Gone

The heavy front door is ajar when I arrive, so I push it open and wait uncertainly amid the shadows in the hall. Lisa’s disembodied voice floats from upstairs: “I’ll be down in a minute, go through and make yourself at home.” 

And I do; after all, I lived here for nineteen years. I don’t recognise a single item in the place anymore but at least the rooms are still in their original locations. 

I place my bottle of wine – Chianti, of course – on the new cream marble benchtop in the kitchen and wander into the dining room. 

Everything here is charming: the mosaic tiles that now cover the floor, the breeze that caresses the filmy curtains framing three arched doorways that lead into the garden, the antique sideboards along one wall of the oblong room. On the nearest one, a dozen overblown pink roses have been oh-so-casually stuffed into a jar, supported by a bunch of emerald-green basil leaves, gleaming with health and goodness. So Tuscan, I think, nastily. I can’t resist a quick pinch, releasing the basil’s spicy fragrance. My mouth waters at the thought of pounding those leaves into an oily pesto of garlic, toasted pine nuts and sharp, perky cheese.

These days the dining room is dominated by a scrubbed pine table made from three long planks – a table long enough to seat twelve – although today it’s set for six, leaving at least a metre of space at each end for absent friends. Today we shall dine in the centre, three on each side, perched on wrought iron chairs, topped with plump blue cushions. Above the table hang three filigree lamps – so exotic they could only have come from a Swedish superstore.

So many threes. As if I need reminding that three is a crowd.

Lisa has set the table with a country-style table runner printed with black olives and garlic bulbs, mismatched knives and forks, and crumpled linen napkins. Rustic wine goblets wait on a polished brass tray at one end, bubbles of air caught in their sea-green glass. 

Apart from Lisa, I am the last to enter the room. Four old friends – hers now, not mine – cluster near the far doorway out into the garden, not looking at all like they’re at home. I’m surprised she hasn’t traded them in too; they’re not the sort of people you’d find in a flash Interiors magazine, or an Italian farmhouse either, for that matter. Not one of them comes over to say hello.

I linger by the door, embarrassed, but I’m saved by a little ripple of excitement. Their eyes light up; behind me, Lisa has timed her entrance to perfection. 

She strikes a pose, smoothing the tight pink sheath down her ruthlessly toned thighs with those long, tanned fingers. Her nails are tipped with scarlet, the exact same shade as her kitten-heeled shoes. She’s wearing a ferocious looking choker of steel grey metal, the same colour as her hair, with its new pixie cut. It looks like fencing wire but probably cost more than my car. Her outfit seems strangely out of place in this Tuscan-style room, like she sashayed into the wrong spread in a glossy magazine.

She parts her plump red lips and bestows a smile on her little flock of friends, but the effect is ruined by the smudges of lipstick on her even white teeth. She looks like a very expensive ferret.

The friends beam and cluck, as if it is truly a wonderful surprise to see her, as if it’s not her house and she hasn’t invited them here for a long Italian lunch, as if they’d met by chance in a Florentine piazza – suddenly, miraculously, joyfully! – not at 15 Richmond Way, Glen Innes Heights.

“Oh bella!” one squeals.

“How gorgeous you look!”

“You’ve done wonders with the place!”

Oh please.

Lisa sweeps up a platter of intricate snacks and napkins from the nearest sideboard and sways toward our old friends. They air-kiss her cheeks mmmwah mmmwah then help themselves to a little something from the plate. I watch her pop a stuffed olive into the round O of her lipsticked mouth and wish it would stick in her throat.

This could be the longest lunch of my life. I don’t even know why I’m here, except to eat more crow.

I wonder what I’d find if I were to slip out of this impossible room and into the garden. If I were to crunch down the immaculate white-gravel pathway, out through the wrought iron gate, and onto the street. Would the people-movers I’d expect to see out there be gone? Would dusty red Vespas zip past instead, weaving between fat Italian matrons and moustachioed old men playing chess in the street? Would I find myself in la dolce vita, instead of this stuck-up suburb with its school runs and uptight front lawns?

I move to the doorway furthest from the clucking group and step onto the cool terracotta-paved terrace. But before I can escape from Lisa’s new life, a strange sound breaks through the “oooohs’’ and “aaaahs” of her admiring friends: a rasping noise like a submersible pump that’s run out of water to suck up.

Hurck-hurck-hurck.

“Quick!”

“Get some water!”

“Don’t thump her back like that!”

While they fuss, I leave the terrace and drift deep into the garden. Birds sing lightly in the trees, the sun’s warmth settles on my face. I taste the salty tang of the sea on my tongue, breathe in the sharp smell of fresh fish on a beachside grill… 

I feel like I’ve wandered off into my own fantasy Italian life. Could it be true? Is it possible to leave one’s body and fly far away, to discover one’s soul soaring high over lemon groves in a happier place? 

But even as I relax into my imaginary world, Lisa’s special friend Rick (yes, good old Rick) summons me back.

“Tim, are you out there?” he yells from the middle arched doorway. “We need your help!”

Me? Why me? She’s not my wife anymore. 

Let her choke, I think, she deserves it. I look at Rick and shrug my shoulders helplessly, as if I don’t know what to do. 

Lisa’s hurck-hurck-hurck noises grow fainter as I slowly float away.

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