festival – he hadn't dared look into the stranger's eyes, not at first, leaning forward instead, until the light from the man's match had made it impossible to ignore the face that had burst into view, the square jawbone, the tense, questioning eyes that were searching his.

Once again, much like years ago, he felt himself caught in this mesmerizing gaze that shut out all the rest, his heart pounding in his chest, which had become too tight for the riotous emotions assaulting him, helter-skelter, like sweet fluttering butterflies, like shooting stars. Words tumbled around in his mind, silly words, romantic words, borrowed from some chick lit novel he'd stealthily read once, from the idiotic love declarations mindless teenage girls had showered him with over the years, desperate to keep him from leaving. The same words now rushed and collapsed in his mind, sounding even more stupid than before and yet shamefully accurate – because there were no other words, no better alternative. It all made sense now. The right words that might have expressed what he felt were all muffled, unclear, unshaped; they dissolved before he could grasp them and for a moment he felt like a child, overcome, cradled in the reassuring, the threatening embrace of a gaze to which he almost surrendered. For a moment it seemed words finally gave way to the raw sensation that pricked the surface of his flesh; for a moment he lost himself and allowed one single articulate thought to resonate in him quietly, but with inexpressible strength.

'Shall we?' Matthew said, utterly oblivious to Samuel's heart-wrenching emotions.

He stood so tall and confident, already looking away, his eyebrows raised and drawn together in the worried frown he wore when the sun disturbed him. Samuel let his eyes roam over his neckline, his chin, the provocative Adam's apple.

'Come along, let's walk for a bit before we get some food.'

Matthew casually strode on in the direction of the Jardin du Luxembourg, away from the riotous students and the crowds of tourists that cluttered the streets. Neither of them attempted to make small talk and they walked in comfortable silence, sharing a secret, guarding it against others for a little while, knowing full well that the longer they managed to keep silent, the longer the illusion would remain unharmed.

In the gardens, the sun was searing in its bareness, blinding, falling mercilessly upon them, upon the budding flowerbeds, the trees around them, sharpening the colours, painting the gravel, the tiny boats on the pond, the mute stone statues, as if they were made of steel. Would this fade too? Would it remain?

They walked across the glaring square covered in sand and made their way into the sheltered, more secluded area at the back, criss-crossed with winding alleys bordered by half-tamed bushes yearning to run wild, found a spot in the sun and sat side by side on a bench – all the while Samuel acutely aware of Matthew's presence next to him, feeling his eyes boring into the side of his face. He fought and resisted, delaying the inevitable moment when he would turn around, face him, and be lost. A crowd of early birds were already playing pétanque on the gravel nearby, the sand crunching under their feet as they walked from one side of the field to the other, the silent concentration, thud, low whistles and mumbled congratulations reaching them like a soft, out of place Provençal score to their wandering thoughts.

The sensation of the hard, weather-beaten wood against his ice-cold fingers reminded Samuel that this wasn't a dream, that this wasn't Italy five years ago, this was very much here, now, Paris, everything. It couldn't have been more than a few minutes but time had stretched, like shadows lengthening under the setting sun, so that when he eventually broke the gentle silence that hung between the two of them, they might have been walking and sitting together for hours, their paces naturally matching despite the weight of unspoken years upon their shoulders. When definite words succeeded in making their way onto his lips, they were commonplace, artless, and simple: 'This is nice.' Samuel watched from the corner of his eye as the words floated out to Matthew. He heard them echoing, hard, alive, a hand held out, an offering and a prayer. Take me, the words were saying, we're five years too late. Let's not waste any more time. Take me with you, erase everything. Take me and make everything better.

'It's good to see you', Matthew replied and like his friend's, his words sounded clear, detached from everything else, from all that wasn't them – them sitting here on this bench. He wasn't being polite. Neither was Samuel when he found it in himself to turn, slowly, in a daze, and allow his eyes to actually encounter Matthew's. Both of them had managed to carefully delay that moment until they had both mustered enough courage.

'Hi', Matthew nodded.

'Hi.'

They smiled.

Time stopped.

He hadn't expected this.

His phone prosaically vibrated, landing them both back into the transient reality of the moment, fleeting, now gone. Now they were back to being two people sitting on a bench, as if nothing had happened, as if their lives – Samuel's life – hadn't capsized. He regained control of his own brain and, switching off his phone, tried to sound as cheerful as he felt: 'So how have you been?'

The days had already become brighter, warmer, longer. Still, it was unusually sunny when they reached the Italian restaurant Samuel had picked – they have meatballs, he explained, do you know how hard it is to find tasty meatballs in Paris? What's wrong with French people? – and they sat outside on the terrace under the twinkling fairy lights. Samuel now spoke excitedly, telling Matthew anything and everything he had been up to since Romeo and Juliet, trying to impress him, to show him how interesting his own life had been, not caring about anything he was saying in the world, dying to know what Matthew had spent these years doing and carefully, purposefully, not asking. He kept stuttering and starting again.

'Please tell me to shut up when I get carried away like this', he pleaded. 'I might just give myself a nosebleed.'

Matthew chuckled loudly but looked at him sternly: 'Not at all, I like seeing you like this. So passionate. You didn't use to be like this.'

His blue eyes watched him intently.

'What was I like?'

'Bored, obnoxious, and a real pain.'

'Oh that must have been just too divine. Well, right back at you.'

Matthew laughed again, more softly this time. 'That's funny.'

'What is?'

He didn't know how to react. Matthew himself came across so differently – or was it just the way Samuel perceived him, now that he was no longer a kid? There was none of that awkwardness that had driven them apart in Italy – Samuel didn't fear Matthew would judge him too harshly, or think him too young, young and ignorant. He wanted to say everything he hadn't had the courage to say back then – and everything he hadn't gotten the chance of saying since then. What threw him off balance now was, on the contrary, the fact that they'd somehow managed to fall right back into the trusting intimacy they had but briefly touched upon when it was just the two of them in Naples. As if, although they hadn't seen each other for years, those very years had revealed something to them and brought them closer to one another. Funny – could it have been what Matthew had meant, too?

'Hey, you wanna see something beautiful?' Samuel whispered, trying to fill the gap that the possibility had opened under his feet, threatening to swallow him. 'Look, over there', he pointed at the tree. 'Look there, can you see it? The Japanese have a word for that and we don't. They call it "komorebi". It's the way the sun deliciously burns through the leaves.'

Matthew's dreamy eyes filled with something unspeakable, enchanted and enchanting. Again, unspoken words blossomed on the surface of his eyes and almost made it to his lips, which he licked and bit softly as he ran his hand and combed a loose strand of his gorgeous curly hair that had been falling over his eyes back, letting it slip between his fingers. Sehnsucht, Samuel was thinking. That's another word we don't really have in English. Matthew looked down and shook his head, as if he had heard him, dismissing a smile – overwhelmed.

'You've changed', he simply replied, meaning both that he hadn't, or that they both had. Meaning their relationship. Meaning everything around them – because nothing had changed, but nothing would ever be the same. Had it always been like that?

Woolf had written – but Samuel would never admit to Matthew that he had read Woolf, not in a million years would he let his seventeen-year-old self suffer the humiliation of letting Matthew the annoying teacher know that he had, indeed, made so strong an impression on him that he had rushed and bought and read Virginia Woolf upon his return from Italy. Maybe one day, but clearly not today.

'Time passes', Woolf had written, 'yes. And we grow old. But to sit with you, alone with you, here in London, in this firelit room, you there, I here, is all. The world ransacked to its uttermost ends, and all its heights stripped and gathered of their flowers, holds no more. Look at the firelight running up and down the gold thread in the curtain. The fruit it circles droops heavy. It falls on the toe of your boot, it gives your face a red rim – I think it is the firelight and not your face; I think those are books against the wall, and that a curtain, and that perhaps an armchair', she had written. 'But when you come everything changes. The cups and saucers changed when you came in this morning. There can be no doubt, I thought, pushing aside the newspaper, that our mean lives, unsightly as they are, put on splendour and have meaning only under the eyes of love.'

It was beautiful, of course, so beautiful it had taken his breath away. He had been instantly transported back to those breakfasts on the terrace near the swimming-pool, smelt the sweet scent of olive trees tickling his memory, remembered how the air felt and prickled his naked skin in the morning as he waited until the entire landscape would undergo the strangest metamorphosis and become one where Matthew lived and breathed and cast his wise eyes on everything, everything in the world but Samuel.

But Woolf was wrong – the cups and saucers hadn't changed in the slightest, nothing had budged an inch, no – rather what had shifted since Matthew had crashed back into his life, was Samuel's fresh understanding that they never would change – the realisation almost knocked him dizzy – that things were forever immutable, that they alone persisted, survived, while we all lived and waned, while we fell in love and died.

Nothing had changed, the painted porcelain still awaited in the same cupboards above the kitchen sink, in the villa over there, the olive trees still glistened in the twilit sky, the air still tingled the skin of other people and not them anymore, nothing had changed and they were here, exactly the same, yet transfigured. That was funny. That oddity.

'You've changed', Matthew said, and the words slapped Samuel across the face with the sweetness of falling in love.

He swallowed hard and looked again above Matthew's shoulder, at the tree covered in gold specks of sunlight.

'This is one moment', he murmured. 'That's what you said to me.' Matthew lowered his gaze. He didn't see the tears that were welling up in Samuel's eyes. 'This is one moment, you said, but you left out the rest, and it took me a year – a year to...' He paused. 'This is one moment', he resumed:

'This is one moment

But know that another

Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy'

'T.S. Eliot', Matthew said, his eyes still down, nearly closed.

'I know. It's the epigraph of your novel. The one you were supposed to be writing in Italy – remember? I've read it. I bought it on the day it was published; and then it took me a year – a year to open it and find this quotation on the first page. You'd think I'd have forgotten? I was terrified, going in. I was afraid I wouldn't like it. Or maybe I was afraid I'd like it too much, I don't know which. I tried to remember what you had told us, that night in Siena. For some reason, I couldn't remember what you said about what you were planning to write – I couldn't remember because when I read it, it was nothing like what I had come to expect. It's all about us, isn't it? All of us. At least that's how I felt, reading it. Is it me? The character?'

'I don't know, is it?'

'Maybe.'

'Then maybe.'

'Did it make you feel like you owned me?'

'No.'

They were silent for a while, until something suddenly occurred to Samuel. He started up and rummaged through his old backpack, his mouth forming an 'O' and his eyes wide open.

'I almost forgot! I have to show you something, you won't believe it', he blurted out. 'I think I found it again.'

'What?' Matthew answered absent-mindedly. Immediately, though, he had guessed.

'That Russian tune the man was playing on the accordion? That day we went to get ice cream', He needn't say more, sensing Matthew had grasped his meaning all along. 'Turns out Hélène was right, it was Slavic. I thought I was dreaming – you need to hear this, I swear it will send shivers down your spine.'

He took his mp4 player out and played something. A video he seemed to have recorded clandestinely or stolen somewhere. He gave one earplug to Matthew and took the other one, and together they bent forward and looked at the miniature screen. The man appeared on the screen, speaking in a microphone, wearing a nice suit, his voice echoing too loud in one of their ears. He was speaking words from the Bible, in Italian.

Un tempo per amare e un tempo per odiare

Un tempo per la guerra e un tempo per la pace

Harsh despair in his voice, both men looking on, not daring to exchange a glance or utter a single word. The video cut short to another excerpt from the play.

Io non voglio più sapere niente della guerra. Ho visto una foto in un libro, era Hiroshima, e era completamente coperta di fiori.

Then the first notes sounded, they were played on the violin though, not the accordion. Matthew frowned as the music hit a chord buried deep inside, recognizing the notes he'd often found himself humming under the shower without realizing or wanting to remember where they came from. Samuel didn't feel guilty at having stolen the tune since the director himself had admitted to having stolen it from a young man playing the violin in the streets of Sarajevo. That kind of music is meant to live on and travel, to help rebuild the world out of the scattered pieces of meaningless fragments and innocent lives lost in the wars. Matthew shuddered, and Samuel vainly prided himself in being the one to bring him this new piece of information, to rekindle the memory, for once. Once again they were in the streets of Lucca, any moment now Hélène would run down the cobbled street and appear at their side, laughing her gorgeous, charming laugh, nibbling at her ice cream cone, and they would vanish, all three of them, in the maze of Tuscan streets. Once again the memory was all too vivid and slippery, they were back there, now they were here, and it was gone. He too had felt awfully glum upon hearing the melody again, he too had felt like crying.

It was nearly noon when Samuel woke up. His head was pounding and he didn't remember where he was – not until he recognized Matthew's voice coming from the kitchen. They had drunk themselves silly last night, drunk themselves into blissful oblivion – drank so much that it was hard now for him to remember exactly what had happened. They had gone through doors and down stairs that took them to cellars with loud music and young people, like him, screaming French lyrics over music from the eighties. Matthew, beaming, a thin film of sweat on his forehead. French girls throwing themselves in the mad eddies of drunken dancing, falling in their arms, painting the town red.

'Are you Americans?' a girl asked, having spilled her sticky drink on the high table next to them.

'Come on', Matthew had said after smiling to her, causing her to giggle again. 'Let's go, I think I've spotted some students from my class. I don't want them gossiping.'

They had walked along the Seine on the banks where hundreds of teenagers sat and sung with acoustic guitars, couples walked and kissed in the darkness under the bridges. Matthew had thrown his arm around Samuel's neck without thinking about it, and everyone was watching them wherever they went. They had driven across Paris at night and Matthew had asked the taxi to take the long way and drive past the Louvre, asleep, its pyramid glowing in the middle of the square. They reached a bar whose walls were covered in icons. I know the difference now, Samuel thought but didn't say. Mostly they had talked, trying to remember their days in Italy, something Richard had said, or Hélène, carefully avoiding Naples, trying to stitch their share of memories together and fill in the gaping five years that separated them from their last encounter.

In the dimness of his groggy state, Samuel could hardly remember what exactly it was that they had talked about, because none of it mattered, because these had only been meaningless words, idle talk to pretend they could go back in time, catch up on what they had missed, on what they had been missing, but there really was no use. Everything was gone now. And thus perhaps they had drunk themselves silly so their frustration would wane and so their state of mind would match the absurdity of their reunion. The words only served to maintain a form of connection – it mattered not what they said – much like earlier they had had to keep silent in order to lengthen the illusion that they had managed to keep the memory intact. The giddiness induced by bubbly alcohol and the insolence of getting drunk in the light of day had made them forgetful of everything pertaining to time, and place, and people – until Samuel now found himself in a strange room, fully dressed with no shoes and no socks on, understanding, with hindsight, that Matthew had artfully left out the most important piece of the puzzle, one of the main parts of his current life, perhaps one that explained better than anything else why he had moved to Paris: he had got married, and the woman's voice in the kitchen, Samuel had instantly, although reluctantly, gathered, was his wife's voice, their playful tone unmistakeably that of a couple whose easy, trusting relationship would power through everything life threw in their way.

Matthew's profile, the way he tucked a loose curl of wet hair back with his left hand, flicking it back with straight fingers like a movie star in a glossy magazine, the way his smile showered everyone with joy. The wedding ring on his hand gleamed violently in the cool glare the spring sunlight has around noon. The radiance of that smile that now hurt him because it was addressed to someone else – someone Samuel had chosen to cut off, as if relegating her out of the frame of his vision could weaken the sting, ward it off a little longer. The way his laughter boomed, infectious, his eyes crinkled, almost shut, his head thrown back in carefree abandon, reeling with blind joy, exposing his throat, because of something she had said.

Penelope's appearance, like a slender dream. Her long dark hair done up in a stylishly neglected bun, her opalescent skin tight across the bones of her ribcage, tiny breasts under a loose, open back t-shirt. The way she touched Matthew as if she owned him. The familiarity of that touch, as if she were used to it. As if touching him didn't burn her fingertips but were merely natural. The rose quartz engagement ring, set with tiny diamonds around the stone, taunted Samuel who would surreptitiously, guiltily, shamefully, look up the meaning of rose quartz and be defeated – for it meant harmony and unconditional love. And so he was hers, with that mindless gesture as she touched his chest, and yet she eyed him suspiciously, as if he might slip away from her grasp. 'How do you do', she had said with that gorgeous smile of hers, 'I've heard so much about you, Samuel.'

Samuel felt himself drawn in and forgotten. She had effectively absorbed him when she had clasped her hand in his, flaunting the ring in his face.

My love is like a blind thrust

Pulsing yearning

Hither and thither

Samuel had found the note while he was snooping around in Matthew's study – a slightly crumpled sheet of paper covered in poems, but the handwriting, he'd learnt to recognize, wasn't Matthew's. The page opened a range of possibilities although it seemed almost unbelievable, impossible even, that Matthew should have gone on living, feeling, meeting other people, loving them, being loved, when all this time he had remained transfixed in Samuel's mind, feeding the latter's undying passion for him. He immediately felt hungry for more and, glancing up to check that the door was closed, listening for any sign of someone's presence in the flat – Matthew had gone out, to teach clandestinely in a café, wincing at the thought, telling Samuel he would only be a couple of hours but how on earth was he supposed to teach with that throbbing headache? You'll see, he had joked, when you're my age. Waking up is the easy part of the hangover, which only gets worse as the day wears on. Was that an allegory for life? Is that what you call an allegory? Samuel couldn't remember – or had never really known – the difference between metaphor and allegory. So he didn't ask. He liked the word well enough. 'Do you remember that night we were trapped in the bar', the second poem started. Was that a metaphor?

It was pouring down and then you said

Let's go run naked in the rain

A drop formed on the roof of Samuel's mind, and then fell before he could expand it into a clear, articulate thought. He couldn't make out the reality that had started to loom in miniature, twisted, gigantic, when he had attempted to peer inside the drop. Whose handwriting was that? A tiny drop of morning dew, drying out in the sun. The poems went on.

I saw you

Not across a crowded room

It wasn't love at first sight

...

I locked the door and kissed your face

...

There is enough room in my mouth for your full name...

'What are you doing here?'

Samuel jumped up and retreated like a cat in a corner of the smallish room. 'Gosh, you scared the bejesus out of me. Don't you ever knock?'

'Not in my own home I don't. I'm sorry I scared you, I didn't know you'd still be here. I guess I got scared too, seeing you here, I wasn't expecting to find anybody.'

Samuel fleetingly wondered why she had come in. Everything around here belonged to Matthew – and although this was her flat too, she was nowhere to be found in the notes and papers he had perused so far, there wasn't even a picture of her, or of their wedding, as if this very room had remained a safe haven, a shelter for Samuel to take refuge in when her presence, inscribed everywhere else, in all the other rooms of this gigantic place, in the intangible flesh of the world around them, became unbearable. The ease with which she had come in Matthew's study let Samuel in on the secrecy of their marriage – on the secret intimacy that tinged all marriages. He immediately felt the pang of guilt – caught red-handed, snooping around. She'd never know, though, that this hadn't been Matthew's idea in the first place. Samuel felt oddly at home, oddly more entitled to be here that she was. He could prove it, too, he only needed one question.

'Did you write this? I quite like it', he asked, thrusting the poems in front of her eyes, knowing full well the answer.

He saw her confusion as she read the poems quickly, lingering on the words too long for someone who had written them. But he had known from the start the note was some token of a past love she had not been a part of. He knew he was hurting her.

'Sure', she said, blatantly lying. 'A few years ago, before we were married. I can't believe he's kept them – they're just nonsense. I was young and silly back then.' She laughed a playfully light-hearted, kind laugh, making him feel ashamed and cruel, but a laugh that overpowered him. She was winning this round – not letting him get to her, not wallowing in jealousy over Matthew's past.

The second time Samuel had seen Matthew was across a crowded room. The heat was torrid. It was only the day after Neil Young's concert, Samuel hadn't expected to see the man again. He hadn't seen Richard who, walking behind him and having only recognized Matthew when he had helped Romeo light his cigarette, stopped and hugged him fondly. The only thing he had seen was Matthew's charming number with the Italian girl, the way he flirted, slow danced, whispering something in her ear, and she laughed and stroked his hair before reaching up to kiss him. His hands were resting on her hips. Hers were gathered against his chest, over his white shirt. His eyelashes fluttered as he softened his gaze, looking in a distance, and whispered some more in her ears, this time placing his strong hand on the nape of her neck, his fingers intertwined in her hair. She laughed again, and blushed, and whispered something back. They had vanished in the crowd – and that was supposed to have been it, until the next day Samuel had seen the man's brawny figure standing next to Richard, near the bar's entrance. They were talking about them – talking about the play not doubt.

Penelope's voice cut the flashback short.

'Has Matthew gone to the library?'

She must have known, though, that Matthew was teaching. What are you doing here, was what she was really asking.

'Teaching.'

'Right, he does that. They must be in a café somewhere nearby – the students kept pestering him. I'm on strike, but apparently his students can't go a few weeks without his insights into Jane Austen. What about you, don't you go to college?'

He was, though she clearly wasn't expecting him to. They had a special programme, he explained, that enabled him to go away on rehearsals and performances for weeks at a time.

'What university do you go to?'

He told her. She raised her brows and nodded approvingly – as if he needed her approval – and whistled a polite, albeit slightly patronizing, admiration, but he could tell she was actually impressed.

'I see. Congratulations, then.'

He shrugged. She was sizing him up, reassessing her opinion of him now. College was never an option – his parents were both artists, both famous, and they knew how important a proper education would turn out to be for his future career. Penelope was explaining the protests to him – students were occupying several universities, there had been clashes with the police. It was all because of a new bill that was supposed to introduce more equality but made first employment contracts more precarious.

'Don't they pay tuition fees?' Samuel asked. He didn't really understand what was at stake. Nor did he really care. He felt like these were concerns completely beyond what he could grasp, what his own life would be. He understood the struggle, the righteousness of its cause, the necessity to take action. But it all seemed so distant too.

'What do you teach?' Samuel asked. He hadn't thought to ask before – he hadn't really cared.

'American poetry.'

'Oh dear, good old Walt Whitman then. It all makes sense now.'

'Actually I'm more of a Maya Angelou kind of girl. A slightly different take on democracy.'

'I guess everyone always sees things from their perspective.'

Penelope was still sizing him up.

'Matthew cares about the students, he cares about their future. But most of all he cares about literature, and I think that's why he's still meeting up with the students. I bet they're just talking', Penelope was saying, 'but deep down I suspect he actually believes he's helping them and providing the tools they'll need to succeed in life. He thinks all the answers to our world, and our minds, and the way everything works can be found in books and art, in ways more thorough and subtle and poetic and useful even than could ever devise the more down-to-earth historians and politicians. He's probably right – but I'm not sure those freshmen can fully draw the more relevant parallels between the position of women in the Victorian era and their own.'

Samuel had stopped listening, because he could remember Richard and Matthew talking about Romeo and Juliet as if it were life itself, as if it made perfect sense, but the truth was that, although most people seemed to believe things like that either came naturally or didn't come at all, it demanded hard work. He could still hear them explaining how Shakespeare's genius was to smuggle nuggets of universal wisdom and breathtakingly beautiful poetry into a popular art form that anyone would be able to access and enjoy – anyone at all! But that was Shakespeare's biggest trick – it was modern alright, so modern that he had often found himself wondering if some lines had been rewritten for a modern audience, especially some of Thersites's lines in this play, only to find out later that they had not – but it was also really hard. Once you found the rhythm and accustomed your tongue to his language, it all just flowed, but reading and understanding – and even more importantly, playing one's part in a way that conveyed the true meaning of the words to the audience without them having to feel like they had to make an effort, well that was just –

'Listen, Samuel', Penelope again cut his train of thought short, 'do you mind not telling Matthew about the poems? I'm feeling self-conscious about them. I wouldn't want him thinking I came about snooping around in his stuff.'

'No problem.'

Penelope nodded. With one last rueful look around, she retreated out of the room. Samuel's fingernails had dug into the skin of his palms. He exhaled loudly, trying to relax, shutting his eyes, finding a moment of respite, but his phone rang.

'Sam? Sam, is that you?' His agent's voice at first sounded both incredulous and relieved. 'Sam, are you ok?'

'Yeah, yeah, I am. What's up?'

'What's up, Sam? What's up? Where in God's name are you?' The voice rose and grew angry. 'Where the fuck have you been?'

'What, why?'

'Because it's almost noon and you're not here, and we need you here. The costume fitting, remember?'

'Oh, right, I'm sorry I must have forgotten.'

'Sam, what's going on? Your phone's always switched off. I've been trying to reach you. You didn't sleep at the hotel last night, did you? We're playing big here. Do I need to remind you? You cannot mess this up.'

'I know, I know', Samuel had closed his eyes and was frowning, running his hand on his forehead. 'So you keep telling me.'

'I hate to put that kind of pressure on you, but this could be your big break. This is exactly what your career needs now. It's Shakespeare, which you know. The production is bold, it's modern, it's unsettling. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity – the company is phenomenal. This could be it for you. Don't mess this up.'

'Ok, ok, I won't! But you'll just have to trust me. I'm sorry, okay?'

'I don't like where this is going. Are you coming or not?'

'I can't. I can't come right now, not today. I need a couple more days.'

'You don't get a couple more days!'

'Listen, make something up. Tell them I'm sick.'

There was a pause. His agent was working something out, defeated.

'Sam, what's going on? This is what you've been waiting for. You couldn't stop going on about wanting to work with Cheek by Jowl and now you're nowhere to be found. I though you wanted this, you were so excited – and I'm talking only two days ago. What happened?'

'I – I'm not sure yet. I'll explain later. Tell them I'm sick, ok, tell them I got food poisoning. What will they say – I'm under contract, aren't I? Tell them I got food poisoning, you can't argue with food poisoning. I promise I'll be there in a couple of days, tops. I just can't do it now, I can't, I'm sorry. I'll explain later. Trust me. I'll be there in a couple of days.'

Another silence.

'Are you sure you're alright?'

'No, Jill, I'm not. Alright? That's what I need to find out. That's why I need some space right now. Just, please, just trust me. I'll see you soon.'

'Call me if you ne-'

Samuel hung up, leant back against the leg of Matthew's desk he had slid down against, then breathed into the circle of his arms, elbows resting on his knees, head down. Was he messing this up? Would it be the big break his agent kept promising would happen? Did it matter? He couldn't handle the pressure, finding it difficult to function when she kept pushing him like this. Yet the drive was exhilarating as well – that's what he liked most. Never trusting himself to find the courage to walk onstage until he did, almost unwittingly, and forgetting everything for the space of a few hours. Was he chickening out, hiding away at Matthew and Penelope's? Being here was far worse than stage fright. There was no escaping from this.

The costume fitting. He had actually forgotten about that entirely. Everything had seemed like a fog, since he had stumbled into Matthew a couple of days earlier. He knew he'd have to go back – to life, that was – but not just now. He briefly allowed himself to wonder – do we wear clothes, or do they wear us? When he put on Puck's fairy attire, he did not feel like he was consciously becoming the character. Rather, it felt like Puck was inhabiting him, that he didn't need to make an effort, that he was becoming someone else and that Samuel, for a while, was gone. Coming back to himself, afterwards, was always slightly underwhelming. For who was he, really? Just an idea of himself.

When he wasn't on stage, Samuel kept going back to Italy in his mind. When he wasn't on stage, and he wondered about himself, wondering who he really was, he always found himself walking the same streets in his imagination, remembering the feeling of Matthew's couch on the naked skin of his legs when he sat in his shorts, the smell of the rooms. Mostly he thought of Matthew, and Hélène sometimes. All the others faded in the background like ghosts he could hardly remember the names of. Then he'd push it further and picture the same streets, the same rooms, deserted, empty save for a cigarette butt, embers still glowing then fading out, the windows open and a warm breeze ruffling the pages of Matthew's book, still lying on the desk, still lying there after all these years – the places they had known having remained exactly the same, empty and untouched and just waiting for them to come back, gaze perfunctorily into the mirror and bring Italy, with one magic touch, back to life. He thought of the view from their room in the mountains near Naples, the way the window frame opened an arbitrary, random square of landscape when seen from the bed, abruptly cutting what lay beyond, blotting out everything that wasn't them. Everything was frozen in his mind's eye, the dawn forever peering in and shedding a golden hue on the bed sheets, the music, probably Matthew's 'Godspeed You! Black Emperor' CD, slowly enveloping them in a landscape of its own, clouds and sparks floating around.

'Are you ok?'

Samuel started up and saw Matthew's silhouette standing in the door frame. He hadn't heard him come in, had no idea how much time had passed since he had hung up. She hadn't tried to call him back.

'You never came to the opening.' Samuel said. He stared down, focusing his attention on the corner of the Persian carpet that covered the wooden floor, on the paisley pattern. 'I know Richard sent you an invite. I kept checking from behind the curtains to see if you'd arrived. I knew you'd come – you just had to come. I went looking for you in the theatre lobby, but you weren't there.'

'Something came up.'

The lump in Samuel's throat prevented him from answering. He could still feel the sting, the bitter taste that had flooded the back of his throat when he had realised that Matthew had missed the opening performance of Romeo and Juliet – Hélène and he had been so excited to finally show him what they had all worked so hard for over the summer. The expectation had made the whole business of saying goodbye much easier, for they would be meeting again in a couple of weeks and celebrate. He'd show him, he'd impress him, finally. But he wasn't there. Samuel had sent the invitation himself, but Matthew wasn't there. The tightening in his chest had been a completely new feeling. He had stood girls up plenty of times – was that how they had felt?

As the years went by, whenever he performed in Britain, Samuel had kept hoping that Matthew would turn up, having read his name in the programme, having heard about it from Richard, anything. But Matthew had never come. How come now, how come they had found each other again, in spite of everything? Samuel could tell Matthew had tried to put him aside, to shut that part of his life away. He had tried his best to move on – was it fate, was there such a thing as destiny, or was it all sheer chance, accidental, random? His eyes landed on the picture that hung on the wall. You had to be there, he slowly realised, you had to be there like he had, to realise the bluish mist surrounding the mountains was that of evening falling in the countryside near Naples, that the view was the view from their bedroom window – and there it was, blown up, on the wall in front of Matthew's desk. Samuel didn't say anything and just watched as Matthew followed his gaze and stood silent.

'How long have you been married?' He had been wanting to ask since the day before, when he had met Penelope.

'Two years', Matthew replied. Now he had sat on the floor, head resting against the wall, opposite Samuel still curled up against the leg of the table.

'Did you already know her? when we met? You never mentioned her.'

'Sort of. She used to be one my students.'

Samuel giggled, but then his face turned serious again.

'Is she right in saying men prize the thing ungained? Did she mean anything personal by it, or did the wedding fill your cup and marriage bring you satisfaction?'

Matthew stifled a laugh, too. 'Well what's your best guess?'

Samuel allowed his eyes to meet Matthew's, allowing a passing thought, a mutual understanding to cross their minds.

'Why would you get married?' he blurted out.

Matthew paused, clenching his jaw slightly. He shook his head, as if it were obvious, or on the contrary, as if Samuel wouldn't get it.

'Besides love? The usual. Fear of growing old.'

'Tss. You know that's not what I meant.'

'Why not? Penelope is perfect. She gets me. She's my inspiration.'

'Your muse', Samuel mocked him.

Matthew had been holding it in for so long he nearly lost it. 'Jesus Sam, what did you want me to do? You weren't there.'

'Do you think there's such a thing as destiny?'

'I don't know, is there?' Matthew sounded annoyed, and angry.

'Have you seen "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"?'

'Are we playing a game?'

Samuel hung his head lower. 'Have you seen it?' he asked again, more softly. He heard Matthew sigh loudly.

'No.'

'You can't erase the past, the film says. It's about these two characters – why don't we just watch it? Maybe we could rent it or something. These two characters, and she's broken up with him. Only then, he finds out she's been erasing him from her memories, and he decides to do the same. Let's just watch it, you'll see. There is such a thing as destiny. Pretend all you want – but the past, the past will always exist, you can run but –'

'You can't repeat the past either, you know. There is only now. Everything's changed now.'

Samuel thought of The Great Gatsby, wondering if that was what Matthew was referring to. Probably. 'You can't repeat the past', that's what Nick tells Gatsby after the party, in the early hours of the morning. Of course you can, Gatsby argues. Of course you can, Samuel told himself. The sunlight danced softly on the paisley pattern of the carpet, tracing and retracing the blurred shadows of leaves that rustled on the tree just outside. Matthew interrupted his train of thought.

'I haven't forgotten anything, I suppose. You were right, I needn't have written any of it down. I remember everything. I remember you', Matthew ventured, casting a sideway glance to check Samuel's reaction.

'You remember me, do you?' Samuel echoed, incredulously. He chuckled lightly.

'What's so funny?' Matthew asked.

'What's so funny?' Samuel retorted more sourly than he had intended. 'What's so funny? I was in love with you is what's so funny. When we left Italy, I felt like I would just die.'

Samuel felt torn apart, the confession had gashed open the wound that had taken so long to heal – so it had seemed. Once again he felt ripped open the way he'd felt when he'd woken up one morning five years ago and realised he was back in the United States. With his eyes still closed, he feared he had overslept – Matthew would have gone out, perhaps even come back already from his morning run, he had missed out on an opportunity to join him and, perhaps, make him understand. But when he opened his eyes he felt in physical pain. He wouldn't get another chance. He would never run after Matthew again in the chilly, dewy air of the first light of dawn, catching up with him and having to pretend he wasn't out of breath – having to pretend he wasn't out of his depth here. It was still night in New York, although it must have been around noon in Italy – he was still unaccustomed to the time difference.

Neither of them would talk during these morning runs. Matthew would always linger and stretch for a while after Samuel had gone back to the villa – he's only indulging me, Samuel thought. He doesn't want the others to know I've been running with him – he just allows me to tag along, but we're not together. And every day he woke up with a renewed surge of optimism, and every day he sat at breakfast heart-broken and desperate, hurt and lonely. There would be Hélène on her yoga mat, bent as a downward facing dog, or the other way around doing the cobra pose, or standing on her head. Her precise, seemingly effortless, graceful gestures. There would be Richard reading the paper, making notes in the margin of his dog-eared edition of Romeo and Juliet, and all the others sitting around drinking coffee, hidden behind sunglasses, forgotten even while they were still in front of him. But there will be no morning run anymore, no renewed hope, no disappointments anymore – nothing, nothing. Nothing but days on end without Matthew, without his piercing blue eyes, his witty remarks, his passionate lectures, his golden smile. Samuel buried his face in the pillow to prevent from crying. He'd blown it – he knew he had. It had all been his doing. Afraid of being made a fool of, afraid Hélène would think he was an idiot – Hélène who always flirted and fussed and swooned whenever Matthew was around – afraid of being too eager, he'd used aggressive boredom as a defence mechanism and now it was too late.

He was crying now, like a baby. His dark hair falling in his eyes, tickling him, his nose running like Romeo's nose must have been running when he found Juliet's body and thought she had been taken away from him for ever.

Exile is worse than death, he reflected, feeling empowered by the lines he'd spoken over and over again as Romeo, feeling Romeo's pain redoubling his own and lending it some legitimacy. He didn't even have anything to remember him by. He should have stolen a shirt, something. He couldn't bear the thought of knowing Matthew was still out there, alive, indifferent, lecturing someone else, holding someone else, going for his usual jog in the cold mist of whatever unpronounceable town he had buried himself in (that's what Samuel would tell himself with spite) or wherever else he was running. He couldn't tell the difference between scorn and spite. He was thinking of Loughborough, having seen the name between Derby and Nottingham on a map of East Midlands, in a book on the Peak District he had borrowed from the library. How the fuck do you pronounce Loughborough. His cheeks were unbearably red as he fumbled with the book, having borrowed several others about other regions of England in an attempt to conceal his true motive, fearing everyone would understand, the librarian would understand, and laugh at him. After that, whenever he thought of Matthew, he pictured him running in the middle of the hills in the Peak District, which he knew was ridiculous, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't help it.

In his bed that morning he had cried until the sun had fully risen over Staten Island, and had watched as the light turned on the walls of his teenage room, caressing the pictures he had hung up of 'Pulp Fiction', Isabelle Adjani's blood-stained dress on the poster of 'La Reine Margot', pictures of friends, of girls, girls from glossy magazines and, pinned atop the others in an affected careless manner, the only picture he had embarrassingly managed to steal from Matthew – a group photo of the four of them sitting on the terrace by the pool, smiling, the olive trees behind them. Richard, Hélène, Samuel – and Matthew, Matthieu as Hélène would say, Matt.

He'd closed his eyes that morning and dwelled on Matthew's words, trying to read some sign into his words, replaying some scene in his head until he convinced himself that there wasn't nothing, there couldn't have been nothing – surely, Matthew didn't hate him as much as he now hated himself.

'Have you heard of blasons?' Matthew had asked one day. They'd been discussing poetry – Romeo's praise of Juliet. It was one of those days they had spent alone near Naples.

'What's that?'

'It's a kind of poetry, a literary convention inherited from Petrarchan sentimental, lyrical...'

'Here we go...'

'Never mind.'

Samuel regretted his impatience and strode after Matthew who'd started walking further away.

'Isn't Petrarch the dude who inspired Romeo?'

Matthew looked appalled.

'Yes, that would be the dude who inspired Romeo. And don't look so pleased with yourself.'

'Ok, so tell me. Whatever you think is so important you just have to share with the world.'

'So cheeky. One day you'll think of me, think back on these moments, these "lectures" and regret not paying attention. You'll think, "Oh, Matthew told me about that. I wish I had listened to him more carefully".'

'Is that what you tell yourself at night? That you're some kind of Pygmalion or whatever?'

'You wish. That's what you'll tell yourself at night. Trust me.'

Samuel huffed loudly. 'Ok, so, blasons?'

'Right', Matthew straightened himself again. He could never refrain from imparting that kind of stuff. Samuel despised Hélène's eagerness, only because he was embarrassed to admit his own. 'Blasons are supposed to celebrate the beauty of the loved one. Each line, each stanza is devoted to one part of their body, each time adding a new element to the portrait, using conceits – elaborate metaphors and complex figures of speech designed to surprise, impress and delight the reader', he added as an aside, force of habit. 'It's a way for the poet to praise the beauty of his mistress by emphasising her features, a way to make her his, since her body then becomes an object that can be possessed. Desire is concentrated on one detail, her mouth, a cheek, a hand. The body, thus dismembered, in turn allows the poet to re-member – in both senses of the word. The poem fragments the body in an attempt to extend the infatuation, while the poetic structure and devices imprison the loved one in a frame.'

'Is it always a man praising a woman's body?'

'Not always. I was just reading, the other night, Oscar Wilde's Salomé – it's a play too, but it was written in French. Laisse-moi baiser ta bouche, she says. It was translated by Lord Alfred Douglas, Oscar Wilde's young lover. "Suffer me to kiss thy mouth", it became, introducing the idea of suffering – of martyrdom, because she's addressing John the Baptist, the prophet. She eulogises his hair, his skin, his mouth, gradually becoming obsessed, desperate to kiss him, comparing his mouth to a scarlet pomegranate... Until she actually asks for his head to be brought on a silver platter, actually dismembering him. When Juliet pleads the night and asks her to bring Romeo, she shatters the convention and says something that you just reminded me of. "And when I shall die," she says, "Take him and cut him out in little stars." She can't bear the thought of him outliving her. Can't bear the thought of their being apart, of him carrying on living after they have been separated.'

'Which part of me will you keep with you when all this is over? Which part will you celebrate in your masterpiece?'

Samuel leant towards him and pressed his head against Matthew's shoulder. That was the closest he had ever come. Matthew's throat had tightened, but he hadn't said a word. Samuel wished he would have told him then and there – keep all of me, all of it, all of Italy, not just one part – all the summer encapsulated in one book. He could smell the sweet scent of sunshine on Matthew's skin. He shifted, feeling the fabric of the light shirt, not daring to peer inside at the muscular chest underneath, his head still weighing on Matthew's collarbone.

Samuel's voice rose again, 'Why are you telling me this?'

'Because I want you to know.'

'What are you saying?'

'Exactly that. I think you do know.'

'Don't let's go back', Samuel moaned like a child.

'Don't be a baby, we have to.'

'Stay here with me', Samuel said provocatively. 'Let's stay in this memory forever and fill it to the brim. We could go to Venice.'

Matthew had laughed and slapped Samuel on his back, startling him and forcing him to stand straight again. 'Don't be silly', he had said, 'you'd have to put up with me lecturing you about yet another city, I don't think you can take it.'

Samuel kept replaying the scene in his head, trying to read between the lines.

'I was in love with you.'

There. Samuel had finally said it out loud. He didn't think he'd ever be able to say it again.

'But', Matthew said, his back still leaning against the door frame of his study, 'you kept making fun of me.'

'And you kept being cold and cruel to me. I saw you being that charming, hilarious self with everyone else, always cracking jokes, never taking anything seriously – and all you did was lecture me, and sigh, and make me feel like the worst fool you'd ever seen!'

'Why didn't you tell me then?'

'How could I? You were so out of reach. I kept singing all those songs to make you understand. It felt like my heart was exploding in my chest every time I started "We All Fall in Love Sometimes" or "Without You I'm Nothing". I did seem to lose the power of speech, whenever you were around. And all the time, it felt as though my presence were unbearable to you, as if everything I ever did or said instantly got on your nerves.'

A wide smile hovered on Matthew's lips for a moment as he reminisced. 'Well, to be fair – you were pretty annoying. I thought you were just being a tortured teenager.'

The dimples around his smile made it impossible for Samuel to feel angry any longer.

'I was an idiot. I wanted you to think I was cool. Oh the shame! The idiocies we do for love. I even pretended to kiss Jesus.'

Matthew frowned and again tried to refrain from laughing. 'How was that for my benefit?!'

But Samuel's gaze had softened. He let himself peek at Matthew from under his brow, but immediately retreated, looking down at his own hands instead, at the paisley pattern on the carpet. 'Whenever you were there, whenever you weren't there, all I could think of was how your arms weren't around me. It felt like the void was crushing me.'

In the darkness of the night, he couldn't sleep a wink – all he kept thinking of was how Matthew was sleeping in the room next door, how his body lay naked under the bedsheets, how the fabric must graze against his skin, while Penelope softly breathed, asleep, next to him. Samuel couldn't bear to feel the sheets on his own burning skin. He couldn't bear to think that night was to be his last night in this apartment, and tomorrow there would be the costume fitting, and then rehearsals, and then he'd be Troilus, then he'd be Samuel no longer, and Ulysses would be swallowed back into his life with Penelope, straight and faithful and undeterred.

'We'll sneak in. I think they let some of the faculty in', Matthew had told him. 'I'll show you around.'

Samuel had expected to find himself surrounded with Parisian chic students carrying books and smoking in the yard, but all there was to greet them were heavily equipped policemen and barricades covered in graffiti that read 'POLICE PARTOUT JUSTICE NULLE PART'. The entire square and the streets nearby were closed. He could have sworn some of the long-haired, blasé girls that lurked in the vicinity actually gasped when Matthew emerged with Samuel on the corner of the street. One of them ran up to him.

'Monsieur', she said. 'I wanted to tell you I've watched the adaptation of Rebecca by Hitchcock.'

Her French accent was adorable, but her eagerness was unbearable to Samuel, as she swallowed the 'h' – making it sound like Itchcock, itch-cock, remining him of his own desire and only making him want Matthew more as he saw how much she wanted him. He stopped and talked to her for a moment, explaining something about the narrator's unreliability, something about Rebecca's wildness always being presented through the filter of both Max de Winter's bias and society's expectations, about independence and spectrality – nothing Samuel actually understood. The cops standing guard nearby lent an unreality to it all. It seemed to last for such a long time, as if Matthew were stretching the conversation on purpose. The student opened wide eyes and nodded, and gasped and giggled.

They had to negotiate, but their being both foreigners, and Matthew being a member of the faculty, and his standing tall and confident and unthreatening, somehow and quite unexpectedly made it possible for them to get through the barricade and into the university. Samuel had no idea how Matthew had done it, the conversation having been mostly in French. There were overturned chairs in the yard, and everything looked eerily quiet, which contrasted with the palpable tension outside. Matthew had taken him through the dark marbled and wooden corridors of the old building, whose high ceilings resonated with past philosophical conversations and generations of mindless teenage trouble, snuck him through the back door of impressive amphitheatres hung with large paintings in gilded frames, rooms that should have been packed with students folded behind tiny desks, endless rows of identical tables and identical lamps in the quietness of the library that would otherwise be full of whispers.

Together they had stood, defiantly, in the middle of the dais and faced the empty desks that filled the room, and felt they had no right to be here. Once again, much like they had felt five years ago when they had escaped and gone South, just the two of them, they were cheating life, stealing a few moments away from everything else.

Samuel's voice was clear and soft and yet somehow echoed throughout the room when he started singing,

How should I your true love know...

His tenor voice was deeper than Alfred Deller's but still struck an unexpected chord in Matthew's chest.

Then once again, louder this time,

How should I your true love know...

There were both of them completely alone in the room, in the building, in the whole world perhaps. Shakespeare's words flew and hurled themselves against the walls of the empty room that folded and closed itself around them as if it had been waiting there, deserted and unmoving, for their presence to welcome it back to life. Everything stood perfectly still, except for them, moving silently, their breaths short, their hearts beating.

'I didn't know you could sing', Matthew remarked.

'You don't really know me at all.'

Now in the darkness of the spare bedroom, Samuel felt feverish, reeling, his blood buzzing in his temples with each heartbeat. For years he had woken up screaming in the middle of the night, haunted by the memory of what he hadn't done, an unkissed kiss burning on his lips, tears of frustration in his eyes, only to find some girl asleep next to him, asking feebly what was the matter, nothing, just go back to sleep. Nothing was the matter, wasn't that the whole point? For years he'd wondered how long this would last, how long would he just keep replaying in his head everything he had longed for and never experienced. Would this last forever, would it fade, like everything else? Was he doomed to dream of Matthew now and again for the rest of his life? And now he was asleep in another room, and there was Samuel, eyes wide open in the darkness of this strange room.

At a complete loss, he made as quietly as possible for the kitchen, drank directly from the tap, splashed some cold water on his face, his hair, his neck, heaving into the sink. When he stood up again, he felt a presence in the kitchen – a tension, rather. The kind you only encounter in unfamiliar familiar spaces, homes that aren't your own, rooms that are lived in, but not by you. The objects around you are all the same, though you daren't touch them, and they're merely staring at you from the depth of their own silence, looking back from the uncanny quality of their renewed otherness. You start noticing, in the blankness of their immutability, in the darkness of night, when all the sleepers have deserted the rooms, shapes and eerie bluish colours that suffer from the lack of sun and threateningly gape at you, accusing you for the intrusion into their otherwise undisturbed peace. Samuel turned around. There was Matthew, standing in the doorway, eyes dark in the darkness of the room, burning from their inward glow and the dimmed streetlights outside.

Neither of them spoke. There was the buzzing sound of the refrigerator, the distant sound of a few cars outside, and the overwhelming silence that hung between the two of them. Samuel felt like a deer caught in the headlights, petrified at the danger. Lukewarm droplets of water trickled from the tip of his nose, down the side of his cheeks, down from his neck and along his spine, like tears, like the holy waters of baptism. One drop found its way to the notch at the bottom of his neck, between his clavicles, and rested in the dip there.

'I'm sorry I woke you up', Samuel whispered, lower than he had expected. 'I needed some water.'

'I wasn't sleeping.'

Matthew stepped into the kitchen and glided past Samuel, his arm barely brushing the young man's bare chest. There was a splinter of yellow light on the tiled floor when he opened the fridge, showing their bare feet. 'Do you want some wine instead of water?' he offered, and without waiting for an answer, retrieved a bottle of chardonnay and removed the cork. Pop. He raised it to his lips and drank straight from the bottle, taking a large swig before tilting the neck of the bottle towards Samuel interrogatingly. The door of the refrigerator shut with a thud when Samuel took the bottle in his turn and drank from it. Now they were both leaning against the kitchen counter, side by side. The coolness of the wine grounded them in the moment, as Samuel's eyes grew accustomed to the obscurity and started to make out the outlines of some objects that had been looming threateningly in unmoulded masses a moment ago. The kitchen seemed like a kitchen again. Now he could hear the wine splash softly against the glass of the bottle as Matthew took another swig, heard Matthew's low, deep sigh, recognising his muted voice in the sigh, in this silent, stolen moment. The silence prickled his skin.

'I'm sorry about earlier, I wasn't expecting this.' Matthew murmured. And then, since Samuel failed to reply, 'What kind of game is it you're playing, Sam?'

Samuel could hardly even breathe, much less talk. His throat tightened. Now Matthew had shifted, away from the counter, sending a whiff of a much stronger scent than before that went straight to Samuel's head. Now he had turned, now he was facing him. Samuel's chest felt too tight, his ears uncontrollably buzzing. He stared at the clock on the wall, beyond Matthew's left arm, terrified.

Warmth. A piercing sensation, like the surge in the pit of your stomach, that rises to your throat, when you're looking down from a great height. Matthew's closeness caused a tingle in his lower back, down there where the drop of cold water had trickled down to and been warmed by the contact of his burning skin.

'Sam?' Now Matthew's voice was exquisitely soft, and he placed his hand right under Samuel's chin and raised it, forcing their eyes to meet. 'What exactly do you think you're doing?'

Now Matthew had turned and was facing him. He had moved swiftly, yet it had seemed excruciatingly slow. Now he was facing him, standing extremely close, his voice unbearably low. A grumble, a sigh, a moan. 'Sam?' Matthew was asking, but Samuel couldn't say anything, transfixed by the proximity of their lips, the sight of Matthew's lips slightly above his own, their fullness, even in the dimness of the kitchen. The clock on the wall behind him said midnight – and it was earlier than he had expected. The night is never really dark in Paris, he thought. Now Matthew was facing him, incredibly close, his lips nearly in front of Samuel's eyes. The jagged rhythm of his own breath, the weight of years on his chest. His eyes rested on the surface of a toaster, the gleaming surface of the glass door of the oven, and their reflection in it.

'What is it you're doing', Matthew had asked him, his hand burning under Samuel's chin as he looked up, tearing his gaze away from oven door, away from the reflection of Matthew standing in front of him leaning against the kitchen counter. But for a moment he had seen the reflection as a picture, seeing them both from a distance, the way Matthew's shoulders covered his own body and hid it from view, for a moment he had seen nothing but his own eyes peeping at Matthew's figure from behind, wishing the moment to stand still, life to stand still, that moment forever – for nothing would ever be the same.

'Don't talk', one of them had said.

Matthew had tilted his head up until their eyes met. Samuel would remember the way his face was half plunged in obscurity, the way the moonlight through the window only lit half his face, revealing its every nook and the strong line of his jaw and just one side of his full lips, and no dimple this time, for Matthew wasn't smiling. His eyes, which Samuel knew to be deep pools of intense blue, were now uncompromisingly dark. No kindling match retrieved them from the mystery and suspension and lust that clouded them.

Now Matthew, having stepped away from the kitchen counter, was facing him. Samuel heard the clinking sound of the bottle placed gently on the counter. He reached for it, careful not to knock it over, lifting his chin away from Matthew's fingers to turn his head sideways and look for the bottle, and that's when Matthew's lips crashed against his.

Matthew's fingers under Samuel's chin had lifted it slightly towards his. Samuel's eyes had gone from his shoulder to the line of his neck, the sharpness of his jaw, outlined in the light from outside, the dark pool of his eyes, which were unbearable to look at. His lips were wet from the swig of wine he had swallowed, and Samuel felt drawn to their fullness, shyly, clumsily, craning his neck up to match Matthew's height, reaching for the kiss he longed for and wished to delay forever.

The urgency of their lips when they found each other. The darkness inside the room. The contrasting, trivial sloshing of the wine inside the bottle as Samuel, still gripping it tightly, swung his arm around Matthew's neck. The sound of kisses, the sound of breathing, the sound of being out of breath. Matthew's struggle to resist, a groan, the frown on his face when he said, 'We shouldn't', and then, 'Penelope's asleep.'

Now they were both overwhelmed with the heat of passion, Samuel's arm slung around Matthew neck, feeling the fullness of his wholesome body, the compactness of his muscles, their reassuring warmth, the protection of Matthew's own hands that now hugged his hips. Démon de midi in the middle of the night.

Now they were kissing, but now Samuel's eyes were closed and he no longer saw the kitchen, the clock that struck midnight, Matthew's reflection, leaning towards him, towering over him, in the oven door, the trivial, the sheer otherness of the toaster watching them from its dark corner of the room, from the recesses of Samuel's memory of what a toaster was supposed to do in a kitchen, when nothing made sense anymore, when all seemed alien, aloof, unknowable, save for Matthew's full lips pressing against his, for the wetness of his tongue that trespassed into a territory even Samuel hadn't dared enter when he lay on his bed and thought of Siena, thought of Pompeii, thought of Matthew.

Kissing in the dark, Samuel discovered the touch of Matthew's arms, the hair on his forearms, the muscles rippling under the skin, the hard stubble on his cheeks, on his chin, the taste of his mouth, of his tongue. He felt struck by the glaring, unforgiving, all-seeing sunlight of noon, his eyes pressed shut as if to prevent from crying. The toasted glared at him from his silent stubbornness, its gleaming thereness, and reminded him that he would soon fade, not even leaving the faintest trace, the kitchen would forget him, the space close again on the void left by his absence – but the toasted would remain, a persistent observer, the toaster would survive and Samuel be forgotten.

Now Matthew was standing in front of him, and his hands rested on either side of Samuel's hips, his fingers on his lower back, pressing into the flesh, sending waves of the same piercing sensation from his loins to his throat, making him want to scream, and cry, and collapse on the floor, and weep in Matthew's arms. The hardness of their bodies pressed close against each other. Samuel let his fingers through Matthew's hair, felt the oddity of his manly bone structure flush against his face, the strong chin, the tense jaw, the rasping stubble. He could have died right then, he thought – this is it, he thought, this is the moment.

Matthew snatched himself away from the kiss.

'This is too much', he said.

Samuel knew, even as Matthew said it, that it was too much, that they'd never be able to see this through, yet he resisted. His youth, his desire, the magic of the moment, all his preconceived ideas of an impossible romance, five years of regret and fantasies, prevented him from hearing Matthew as the latter confessed, vanquished, that he couldn't do it. He kept kissing Samuel has he spoke, kissing his face but not his mouth, not his mouth. His lips grazed against Samuel's nose, his forehead, kissed the fragile eyelids that were still closed as Samuel kept his eyes resolutely shut, knowing, even as Matthew did, that opening them would mean ending the moment forever. 'I can't help it, but I don't want to help it either. But I can't let it happen, Sam. I can't let it happen.'

'Why not?'

'Because I can't do this to Penelope.'

'You think you're like fucking Troilus', Samuel could feel, even with his eyes closed, that he was already crying even though no tear had yet formed behind his closed eyelids. He heard it in his voice, whispering though he might have been, barely even uttering a sound, a breath, a sigh, he knew that he was crying, that there was no use, that it was all over and gone and doomed, forever – and mindlessly, madly, still he hoped and clung to that hope. 'You do have a choice', he sobbed. 'You always have a choice. You told me once.'

'Don't you get it? There'll be no going back from this.' Matthew held Samuel's head in both his hands and stared intently into his eyes. 'Look at me, Samuel – look at me.' But Samuel didn't, making a point of purposefully, spitefully, turning his head, away from Matthew's grasp, turning his head and taking a gulp of wine like a petulant, obnoxious, capricious child.

'I'm only going to grow older', Matthew was saying, but Samuel no longer heard him. 'You might want me now but that will fade – the object of desire is always driven further away. You're young. You'll get bored. I'll get bored. I can't ruin my marriage. You'll get over it, you've got your whole life ahead of you.'

But something was off. This couldn't be Matthew speaking. The same words had been said a thousand times, in a thousand different kitchens that were exactly the same, with the same toaster and the same oven door, and the reflecting glass that witnessed Samuel's heart breaking and being trampled over by the man for whom he had felt, for the first time, a piercing love he was only just now taking the full measure of – and those words weren't even his, they had the tragic sound of words rehearsed and repeated over and over, they rang hollow and senseless and cruel, words of rupture and Matthew didn't even care enough to mean it.

The sensation of the cool, damp glass in his hand suddenly repulsed Samuel. The buzzing sound of the refrigerator, the ticking of the clock on the opposite wall, all of a sudden echoed loudly in his ears as everything around them seemed to betray him and this moment, this moment, now gone.

'Why don't you just write a poem about me', he heard himself spit out.

'You think you're so funny and clever', Matthew replied, almost sounding bored. And then, uncharacteristically, he added, 'but poetry is a sham. You know it, and I know it. It doesn't do our feelings justice.' Uncharacteristically, something caught in his throat. A gasp, a sob, Samuel couldn't tell. 'What would you have me do, huh?' But Matthew's whispers were not angry at all. How am I supposed to do, he was saying, how am I supposed to do now.

How am I supposed to pretend nothing has happened.

How will I wake up tomorrow morning, kiss Penelope, and carry on living.

## III

His hands felt warm on her sides. They had been walking in the woods, and every plant they brushed past blossomed as he grazed his fingers softly through their leaves. 'You've been gone for years', the driver told them when they reached the car, 'we thought you weren't ever going to come back, we thought we'd lost you for good.' But it had only been a few hours. She didn't understand. He smiled and leant in to kiss her, but opened his mouth and started singing instead. She woke up with the warm feeling of his hands on her sides. She had been dreaming of him. Again.

She opened her eyes and something in her was instantly crushed. The faded roses on the wallpaper splashed around, the heavy curtains, the tiny bed. The music came from downstairs, her mum had been playing Christmas Carols again. She could hear her now busying herself in the kitchen, no doubt waiting for her to come down and help. Her dad would be sitting in his chair, reading the papers, filling grids of crosswords, frowning, with his glasses on his forehead.

Getting married in their hometown had seemed like a romantic thing to do at the time. It made sense, being so close by. The fact that their parents came from the same town had made things easy, too. But the thought of being back in Derby now seemed to her sheer nonsense after the delirium that her London life had become. Every street corner, every pub would be filled with memories, with different layers of her past that were now hopelessly intermingled. She would never be able to walk past that dead-end alley where she had spent hours playing with the neighbours' daughter when she was a child, without now remembering how they had giggled, like teenagers, when he had whisked her up and kissed her in the corner there, hidden from sight, before meeting her parents for the first time. She couldn't remember meeting her friends in town after the leavers' dinner without, too, remembering the first time they had gone out as a couple and the otherworldly sense of happiness she had felt when she had realised she was finally home – in Derby, in Derby and with him.

And now, walking down the stairs to help her mother cook dinner tonight, because they had guests – 'because Margaret would very much like to see you while you're back so I said why don't they all just come and have tea with us sometime this week', she had said. Alright, Penelope had answered, that will be nice – walking down the stairs the step creaked, the same step that was creaking when she was a child. The sound brought her right back to her childhood, years of treading a house that was now integrated in her body's memory so that she could navigate its space and its every corner with her eyes closed, as if she had never left home. But even that, she realised, brought her back to the first time she had mounted those steps, Matthew following her closely, and seen the familiar corridor, the door to her room, the furniture she knew so well, and reassessed them with his eyes. There were freshly-made cheddar biscuits on the coffee table downstairs, and a tray of pigs in blankets ready to be placed in the oven. Her father sat with his glasses on his forehead, and smiled when she came into view.

'In here!' her mother called out, having heard the step creak.

'I'm sorry, Mum, I must have fallen asleep', Penelope felt compelled to apologise as she entered the kitchen. 'Here, let me take care of that for you.'

'Tut tut, nonsense. You don't have to do anything at all. Sit down and relax.'

Penelope did as she was told, and sighed wearily. She felt on the verge of tears, for no reason, as she always did these days. Hormones, she told herself. She felt deflated, but mustered a smile nonetheless, hoping to fool her mum, but failing to even fool herself.

'Oh darling. Are you feeling poorly? Do you need a tablet or something?'

'No, I'm good. I'm just feeling a bit nostalgic. I was just going through some old pictures upstairs, pictures from high-school. It seems like a life-time ago – I look so silly and blissful.'

Her mother stopped and turned to her, away from the kitchen counter on which she had been slicing bell peppers, and onions, and carrots.

'You were never silly, darling.' She paused for a moment, smiling gently, before she returned to the onions she was chopping. And then, trying to lift her spirit, or acting as if nothing had happened, 'You'll never believe who I ran into the other day – in Waterstones? Rebecca. Rebecca whatsherface, you know the one, don't you remember her?'

'Sloane.'

'She looks a fright, poor girl, she used to be so pretty when you were in sixth form together, didn't she? You should see her now! Ha ha, wasn't she going out with that chap, what was he called?'

'Nick?'

'That's the one. He still works over at Lloyd's, you know. Still handsome as ever. Still single, too, from what I've heard.' She raised an eyebrow.

'Is that a good sign?' Penelope jokingly winced.

Mother and daughter exchanged a complicit giggle.

'Anyway, that poor girl Rebecca is looking all grey and forlorn now, word on the street is that she was jilted not long after her second boy was born, and now she...'

Penelope was no longer listening.

For a brief moment, she had allowed herself to be engulfed in a memory of the Christmas service at the Derby Cathedral when she was in Year 12 and singing in the school choir, and how she had believed herself in love with Nick at the time, and wore a dress to impress him, ending up absolutely freezing and not even getting a scrap of attention from him, who sat at the back and spent the entire service groping Rebecca. For a brief moment she mouthed the words to 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' that was playing on the CD her mum had put on, staring into space, relishing the vividness of the image that had sprung in front of her eyes. For a brief moment only, she was sixteen and had cried on her bed and sworn never to wear a dress in her life, but then reality rushed back in and she remembered that 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' had been Matthew's favourite Christmas Carol.

The afternoon sky was of a depressing dark grey, melted snowflakes falling softly on the snow that had settled on the grass outside, making her chilly in spite of the warmth inside. There had been a storm earlier in the month, and in the aftermath the weather had been chaotic, threatening to snow them under. She had been afraid of being stranded in London. The lights were all on in the kitchen, although it was barely half past five, and shed a crude light on the same appliances she had known all her life, the same faded table mats with dandelions on them, the old hand-painted porcelain plates displayed through the glass door of the cupboard.

'Oh, don't you just love Christmas?' her mum was saying, 'Don't you just love it when it's snowing and we're snuggled up at home, cooking and listening to some old CDs like we used to, when you were still living here?'

Penelope didn't, not anymore at least, and she resented Matthew for ruining the moment, for slashing through her memories and preventing her from enjoying Christmas back home, like she used to. She had always loved Christmas and the cosy cocoon of her parents' home, and she had been looking forward to being here, with them, like they used to. But now she yearned for spring, for sunshine, for flowers.

Quiero hacer contigo

lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos,

she had told him on their wedding day, at the end of her vows. It had seemed romantic, at the time, to read something in Spanish, although now that too seemed ludicrous to her. Like cherry flowers, like spring, like everything else, their love had waned and withered and vanished and now she couldn't figure out where it had gone. Neither of them even spoke Spanish, yet Matthew had indulged her, like he had indulged everything else, and their love was as phoney as her clumsily reading one of her favourite poems, in a British accent, but what had there been instead? What was left of all that love? A gust of heat reached her as her mother opened the oven to turn the chicken.

The first time she had seen Matthew was in class. He wore a suit but no tie, and he looked so incredibly dashing that she could had wept, and it made her cringe and feel ashamed. He looked like a moving picture, like a glossy magazine, like a teenager's fantasy, like Barbie's Ken come to life. The wave of agony and butterflies and lust that washed over her made her feel commonplace and angry at herself for succumbing to his easy beauty. She'd usually pride herself in falling in love with physical oddities, with marginals, with poets. And there he was, standing too tall and too proud, bursting with energy in his impeccable suit, a throng of giggling students sitting in the front row and waiting for him at the end of class. The way he looked at them, the way he thrived on their attention, drove her crazy. And then he spoke, of course, and that was it. She was dazzled by his brilliance. He spoke as if he had been plagued with a beauty he had had to learn how to compose with, a beauty that tainted the way everyone had always perceived him, that blinded them to his actual traits and qualities and replaced them with their own fantasies. He spoke as if outsmarting everyone was the only way he could make himself heard, so that by the end of his lecture, Penelope was almost on the verge of tears as if she'd been the first one to discover that softness inside him, the light brown spot that clouded the blue iris of his left eye, the sharpness of his jaw as it clenched under the young girls' insistence. He was explaining how best to organise an essay, how he wasn't interested in finding out how much academic literature the students had read, or that they had learnt his lectures by heart, but rather wanted them to take some time to truly analyse, as thoroughly as possible, the novels from the syllabus. 'As long as you can support your point with convincing arguments and quotations properly accounted for, I'm open to all suggestions', he was saying. The girl nearly swooned, and yet he spoke with such genuine kindness, such warmth and positivity and encouragement, not holding anything back, undeterred by the girls fluttering eyelashes, his eyes boring intensely into hers with an honesty, an innocence, a generosity that almost hurt.

'Margaret will be here any moment. Do you want to put some clothes on, dearest? I'm sure she won't mind at all.'

How adorable her mother was being, the same she had always been, then not judging her for dying her hair blue and trying to hide her concern, and now not daring to tell her that she looked like a sad middle-aged woman. Penelope glanced down and realised she was still wearing the plush sweater that came with her old pyjama, the one she always wore when she was back home. She went upstairs, allowing herself to remember for a little longer.

She was one of his students too, at first. He was still teaching in Nottingham, that was still years before he got offered the position in Oxford. He seemed so young, back then. When they got married, everyone would joke about the inappropriateness of their relationship – but she'd only ever been six years younger than him. Six years, that was nothing, was it? It had taken her three months to admit to herself that she fancied the hot teacher, just like most of the other girls. And then it had taken her three years to acknowledge the true nature of the feelings she had secretly nursed from that very first day. Being in love singled her out, in a way. Not only was it incredibly romantic and exciting, but she felt it allowed her some sort of superior ground. Her love was to be purer, more sincere than the other girls' desire. Hers was not a trivial, teenage delusion, but a full-blown love affair: surely the intensity of her feelings meant that he would be powerless to resist her? For how do you resist throwing yourself headfirst into such an adventure?

Through the window of her bedroom – she had taken down the old posters before bringing Matthew over for the first time, but now she missed the faded pictures of 'Dirty Dancing' and 'The Lost Boys' – she saw the car that stopped in front of the house, the woman who climbed out before the car drove away.

What had started as contempt for his power over her had quickly turned into an excruciating feeling of satisfaction – for when he looked at her, and embraced her with the too-muscular arms she had initially attempted to make fun of, she felt as if he had chosen her, elected her for his mate out of thousands of sighing suitors.

'Margaret! How good to see you, do come in! ... Oh she's here, she'll be down in a minute, she was thrilled to know you were coming. How's that husband of yours? ... Maybe we'll just wait for a minute until he comes before we pop some bubbly, shall we? Ha ha – I know it's such a nightmare to park around here, we're lucky we have the garage – oops, there she comes!'

'Hello Maggie', Penelope exclaimed before hugging the woman fondly. 'Now it really feels like we're back in time, doesn't it? Mum and I were just thinking how it feels like I'm back in high-school and living here.'

'I know, darling. How are you holding on?' Margaret asked, casting her benevolent eyes over her like a blanket, tilting her head to one side in the sympathetic gesture she had already received from the waitress, and the baker, and the butcher – and everyone she had spoken to since she had stepped off the train at the station.

Penelope felt like crying. She smiled.

'I'm alright, thanks. I'm just glad to be here, with my family. That's just what I needed, I think. I've been going through some pictures, you know. I'm feeling so nostalgic of that time... Especially at Christmas!'

She was laughing now. Laughing was easy, it prevented her voice from quivering, or people from noticing it.

At first, he never even saw her, though. Her hair dyed a vibrant blue colour shimmied in the middle of the crowd of students in the amphitheatre, and yet she gazed at him from her invisible spot, unseen, and devised ways of making him fall in love with her. She craved his recognition; she wanted the triumph of being the one student who would succeed in sleeping with the hot teacher.

'I can still see you and Jo playing in the middle of the stairs with your dolls, waiting for dinner while we were clinking glasses. Oh Emily, do you remember how the girls played, right there on these very steps?'

She knew others had tried and failed before her, everyone knew he was a womanizer – but then everyone also knew he had never crossed the line with a student, or even with a member of the faculty. She wanted him as a trophy to exhibit on her mantelpiece. She thought of little else. But still, he failed to notice her.

'There he is! We were wondering if we needed to send a search party for you!'

'Parking's a nightmare around here!' a male voice boomed in the corridor. A gust of cold snow blew in, and then the door shut.

'I know! I was just telling Maggie here... Oh but we shouldn't just stand there, come on in! Edward! Edward, they're here! He's doing his crosswords as usual, ha ha, oh I know, I know, a good man I know. Edward! Come in, come in, make yourselves at home. You know the drill. Penny, darling, won't you come and help me get some glasses?'

'I was just telling Emily how I could still picture the girls playing on the stairs while we were having our customary Christmas drinks, isn't it amazing – how time flies? Where did all that time go, I wonder', Margaret was saying when Penelope and her mother came back with an odd number of glasses clinking on a tray, a bottle of champagne, and warm pigs in blankets.

'We were just talking about it!' Emily chimed in. She placed her hand on her daughter's when she had put the tray down and squeezed it gently.

'How is Jo? Wasn't she supposed to come back for Christmas?' Penelope eagerly inquired.

'She was, actually, but she's married to this Swedish guy now, a lovely chap called Elias. They live in Sweden, and apparently his grandmother is ill – and they haven't been spared by that weather either! They've decided to spend Christmas with his family.'

Penelope guessed what Margaret wasn't telling her – they had decided to spend the grandmother's last Christmas with her, hadn't they? She immediately pictured endless fields covered in snow, and a sky that was never lighted by the sun for months during the winter, everything looking bluish and dark. Or was that Iceland?

Over the course of their marriage, she'd been collecting pictures of Matthew as if to make sure he was hers, pictures of his glorious smile, the rows of pearly teeth almost – just almost, and it broke her heart – almost perfect but not quite. Close ups of the stubble on his chin, the strong line of his cheek, the muscles rippling under the skin of his shoulders; she'd stolen pictures of him sleeping next to her, helpless and so irresistibly hers, asleep in her bed – and all this time he was never really there. With these pictures she was trying to find stability in the rush and chaos of the world, trying to give structure to her life and to life in general. Everything was moving too fast, everything twirling around her, and there he was, grounding her, like a rock, an anchor.

Whenever he held her, stroking her hair, her back, she would be afraid that if she shifted or left even for only a second, she'd never recover that blessed comfort. She'd hold it in, delaying the moment she would go to the bathroom, or get a glass of water, only to stay a moment longer in his arms, afraid he'd slip away, afraid the moment would end, the spell be broken. She never doubted his love then, not consciously at least. She was in love with her own body when he touched her, could feel herself moving against him and felt the smoothness of her own skin, her toned thighs around his powerful hips, her slim waist in his large hands. She loved the groans of pleasure that escaped his lips, how he completely lost himself in the moment and surrendered to her. She was often moved by his frailty, as if she were only then discovering the intricacies of human nature in someone else and it amazed her. When they were making love, when he was stroking a strand of hair from her forehead, when he sat working at his desk, always there was something wistful about him; he'd look in the distance, not focusing on anything and she would think – this is it. This is happiness.

Had she grown to take him for granted? His presence was so peaceful, so reassuring, she never imagined it might ever come to an end. Somehow, she had always felt she would be the one to leave him. And she had, but only because she was too proud to admit he didn't love her anymore – or had he ever, really?

Freudian slip, her therapist had told her.

What did he mean? He offered her the same ludicrous analysis her own mother had – why pay someone to hear the same nonsense over again? – you were so afraid of losing him that you ruined it yourself. You were so (perhaps unconsciously) certain you didn't deserve someone like him, that you weren't good enough, weren't enough. How could she have been 'unconsciously certain' of something, wasn't there a contradiction in terms? Matthew had successfully managed to persuade her that she was worthy – of his love, of her parents' love, of her professional achievements, everything. How could that be unreal? She felt betrayed.

For months she had thought of this moment – their wedding. For months she had listened to Elvis Presley's 'I Can't Help Falling in Love' and pictured Matthew and her dancing in front of all their friends and family. Perhaps when she realised that their wedding song no longer made her cry did she finally admit that she had stopped loving him.

She could no longer tell who had stopped loving whom. She could no longer remember how it felt to be in love, to be happy. All she felt now was longing, regret, anger. Everything had seemingly turned to ash.

Something had happened in Italy that she would never belong to.

'Your mum told me you were in town, but I sure am glad I ran into you!'

Penelope's smile froze. That voice – could it be? She turned around and there stood Nick, tall and lanky, a week's carefully trimmed bear on his cheeks, warmth in his smile, looking so plain and normal in contrast with both the memory she had built of him since her early twenties and Matthew's unparalleled phlegm that she could have hugged him. There was nothing threatening about him, nothing intimidating either, he was just comfortingly handsome and friendly. She had almost forgotten what that was like.

'I wasn't sure I'd remember you, but there you are. Looking as perky as ever!'

'And there you are, using the adjective "perky" to talk about a middle-aged woman.'

Nick crinkled his eyes, 'You can't fool me – we're the same age. Besides, you don't look it at all.'

Penelope took the compliment graciously as being just what she needed. Actually, she was starting to think that she couldn't handle someone being nice to her – she might just start bawling her eyes out. But the memory of her teenage crush on Nick prevented her from doing so – quite luckily, she added as an afterthought, for her mum had been truthful: the man was still attractive indeed.

She was thirty-seven now but she had been twenty-four at the time. That Italian summer had happened after the first year of her attending Matthew's classes. He had come back a different man, but she had tried to overlook that – because back then, she persuaded herself that she hadn't actually been properly acquainted with him before he left, tried to account for the change she noticed by choosing the possibility that she was merely discovering the real Matthew, that she was finally encountering the man behind the fantasy she had built around him for most of the second semester of the previous year, when she had been his student. Even when they were married, she had never understood the stakes of his friendship with Samuel – perhaps she thought Samuel was the guardian of a secret affair Matthew had had in Lucca, the witness of a meaningless fling that reminded Matthew of his past, of a moment when everything was still possible. Was that how he'd felt with her? Had she been in the way of this sense of possibility? Had he sacrificed himself, and not her as she had always believed?

And yet she knew him, really knew him, knew him the way only married people know each other. Recognised the idiosyncratic way he had of cutting his food, of sighing in a deep, low growl when he was content, of combing his hair back with his fingers when a stray curl fell over his forehead. She knew him when he was fast asleep, his face perfectly relaxed, unhindered, offered – she knew then the miracle of his beauty. Surely Samuel didn't know these things – couldn't know these things.

But then Samuel had appeared, summoned by some dark magical force that worked against them, brought back from the depths of this mythical, fairy world that was Matthew's past, a place she never wanted to become a part of. Her place in Matthew's life was in the present, in the future, they were happy. Samuel had barged into the kitchen and said something about losing his socks, and Matthew had laughed and said something about Bishop socks, whatever that meant, and their shared laughter had burst the bubble of happiness she had designed for the two of them. Oh of course she had been immensely smitten with him at first, immediately understanding the wistful air Matthew always adopted when he mentioned Romeo. He was so youthful and yet so confident, confident enough to give up the annoying arrogance of his teenage years and grow charming, full of generous empathy, wearing a benevolent, encouraging, reassuring even, smile. That's what she had thought at first, when she had met him in their kitchen that day, how long was that, six, seven years ago? not counting on seeing him ever again – but he had stuck around for a bit, hovering over their lives like a hawk, for much longer than the few days he had actually spent in their flat. Even when he was gone, his brief intrusion had left an indelible scar. Had he come to expose the sham of their marriage for what it really was? One look at him – but no, not at him... one look at Matthew watching him, beaming, and she had understood everything. She had been right all along – she was not simply discovering the actual man behind the gloss of university, the schoolgirl crush, the handsome teacher in her youthful fantasies. Matthew had come back a different man from Italy. Had he been pretending all this time? Had she been? She was angry with him for not lying to her, for quitting the game of pretence they had been playing together – but it was not his fault, she bitterly realised. Samuel's intrusion had merely revealed the incongruency that lied at the heart of their marriage.

'Did you write this? I quite like it.'

He had asked her, although he must have known she hadn't. The nerve of that boy – provoking her, in her own home. Had he been snooping around? She could never know for sure. Matthew had probably asked him to sit tight, and placed him in this room so Penelope wouldn't touch a hair of the precious angel. Did I write this? She remembered staring at the crumpled poems blankly, at first unsure: maybe she had written those, back at university? 'This is called breakfast', one of the poems stated,

This is called chiaroscuro

This is called yearning

She hated the innuendo, the Italian word that flaunted in her face the poet's – whoever she might be – ability to name things, to recognize moments, feelings, habits, for exactly what they were, and to appropriate a world she had deluded herself into thinking was hers alone – a world that was never even hers to take in the first place.

Tiny silver threads on my head

Means I'm growing old

With you

The only poem she had ever written, addressing it to Matthew, both a form of thanksgiving and a reproach. She resented having to grow old, and lose her looks, her youth. Yet growing old with Matthew was a completely different thing – growing old with him wasn't like wasting her life away, it was the opposite. Growing old meant being fuller, happier.

She had kept a picture of Matthew as a schoolboy, wearing his tie and uniform, his cheeks flushed as if he had just come in from having run outside in the cold but his hair all neat and tidy. That's what their boy would have looked like, she had figured. That's the face she would have in mind whenever she thought of having his baby – and then they would be connected for life, then she would always have a part of him, even if he ran away from her, which he would, she knew, eventually. If she could bear his child, she thought she would finally be able to bridge the gap between his past and their future together, she would succeed in being enough, in filling the hollowness that undermined their lives.

Pictures of Matthew as a schoolboy, then Matthew wearing cricket pads and holding a large, flat bat, grinning. Matthew on a polo horse, Matthew's graduation. The pictures that filled the walls of his parents' house showed the achievements of the perfectly steady, shy and strong, good lad he had been. There were pictures of his four brothers and sisters too, pictures of the dogs they had had over the years, the odd faded picture of a distant relative on vacation and of a great-grandparents' wedding. But mostly, there was Matthew. Photo albums she felt collected her own memories, even though she wasn't there – because she had looked at them so often, because she recognized the parks and streets of the same Derby she had grown up in. Chubby kid with a smile on his face, then the rosy hollow cheeks of a self-conscious teenager, always the straight, chiselled nose, his full mouth in a natural pout. Always his expression hesitated between that of a dreamer and the same spontaneous joy he had retained, the mischievous twinkle in his gorgeous blue eyes. Penelope's hand trembled, shaking the picture slightly. Matthew's eyes had been cast down, guilty, saddened, worried, all the times she had seen him since they had decided to get a divorce.

The father wasn't keen, but his mum had insisted he was too bright for the local school, too bright for his future to be wasted – and with flying colours, he had earned himself a proper education in a private school, his bursary even covering the cost of the uniform, and that's why there were pictures of him wearing a brand new uniform, and that's how he had landed in the same dorm room as Richard and picked that fancy British accent, while he learnt how to spell the Greek alphabet, ride a horse, and play practical jokes. That he should have chosen to use all that knowledge to write a dissertation in English modernist literature had remained a mystery to his entire family – not least to his father, who wore a long face on the PhD viva voce pictures.

'I don't know where he gets it from', the father told her. 'We're none of us bookish in the family. But his mum here insisted, said he ought to go to the great schools. So he did. Now if you ask me, at least he should have used this stuff to do something useful, you know? Like become a doctor, or a barrister. Something we could all benefit from. At least something that pays well. No but this one, he wanted to read English. Why, I don't know. We can all read perfect English, and I didn't go to university.'

The pictures she wouldn't be able to keep – though some she had smuggled out of the family album Matthew had and copied them on her computer. They had had to split all their stuff. Pictures of course. Dvds. Furniture. Kitchen appliances. She had perused the shelves, remembering what they had bought in an airport before even going on vacation, remembering what they had never used, remembering the tears he had shed when they were watching some film. The tears she guessed he was holding back when some songs were playing. She'd kept a mental list of all the things that made him cry, trying to map out a picture, en creux, of what ailed him. The way he sang 'Moon River', for instance. His huckleberry friend. The crumpled postcard representing a detail of the Maestà of Duccio, which she didn't find beautiful but he would carry around in his wallet. The old CD he kept in his car, filled with silly Italian songs, along with more random songs, French songs, songs she had no idea what to make of.

'What are these?' she had tapped some of the titles.

'Call them guilty pleasures. You wouldn't understand, you had to be there.'

'That's not your handwriting.'

She was holding a receipt from some Italian grocery store. Prosciutto, it said. Melone. Prosecco.

'I might as well tell you now', Nick was saying. 'I was so impressed by you.'

Behind Nick's back, Penelope could make out Samuel's excruciating frown on the movie poster that had been placated. His face was everywhere.

'You were?' she replied automatically.

'Oh, come on, we all were!'

'I had no idea.'

'You looked so haughty and aloof. Unapproachable. Actually', he smiled a crooked smile, 'I had a crush on you.'

'We're just so happy Matthew's finally settled', his mother had told Penelope when they had come to announce their wedding. That was when Matthew had brought her home for the first time to introduce her to his family. She had always suspected Matthew was slightly embarrassed of his family, or his family house, or his working-class parents, even though he always spoke fondly of them all. He had been to the grand home she had grown up in, met her smart father sitting in his seat, doing crosswords. She had thought, ever since they had started seeing each other, that that was the reason why he had never even offered to ask his parents for dinner, or spend the weekend at their house, even though they lived so close by. How wrong she could have been! Upon entering the house, not only did he get on tremendously well with his parents and his siblings, but she soon enough understood that, if anything, she might have been the one he was trying to hide away. Because he wanted to keep her for himself, because he was ashamed of bringing such a delicate, learned woman in a much more humble household than hers had been, or because – and that might have been the more terrifying possibility even if it was, as Penelope reluctantly admitted to herself, the most likely – he wasn't sure they would last. Because women came and went in his life and he couldn't risk it, couldn't take the chance of introducing the wrong girl to his family – whose opinion mattered most than anyone else's to him. But when they got engaged, their relationship had become more grounded, more certain, directed towards a future together, and he had brought her home.

'Hello dear', his mother had said.

'Aright m'duck', his father had said.

'We're all so thrilled to meet you', she had said. 'It's not often Matthew brings someone home. We're just so happy Matthew's finally settled.'

'Hey Matt', one of his brothers called out – which was he, Rob or Dave? She couldn't tell them apart, not at first. They were all sturdily built. That one was much shorter than Matthew, though. He had that same large frame, though his face was less handsome. She thought of Oliver Mellors, that wild, animal-like presence of game-keepers. 'Hey Matt', he said, and Penelope noted the glottal stop at the end of her fiancé's first name, although she never called him that. 'You didn't tell us your bird was that pretty. She's well fit', he told their other brother, and winked at her as if he were paying her an actual compliment. She felt herself blush, not used at having her looks discussed in public, to her face, all the more when she realised Matthew wasn't embarrassed in the slightest.

She hadn't been able to refrain from trying to get them all to like her – from putting on a great show of seduction. She became very much infatuated with his mother, with her generosity of feeling and compassion, the spontaneity with which she reacted and never held anything back. Matthew had got it from her. She loved his father's loud voice and subdued emotion, loved seeing the fondness in his piercing, steel-like blue eyes, recognizing the colour of Matthew's, although his father's were harder, unforgiving. Over the course of their marriage, she had loved finding out about a lifetime of family habits, eating in front of the telly with their plates set on cushions placed on their knees, cooking scrambled eggs in the microwave, she had enjoyed every day of trying to put two and two together, hearing only the first names of people in conversation, names everyone seemed to know, and trying to work out who they were, becoming acquainted with the entire family, with friends of the family, with childhood friends. She had fantasised that his brothers would secretly admire her and feel jealous of Matthew instead of making fun of him for being a teacher. Learning the names of his siblings, of their significant other, of their children. His two sisters were mothers, and she wasn't. She wanted to be the perfect wife, the funniest, the cleverest, the sexiest – only to prove them all wrong. She had had the urge to seduce Rob – she could tell them apart now – not because she wanted to, but so that she could be the one thing that Matthew had and the others didn't. But she hadn't done anything.

'Our dad's so relieved Matthew's getting married. Guess he's not a poof after all!'

That was Dave. A string of brawny brothers and brothers-in-law, none of which cared for literature, or university, or Matthew becoming a senior lecturer at Oxford.

The pressure of her being the woman in Matthew's life then had been added to that of being the teacher's girlfriend, and sometimes she couldn't distinguish between the weight of other people's expectations and her own, between who she was, who she pretended or strove to be, and her own fantasy of herself.

But she was wrong to assume any of them expected anything from her. She was wrong in the harsh judgement she had projected on Matthew's parents and brothers. Matthew had gone and taught literature regardless of what his family thought of that. They didn't love him less, on the contrary.

And Penelope stood there smiling, trying to be the perfect wife.

'How do you do', she said to people she was meeting, putting names to faces.

She was slowly unpeeling Matthew's life, like one peels a tangerine, delicately, taking her time, getting rid of all the white strings, savouring all the sweet, acrid taste of it all.

'Aren't you precious!' his father exclaimed. They had all stopped eating and were staring at her. 'You afraid it's gon' make you sick?' She had been peeling the tangerine like her father had taught her to.

'Sometimes, you're not the centre of the attention,' Matthew had told her. 'And that's alright.'

Blurred pictures of a twenty-year-old Matthew grinning drunk in a night club his arms thrown around the necks of his friends, of Richard, of friends she had never heard of, of girls already giggling, a lighter held between his teeth – they were still exactly the same teeth. The skin on his forehead and cheek glistening from the party, sweat and the flash from the camera, arrested moments of laughter forever frozen in time, without a care in the world, pints of beer perched on the side of a pool table, eyes half closed in drunken end of night tiredness, lengthy hair, wavy hair, rosy cheeks, mindless drinking games, poker chips, giggling girls, dogs, furniture moved outside for a barbecue, young men sprawled on them.

Pictures of the two of them, her wedding dress ivory and flowing, her hair almost black in a perfect bun, discreet pearl earrings to match the pearls sewn on the dress and its long train, Matthew in a dark grey suit, tall and classy standing next to her – they looked like a picture from a magazine.

The wedding pictures had been perfect – just like the wedding itself. Neat rows of chairs arranged on the grass in the back garden of her parents' house, an arch covered in white roses, a sky made of flowers, petals raining down on them, Matthew's glowing smile.

His concentrated frown when he fixed his tie, candid pictures stolen when they were getting ready, her eyes sparkling with tears of joy when she saw her own reflection in the mirror, fully dressed and made up. People dancing, laughing, smiling at them, moved by the purity of their love, blanketing them in their kind wishes for the future. Her parents' emotion, his parents' pride – her biggest achievement.

But they had never recovered from whatever happened in Italy – they had held on and travelled and laughed, for years, but when she couldn't get pregnant last summer they had eventually called it quits, and she had grown to hate the blood in her panties, and the sight of blood in general reminded her of waking up in the morning that day, with the sheets soaked when she miscarried, reminded her of the blood that had dried on the insides of her thighs. And the divorce papers were only now ready to be signed, and it was Christmas, and they should have been buying presents together and two days ago she had been alone, quietly sobbing on the bus wringing her hands with the odious ring he'd bought her that day and which she'd never really liked, but from which she could never part because it still enclosed whatever was left of their love, wringing her hands and twisting the bags that held her last present to him, until someone on the bus asked if she was alright and she burst out crying.

She had written him a letter. At first, she had believed that being slightly older than the other students would give her a head start – but he never noticed her. She had to find something else, do something different to get his attention, so she wrote him a letter.

It was only years later, not even when they started dating, perhaps only a few weeks before their wedding, that he told her the letter had indeed made a difference. He had noticed her, even before he found the letter tucked in his pigeonhole. He had noticed her and was only pretending not to. Sleeping with a student is frowned upon, he would say, but upon reading her letter he had realised that allowing himself to spot her in the crowd and to look at her and really see her, to take her words in and give in to the inclination he felt growing within him, would inevitably lead to much more than just a meaningless fling. He just couldn't do it. He had hoped that running away to Italy would keep him from thinking about her, but he had made the mistake of taking the letter with him and he would just stare at it, not even needing to read it again – the paper alone sufficed in reminding him that the greatest threat was his own weakness, his own reluctance to resist her, and the fear that she might only want to claim him and show him off. The girl who had seduced the teacher, the girl who had trapped him and broken his heart. He'd be the faculty's joke.

'Why wouldn't you trust my letter?' She didn't understand.

'I was too afraid to trust it', he would reply, looking infinitely trusting now, and vulnerable. 'It was easier to think you were trying to trick me into your bed than to actually believe you were in love with me. I wouldn't have suffered to be made a fool of – and I was right, because back then you weren't actually in love with me, were you? Not for a couple of years, at least.'

'Oh but I was. I just didn't realise it. My entire body was calling to you.'

'I wouldn't have recovered from a broken heart.'

So he hadn't replied to her letter.

That summer, while he was away in Italy, she had no idea he had gone. She had spent the summer haunting the library until she retrieved his PhD thesis and read it. She might have gone back to her parents' but she was hoping to see him – and of course she had no idea she would have had more chance of bumping into him in Derby, where his own parents lived, than in Nottingham. How deluded we are when we're young and in love. How ludicrous these small whimsical follies we indulge into appear with hindsight.

When she stumbled against the words he had written in his thesis, she had concluded that his silence was no accident. She couldn't fathom the interval that had passed since he had written the words, and imagined that he couldn't have failed to understand the potency of his own gesture, or lack thereof, the potency of his absence:

Percival doesn't answer Neville's letter, thereby refusing to become the interlocutor, a status the epistolary device had tried to force onto him; he does not submit to the language inscribed in the letter and resists the system of representation the writer had designed for him: he therefore escapes. Because his written declaration was the epitome, or the very embodiment, of his being, Neville's entire existence finds itself negated by what Roland Barthes calls the 'true rejection': ' _le vrai rejet, c'est : « il n'y a pas de réponse » : je suis annulé [...] rejeté [...] comme sujet parlant.'_ 1 _Silence negates the very ability to speak, 'c'est mon langage, dernier repli de mon existence, qui est nié, non ma demande_ ', Barthes continues, ' _chassé du pouvoir de questionner, je suis comme mort, à jamais_.'2

1 Barthes, Fragments d'un discours amoureux, Paris, Seuil, 1977, p. 177-178.

2 Neville's anguish is also imprinted on the image of a telephone desperately ringing in an empty room:

I snatched the telephone and the buzz, buzz, buzz of its stupid voice in your empty room battered my heart down when the door opened and there you stood. That was the most perfect of our meetings. But these meetings, these partings, finally destroy us. [...] But if one day you do not come after breakfast, if one day I see you in some looking-glass perhaps looking after another, if the telephone buzzes and buzzes in your empty room, I shall then, after unspeakable anguish, I shall then – for there is no end to the folly of the human heart – seek another, find another, you. (Woolf, The Waves, 136-138)

The silence of the other is filled by the repetition of the buzzing onomatopoeia, echoing in the fantasy of the caller until it becomes a cry, an unanswered appeal, while the other, too, fails to constitute himself as a subject. The void left by the lover's voice is hijacked by the voice of the telephone and heralds the substitution that will soon take place: the referent of the pronoun 'you' will change as desire inevitably shifts and finds another target.

His silence, then, was killing her. Of course she had to make sure, and check in the dictionary in order to be absolutely certain of her translation from the French quotation. But there it was, unmistakable. Comme morte, à jamais, annulée. His silence was denying her existence.

On the shelves of the library, she had found the book he was quoting, Barthes's Fragments d'un discours amoureux and had read it through, with a dictionary, feeling, as she did, that he was reading it alongside her, feeling his presence behind her back, the words taking on a fresh meaning through his eyes, rearranging themselves along the features of his face.

'I love the quiet composure of her voice on the phone', he had written, years later, in a letter for her to read the night before their wedding. 'She always sounds so distant and so close at the same time, her voice imparting a secret from afar, a secret buried so deep it can but make her sorrowful, a secret that scorches your heart but lifts your spirits, making you believe she had safeguarded that piece of her soul only to give it to you, speaking low, almost in a whisper, regardless of the noise around her. Wherever she might be, her voice on the phone always makes you feel like you're the only person in the world, like she had been expecting you to call, and now the world is right again, and now your world is right again.'

With hindsight, the letter did seem like a belated answer to hers, only four years too late.

'Why is it written in the third person?' she had asked. It was a strange way to declare his love.

'That's just my way of letting you in on my own little secret', he had said, 'the secret of all the things I feel for you but am too shy to say to your face. I kept starting the letter over and over again, addressing it to you, but it sounded too bashful. I had to find something, I had to trick myself and pretend I was confessing my love for you, telling someone else about you. I wanted you to eavesdrop on my most private thoughts.'

Coy is what he should have said, instead of shy, instead of bashful. Deceitful. Conceited, even. Had he pretended he was writing the letter to Samuel, was he the one these most private thoughts would only ever be shared with? 'You're up', he had said when the boy had entered the kitchen – for he was just a boy back then, and even now. So young – she hadn't expected him to look so young, his face smooth and sleep in his eyes. 'You're up', he had said, but she could tell he meant something else, his words harbouring several years of complicit silence, several years during which they had not spoken but hadn't needed to either, both confident that their silence was but a mutual agreement to conceal their – what? infatuation? their reluctance to put words on what they both knew they felt and both knew wasn't fading? So that the only way to tell Samuel had been to delude himself into writing a letter professing his love for her.

'Penelope has become the guardian of my time, my anchor and harbour, weaving herself seamlessly into my life, weaving me back to the origin of the world, and of love itself.'

Such beautiful words! Such a romantic gesture! How great his love for her must have been then! And all he had needed to do, when Samuel had burst in on them in Paris, was go out and buy fresh croissants; all he had needed to say, when Samuel had entered the kitchen, was 'you're up', all he had needed was to smile and look him in the eyes, and all three of them had understood that these three little words were really saying 'You're here', 'You're back', 'I've been waiting for this moment my entire life.'

'Is it better to have loved and lost?' Penelope wondered.

'I'm sorry, what did you just say?' Nick inquired.

'Oh my God, I'm so sorry. Did I just say that out loud? I'm sorry.'

'No need to be. So are you just here for the holidays or...'

'I'm getting divorced. I'm just here to sign the papers.'

'Didn't you tell me you thought Rob was their father's favourite?'

She had told her therapist that she'd had a dream about Rob. She had told him, indeed, that she thought he was their father's favourite. She hadn't told him he was Matthew's twin brother, hadn't told him they were fraternal twins – she saw him as another version of her husband, somewhat sturdier, less intellectual. Less sensible, more dangerous. They were walking down endless flights of stairs, their hands touching, until at last they reached the cellar, and there they kissed, and kissed. We can't, she told Rob in her dream, we can't do this to Matthew. You little minx, he would reply in a husky voice, smiling, you know you want to. And she found that he was right.

Had this been an actual dream, or a fantasy? She told the therapist it had been a dream.

'I did. I think Rob has always been a bit of a favourite, although they're a very close family, all of them. I'd never seen so many people... But he's the one who's always lived up to his father's expectations, and now he's working with him, he's one who will take over the family business one day – they own a garage, so...'

Freudian slip, the therapist had said. She was subconsciously trying to ruin the relationship by using the one thing she knew would hurt Matthew the most – being unfaithful she knew he might be big enough to forgive, so she picked the brother, and not just any brother. There was the thrill of doing what was forbidden of course, the irresistible attraction of breaking the rules. But the betrayal of his own blood, of one closest to him, of the one he looked up to, the one she suspected he had always felt second best to – that was just her unconscious playing with her. 'Or', he added as an afterthought, 'you're wondering what it would feel like to be with the one his parents you think prefer, wondering what it would feel like for you if Matthew had been it – do you find Matthew doesn't live up to your expectations, perhaps because your idea of him has been influenced by the fact that he was your teacher, and you projected a lot onto him and were perhaps disappointed when you found out he was just as normal as anyone else?'

She was revolted that he would even suggest that Matthew was normal when he was clearly one of those people who changed your life.

'Are you an only child?' he had asked, and then nodded and scribbled something, a stereotype of a therapist. 'You know, I don't think you should worry about that dream. Those kinds of dreams aren't unusual, they might actually be quite healthy. The good news is, even in your dreams you won't allow yourself to cross that line. I'm interested in hearing your own understanding of that dream though. Why do you think the cellar?'

He told her about the way dreams worked – he told her about Freud's interpretation of dreams, and the way the mind might be visually represented as a house, with lighted rooms, and locked doors, and cellars. 'Going down to the cellar might be a form of visiting your deepest, most repressed fantasies', he had explained.

She knew that of course – she had read Bachelard's Poetics of Space, and Derrida's "Fors". They were on the shelves in Matthew's study. She'd steal in when he wasn't home, and read his books, searching for his deepest secrets in his beloved books – what had he thought of that, she wondered, what did he find in these lines? But it hadn't been a dream. She had chosen the cellar, she had cheated on Matthew, kissed his brother, wide awake, her eyes open, sitting on the sofa in their flat, staring into space, all in her mind – her conscious mind. Fantasies allow you to live vicariously, without actually breaking any rule – in a fantasy, you can do anything you like, can't you? No one ever needs to know, she told herself. You get to choose, you get to control what happens next. In the cellar no one would find them. In the cellar they might get caught. She couldn't tell which aroused her most. She stared into space.

That she wasn't good enough for Matthew, nor for his family – that she had always known. She was merely trying to fill a void. Something inside that was missing. Trying to have a child had been a means to fill that void. But that had only increased when she had asked for a divorce. She hadn't felt the relief she had expected.

'Actually, Nick, do you mind?' she interrupted, as he was speaking to her about poor Rebecca Sloane, and asking about Jo. 'I should really go. I'm meeting my soon-to-be ex-husband in a minute and...'

'Oh, no, absolutely, don't let me keep you. Ha – what a fool! I can't believe anyone would divorce someone like you, but I guess it's not my place to say –'

'Well', Penelope chuckled. 'You don't really know me that well, so.'

'I'm sorry – was I out of line? I only meant... Listen, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it, otherwise I'm going to regret it. I don't want to seem pushy but', Nick didn't say that he couldn't believe his own luck – girls like Penelope didn't stay single for long, and he'd caught her right when the window of opportunity was just about to open – he didn't say but she guessed from his eagerness and, instead of being annoyed as she would be, found it touching. 'Do you want to go out sometime while you're in town? Nothing fancy, we could just, you know, grab a drink somewhere.'

'Ok.'

'Oh – wow, really?' He sounded both pleased and surprised.

'Yes, why not.'

'Ok then. Great. I'll ... call you at your parents' then.'

She smiled and let him squeeze her hand slightly.

'I can't see you anymore', she had told Rob, quietly, one day after lunch. They had all been barbecuing, in their parents' back-garden in Derby. She was ashamed of the confession, and made sure no one was eavesdropping. But why would there be anyone, why eavesdrop on them? What could they possibly talk about, who would even suspect?

'Why not?' Matthew's brother replied, half-jokingly.

'You know why.'

His face grew more sombre.

'Matthew and I are getting a divorce', she added.

'Does he know?'

'Don't be silly.'

There was a silence. Penelope wasn't sure what Rob had asked her. Did Matthew know what, did he know about the divorce?

'Meet me later', Rob finally said.

'I can't.'

'Meet me after the divorce, then.'

'I told you, I can't. I can't see you anymore.'

'Ever?'

'Ever.'

A silent understanding passed between them. Each time she saw him, a fresh wave of lust and frustration washed over her.

His mum was laughing not far off, to some joke one of them had told.

'Is this why you're getting divorced?'

'No. Yes. No! You know I can't bear to see you, you must have figured that out. I couldn't act on it while we were married, and I won't after the divorce either. I'm not that cruel.'

'I know.'

'But that's not why we're getting divorced.'

'Have you told mum and dad? It doesn't look like you've told mum and dad.'

'Why do you think we're here. Look at him. I can't stand to see him like this anymore. Ploughing on, as if nothing had happened, always, always charming his way across life. Everything is so easy for him. Always the seducer. He can't help it, you know.'

'Hey', Rob was saying, moved to see her tear up. 'Hey come on, Penny, don't cry. You know that's not true. You know he's only ever loved you.'

'Has he? Has he? And how would you know?'

'He's my brother. I think I'd know. What's more – you've only ever loved him too. No – come on, Penny, don't argue. You and me – there's nothing there, it doesn't exist, does it? Don't make me the one thing you regret about your marriage because it's just not worth it.' He shushed her quietly, but she didn't argue. 'I was there, remember? At your wedding? Matt didn't ask me to be his best man for nothing. I bore witness to your love. You might not remember, but I do. That's what witnesses are for at a wedding. In case you forget. And I'm telling you now: It really happened. You guys loved each other. And maybe you don't anymore, but even so, don't turn your back on the past.'

With tears streaming down her face, she had sobbed and leant against Rob's shoulder, while he stroked her hair comfortingly. She had sobbed over the discrepancy between the reality – her reality – and the truth, between what she had felt back then, what Rob had witnessed, and how she remembered it all. She had sobbed as she reluctantly admitted that this was just another image of herself that she had designed – the reckless, untamed femme fatale trespassing into the dangerous territory of the unforgiveable – an image that corresponded to none of these realities – not Rob's, not hers, not the objective reality of what had actually happened. It was none of it true. The idea had been planted in her head on her wedding day, when Rob had said 'Might I have this dance, m'lady', in an overtly deferential tone that betrayed his humble social background, she felt rather condescendingly although she was fond of him, and of them all. While they were dancing, he had whispered, 'You're such a beautiful bride.'

'I guess your brother is a lucky man!' she had joked.

But that's when he had said something that would completely change things, and yet make no difference at all.

'Lucky I didn't see you first and sweep you off your feet!'

She had laughed because it was so obviously meant as a joke and an exaggerated circumstantial compliment. What he meant, whether clumsily or cruelly, was that Matthew had always been second best in the family, except today. What he meant was nothing – nothing but to make her laugh, nothing but to make her feel like the beautiful bride she was. Rob had the same flirtatious streak that ran in the family, and meant absolutely nothing by it – Penelope could see that now as he stroked her hair comfortingly over her failed marriage.

She hadn't thought anything of it at the time, if she was honest with herself. Only years later, when Samuel had come and gone, when doubts had arisen, had she attempted to avenge herself and designed a fantasy whereby that would have been Rob's way of confessing his secret forbidden love to her. Ironically, what struck her now was the renewed realisation that it not only hadn't been the case but that even if, had the opportunity arisen, she would have found herself truly unable to rise to the occasion, truly unwilling to, and she shuddered. All that she had left now was the failure of her marriage. She was too old now, she felt older than she looked, and who would want her? She would never be loved again, never be held, never have children.

In Rob's arms, instead of Matthew's, on their parents' lawn while their mother was laughing at some joke Matthew must have made, with the porkchops and sausages burning on the barbecue, Penelope was sobbing, having been caught up by the underwhelming reality that her life was falling short of the expectations she had imposed herself on her wedding day. She used to pride herself in being the scapegoat, the one that would concentrate all the resentment and violence and desire – and now, she understood, as Rob tried and failed to comfort her, she was also the one that needed to be expelled.

Or perhaps that's not how it had been. Perhaps she had been pleading and he had been saying no.

'Do you know how many times I've thought about that moment? Wondering how tight you'd be. Sometimes, I thought about it so much, I could almost taste you.'

Matthew has wooed her with poems and songs. Rob would have been the kind of man who says 'tight', who says 'wet', who says 'fuck', who tells it like it is. Rob's hand always had car oil stains on them. He would have got her dirty.

But perhaps it was she that had then said, 'Meet me later,' and he had said, 'Never'.

He would have said 'Your husband's here.'

'He won't be my husband for long.'

'He's my brother. What do you take me for? I'd never do anything like that.'

What had she taken him for?

'What about love?' she might have said in an attempt to sound romantic.

'Love? Love is what you two had. Your husband loved you. He loves you.'

No matter how many times she told herself that story, it always ended the same – whether she said no, or he did, nothing ever happened. Always, the story ended with Rob telling her that Matthew still loved her, until she could no longer convince herself otherwise. Until she had to admit the truth – she no longer loved him.

Sitting in a corner of the garden, Penelope was watching Matthew and Rob, the cheeky twins, standing next to the barbecue roasting chicken, make their mother laugh. That was one of the things she would miss. Matthew caught her eye and smiled sadly and, following his brother's gaze, Rob saw her sitting by herself and came over. She would never say anything.

'Matthew told me you were getting divorced,' he said. She nodded but didn't reply. 'I'm sorry, for both of you. On you wedding day, I was so sure you'd love each other for ever. I'd never seen a couple so in love. I know it's stupid to tell you that today, I'm sorry. I've always admired your love, I've always looked up to the way you managed to keep it so pure, so whole, unforgiving. I hope I can live up to that one day.'

When, a couple of days later, Nick would call on her parents' landline, she would agree to go out for a drink with him in the afternoon. She had figured the afternoon would send a clear message that she wasn't ready for anything serious – she thought. She was pleased to see him, already waiting for her at the Standing Order. The pub's high windows and glass panels overhead only let in a greyish light from outside, as the day was waning, but Penelope didn't mind now. She found comfort in the familiar large bar, the smell of beer and greasy food, and the loud chatter of men, and ordered a pint of beer.

'I'm glad you agreed to do this', Nick said once they were sitting. 'Although, I must admit I'm bummed we're missing out on Unemployed Day.'

'Unemployed Day? What on earth would that be?'

'It's a concept my mate and I came up with. Oh but we can still join them, if you fancy. I think they're just down the road – there's a happy bunch of us now.'

'I'm hooked. Do tell me.'

'Ok, it has to be during the week – otherwise it's just a regular weekend day... The idea is to spend the day drinking beer and playing pool – you'd have to make a day out of it and start around eleven in the morning so it takes stamina. And of course the bookies. We decided to skip on the self-righteous time spent drinking from the beer can outside of the Job Centre, but we'd have to, if we wanted to be absolutely thorough.'

'You're joking.'

Penelope wasn't sure if it sounded like great fun or absolutely horrific. It contradicted all her moral principles and yet she couldn't make up her mind.

'It doesn't have to be pool, we could always play darts.'

'Isn't that social class contempt?'

'No! Why would there be any form of contempt? Haven't you ever been unemployed? If anything, it's a cheat day – if it weren't for the money. If I could do that every day of the week, I'd be a happy man.'

She kept dreaming of Matthew now that he had moved out – in her dreams, he was always holding her, she was always weeping. In her dreams, she knew, but he didn't, that their marriage was over – she had seen him pack, his eyes dry, glazed, numb, but in her dreams there he stood, and held her, and laughed, not knowing what would inevitably come. The discrepancy drove her crazy, woke her up like a nightmare.

He would find himself a room in a house-share in Oxford, or a tiny house in the country nearby. Something convenient for work. The commute had been exhausting, he said. His remark stung when she realised the sacrifice he had made to accommodate her. I do like the proximity of London, he would say, the liar.

She realised how little actually belonged to them. Most of the furniture they had each owned before moving together, most of it they had shared between them accordingly. She had kept the apartment – but it was only a rental, and she might just give it up now. How few the enchanted objects that made up their life together had been! A few books, an armchair, a toaster, an old desk, a poster of some bluish mountains he must have bought somewhere, a poster she imagined had been plastered on the wall of his university dorm room, or whatever. Matthew's stuff had fit in a few boxes which encapsulated some of their memories she would now have to keep in her head only. His brothers and brothers-in-law had come to remove the few pieces of furniture that had been his, and by the end of the afternoon he had gone from the apartment, his presence entirely removed, as if he had never even been there, as if he had been wiped out of her life.

The stillness in the living-room had been unbearable.

She sat there, alone on the couch.

The muffled grunts of Matthew's brothers carrying his stuff out had reached her through the thick walls while she hid in the bedroom. She didn't want to see any of them – didn't want to see the pity in their eyes, or the resentment they must have felt. Didn't want to find Matthew's likeness in their features. She should have gone out, but part of her wanted to be here while it happened, and to hear the noises that would translate the physical separation – some sort of absurd ritual that would enable her to realise that it was actually happening. She couldn't bear the thought of going out, and then coming back to empty rooms, emptied rooms. She listened to the sounds and grunts and chuckles and sighs. Her eyes were tired and puffy with crying. She listened to the door closing, and then the silence.

Losing Matthew had been worse than she had expected. It had been harder than anyone had ever told her, harder than any film, or book, or song, or painting had had her believe – for the second time, the first being the wedding, life had proven more intense than art. The realisation hurt her. All her life she had tried to live up to the fantasy that played out in her head. A picture from a glossy magazine, her life ought to be. With the best husband possible, and the most gorgeous-looking children, and laughter, and sunshine. Not like that, not with her heart shattered in pieces that had been moved out, not with memories encapsulated in Matthew's boxes. Not with the lump in her throat as it dawned on her, albeit belatedly, that it really was over.

Losing Matthew had been like this greyish winter afternoon, the snow muffling all the sounds that might come from the outside world. Snowed in, snowed under, overwhelmed by a feeling a bereavement she was ashamed to say was worse than death. And all those times she had cried over something lost, all those times she had got annoyed at herself for not being able to remember the name of something, of someone, all those times she had felt distressed after forgetting or misplacing a set of keys, a pair of gloves, an umbrella, the times when she had cried over a book, over the heroine getting her heart broken in a film, over the death of a singer she loved – it all felt like a rehearsal for the real thing. All this time, she had merely been playing at losing.

All she could hear in the silence of the emptied out living-room was her own slow breathing, whose quiet, regular, calmness contrasted with the wrenching anger and sadness she felt. Let this be it, then. Breathing in and out might, for once, be enough.

Matthew was already waiting for her at the pub. They had arranged to meet beforehand, before going in to sign the papers, but her heart was in her throat and when she saw him on his own, so composed, his hair longer and messier than usual, his perfect waves curling in the wet snow – she was tearing up just seeing him, recognizing his tender side even underneath the impressive, brawny frame. There would be a snow day at school, the children they didn't have would have been glad to stay at home. She'd always loved the random holiday of snow days, the white frozen coat disrupting their ordinary lives, everything suddenly come to a standstill as schools closed, the postman didn't show up, buses halted and drove more slowly than usual. Snow made them all pause, as if they were stealing time, and then they were all children again, excited to skip a day at school, just sitting by the window watching the flakes crash gently on the ground, wondering, would there be enough to build a snowman? Her mum had stroked her hand over lunch – she still called it dinner. She would expect her back home before tea. Being back in Derby made her feel like a child again. She had the urge to run up to Matthew and bury her head in his arms. She was tearing up, seeing him in the distance waiting for her, as if they had arranged to go on a romantic date as they used to, taking him in, the same patient, carefree manner, hands in his pockets. She recognized everything about him and nothing at all – she was seeing him as if she had never met him before, seeing him as she had when she had entered the amphitheatre that day and he was just a stranger and she had fallen head over heels, love at first sight, she realized that now.

Matthew knitted his eyebrows together in concern, raising one slightly higher than the other as he would, when he saw her approaching looking distressed and tears in her eyes. He looked earnest and sorry and so, so tender.

That would be her first memory of him in Derby – the first that wasn't a happy memory. The first time she saw him in this town without them being in love, and happy, and visiting their family, and getting married. The first time she saw him in the streets of Derby as her ex-husband.

Divorced.

'So what do you reckon, then, was Ulysses worth the wait?' Samuel had asked her that morning in Paris.

'You tell me', she had playfully replied, but it was only by way of a joke at the time.

He had definitely been worth the wait, she realised now. Too late.

## IV

There had been defining moments in her life. The day her parents' horse had died, and she had seen his lifeless body. 'He looks like he's asleep', she had told her mum. She was twelve. Her mother had been afraid seeing the remains would be too much of a shock; she had grown up on that horse. 'I'm glad I saw him', she would tell her mum that night, 'because he doesn't look like he's in pain anymore.' After the horse's death, that part of her life had been over, never to return. She could still recall running under his belly when she was seven, playing hide and seek, which worried her grandmother. The horse's soft muzzle would lower and search for her between his front legs, he would snort and gently whinny. She would lie down next to him, nestling in his neck, or he would press his large head against her and let out a low, soft laughter, a purr even. He had been her first love affair, and then, against all hope, he had died. That was the first moment. There had been others. 'I have measured out my life with coffee spoons', T.S. Eliot had written somewhere.

The first time someone had told her, 'I'm in love with you', and the funny feeling afterwards when she wondered if that could be true, if she could ever be loved. By the time she had turned thirty, she had learned to stop wondering if she deserved to be loved. When she had got her first grey hair, she had rather started wondering whom she would get old with, if anyone.

But the most important of all had to be the day she had brought a pint to a customer, fuming over a worn-out copy of Shakespeare, and placed it gently on the table in front of him. 'Have a nice evening', she had said, blushing at her own French accent, but that was precisely what seemed to have caught his attention. The way his breath had caught in his throat, and she had believed, somehow more vainly than she dared to admit, that she took his breath away. He hadn't fallen in love with her at all, he would say later. He had fallen in love with Juliet – had looked up and plainly seen Juliet standing in front of him, her hand glistening from holding the pint of beer, her immense eyes lost, her cheeks flushed.

The most important moment of all had been playing Juliet. She hadn't been such a great actress, or perhaps she had spent all she had on that production. The production hadn't been very good either – they had only got mixed reviews at the time, although it had successfully introduced Samuel into the closed, coveted world of Shakespearian actors. In any case, she hadn't made it, hadn't become famous, hadn't become an actress, but no matter – that wasn't the way Juliet had changed her life.

Kissing Samuel every day, every night. As Juliet, as Romeo. There had been this one time, when Richard had had them exchange roles. Kissing him had felt different that day – the day he was Juliet and she was Romeo.

She kept listing those defining moments in her head. Turning 30. Kissing Samuel. Her horse's death. Hélène of Troy – the moment when, hearing her French name roll on his British tongue, the novelty had made it slightly unfamiliar and allowed her to hear it anew. Hélène of Troy, hearing her name bash against the walls and spiral back to her, she had failed to recognize herself. Had he, with the strange combination of a cajoling smile and a curt nod, christened her again, brought her into the world, and ravished her? She couldn't think straight. All those clichés about women being hysterical, she had that. It felt as if her brain had deserted.

The kiss had awoken her. Matthew's lips, his hands on her thighs. 'You're too young', he had told her. If only she had known, at the time, that the fresh youth of her body reminded him of someone else – that he was fearful of crossing a dangerous line with her because it would have opened the possibility of his giving in to Penelope, who was still his student at the time.

'You're too young', he had said nevertheless, and she was nineteen. Her heart clenched that night – it still clenched today, when she remembered it. 'I know what things are like', she had told him. Things? He had heard 'sex', but she had meant 'love.' The feelings she experienced at nineteen were the same as the ones she had always experienced – and they hadn't changed since. She reflected on how, when you're twelve, you already love exactly the same way as you will love all your life.

'Tout ce que j'ai rencontré de rire sur les lèvres, j'ai voulu l'embrasser', Félix said after rushing into her arms and kissing her full on the lips, as a way of explaining his gesture. 'C'est-tu correct?' he added, and she burst out laughing and nodded. His arms were covered in tattoos, and he held her hand gently and kissed her again, this time on the nose.

Then, turning to Samuel, 'C'est Gide qui dit ça', his Quebecois accent smooth as he spoke French, before checking himself and switching back to perfect English. Only French people suck at speaking English, Hélène thought. Her own English wasn't very good. It had been a nightmare learning Juliet's lines. 'A paedophile he was, but a damn good writer', Félix continued. 'I don't really get the attraction for older men.'

Samuel shrugged. 'I'm only eight years older than you.'

'Exactly, you're ancient. I probably wouldn't even be dating you if you weren't rich and famous.'

'Are you famous now, is that it?' Hélène joked.

Samuel dismissed her question, wincing exactly like he used to.

_'Il fait le modeste là mais il est super connu, y a comme des gens qui l'arrêtent dans rue pour prendre sa photo t'sais_ ', Félix added.

Hélène was beaming, she loved everything about this moment – meeting him, being in Montréal, hearing people speak French in this amazingly charming accent. Ever since she had arrived, she had been caught in this whirl of beards and music, discovering new expressions, discovering bands, names she had never heard of.

'I love this.'

'What?'

'Life.'

'Will you stop smiling please – I can't kiss you all the time, someone will get jealous', Félix laughed again, and kissed her again.

Samuel snuck his arm around the boy's neck and forced him to turn his head towards him, stealing the kiss away. 'Damn right, I'm jealous. Listen you guys, there's been a misunderstanding – you're not supposed to hit it off and dump me!'

It was getting quite chilly as they walked down the straight lines of streets on their way to meet friends. Several stages of Forrest Gump were walking towards them, as well as a group of four girls wearing matching t-shirts that said 'cinnamon', 'ground clover', etc.

'I don't get it?' Hélène asked.

'They're the Spice Girls.'

'Oh God', she laughed. 'What are you supposed to be?'

'Isn't it obvious? I'm a Blessing in Disguise. Ask Samuel here.'

'I can vouch for him.'

Samuel was plainly enough disguised as a cowboy, which suited him ridiculously well. 'We wanted to go as Sonny and Cher', he explained. 'But when you're famous, you really need to blend in...'

'You don't really blend in.'

'The real reason, though', Félix corrected, 'the real reason is that he wanted to look hot.'

Samuel grinned his arrogant smile. 'I did, so sue me. I spend my life dressing up as other people.'

'Aren't you annoying', Hélène conceded, stealing his cowboy hat and running a hand through his hair. 'Can I keep that?'

'Well you're not even dressed up at all so you don't get to judge.'

More laughter.

'Adults don't do Halloween in France.'

'Oh but she is dressed up!' Félix chimed in. 'You're going as a French Kiss.'

'I'd rather not.'

'We could make you up like one of the guys from Kiss?'

Hélène giggled and shook her head.

'Ok then I guess you could always go as a killjoy.'

They laughed. Samuel hugged Félix and buried his head in his neck, and Félix kissed him on the cheek, then rubbed a finger to erase the lipstick he had caught from Hélène's lips and that had left a faint mark there. A string of ghosts glided silently past them.

Félix kept turning around and staring at a group of girls behind them, and Hélène realised they were being followed, although at first she didn't understand why – that's the thing, when you've known people for fifteen years, you don't realise what's changed.

'I'm sorry', one the girls finally said, catching up with them. She wore pigtails and fake blood around her neck. 'I'm sorry, but my friends and I are wondering... are you him?'

'And so the night begins.' Félix huffed, impatiently and yet incredibly proud.

Samuel's arrogant brows came together in mock surprise, 'That depends. Who do you mean?'

'Oh my God, it's you, isn't it?'

The girls who were lagging behind caught up and starting screaming in high-pitched voices.

'Does that really happen?' Hélène enquired, slightly amused but mostly amazed.

'That's what I was telling you about. People don't seem to realise what a moron he is. It's like every single day some random girl comes up to him and she wants her picture taken with him, and it's just... _Je suis pas capable de vivre de même_ , I get jealous. Look how gorgeous he is. What?'

'Non, c'est rien. Je me souviens quand j'ai rencontré Samuel, he'd just been voted "Most likely to break hearts for sport" in his Yearbook.'

'See! That's what I'm talking about. And these girls are nice. Some people just eye me suspiciously and ask the most random shit ever. _Bref, parlons d'autre chose. C'est-tu la première fois que tu visites Montréal?_ '

She had come to Montréal to get over a break-up. Not really a breakup, though, she had only been seeing this guy a couple of months, nothing serious. Whenever he spoke of his feelings, in general, she had come to believe he was talking about her. And after some time, she had started to develop feelings for him as well, which was only natural, she felt. Until one day, he had told her everything. He was agitated when he arrived in her apartment. I'm going to do myself in, he said. I'm going to show her – but he meant some other girl, not her. He hadn't been in love with her. Why would anyone kill themselves, she had answered, it's very silly to kill oneself – she couldn't remember where she had read that. 'It is ridiculous to kill oneself', she had said. And in the end, he hadn't. But she had to get away, lick her wounds. Her pride had taken the worst blow.

She didn't tell Félix that, though. She hadn't told Samuel either. She wouldn't even admit it to herself – the guy was just a fling, she said, a meaningless fling. I don't want to get attached, she would say. I like being alone, independent. So she told them she had to get away. To Félix she said 'get away', but to Samuel, who knew her better, she had said 'escape', she needed to escape. 'I could have gone to Spain or Tuscany. Or elsewhere – anywhere else. It didn't matter where as long as it wasn't "here" you know?'

She was getting some frozen yogurt from Blueboy when someone had tapped her on the shoulder. Samuel's smile had engulfed her in a brutal memory of the languor of Italian days. She had no idea he had moved to Montréal, she said. 'Aren't you supposed to be in Los Angeles or something? The last time I saw you was on the cover of Vogue.'

'Oh, Helen, Helen, Helen. "With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls" of Hollywood shallow glamour and alighted right here in Montréal – it's a human-sized place. You can actually walk here. Come along, I'll show you. How have you been, what are you even doing here?'

They had walked for a while, and reached the Mont Royal. She had never really seen such a hill right in the middle of a city.

'Shall we take you to La Remise or Chez Serge?' Félix was wondering aloud, when the girls had taken their picture and left new lipstick traces on Samuel's cheeks before shuffling on to their own wild night of party.

'Come on, we're not to going to Serge, I won't allow it!' Samuel argued.

'Why not let the lady decide? Hélène, it's up to you. Would you rather ride a mechanic bull and get spanked by the waitresses on the bar, or play pool and sing karaoke?'

'You won't like Serge, I'm telling you. Oh come on, Félix, I know what Hélène is like – I'm telling you, she won't...'

Hélène was still lost in her thoughts though. The evening was cool but whenever she saw Samuel, Hélène was always reminded of the Italian sun, it always seemed like it had only been yesterday. When they performed Romeo and Juliet in England, she thought of the Italian heat. When they met again in Paris several years later, having received his invitation to the opening night of Troilus and Cressida she thought of their first rehearsals in the dark rooms of Lucca, and how long he had come since then. This time was no different, golden, dried up and crushed leaves were covering the ground – soon enough, she had been told, it would be snowing – and Samuel, as should have been expected, had become a movie star. And still, she was taken back to that defining moment in her life – becoming Juliet, dying on stage, kissing Romeo, sweating in her costume, as if it were only yesterday. It was odd, in a way, to see him with Félix now.

It really was only yesterday that Samuel and Hélène had walked from the frozen yogurt to the Mont Royal and up and up they had climbed to the top, and spoken of Matthew of course, and how they hadn't seen him in years, and how he had missed the opening night of Romeo and Juliet and how Richard seemed to have known why and they didn't. It had seemed like such a big deal then, they had felt so disappointed – and now she could scarcely remember it, now it turned out to have been nothing.

She thought of her first love, when she was still in high school, and how that love had torn her apart – unrequited love, it was, she had learnt the expression at school. They don't have a word for that in French, do they? Amour à sens unique, it sounds rather prosaic, like a one way street. She remembered the boy's face, the way he dressed, pretending that he belonged to a gang of people who didn't belong, who wouldn't comply with what society dictated, remembered how years later she had bumped into him at a train station and his face, though still the same, now seemed commonplace, ugly even, how his demeanour, his clothes, made her feel ashamed for wasting her first love on a boy like him. She couldn't remember why she had fallen in love with him in the first place. She couldn't remember the way that love felt – because it rested on nothing but first impressions, because it wasn't grounded on any real connection. She reflected on the fact that he wasn't one of her meaningful landmarks in life. The thought struck her because of how intensely she had been infatuated with him at the time, and that crush had completely vanished, into thin air. There had been a problem – he didn't want to talk to her anymore for some reason. But she couldn't for the life of her remember why. Things pass, she mused, some of the moments that seemed life-changing, crossroads and choices not made, trains missed, stupid texts sent in the middle of the night and hours spent waiting for an answer thinking, this is it, thinking, he'll never forgive me. None of it had mattered, none had made the slightest difference in the end.

No, she didn't remember that. What she could remember was Samuel sitting in that church in Tuscany, one hand extended in front of him, counting out with each finger, explaining the phrase to her by literally counting his blessings out loud, laughing through it all. What she could remember was the way the water glistened on his hair when, having come back from his usual morning run with Matthew, he had jumped into the swimming pool right before breakfast and was still dripping as he sat on the wooden chair in front of her.

Hélène realised Félix was still talking to her and had been for a while. She could not remember when she had stopped paying attention to the words. That happened often – she would lose herself in a daydream or her mind would just go completely blank. Sometimes she felt like she was only living in her head. She suspected people could tell when she suddenly lost her focus and spaced out. It wasn't that she was not interested. She was. She liked hearing people tell her stories. It rather that those stories lulled her and became another story, and another, feeding each other in her head. 'You're a dreamer', Richard had told her. 'Be careful though, people might think you don't care.'

Perhaps she didn't.

The important thing was somewhere else she found. There will always be people who remember names and birthdays, people who remember exactly what you told them a few weeks, months, years before. She didn't. She didn't care that her friends missed her birthday. She didn't care for circumstantial friendships and kindnesses. Often, she forgot. But she loved people nonetheless – it was different. Her feelings were attached to something else. She remembered impressions, feelings, atmospheres, melodies. That was enough.

She turned her attention back to Félix who was telling her about the montage he was doing – collecting all the slaps he could find in movies.

'Kisses are cool, I find. Opening scenes as well. But slaps are always slightly unexpected, even for the audience. The timing is both perfect and odd, making you jump but at the same time providing a kind of exhilaration and relief.'

They had reached La Remise and people were shrieking inside, singing at the top of their lungs. Félix climbed the few steps to the door and a wave of noise escaped the door when it opened. Inside, she could see a group of vampires trying out their strength on a punching machine. Some French people were singing 'Les Lacs du Connemara'.

'Come on in, if you dare...' Félix smiled and kissed her on the cheek.

She'd never heard of Hofesh Shechter when Samuel brought it up. He opened his gorgeous green eyes wide. 'This will change your life, I promise'. She had laughed in his face, recognizing his exaggerated way of putting things. 'Remember what Richard used to tell us when we were working on Romeo and Juliet, how we were never quite getting what he meant? This is it, you'll see. This is what he meant.'

Samuel had bought the tickets a while ago, he said. Before he knew they would bump into one another, he meant. He did not know why he had bought a spare one, he got an inkling it had been destiny, or so he told her, but in any case it made Hélène feel she owed him. The night of the show, she showed up with a gift she had bought last minute on her way to the theatre. She handed him the paper bag the cashier had placed the book in. 'I'm sorry it's not gift-wrapped.'

'I like surprises', he simply replied, reaching in.

'It's about this traveling theatre company that roams the country after the apocalypse. They only play Shakespeare, I thought you might... you know.'

He was staring at the large book in his hands, not daring to look her in the eyes. He knew she hadn't bought the book because of Shakespeare. He knew she had bought it because of it reminded her of something they had read in the margin of Richard's copy of Romeo and Juliet. 'Lass dir Alles geschehn: Schönheit und Schrecken. Man muss nur gehn: Kein Gefühl ist das fernste.' They had to power through as they always had. Survivors they were, too.

'Emily St. John Mandel. She's Canadian I think? So I guess it's fitting, since we're in... Oh but you don't have to read it, I only felt...'

'Thanks', he said, cutting her rambling short, raising his head to meet her eyes, and she knew he meant it. She stopped fidgeting and just smiled.

The show proved even more harrowing than she had expected. 'It's so violent', she said. 'I had no idea dancing could be so violent. I feel I've been slapped in the face.'

'I know, it's sublime, right?'

'Ça file le vertige.'

'I don't know what that means.'

Hélène smiled as she remembered one of Matthew's lectures on the sublime terror which is inherent to the prospect that life will end, that the other's gaze will vanish, that everything we know will be lacking. He had quoted Lyotard in French, '" _Ce qui est sublime c'est que du sein de cette imminence du néant quelque chose arrive quand même, ait « lieu » qui annonce que tout n'est pas fini." Tout à coup surgit une image qui désigne l'absence, qui témoigne d'une certaine hantise du vide que l'écriture comble, ce qui est à la fois angoissant et exaltant. Le miracle terrifiant, le "choc par excellence", c'est bien que quelque chose arrive tout de même plutôt que rien_.' Even now, she didn't quite understand what he had meant. They were all just saying things, weren't they? Adding things up. That's how her entire life had felt. People talking nonsense, and sometimes, meaning. The meaning often came when no one was talking, though.

Samuel's eyes were wild with a dark, slightly threatening glow. 'It's about all the violence that's bottled up in our societies and gives out, people dying and dancing on the battlefield, the impossibility to mourn and the absolute necessity to keep creating new memories, new beautiful moments like islands in the sea of conflicts, walls, hatred tearing people apart. I love what he does to the light, how dimmed he managed to make it, almost not really allowing you to see what's going on, and the foggy atmosphere, is that smoke? how he uses that to actually exhibit the evanescent substance of the air, how breathing becomes a heroic act in itself. It reminds me of Pina Bausch's phrase, you know? Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost.'

He spoke excitedly, but Hélène had no idea who Pina Bausch was. Wasn't she the woman Matthew had told them about, or Richard? She couldn't remember. She did want to tell Samuel how grateful she was, but she was lost for words. 'Thank you, dearest', she just replied. 'Thank you so much for taking me. What an extraordinary gift.'

She wanted to impress him, probably vicariously, always thinking of Matthew just like he was. But she had no idea how to talk about contemporary dance, she lacked the words to describe the dancers' movements. She was reminded of her own inadequacy, the same feeling that had plagued her all the time when they were rehearsing Romeo and Juliet, feeling like a fraud because of her inability to let go, her inability to embrace the emotion she was asked to perform, her constant desire to force the emotion back into the reassuring frame of rational, logic understanding. Would Richard play some music during the final scene? Should they choreograph it? They had tried talking to her, but the words merely repeated the same meaningless sounds. They had shown her videos, taking turns to choose multiple examples and make her see. Was the emotion she then eventually felt spurred on by the careful steps of the dancers, by the intense expression on their faces, by the music, perhaps? Could they beat Mozart, Prokofiev, Purcell?

She would go online, afterwards, when she would find herself alone again. She would go and read some reviews, clinging to some mysteriously luminous phrases that caught her attention and seemed to whisper some unattainable truth to her, 'veering wildly between the thrilling and the baffling', some words that promised to partake hints of a secret – 'raging', 'thundering', 'whimpering' – that eluded her. But when she read the sentence again, it was as if the meaning again had slipped and escaped her. The review was from the Guardian, the first she had found. It spoke of Hofesh Shechter's 'apocalyptic stamping ground', 'a place of entropy', she liked that word, entropy, even though she didn't know what it meant. She would look it up in a dictionary later, and then look up its scientific definition. The review spoke of the 'enclosing shadows' of extinction. 'The dancers shuffle, shudder and whirl with manic abandon', like puppets. The show, it read, was a testimony to a more general 'anguished loss of belief', human nature faced with the vast indifference of the universe, 'a centre that cannot hold', 'men dancing with the lolling bodies of dead women, limbs flailing, a hopeless striving for order, for things as they were before, in the face of chaos and collapse.' The ultimate danse macabre. 'Impulses ripple through swaying bodies, arms and fingers unfurl, light catches the turn of a neck'.

She printed the article, and read it again. The words, she figured, fell short of her actual experience, but they were better than nothing – the experience itself couldn't be bottled up for later, the words would have to make do. She had lived it, and now it was gone. There only remained a lingering feeling, but that would fade.

She felt inadequate, a fraud, a failure. She hadn't made it, she was nobody. She needed other people's words, other people's feelings, to understand how she felt. Alone, she couldn't phrase it. It always remained an inarticulate emotion. She knew that the Quebecois words she heard now would go on to form another of her magic strings of words, impotent and potent, words unable to express how she felt but capable of triggering a perfect, precise memory, of conjuring up an image, of awaking a smell, a mood, a touch.

'A suspended moment of rapture'. The word stopped her, and she began to think of rapture, how it partook of a sense of mystical ecstasy, how in French the word both meant a feeling of intense joy and abduction. That's exactly the word that she'd been missing – the show had entrapped her in a state of terror and unnatural bliss, obliterating everything else. She read again, it lingered, there, right underneath the surface of stubbornly silent words. A cataclysm beneath the surface of the earth. Bodies glimmering and flickering like half-extinguished flames fighting in a frenzy, hands and fingers outstretched towards the sky in a desperate attempt to escape the brutality of a present moment always already threatened by the inescapable fall. Alternating between solace and catastrophe, bringing snatches of beauty to a lost world.

'His dancers are no longer men and women. They're not tall or Asian or long haired. The clothes don't matter. The gestures are not gendered', Samuel had said. He was right, but Hélène felt silly for not having thought about that. 'They're all just bodies moving in the eddies of music, like autumn leaves.'

They were walking in the dark streets – Hélène was struck by the dimness of the public lights compared with the glare of Parisian nights. Here in Montréal, shadows invaded the streets and made it difficult to see the very ground on which you were walking.

'I'll walk you to where you're staying.'

'Oh no, don't. I don't mind. Est-ce que ça craint le quartier?'

'No, you're fine. Everywhere's safe in Montréal.'

'Where's Félix?'

'Out.'

'Where?'

'Does it matter?'

'Shouldn't you go find him, isn't he expecting you?'

'He's fine.'

'Goodnight, then.'

'Goodnight Helen. Goodnight.'

She faced the lonely night that awaited her. She had nowhere to be. She had felt propelled into a different temporality, stuck in the aftermath of a catastrophe that had capsized her entire life and she had been trying to swim against the current all this time and regain the present tense. The streets were dark and empty, but it wasn't that she was afraid. She hesitated and turned back to Samuel who hadn't budged and stood there, watching her.

'I don't need to leave just yet', she told him.

'Then don't.' Then, a moment later, 'Please don't. We could just walk around, and reminisce.'

And so they did. And they spoke of Richard, and of people Hélène had completely forgotten the names of. Samuel remembered everything with an accuracy that astounded her. 'How come you remember all this', she kept saying, and he just shrugged. Samuel was always shrugging. She told him, and he laughed. 'You're always shrugging. It's like life is just something that happens to you. By accident.'

'Well, isn't it, though?'

He laughed.

She felt it wasn't, not with her it wasn't. She felt she had to make things happen or nothing would ever happen to her – and she found that when she waited, indeed nothing happened, not really. There stood Samuel, famous enough that people stole pictures of him, and his days were filled with interviews and photoshoots and turning down scripts he didn't like, and she was a translator who spent her days sitting alone at home and working with other people's words.

Richard grasping her wrist in London, saying 'Will you meet me tomorrow? Will you read those lines for me?' thrusting a battered book on the table in front of her. That had been life happening to her. Shoving her stuff in a bag, telling the owner of the pub that she quit on the second day of her job – that had been life happening to her, and her yielding to it. The rest she'd had to make a choice, a conscious decision, and take action. Going to Matthew's palazzo, kissing him – that had been her choice, her making things happen. Flying to Montréal. She didn't tell Samuel that.

He had burst in on them, after the kiss, and made it easier for her to leave in his wake, to cover up the shame. The sting of rejection had hurt. She had had her youth for her and still Matthew had said no.

Choosing filled her with the exhilarating feeling of owning her life, and her body. Her skin felt like a parchment, a palimpsest, covered as it was in the scriptures left by each touch, each kiss, each one erasing the previous one, covering it up, healing it and showing it anew, by transparency.

She remembered the taste of Matthew's lips, that still tasted of gin and tonic. Some days, the bodies she had kissed, bodies she had bitten, bodies lying on top of her added up in her mind like a pile of corpses crushing her. Other days they were as soft and light as feathers, each representing another period of her life, another one of the miracles that her life had been. Lovers that had made her laugh, lovers that had made her cry. Lovers that had made her sick with longing. Lovers that had been her lovers only in her head, lovers she couldn't think of without feeling weak in the knees even though they had never so much as kissed. Lovers she couldn't remember the face of, but only remembered how madly in love she had been, only remembered the passionate feeling – the ecstasy of falling, as if something in her chest closed in on itself, or opened wide, or fluttered, as if her entire being was threatened and swayed and almost toppled over and floundered into nothingness.

She had slept with Matthew, eventually. She'd put on a song by The Cure and danced with him. 'Show me show me show me how you do that trick, the one that makes me laugh' she had sung softly, 'and I promise you I promise that I'll run away with you.' He had smiled. 'You must have been asleep for days and moving lips to breathe her name.' The smile had faded, but then he'd said, with a cheeky grin, 'Is this to be my last night then?', and then he had asked, 'Will you dance for me, like Salomé did? Is that your way of granting me my last wish?' but she didn't understand. She didn't care – she wanted him, more than anything. This had happened after they had come back from Italy, after the premiere of Romeo and Juliet he hadn't come to. She never told Samuel – that night with Matthew ought to be hers alone. It had left no visible trace on her body or her life, but an indelible imprint on her memory, the certainty that he had surrendered to her and for a moment, for a moment only, he had looked into her eyes and been in love – she had been loved. Aren't people always in love when they have sex, even if it's just for a moment? Isn't it always some sort of rite of passage?

It was still a long time before his marriage; he might not even have been with Penelope back then. He had been in town, in Paris for a conference, and they had arranged to meet. Things had been awkward. They didn't know what to talk about, or what to do, but neither of them wanted to part, neither of them wanted to go and sleep on their own. They had slept together but that was only a means to retrieve what had remained in the past, what had been lost but wasn't theirs to find. They had looked at each other and seen nothing but the Italian sun, smelt the heat, remembered. When she had absentmindedly locked the door of her apartment behind them, he had come close behind her and placed his hands on her hips. She hadn't dared turn around.

'Locking me in?'

His breath on her neck told her how close he was. She could feel the warmth of his body almost against hers.

'Yes', she managed to whisper, but she could barely speak. It was happening, at last it was happening. 'Now you've entered my most sacred place, I can't let you out again – it's a trap.'

Matthew had always been a bit of a goofball. Even his most intent concentration, his most serious frown over a book by Derrida or whatnot, would soften and burst into laughter in an instant if someone so much as splashed him with water from the pool. The fact that he was also immensely clever and had such a vast literary knowledge and understanding of the world was what made him so intimidating. And although everything he said sounded of the utmost importance, he never seemed to take anything seriously. He had the ability to explain the most complex idea to her and get her to understand as if it were nothing. He would change his tone and make her laugh even, and apply philosophical theories to characters in a TV-show or make voices to imagine a conversation between a pepper-grinder and a cup of grated Parmigiano to tell her about the vanity of things, the uncanny uselessness and otherness of broken objects, the indifferent persistence of smell when you're no longer there, and no matter what he did, even when he threw some jest about Pluto being a dog-dog and Goofy an anthropomorphised dog – how do you think seeing each other makes them feel? – his manners never tripped and fell in the trivial, vulgar mud she seemed to wallow in, but on the contrary always lifted her up.

Over breakfast every morning, he would speak about the books he was reading. 'You're thinking of Blanchot', he would say when she told him something, even though she wasn't thinking of Blanchot, or of any other French thinkers he evoked in passing. She didn't know who Blanchot was when she was nineteen.

Locked in her room, he was at ease, hardly any different from what she had known him to be.

She had felt delirious with relief upon feeling the touch of his rough stubble, his flushed lips on her neck, she had moaned into his mouth and tried to hold it in a little longer when he crushed her teardrops by placing soft butterfly kisses on her eyelids, recalling her own words – it's a trap. Oh God, let this be heaven.

When she tried to giggle it away, innocently, in a futile attempt to break the magic of the moment, protect herself and keep from tumbling in, he hadn't even smiled. His face had remained composed, intent, his eyes burning, his lips parted. He wasn't joking anymore. Very slowly, as if her fingertips might melt from touching him too brazenly, she had unbuttoned his shirt, felt the chest hair that had always appealed to her, not least when she could only glimpse his skin, when the fabric of his clothes gaped slightly. His was the second body she had ever held in her arms, ever felt pressing her down on the mattress with his weight. With her own inexperienced body she had felt his desire overwhelm her, the look in his eyes almost frightening, as he moved with an ease she would only much later realise came with the experience of maturity. His kisses invading her skin, his tongue burning hot on her lips, urgent, unforgiving. She had expected him to be a powerful lover but nothing had prepared her for the lustful rage that churned him that night, as she, too, arched her graceful and supple body and yielded to him, angry and sorrowful.

She had believed herself in love. Back in Paris after Italy, all she could think of was Matthew, who concentrated everything she thought she wanted in life. She couldn't see past him. Only when they had slept together had she realised she might have been in love with Samuel all along. He was the one she searched in the nooks of Matthew's body, his memory was what she had sought as she was kissing this other man, the man who had seen first-hand, harboured even, her growing, engulfing passion for Samuel whom she saw as a boy still. And now, years later in Montréal – years when she had known and loved other bodies, other men – Samuel was standing in front of her, and he reminded her of Matthew again. Both were intertwined, inextricably, in her memory, their figures overlapping, their cheeky smiles, the time when Matthew had suggested they go run naked under the storm raging outside. Or had it been Samuel? Sometimes, when she thought about it and tried to remember, she couldn't tell them apart.

'I'm in love with you. I have been for months', Hélène had confided, a rolled cigarette smouldering at her fingertips. She had waited until the burning had become unbearable and stubbed it on the ashtray she kept on the bedside table.

'Do you always smoke in bed?'

She had guessed the smell would bother him. Maybe she had done it on purpose, to make herself look older, vulgar, self-confident.

'You knew. You've known all along, haven't you?'

'You're not in love with me', Matthew had mildly rebuked, his face relaxed, content, earnest. 'You're in a love with a fantasy.'

She kept thinking of André Aciman's book she had just read, Enigma Variations, she kept thinking of the way things combine like words, like letters, and insinuate themselves into stories, into books, waiting for someone to read them into blossoming. She had read Call Me by Your Name first, having seen the book cover on Matthew's Instagram feed. She'd watched the film adaptation. 'The boy looks just like you used to at his age', she would later tell Samuel, intriguing him, 'It's uncanny, he looks just like you.' He would watch it, eventually; and it would break his heart all over again. Because Call Me by Your Name spoke of untold love stories that wring your heart and haunt you for ever – she saw the similarities but could never understand what it would come to mean for Samuel.

Enigma Variations on the other hand appealed to her most because it mapped out the way her own heart worked, how her love had always felt like a blind thrust, hither and thither, love stories overlapping, each as important as the others, each enhanced by one's memories and imagination, each dearly felt in her flesh. She felt her entire life had been governed by those stellar loves revolving around her world like satellites, always there and always out of reach, but she hadn't known, not really, not until the thought materialised itself into Aciman's words. He wrote of something Nietzsche had conceptualised – star friendships they were called. From that, Aciman inferred that perhaps we each had star lives as well – as if we were all just living out one possibility amongst many others. Those other, imperceptible yet ubiquitous lives, Hélène mused, influenced our own. Running alongside our constrained time-frames, these other, untrodden lives gravitated and surrounded and blanketed and at times even stifled the one we inhabited – never experienced yet sometimes, unexpectedly, just sometimes, they projected a long shadow, stemming from a different solar system altogether, and cast it over our dreary, our extraordinary, our miraculous everyday life.

At last she was thinking of Blanchot, of la parole quotidienne. She was thinking of what Lyotard had written on time, on the resistance to representation. Now she was always thinking of Blanchot, Lyotard, Barthes. But even now, they were just names, signs like so many others, indexing something that loomed before her, something she never quite fully understood.

'I've always loved you', she thought again, this time looking at Samuel, emphasizing the words in her mind until tehy burnt, until something in her throat, in her stomach, started to ache. She felt that a portal had opened and gaped within her, a narrow wormhole that would propel her, if only for a brief moment, into another dimension, a parallel life. Star love, she would repeat over and over again. Tu ne me manques pas. She didn't know whom she loved, whom she missed. It wasn't regret, it was rather a soft nostalgia directed at what might have been and had accompanied her all these years, and would haunt her forever. Sometimes she loved taking refuge in the realm of lost possibilities. What could have happened but didn't, what might have been lost but was kept safe inside her instead. Sometimes the weight of unachievable actualisation, of irretrievable possibilities that would never come to life, crushed her.

Other men she had loved, with all the vapid strength of her tiny heart, she had loved and spent her feelings, worn her body and her heart out, smashed her head into life, de plein fouet. He'd always been there. They both had been. Looming in the background, guarding her from afar. But it wasn't like that – it wasn't like that. It had been a different life altogether, a different reality, an avatar of herself, a character in a novel she couldn't help nor hinder. What happens to our unloved loves?

Samuel looked at her and she felt as if she had been punched, as if she might die if she didn't tell him right here, right now, that she loved him, that she had always loved him – I'm going to die if you don't hold me right now, hold me and kiss me and carry me to the end of the world. She choked on a sob, then laughed. Perhaps she had imagined it all – but one look had sufficed in telling the entire story. She found herself on the cusp of kissing him. In the blink of an eye, she had understood that there was something rather than nothing. She could have reached out, right then, reached out and touched his cheek and it wouldn't have been weird, she'd merely be prolonging a gesture that had started in another life, under different stars.

Was life the sum of all those defining moments she would list, like another alphabet, like a language that reorganised the same letters in new patterns? The same words repeated again and again, addressed to different people, like petals around a single flower, meaning the exact same thing, meaning something different each time, as she wore her heart on her sleeve. _Le cœur au bord des lèvres. Le cœur net. Le cœur léger_. Words again, shallow, treacherous, unfulfilling.

It was midnight when they arrived on the road that went over the Mont Royal. There was no pavement on the side of the road, in the darkness of the night only a few cars flashed their headlights before roaring past them, making Hélène shudder each time.

'This road won't take us to Outremont', Samuel said. 'We'll need to walk through the trees before we reach the cemetery. Or we can go back.'

'But...' Hélène feebly answered, 'it's the forest.'

Samuel laughed and took her hand. 'It's only a few minutes. Don't be afraid – this is Montréal, nothing bad ever happens here.'

He led her through the trees. It was dark and menacing, and her breath caught in her throat. She thought of hunting, of wilderness, of animals lurking in the bushes. She thought of the forest in the Middle Ages, then remembered there was no Middle Age in North America.

They walked on for five minutes, maybe ten, before she could make out the streetlamps on the other side.

Samuel's agent called him the next day. Hélène was still asleep in bed when the phone rang and was startled awake.

'I've got an email, from a certain Penelope. Claims she knows you – does she?'

Hélène's heart leapt – she'd never actually met the woman but she recognized her name. Matthew had been devastated when his wife had left him. His hair had grown greyer, his forehead more wrinkled, his eyes tired. She had seen this on Instagram. Or maybe it was just time passing?

'Yeah, forward it to me', Samuel replied matter-of-factly, like a businessman.

Penelope wanted to know Samuel's address, she wrote. She needed to pass something on. He wrote back. Her letter came a few days later.

'Did you meet her?' Hélène inquired, trying to hide the urgency behind her question.

'Only briefly, in Paris.'

Hélène pedalled lazily down the Plaza Saint Hubert in the chilly air of the night – together with Samuel, they rode past the closed shops selling tacky cheap prom dresses, wedding dresses, drag shoes, girdles, past organic groceries selling coco-bacon, before turning in one of the dark side-streets. Hélène marvelled at the rows of high houses and twirling stairs that reached the first landing, nearly leafless trees towering over them on either side of the street.

'What was she like?' she ventured.

Samuel slowed down so his bike found itself right next to hers. The streets were empty.

'Incredibly beautiful. Extremely annoying. She's one of those people who has preconceived ideas about everything ¬– which is fine. We're all like that, in a way, looking at life from our own personal standpoint, our own limited point of view shaped by years of experience, disappointments, achievements, inclinations, you name it. The problem with Penelope, I found in the short time I actually spoke with her, is that she believes her opinions on things – politics, ecology, what life should be like, what choices people should make, what age you ought to have your first baby – are the right path, the only option.'

'Aren't we all like that as well? Doesn't everyone think they're right?'

'Perhaps. I found it made her vindictive, judgemental and aggressive. Not everyone is like that. You aren't like that, for one. Everything she says becomes an excuse to preach or to debate. I find that exhausting. But then, perhaps it was only her way to cope – I think what I realised, in the way she looked up to Matthew, was that she was only trying to maintain a certain image of herself, trying to live up to the ridiculous standards she had set for herself. She was constantly on the defensive, but that's probably because she sensed other people's self-confidence, other people's freedom threatened her own integrity. I don't think she realised just how lenient people are in general – some are more tolerant than she suspected them to be (probably because she wasn't as tolerant as she claimed), most just don't care.'

'Oh wow. You've thought this through, haven't you?'

'Not really. I haven't actually thought of her at all since those days in Paris. But that was years ago.'

'Is that what ended their marriage with Matthew, you think? I can't picture him with someone as horrid as what you make her out to be.'

'Oh no. She wasn't horrid, just – I don't know. Precious. Touchy. Fiercely funny as well. But I think that explains why, when she miscarried, she couldn't take it.' Hélène tried not to show the surprise on her face. She hadn't even thought it possible that Matthew and Penelope could have faced such an ordeal. 'She couldn't face the fact that the perfect path she had designed for herself just didn't match the reality. She wasn't in love with Matthew, she was in love with an idea. And they both turned out to fall short of that idea – but who wouldn't? You can't live like that. Somehow, ironically, she was also caught up with what years of feminism hadn't prepared her for – the impenetrable hurt of not having a child. So she left him. He never blamed her, you see.'

'Did he tell you?' she had the foolish hope that he would say Sure, and then, He's right here in Montréal, we're meeting him tomorrow for lunch. But Samuel shook his head.

'Richard', he explained.

It seemed incredible that they should be speaking still, when she had hardly heard from him – it seemed like another life, all of a sudden.

'Who, Matthew and Richard? They have been friends since before we were born, you know.'

She had meant Richard and Samuel.

The thread was broken. All this time, she had thought, as she followed Matthew's Instagram feed, that an invisible threat connected them, all these years, that there was still something between them in spite of the distance, the silence. And now Samuel had heard from him, actual news, a more immediate, stronger connection. She felt cheated.

The letter had come through the mail.

'Dear friend', it started, 'Here's everything'. The handwriting was Matthew's.

'Dear friend,

'Here's everything I didn't have the guts to tell you. A vicarious letter is all I could muster.

'Here's everything I should have said long ago.

'Here's everything that should have been yours from the start.

'Penelope is like the Italian sun.

'Like the sun when it burns and pierces through the surface of things and reaches deep into the layers of being, of feeling, of gorgeous olive tree leaves, stone cisterns, soft-boiled eggs at breakfast, the blue mountains in the South, until it lights up the core of life and for a moment – this the moment – briefly offers a glimpse of the meaning, the pattern, the vertiginous joy that always escapes and slips through our fingers.

'Penelope's laughter is like the first lights of dawn.

'When the sky lights up and burns softly on the horizon, and the eternal renewal of the day after the darkness of the night warms my heart and makes me hopeful, against all odds, when the only sounds you can hear are birds, and breaths, and the light breeze that scatters everything else.

'Her dark, brooding eyes pierce my soul.

'She's my safe passage through time – sheltering me from the irreversibility of everything, comforting me from the irretrievability of what has come and gone, weaving my life on her loom, spinning me around her fingers and tethering me to the future that lies ahead. My one chance at happiness. Wistful eyes only seen through the mist of tears, of laughter, of a broken match lit in the evening.

'I love the quiet composure of her voice on the phone.

'She always sounds so distant and so close at the same time, her voice imparting a secret from afar, a secret buried so deep it can but make her sorrowful, a secret that scorches your heart but lifts your spirits, making you believe she had safeguarded that piece of her soul only to give it to you, speaking low, almost in a whisper, regardless of the noise around her.

'Wherever she might be, her voice on the phone always makes you feel like you're the only person in the world, like she had been expecting you to call, and now the world is right again, and now your world is right again.

'When she speaks, her voice imparts her deepest secret with you. The feeling of such a confiding has me in her grip, has me figured out. She sees right through me and there I find myself at a loss, desperate for the stability only she can offer, and now I bear no secret anymore.

'She has told me the Vietnamese word for "missing" is the same word as that for "remembering", and now I don't know which is right. Has she filled the hole of all that was lacking, has she taken the place of the people I missed and inscribed herself onto memories buried deep, memories that weren't hers in the first place? She has invaded everything and my entire life has capsized and now I don't know anything but her. I have learnt how to spell and to put words on what was until now only felt and never spoken.

'Penelope has become the guardian of my time, my anchor and harbour, weaving herself seamlessly into my life, weaving me back to the origin of the world, and of love itself.

'Meeting her has revealed the meaning of poetry to me, at last.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it

'These thoughts accompany me always. I can't imagine what life would be like if you hadn't crossed my path. There are some things I wouldn't see if it weren't for you.

'I now write these words in the hope that one day they might reach you.

'For I know now that I've loved you from the very first day, and I'm sorry for not telling you before. Your face in the crowd is all I could see. Your face in the crowd is all I can see.'

## V

Here's to peace. And those who get it the way of it.

Fleabag

They had only recently been allowed to travel. These were the longest days of the year. The air was dry and the light exact, outlining each leaf, each flower, each branch within the luxuriant vegetation, each bird singing more loudly than usual, as they had seemingly reinvaded both countryside and cities over the previous months. The sun now was burning down on them, lending the surface of the road and the landscape in the distance the blurred quality of heat, an optical illusion that only awakened Penelope's fear of heights as their car swerved on the narrow roads running between hills and following the Lubéron slopes. They had taken a taxi to drive them from the station in Avignon. The colours were garish now that the sun was still high, but the burnt grass and terracotta tiled rooftops and lavender fields would take on a golden hue as the afternoon would wear on.

Finally they drove past Saignon and drove on, until the car reached an even narrower path and up and up it went till it reached an old mas tucked between cypress trees.

'Is that really it?' Penelope inquired as the taxi stopped, not daring to open the door.

A large dog barked and ran towards the car, wagging its tail. Before she could stop her, Lily jumped out of the car and hurled herself against the dog.

'It's alright', a man's voice called after them. 'It's alright, that dog's nothing but a big darling, he wouldn't hurt a fly, just like his master.'

That was Richard, who must have got here earlier. He whistled and the dog turned and started running in his direction, then back towards the car, hesitating.

'Speaking of the devil, where is he?' Penelope asked. 'This is Stephen', she added when Richard had reached the car, 'and this is our Lily. Thank you', she said to the driver who had taken their luggage out.

'How do you do.'

'Pleasure.'

'He's gone to Apt to fetch the kids. Did you drive from Avignon?'

Penelope pulled a face and gave a thumbs-down gesture. 'I think I'll have to walk back. I hadn't felt this scared in a long time.'

Richard chuckled and lunged forward as if to hug her before stopping short.

'Damn it, I keep forgetting. It's good to see you anyway. Let's take your luggage inside and they'll probably be back by the time we mix our first gin and tonic. There's a pool on the other side of the house', he told the little girl, but she had gone back to playing with the dog and throwing him sticks.

'Are you sure he won't hurt her, you know, by accident?'

'Not a chance.'

'Let her live a little', Stephen added, and patted the dog, who yelped a little, glad for the attention.

'Where's your wife?' Penelope asked, as if remembering something.

'I don't know. We got divorced as well.' Richard glanced at Stephen, unsure whether he'd blundered, but Penelope nodded.

'Are you ok?'

'Me? Yeah. I'm great actually – I've started seeing this, this actress.'

'Richard...' Penelope started reprovingly. 'How old is she this time?'

'She's – ok she's almost twenty-five. But I'm telling you, this time it's different. She's a real game-changer. I left my wife, didn't I? Surely that means something.'

Penelope was laughing. 'You really haven't changed, Rich.'

'Neither have you', he beamed. 'But I'm glad.'

They had barely settled in and sat down on the loungers around the pool when they heard the car approaching and the tyres screeching on the gravel, then laughter floating in their direction. British, American, French, the voices spoke excitedly and all at the same time, over the high-pitched shrieks of children, in a contagiously joyful chorus that caused all three of them to hold their breaths in expectation.

'Dickie!' a toddler exclaimed as he burst into view and ran directly to Richard.

The laughing blonde woman who followed, her head half turned to a little similarly blonde girl who timidly held her hand, Penelope had never seen before, and from the way she pulled up and carried the child in her arms so Richard could greet her, she wondered at their familiarity. Could she have been Juliet? She looked too plain, unlike what she had heard. The answer came immediately, as Samuel followed, casually strolling with his hands in his pockets, looking more gorgeous and arrogant than ever, a confident grin on his face and expensive-looking sunglasses covering his eyes.

'Where's your mask, Sam? Afraid people wouldn't recognize you?'

He laughed and retrieved a dark blue cotton mask from his back pocket, dangling it in front of Penelope's eyes before putting it on.

'I'd kiss you, but.'

'Right.'

'I was just telling Samuel here, they actually invented a phrase for that', Hélène was telling Richard. 'It's called Big Dick Energy.'

'Does Sam have that too, you think?'

'Cocky, I think, rather applies to Samuel', Penelope answered.

Hélène glared at her, but Samuel burst out laughing. It's good to see you too, P.'

She beamed at him.

'Stop bickering, what are you even talking about?' Matthew asked, emerging from the open French windows with a tray of glasses that clinked dangerously.

'We're talking about you, Matt,' Richard replied, amused, 'and how you still have it you absolute bastard.'

'Still have what?'

Hélène rolled her eyes.

'That thing you've got going on – it's called big dick energy.'

She was talking about the aura that surrounded him and blessed everyone that was lucky enough to come into contact with him. Even with half his face covered, Matthew still exuded that dashing confidence, the blue of his eyes enhanced by their being cut off from everything else.

'You know what', Penelope supplied with a knowing look, 'I think she may just be right.'

And Hélène nodded, giggling, almost clasping a hand to her mouth and stopping a few inches before it reached her mask. 'That's exactly what it is. How come I never thought of that before?'

Penelope hoped that it was because Hélène had no idea – but she dreaded to think of the truth. She looked on Matthew, Samuel, Richard, Hélène, acutely aware of the secret of time lost all four of them shared and she didn't. It didn't hurt anymore – somehow, after all the pain and anguish, the nights she had cried herself to sleep, she remembered only the fondness and admiration for Matthew, the heart-breaking softness that resurfaced whenever he looked at her as one would look upon something gained and forgotten. 'You were my one chance', he had told her after their divorce in Derby. 'And I ruined it.' But it was ok now. She didn't even remember the bad times, as if they had been wiped from her memory. They exchanged glances. They loved each other alright. They had managed to hold on to that fondness that extends over the years and gradually takes over resentment.

'What are you even talking about', Matthew narrowed his eyes good-humouredly.

'Don't tell me you've never heard of it?'

He shook his head.

'Well go on, Google it.'

'Tssk, please. Drinks?'

'Big Dick Energy:' Samuel provided, having immediately produced his phone and looked it up, '"confidence without cockiness. It is never misplaced and it cannot be simulated". I hate to admit it, but that sounds about right, you do have that assured ease.'

'Nonsense – I'm a regular-sized-'

'Sht-sht-sht, don't even – please, there are children here.'

'I'm just a regular guy.'

'Well that's part of the deal too', Richard added. 'That kind of energy is low-key. It's more of a non-gendered vibe – Dwayne Johnson aka the Rock has it, but so does Cate Blanchett. You're not even a little bit arrogant. That's what makes people so infatuated with you – and that's what's so annoying, too. The worst part is I can't even be mad at you.'

Matthew groaned and tried to veer the conversation away from the subject. He held up his hands apologetically, because of the awkward introduction and because he could not shake hands. 'I'm Matthew', he told Stephen.

'Stephen.'

'Hi.'

'This is Luke...'

'Hey there!'

'And Luke's twin sister Alice.'

'Hello darling!'

'You're pretty', the little girl said and reached out to grab Penelope's long dark hair.

'Thank you sweetheart. My daughter Lily's right over there. She's a little bit older than you – why don't you go and play with her?'

'I'll go with you, honey. I'm concerned about the pool. I'm Hélène, by the way.'

'I thought as much. Penelope', she replied coolly, but she was smiling gently.

'Hi, I'm Stephen, Penelope's husband.'

'Hi.'

'And this is Samuel.'

'I figured.'

'Pleasure.'

'Drinks?' Matthew was asking, his eyebrows raised.

'Yes, please.'

'Drinks? Penny? Drinks?'

'Don't mind if I do. You haven't called me Penny in ages.'

'I've lost track of time.'

Matthew vanished back inside the house. At fifty, he hadn't really changed. His slightly raised eyebrow, his warm voice, the perfect British accent – all that was still there. His chin was slightly stronger, his nose sharper, his eyes still as intensely blue and heartbreakingly, unashamedly earnest. He had grown older, sure, but his face merely mapped out a story of everything that had been his life – his wrinkles told of laughter rather than worry, but more importantly, seeing him in the flesh again brought back a surge of vivid memories – there he was, exactly himself, in front of them all.

For they had all thought of him often, over the years, yet their memories of him arose from the emotion his presence had awoken in each of them, his face had gradually been replaced by a collage made up of simple pictures, fading memories, impressions rather than knowledge – so that now that they could actually lay eyes on him again, he was both incredibly different from what they had devised over the years, and yet so strikingly the same as he had always been that they all found themselves transported back in time to the moment of their lives when they had been happiest – with him.

Matthew came back with a bottle of champagne.

'Is one bottle enough for all six of us?'

'Should be.'

'There are others of course, don't you worry – the night is young.'

They had that exhilaration of people after a long period of pandemic confinement. Which no one in this lifetime had ever experienced. 'Even during the war', Hélène's grandmother had told her, 'it wasn't like that.' She meant the Second World War, Hélène was saying. 'It was awful of course, but it was a different kind of awful I guess – you knew the enemy.'

'I remember during the first days of coronavirus and social distancing. The streets were empty but outside everything had remained the same – everything looked like a décor', Stephen chimed in. 'The discrepancy between the advertisements – on TV, on the radio, on the walls of the city – between ads and actual life was nothing short of uncanny.'

'Where were you confined?' Penelope asked around.

'Oh, I just stayed locked in my apartment', Richard said, looking miserable. 'At first, it was supposed to be for a couple of weeks only.'

They all had the same stunned look on their faces, unable to really make sense of the fact that they were finally outside, and together. They had all been patiently rediscovering everything we took for granted. They kept their masks on for now but they knew that would only last until the next day. It would seem ludicrous to keep them on all the time as they shared the same house for a few days.

During the quarantine, Hélène had found a fifteen-minute podcast featuring Hofesh Shechter's voice, his music, urging you to move about in utter darkness and follow your body's instinct. She had put on earphones and danced every day, to different melodies, her eyes closed. She said seeing famous people dance and sing and get bored and have fun on social media had made it easier for her. We're all in this together, she would say. Even Brad Pitt's hair is longer. Even Justin Bieber was bored and wondering about the possibility of salvation while playing Jenga. 'You're married to a famous people', Samuel would say, amused, 'Don't you follow me on Instagram? You can see me cooking live from home with Cyril Lignac.'

Seeing her dance reminded him of her doing yoga every morning in Lucca. 'Ça va bien aller', his ex-boyfriend had written to him from Québec, saying that's how people ended their conversations, their professional emails, their distanced exchanges. Samuel had regretted not having been confined in Montréal, where people had put rainbows drawn by their children on their windowpanes, where people had managed to retain that simplicity, that familiarity, that gentle kindliness and quiet optimism. They had been in France, staying with Hélène's family, arguing loudly when watching the news, getting angry at the French government, spending hours dressing up with the kids to copy and portray one work of art a day. He felt like he was betraying his own family, his parents, growing old, alone on Staten Island, stuck with that immense twit of a president who exhibited a test and compared it to a Q-tip, stuck with pro-life activists, who fought for the second-amendment, supported the death penalty, and had started demonstrating against covid-19 protection measures holding signs that read 'my body, my choice' and 'sacrifice the weak.' Then there had been the riots asking for Justice for George Floyd, still he hadn't been there. The world had grown from fighting one disease to fighting another – both born, he felt sure, from the stupidity and greed and hubris of men who had built a civilisation founded on violence, profit, and oppression. Shakespeare, Homer, Ovid. It was all in there. Of course, being rich had made it easier, easier to live through crises, to donate thousands to support various causes, to urge his nine million followers on Instagram to fight for equality, to save the planet. But his not being actually in the United States had reminded him of the Twin Towers – when he had called his parents on the phone from Lucca and his mother was crying, and she was saying 'I'm looking out the window right now' and he wasn't there, 'I'm looking out the window and I can see the smoke, oh my God, I can see the smoke.' Was that all everything had ever been?

In the cities, everything lay abandoned as if struck by the apocalypse, as if people had left things there, thinking they'd be back the next day. Cranes sat there in the middle of construction sites, and waited. For weeks the pipes had rested against the railing, slightly askew, for weeks the piece of plastic wrap flapped aimlessly in the wind. And then it was all set on fire.

Matthew said it hadn't really made a difference for him – being confined. He had spent those weeks working here, alone, exactly as he would have. The only difference being that everybody else was isolated as well and they kept calling him on the phone and asking for video conference calls and 'quarantini' he air quoted.

'I've never spoken to my family that much. I have four brothers and sisters', he explained to Stephen. 'All of them married with kids. And there are my parents. You do the maths... I do wish they could have come too.'

Penelope looked up sharply. 'How is everyone?'

'Very well thank you. Mum sends her best.'

'That's sweet. Do tell her I said hi.'

'She was always fond of you.'

'As was I.'

She refrained from asking after Rob – she had no idea he was married. No reason to know either.

Matthew didn't say but he had checked Samuel's daily Instagram posts and Hélène's pictures as she and her family had taken to reproducing paintings with random accessories as had become a trend during the confinement. He had donated money to help medical research and bail out demonstrators. He had spent hours distant-teaching students. He had found shelter and comfort in his books, as usual.

'You're in great shape', Samuel teased. 'Have you been working out?'

'Haven't you?'

But Penelope was probably the one who had coped best, even though she too had been alone. She had been yearning for something all her life. She had felt an anguish all these years, playing worst case scenarios in her head. And when most of the world was held up in quarantine, her entire world had come to a standstill and concentrated itself on the event. Now the worst had happened, she felt. It was comforting in a way. She had felt that it all made sense, and now she no longer needed to be afraid. All she needed was to reflect back on life and try to make the most of what was left. That was easier than anything else before. She could control everything – how she interacted with other people, how she organised her day, how she presented herself to the world. It was soothing.

'How come you were alone?'

'I had been away when it happened, so I just stayed put. Stephen and Lily were at his parents, and they too stayed there. We were all kind of stranded, weren't we? We thought it best not to put anyone at risk, what with the disastrous way the British government dealt with the crisis. Granted – things weren't that great elsewhere either. But that was it for me really, 2020 started with bushfires, and murder hornets, and crickets invading crops and a pandemic and don't get me started on politics. The apocalypse was finally here, divine wrath, and the final revelation. An opportunity to change the world. Isn't that all in the Bible? Shouldn't you love your neighbour?'

She had also been animated by an immensely Christian feeling she confessed. She wanted quarantine to be difficult, to be a hardship, an ordeal. Because, she felt, humanity somehow had to pay for something – was that how they were meant to expiate their sins? She tried to remember her religious education at school. In any case, being quarantined was difficult but that's how it was supposed to be. Anything to makes things easier would have be cheating.

'Easter is supposed to be a moment of transition anyway, isn't it? A moment of rebirth. But it's also a rite of passage.'

'Oh dear, you're not turning mystical on us, are you?' Matthew joked. She never used to be so optimistic. He knew how she had felt though. After all, he too had had the same Anglican upbringing. He too had felt judged and guilty all his childhood. He too had felt an unexpected comfort in this unwanted, unfair, but inescapable punishment.

People had developed new ways of interacting. Everyone turned to Romeos and Juliets all over again, replaying the balcony scene. They were now all looking at one another from an acceptable distance, peering over the rim of masks that covered their noses and mouths.

Lily wore a faded pink one with red and purple flowers on it.

'How old is she now?'

'Five.'

'Should she even be wearing a mask?'

'We're playing it safe. No one really knows for sure, do they?'

Penelope had met Stephen when she had gone to visit her childhood friend Jo in Sweden, not long after the divorce. 'You know how we always said things like "if it happened in a movie people wouldn't believe it", or "if she hadn't done that, there wouldn't be a movie in the first place". Well. I don't know what came over me, I bought my ticket on a whim. One day to the next. And that's how I ended up meeting Stephen.'

Lily was running in the garden, mock chasing the twins. Their hair had been as dark as Samuel's when they were little, but they now had taken on some of the sickeningly blond shade of Hélène's.

'Why is that little monster crying? What are you crying sweetie?'

'I'm hungry!'

'Haven't you had a snack already? You won't be hungry later if you eat now.'

Penelope wanted to see the orchard, which was a little way down the slope.

'You go on', Matthew offered, 'Richard will show you. I'll watch the kids.'

They all went. The sun was slightly lower in the sky, and felt warm and golden on their skin.

Hélène and Penelope walked on ahead, gauging each other.

'How long have you been married?' Penelope bluntly asked.

'A couple years.' Hélène's French accent made her sound carefree but she was tense. 'How about you and Stephen?'

'Oh, we're not married. You know what they say – once burnt...'

'Was it awful, being married to Matthew?'

'I beg your pardon?'

Hélène slowed down and blushed a little. 'I'm sorry, that came out wrong. You just made it sound like... I'm sorry.'

'Don't apologise. The divorce was my fault too. Is it difficult being married to Samuel?'

'Nothing's ever difficult with Samuel. He makes everything seem so easy.'

'Money does that.'

Hélène didn't even glance. 'You should have seen him play Romeo. He had no idea what he was doing. Neither did I.'

'I guess you two go back a long way, then.'

'We do. Listen, Penelope, I don't know what you're getting at, but I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I've known Samuel for longer than half my life. I don't see him as the heartthrob who played in the franchise that made him famous. We were just kids when we first met.'

'I'm sorry, I was out of line.'

'Not at all. We all assume stuff, don't we.'

'I guess.'

Richard and Stephen were a little way behind, lazily striding on the footpath. The trees were heavy with ripe fruit. Penelope scooped and picked a raspberry, then a couple more. She smelled them first, and hesitated, almost taking her mask off. 'Do you think it's safe?' She removed her mask from the side and put the raspberries in her mouth all at the same time. 'Oh, what the hell. Is this all Matthew's? Won't it go to waste?'

'Let's pick some berries and cherries and we'll bake him a birthday cake or something.'

'Don't you ever get jealous?'

This time Hélène stopped and frowned.

'Jealous? Of Samuel? You can't be jealous of Samuel. He's a good man, and a good father.'

'Don't you ever feel threatened by his being so famous?'

'No. Never. He makes me feel like I'm ok. Like being just who I am is enough, and I'm never too far wrong. Like I deserve to be happy, you know?' She shrugged. 'I think I've finally found my own peace of mind, with him.'

Penelope looked wistful for a brief moment.

'Didn't you and Matthew have an affair in Italy?'

Hélène burst out laughing. 'Who told you that?'

'What's so funny?' a voice asked from behind, as Richard jogged to catch up with them.

'Life's what's so funny. How random it is.'

The dog came running after the kids chasing one another. Lily, the tallest of the three, stopped and hugged him.

'Whose dog is that? Is it Penelope?' Samuel asked.

It almost looked like a wolf, but it must have been a crossbreed between a German shepherd and a husky. Samuel had stayed behind with Matthew and they now stood overlooking the view, still seeing the others striding down to the orchard, half concealed by the foliage and long shades of trees.

'That mongrel? It's mine of course.'

Samuel gave Matthew an odd look.

'You've got a dog', he simply remarked.

'Of course I've got a dog. I've always had dogs.'

'You didn't have a dog in Italy. You didn't have a dog in Paris.' Samuel's tone was reproving, and Matthew looked like he was smirking. 'Come on, it's not really your dog, is it, you're just messing with me.'

Matthew's smiling eyes made it difficult for him to be believable.

'It is, though! The dog was at my parents when I was in Italy. And Penelope hates dogs.'

'I'd be so fucking surprised...'

'Hey come on, don't – don't be mad at Penelope, she's a – a decent human being.'

'God Matt, I can never tell when you're serious!'

'I am serious!' Matthew protested, but he was actually laughing now.

'Ok, let's pretend the dog's yours. What's his name then?'

'Jack.'

'Jack.'

'Yeah, Jack.'

'You expect me to believe your dog's name's Jack.'

'Hey!' Matthew chuckled, his mask hiding his dimples from view, but Samuel knew. 'Show some respect, young man. I named him after Jacquie Derrida, Jacques Lacan. Jack effing Dawson, from "Titanic". It's a perfect name for a dog. Jack off. Jackass.'

'I knew it – I fucking knew it. You're taking the piss.'

Matthew whistled and Jack immediately stopped playing with the kids who had been tugging at his light bluish and copper coat and scrambled to the man's feet. 'That's the goodest boy.'

'It is your dog', Samuel conceded, bewildered. 'How come I didn't know that about you?'

'You don't know everything about me.'

'I know what matters.'

They fell silent for a moment. The dog had his head pressed against Matthew's thigh.

'So what happens with the dog when you're away actually teaching?'

'The girlfriend takes care of him', Matthew replied casually as if it were obvious.

'You've got a girlfriend? Where? Here?'

'Of course I've got a girlfriend', Matthew scoffed. 'What did you expect? I've got several actually.'

'Very funny.' Samuel made as if he were about to leave, but Matthew held out an arm to stop him.

'Ok I don't have a girlfriend. But the dog is mine, I just take him with me everywhere I go. I need someone to keep me company when on my morning runs – because you're not there, are you?'

'You know the dog's not a person, right?'

'The dog's not a- Shh, shh, don't listen to him Jack. The boy doesn't know what he's talking about.'

He fondled the dog's head, cuddled his soft ears and neck with the absent-minded familiarity of one who's always had dogs, as if the dog were an extension of himself. Samuel felt irrationally jealous for never having achieved that kind of familiarity with anyone, or anything.

'You remember that thing, what was it?' Samuel suddenly asked, stroking the dog's thick coat as a distraction. 'You must be so hot you must be you poor thing. He's gorgeous. I can't believe Penelope hates dogs – no wait. Actually I can, sounds just like her. I bet she's a cat-person, isn't she –'

'Do I remember what?'

'That quote, "I have drunk the wine of life at last", do you remember that?' Samuel swung around the last drops of wine in his glass.

'That's Edith Wharton you moron. She was in her forties, she'd been having an affair. "I have drunk the wine of life at last, I have known the thing best worth knowing, I have been warmed through and through, never to grow quite cold again until the end."'

'The law doesn't require you give the full quotation each time you're trying to impress me, you know. You don't actually have to make your way through life one quote at a time.'

'Well I'm fifty, I think it's a little late for that, don't you think? And besides, I never told you about that. You didn't hear it from me. For once, might I add.'

'Ha. I know I didn't, but I was sure you'd read it.'

The two men exchanged a glance and understood at once they had followed the same path – first the movie set in Italy, then the book, then Enigma Variations, Edith Wharton, star loves. They needn't speak about that.

'Well, have you? "drunk the wine of life"? Have you?'

Matthew didn't reply. Samuel's eyes crinkled a bit as he stared at Matthew, but the latter kept gazing at the view, unflappable. He looked strained. Samuel wanted to say something comforting but he couldn't fathom why. He made is if to touch him and let his hand hover behind Matthew's back instead.

'That view', Richard was saying, 'is magnificent.'

They were back from the orchard. Samuel resented the view, though. It made him sad.

'It's totally idyllic, isn't it?' Penelope answered. 'If I'd known the sheer size of this place and the pool and the garden – I'd probably have come barging in and confined myself here.'

'We all would have!'

'How exactly are you able to afford this?'

'Family heirloom', Matthew said, and Penelope burst out laughing. 'Nah I've got a mortgage. But I don't have any kids so – they'll just take it back when I die.'

'Well that's an optimistic and not at all gloomy perspective.'

'Ashes to ashes – can it be helped?'

Lily had stopped chasing the twins and she was now explaining to their eager faces how one makes a flower garland with daisies. Stephen and Hélène were kneeling with them on the grass.

'We stole some cherries from your trees', Penelope sighed. 'Hélène did. I'll bake you a clafoutis tomorrow.'

'My favourite.'

'I know.'

'And what's happening with you, Samuel?' Richard asked. 'Didn't you have another series planned, for what? Netflix?'

'Yeah I did, but that's been put on hold I'm afraid.'

Penelope gasped, 'Too bad!' she exclaimed, mocking him.

'I'm much more excited about going back on stage.'

'Oh really, you are?' Richard immediately inquired, saving Matthew the trouble of asking. He was burning up with curiosity.

'Going back to my first love. I'll be play-'

'Oh, Rich, that reminds me – I've got something for you', Penelope interrupted. 'Sorry Sam, I just really don't want to forget.'

'It's alright.'

'Can you just excuse us for a second?'

Penelope and Richard wandered off.

'Aren't you bored, living out here all by yourself?' Samuel asked when they were out of earshot.

'I can't touch the bottom! I can't swim!'

'You're alright darling. Go and get their swimsuits changed, they're all wet from the pool, they're going to catch a cold I'm sure.'

'In this heat?'

'Bring them some water.'

'Did we bring a snack for the kids? I could eat something. Give me one of those biscuits, one of those we brought for the kids. I know you're tired darling, but who was it that woke us all up at 6 this morning like a silly little darling that you are?'

Matthew looked at them from a distance. He had no children.

'Bored? You forget I'm an old man. All I do is read, and write, and work. Never underestimate the quietness of happiness. I've got my dog with me. Sometimes I just walk, or go for a ride. You know there are horses not far from here...? I lead a simple, wholesome life.'

'You're so wholesome.' Samuel mused, his eyes crinkled in a rueful smile.

'I try my best. What's wrong with being wholesome?'

It dawned on Samuel, right then, that he had never met anyone so genuine in his entire life. He wanted to cry just looking at Matthew, the tenderness in his eyes. He couldn't take it – why, no one could. Maybe that was it. Maybe it was all too much for anyone to bear.

Matthew hadn't noticed Samuel's change of mood. He kept on: 'Besides, this is the land Giono wrote about...'

'Ah. Giono. Here comes the quote ag-'

_'On ferait ce que le corps désire. Tous ces appels du sang seraient des appels de joie_.'

'I still don't get it.'

Matthew was quiet for a moment. 'Alright. Living out here reminds me of our time together in Italy. That feeling. It's all still trapped inside me. Encrypted.'

'Hear that Jack?' Samuel told the dog. 'That's Derrida. Whom you're named after.'

'Well done.'

'I've learnt from the very best.'

'So I see. Encrypted – I've kept it, bottled up and untouched, trapped away in my very own crypt, indecipherable even for me.'

'Always already lost, yet never actually mourned.'

'Wow I'm impressed! All those lectures – and I'm glad it wasn't completely lost on you, then!' Matthew's attempt at making a gentle joke was feeble at best.

Samuel didn't flinch and followed his train of thought: 'All those years...'

'Don't. Just – please. I never allow myself to go there. Never allow myself to open that door, I suppose, and revisit those days, those memories.'

'Why not? There's a sweetness to nostalgia that I like. An unsuspected potency to the act of reminiscing.'

'Exactly. At first I was afraid I'd wear the memories out. I thought they might lose their... enchanted quality. But the truth is, now I'm afraid they will never wear out. And I can't bear it, I just... You see, I'd never been happier', he paused, brooding. Then he relaxed, and simply added, 'I've never been happier since. Have you?'

Samuel didn't expect to burst out crying. He leant against the low wall, sobbing, his sunglasses hiding his tears, which ran down his cheeks and wet the fabric of his hand-sewn mask. His crying told of all the years he'd been floundering, and now by reaching out too, the way Samuel had done a few seconds before, by never quite touching him and letting his hand hover a little distance from Samuel's back, Matthew was merely playing out what they had been doing ever since Italy, only this time it felt like a confession that he, too, had struggled and wept and regretted and floundered all these years, that he too had never got over the hole Samuel's incandescent eyes had burnt right through him on the very first night when he had asked for a lighter.

All these years they had barely even spoken – because they both dreaded being confronted and realising that the other had forgotten them. Or perhaps because they both had known that their love would last forever. They didn't need to find out. Keeping the other safe within was enough. The memory and the knowledge of what they had shared was enough. The regrets were excruciating, but they both knew that merely seeing each other would confirm that the bond was still there, that it had lived on, intact – they needn't tell each other that. It was plain enough. The memory still united them.

'Remember when you used to tell me stories over breakfast? Your damned soft-boiled eggs.' Samuel confided, his voice extraordinarily low and steady. 'Stories from the books you were reading. That was my favourite thing.'

'I thought you hated it.'

'That's what I was trying to have you believe. You still did it anyway, every morning, and I loved every minute of it. How funny and irreverent you were, making me roar with laughter in spite of my best effort not to, and then bringing me to that... that breaking point. That miraculous moment of revelation, of vision.' His voice didn't exactly break, but he seemed unable to make it through to the next sentence. He kept quiet, his mouth concealed behind his mask, and then blurted out 'I was never in love with other men, you know. I want you to know that. It was only ever you. I tried, though.'

Matthew chuckled, but he looked sad. 'You tried?'

'Well, yeah. You know.'

He didn't.

'I mean, I did go out with other men. I couldn't have you so I tried to become what I would have wanted you to be. Went out with younger men. It didn't work.'

The two of them just laughed it out, releasing the tension, feeling the warmth of their own breath inside the masks.

'I think I've seen that, actually.'

'What?'

'You and that chap – what was his name?'

'You mean Félix?'

'Probably, I don't know. You've become obscenely famous, I must have seen something on the internet. Is that possible?'

'Sure. It was never a secret, but you know how these things happen.' Matthew didn't. 'Félix is still a good friend – actually, he's Luke's godfather.'

'Is that so?' Matthew was taken aback.

'Is that odd? You and Penelope are still friends. She's here, isn't she, husband and daughter and all.'

'I'm not the godfather, though.'

Samuel shrugged.

'There was a brief moment', Matthew seemed to pick up somewhere in the conversation, 'when I thought I had caught it – that wretched covid-19 – and I felt certain I was going to die. I couldn't breathe. I thought back on everything – all my life. It lasted perhaps an hour – don't laugh, an hour is a long time when you think you're suffocating. Anyway, it all came rushing back to me in a flash – there had been no use trying to lock it all up in the recesses of my memory after all. I don't regret anything. I don't even regret not having children. Nothing. Except – except perhaps... There's this one thing. I should have taken you to Venice when you asked.'

'Oh God, don't say that.' Samuel's voice was so low it could barely be heard behind his dumb mask. 'Please don't say that.'

They were unable to talk for a while.

'Don't say that, oh God, please don't say that.' That had been Samuel's reply over the phone, nearly fifteen years ago, right after Paris, on Matthew's most singularly sexy interaction. They had found themselves talking for hours on the phone, unable to hang up.

Samuel's chin was still red from kissing and Matthew's stubble grazing against it.

And then Samuel's question had been plain enough, 'Were you thinking about it, too?'

'Of course I was', Matthew had replied.

Don't say that.

And you're telling me now?

'What are you saying', he had said five years ago, when the earth seemed to have exploded beneath his feet and the gap laid open wide threatening to swallow him. They were at the train station in London, they had only managed to meet up for a brief coffee, though it was too slight, too casual to make up for all the time they hadn't seen each other. Samuel carried around his heavy suitcase and almost tripped over it when they entered the coffee place, busy with people transiting just like him. His luggage was heavy with memories, heavy with Shakespeare – though he couldn't admit it now, not now that he was a famous actor and people might recognize him in the streets. London had just been a stopover on his way back to the United States – and then on to Montréal, where he was moving. They had been talking for a few minutes already – a few minutes of the short time they could actually spend together. Neither of them wanted to engage in too serious a conversation. Neither of them had wanted to miss the chance of meeting up. But time was working against them.

'Penelope and I got divorced', Matthew had said when, at last, Samuel had felt obliged to ask how she had been.

Samuel now could still remember the prickling sensation in his fingertips as his body felt drained of all his lifeblood all of a sudden, and he felt crushed under the weight of lost opportunities – Why didn't you tell me, he wanted to ask, why tell me now that it is too late.

'I didn't know. I have to go, I'm... I'm moving to Montreal.'

'I'm sorry.'

'How was life, after the divorce?' Samuel inquired, as if only just thinking about it.

'Not great. I thought about you a lot. Knowing you were there, knowing you existed, that was enough. It helped me get over the loneliness. That's silly.'

Samuel nodded, pensively.

'You did teach me something, though, all these years', Samuel was saying now, behind his mask. 'In Italy, and after that. Even when you weren't there. And when we were in Paris and we watched The Hours, and you told me about Virginia Woolf. I couldn't believe how breathtakingly handsome you were and there you were, talking about fucking Virginia Woolf all over again, and that movie was just... so depressing, and I was only twenty-two and I couldn't for the life of me understand... But there's that line I do remember. I remember a lot of things, actually. Hélène always jokes that I remember things that didn't even happen, but she has no idea.

'I remember seeing you at that Neil Young concert, all dressed in white like the douchebag you were. I remember you sitting by the pool reading French theory as if people actually did that on holiday. But most vividly I remember you leaning against the kitchen top in Paris, swathed in morning light, the warmth in your eyes and I thought... This is it. I thought, This is when it all starts. We'd been watching that movie with Meryl Streep in the middle of the night, probably drunk, and I don't know if it was you, or Virginia Woolf, or Meryl Streep even, but when I came back home in the States I watched it again and I learnt it by heart. The line from the movie. I know that you know.

'It went like that. Meryl Streep is sitting on her bed with her daughter, and she says "I remember one morning, getting up at dawn. There was such a sense of possibility, you know – that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself: So this is the beginning of happiness, this is where it starts. And of course there'll always be more... It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment, right then."

'The book by Cunningham goes a bit differently – it's not morning it's evening. What he writes might be even more accurate – "Still, there is this sense of missed opportunity. Maybe there is nothing, ever, that can equal the recollection of having been young together. Maybe it's as simple as that." It's not though. Youth has nothing to do with it, but it's taken the experience of growing old for me to realise that. He writes of how the entire experience of happiness lies in details, details that "live undimmed", I like that, undimmed in our minds, though the rest is forgotten. Cunningham adds a sentence that's not in the film. He writes, "There is still that singular perfection, and it's perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more. Now she knows: That was the moment, right then. There had been no other." There has been no other, Matthew,' he cried, 'do you know what that means?'

This time, Samuel's voice did break. His head spun as he was caught in the whirlwind of the past, the whirlwind of lost possibilities. Matthew's eyes glistened as he kept them fixed on an imaginary line in the distance. He kept his mouth shut. His lips twitched slightly.

'Of course after that, I had to read Mrs Dalloway', Samuel added when his voice allowed it, speaking louder than he should have, defiantly. 'And The Waves. I never told you, but I read it all. What do you think, huh? What do you think of that. And you know what I realised? It doesn't do it justice. The movie, the book, Virginia Woolf – none of it. It all falls short of the real thing. Do you remember, getting up at dawn, do you remember when it was just the two of us in Pompeii and –'

'I remember everything.'

There was another pause. They couldn't look at each other. All they had was the view.

'We aren't worthy of it, are we?' Samuel eventually said. 'Our feelings for each other. We'll never measure up to what we could have had if we hadn't been so damn stupid. Troilus, Romeo. We're just characters in a play, "fortune's fools", too damn righteous to escape our own storylines. You never asked how we played the lovers' death in the end. Richard wanted it subdued. He wanted the pain to be felt somehow, as if by magic, inwardly, silently. But I couldn't do it. It just didn't work. I had to scream, I had to cry out, go all the way. I didn't get it then. A love that consumes you? There is no surviving a love like this. You can't just get back to normal. There is no normal anymore.'

'Aren't you glad, though? It could have never happened at all.'

'Glad?' Samuel chuckled in disbelief. Then after a moment, 'Do you think they made it, in a different life, other versions of us? Do you think they did kiss that day in Pompeii when we didn't? Do you think they jumped off the train in Florence, and didn't say goodbye, and stole away the time we wasted? Or do you think they were just cowards like us – falling short of what they dreamt for one another? Perhaps that was Romeo and Juliet's doom, only we didn't die, we lived long enough to see our dreams collapse, didn't we? And you know what?' his voice was slightly too high-pitched, as if speaking was a way to prevent from crying, 'the worst thing is that back then, in Italy, I didn't know any better. My life really was only just beginning. It wasn't supposed to be it, you know? there would be all these wonderful people I would meet, people that would make a lasting impression and change my life and connect, just connect. That's what I thought when I was seventeen. But you – you should have known better. You should have known. You should have known it would never happen again. How can I forgive you for not telling me? You spent your days lecturing me. How come you never told me I'd spend the rest of my life regretting this?'

'How was I supposed to know? I thought I was the only one.'

'But then in Paris, and at the station, and all these years? You just... let me go.'

'We let each other go.'

There was a silence.

***

'I still can't believe Romeo and Juliet got kids', Matthew abruptly changed the subject, not knowing he really hadn't. 'Is that what would have happened if these two had survived? Would they have had twins?'

Hélène reached them, her eyes betraying that she was beaming beneath the mask, casting her protective eyes on the two men with a knowing nod. She and Samuel had that easy, carefree manner of trusting couples who value serenity over riotous passion, of people who have been single and in love, and torn apart by love and doubt and jealousy long enough to know happiness when they finally see it, and to know for sure that they're not missing out. But for Matthew she still had that immense tenderness – one that stemmed now mostly from the fact that he had born witness to their budding love even before they themselves knew what was coming.

'How did you two meet?' Matthew asked.

The couple looked at him with a quizzical and jeering look before laughing wholeheartedly. 'What?' he was puzzled.

'You know how we met.'

A shiver ran through them all.

'Yeah, but how did you find each other again?'

'In Montréal. Maybe it was meant to be.'

Their voices rose dumbly from behind their masks, making them believe they could say anything at all. Penelope was never sure she heard it right – hadn't Hélène just told her she had gone to Montréal on purpose, knowing that Samuel would be there?

'Samuel had tickets to a dance show. He claims he had no idea why he got an extra ticket. Maybe it was meant to be after all.'

'Romeo and fucking Juliet', Matthew kept saying, shaking his head, holding on to the great works of Shakespeare, to great myths, as he always had when trying to make sense of anything, when trying to keep himself from falling, 'defying the odds. What show was it?'

'"Grand Finale."'

'Come on, it wasn't.'

'What, have you seen it?'

'I have, actually. How extraordinary. By accident', he stuttered, 'a colleague couldn't go so I ended up with his ticket. No, no, that's not even the crazy part. Listen to this: I was sitting next to Richard.'

'You're joking, right?'

'I swear to God! It was sheer coincidence.'

'I don't believe you', Hélène half joked. She beckoned Richard over. 'Is that true? Can the man actually be trusted?'

'What is she talking about?'

'She means "Grand Finale," the dance show?'

'God, I mean, what were the odds? When I recognized that impressive frame I just knew right away – it was fate, I know it. Lucca and then Paris? I swear that man has been following me my entire life.'

'What did I tell you.'

They all pondered for a moment, exchanging looks.

'I know what you're thinking of', someone said.

'I do too.'

'That tune? The one the dancers end up singing in unison, in the face of chaos?'

'Don't even mention it, I've spent hours trying to find it again. I'm afraid it only now exists in our heads.'

'I sing it all the time, I'm not even sure I remember the notes. Chances are, I'm just singing an old tune that has superimposed itself and gradually invaded the original melody.'

'Well why don't we all try and sing it, just to make sure?'

Sure enough, as soon as they started humming, their mouths gaping invisibly behind the fabric of their masks, making them both dumb and more eloquent, as soon as the sound emerged and joined in the space that separated them, it was the exact same song, that had lived on in their shared memory, had survived, like everything else.

***

'Take it off', Samuel eventually said.

'What?'

'The mask. I want to see your face.'

Matthew did. He was smiling.

## Lists

### Richard's 'feeling'

'Café Müller', Pina Bausch, 1985.

'Hors Pair', Herman Diephuis, 2008.

'Le Parc', Angelin Preljocaj, 1994.

'Un peu de tendresse... bordel de merde !', Dave Saint-Pierre, 2008.

'Guerra', Pippo Delbono, (1998), film de 2003.

'Grand Finale', Hofesh Shechter, 2017.

### Matthew's Italian reading list

Stendhal, Rome, Naples et Florence, 1826.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, 'White Nights', 1848.

E.M. Forster, A Room with a View, 1908.

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, 1926.

Jean Giono, _Voyage en Italie_ , 1954.

D.H. Lawrence, D.H. Lawrence and Italy, 1966.

Virginia Woolf, A Passionate Apprentice.

### Italian road trip mix CD

1. Richi e Poveri, 'Sara Perche Ti Amo'

2. George Michael and Elton John, 'Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me' (Live)

3. Umberto Tozzi, 'Ti Amo'

4. I Santo California, 'Tornero'

5. Dalida, 'Love in Portofino'

6. Etienne Daho, 'Weekend à Rome'

7. Verdi – Il Trovatore, Act 2 : 'Vedi! Le fosche notturne spoglie'

8. Luciano Pavarotti, Cavalleria rusticana, 'O Lola ch'ai di latti la cammisa'

9. Michel Sardou, 'Je vais t'aimer'

10. Christophe, 'Les Mots bleus'

11. Dalida, 'Le Promesse D'amore'

12. Nicola Di Bari, 'La Prima Cosa bella'

13. Richard Cocciante, 'Coup de Soleil'

14. Nada, 'Ma Che Freddo Fa'

15. Al Bano Carrisi & Romina Power, 'Felicità'

16. Pink Martini, 'Una Notte a Napoli'

### Hélène's poems

My love is like a blind thrust

Pulsing yearning

Hither and thither

With no object and no purpose

No agenda

Do you remember that night we were trapped in the bar

The storm raging outside

It was pouring down and then you said

Let's go run naked in the rain

And then you said I love thunder

The elements

Running wild

I fell in love with you two that night

And never told you

I saw you

Not across a crowded room

It wasn't love at first sight

Hiding in another room

And the neighbours arguing through the window

I locked the door and kissed your face

This is called breakfast

This is called chiaroscuro

This is called yearning

There is enough room in my mouth for your full name

But I won't say it

### Samuel's Montréal playlist

Take Me to Church – Hozier

Sur la planche 2013 – La Femme

Feels Like We Only Go Backwards – Tame Impala

Castle in the Snow – The Avener & Kadebostany

La Isla Bonita – Madonna

Gimme All Your Love – Alabama Shakes

Dreams – Fleetwood Mac

Sound and Vision – David Bowie

Taro – alt-J

Multi-Love – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Love in Store – Fleetwood Mac

Crazy on You – Heart

Do I Wanna Know? – Arctic Monkeys

Love Like This – Wild Belle

Jack the Nose – Palov & Mishkin

Panic in Babylon – The Brian Jonestown Massacre

I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love with You – Tom Waits

Le temps est bon – Isabelle Pierre

Take on Me – a-ha

Can't Hold Us (feat. Ray Dalton) – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Crazy in Love – Emeli Sandé & The Bryan Ferry Orchestra

Breezeblocks – alt-J

Satellite – The Kills

Castle in the Snow – The Avener & Kadebostany

The Song They Play Every Night – Little Green Cars

Wildest Dreams – Taylor Swift

Easy – Son Lux

Devil May Care – Half Moon Run

Pour Que Tu M'aimes Encore – Céline Dion

Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye – Leonard Cohen

You're High – Agar Agar

Une miss s'immisce – EXOTICA

Sign of the Times – Harry Styles

Chan Chan – Buena Vista Social Club

Muchacho – Kings of Leon

In My Life – The Beatles

Under Pressure (feat. David Bowie) – Queen

Heart of Glass – Blondie

Small Hours – Robert Smith

The Magician – Andy Shauf

Sphynx – La Femme

I'll Try Anything Once – The Strokes

Love Like a Sunset, Pt. II – Phoenix

Box of Rain – Grateful Dead

Summer Wine – Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood

Time to Pretend – MGMT

Little Dark Age – MGMT

Heart of Glass (Crabtree Remix) – Philip Glass

Lonely Soul (feat. Richard Ashcroft) – UNKLE

Hey Baby – Bruce Channel

Just Like Honey – The Jesus And Mary Chain

Get Free (feat. Amber Coffman) – Major Lazer

Histoire d'un amour – Dalida

Quizas, Quizas, Quizas – Nat "King" Cole

Lovely Head – Goldfrapp

Le Matin (BOF "La Reine Margot") – Goran Bregovic

J'ai cherché – Amir

Love My Way – The Psychedelic Furs

Truth – Alexander

Too Afraid to Love – The Black Keys

Creep on Creepin' On – Timber Timbre

Angels – Robbie Williams

Video Games – Lana Del Rey

Kokomo – The Beach Boys

Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) – Arcade Fire

Please Please – The Most Loyal

Everybody Wants – Half Moon Run

Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby – Cigarettes After Sex

Baba O'Riley – The Who

Spacer (Version 45 Trs N° 1) – Sheila

Love's a Stranger – Warhaus

Woman in Love – Barbra Streisand

I Got You Babe – Sonny & Cher

Too Much Heaven – Bee Gees

We All Fall in Love Sometimes – Elton John

Runaway – Del Shannon

### Matthew's list of bittersweet

Devics, 'My True Love'

Bon Iver, 'The Wolves (Act I and II)'

Coldplay, 'The Scientist'

Fleetwood Mac, 'Landslide'

Band of Horses, 'Evening Kitchen'

P.J. Harvey feat. Thom Yorke, 'This Mess We're In'

Neil Young, 'Philadelphia'

The Cure, 'Cut Here'

Serge Lama, 'D'aventure en aventure'

Benjamin Biolay, 'Déjeuner de soleil'

Billie Eilish, 'when the party's over'

'Roman Holiday', ending, William Wyler, 1953.

'Les Parapluies de Cherbourg', ending, Jacques Demy, 1964.

'Two Lovers', ending, James Gray, 2008.

'Breathe In', ending, Drake Doremus, 2013.

'La La Land', ending, Damien Chazelle, 2016.

'Call Me by Your Name', Elio asking his mum to come and get him, Luca Guadagnino, 2017.

'Le bonheur arrivait à toute allure, l'événement allait plus vite que l'attente. Rambert comprenait que tout lui serait rendu d'un coup et que la joie est une brûlure qui ne se savoure pas.'

Camus, _La Peste_

Recollection

Pauline Macadré

2020

