11) Going to Italy
August 21, 2006
One day Homeless Friend and I are grazing in the flat. We are eating toast and talking about shoes. Suddenly she pops this question. “Luce do you fancy flying to Frankfurt with me? We could borrow my Dad’s convertible Saab and drive it through Germany, Austria and down to Lake Garda in Italy. We can visit Giant Tattooed Italian Friend.” “Oh my God!!!!Oh my God!! Oh my God!!! A road trip!! To Italy!!!! I’m going to meet and marry an Italian Stallion!!” I scream casually. Within two and a half minutes we’ve booked flights. The plane leaves at a ridiculous time and lands in a place nowhere near where we actually want to go. It costs as much as a packet of crisps. We are thrilled. I pack every thing I own. As I intend to wear all Homeless Friend’s clothes, this is just a precaution in case she loses her luggage. I take a guide book to Italy and some extremist literature called ‘How to Make Any Man Fall in Love With You’, a thrifty charity shop purchase which shall be my constant companion. The book basically says 1) look them in the eye 2) keep talking don’t let the conversation stall 3) Touch men (in non rude places) as often as possible. 4) smile Apparently I must not forget point 4 or I will scare people. I intend to practise my tactics in Germany, hone them in Austria and let rip in Italy. I am a fanatical student of seduction. The look for the entire holiday shall be “Expose As Much Flesh As Possible, Alternate the Strap Lines And Get the White Bits Brown.” After 8 hours of low cost bus, coach and air travel I feel as horny as a sick bag. I remember my mission. I mutter the mantra, “eyes, talk, touch, smile.” The talk part is tricky, all I can say in German is “excuse me where is the nearest train station.” I say this to the first relatively attractive man I come across. He reels off a lot of German. Then points to the building we are standing next to. It is a train station. Homeless Friend looks mortified. Not to be put off I peer into his eyes, smile, grab his arm and say ”Danke, Danke.” He looks terrified and runs away faster than Heike Drechsler towards a sand pit. For the rest of the time in Germany I am not allowed to talk to anyone. 
After 6 hours in the car Homeless Friend and I are in Austria. “Eyes, touch, smile” is the new mantra. We have sodded the talking bit. Homeless Friend can’t actually speak anyway. She strained her voice by singing The Heidi Song repeatedly since crossing the border. There is justice in the world. This is a huge relief to me. She mistook a move I did whilst chair dancing to ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ as a signal that we should take a right turn. We are now an hour and a half off schedule. If she could shout I have no doubts she would. We stop at a café that looks like a polystyrene cuckoo clock. A very sexy car pulls up next to us, driven by two rather eligible men. I smile and wave. I try to be alluring in an unthreatening way. They get out of the car. They are wearing lederhosen, over Umbro T-shirts with Caterpillar boots. We drive off. We arrive in Italy. We meet Giant Tattooed Italian Friend. He lives near lots of shoe shops. He runs a cocktail bar. He says “Ciao bellissimas.” He suggests going for lunch. I knew I’d love Italy. I smile brilliantly at the Lovely Little Italian Waiter and say “Ciao.” He looks into my eyes, strokes my cheek, says “Bella” and then purrs, “What are you doing tonight?” This is unbelievable because 1) It is the singularly most easy bit of pulling I have ever done. 2) I am old enough to be his mother. 3) How could he possibly have known I was English after my perfectly pronounced “ciao”? Unused to men being so forward I blush. I behave like an embarrassed five year old who has wet herself. Twice. Despite this we have a legendary lunch. A gargantuan plate of carpaccio, colossal dish seafood pasta and vast jugs of Prosecco (4 euros each!!!). I sit grinning, repeatedly saying “I love Italy,” whilst trying to avoid the waiters eye. We have phenomenal coffee and grappa and some other sweet little lemony shots. 
It is like being in the Italian restaurant off Oxford Street that I used to work at. Only without the roar of buses, the smog, the leering business men and the knowledge that any of the clientele could contract salmonella in the next ten minutes. About 17 hours later we leave the restaurant. I am at “max food room.” I can only waddle and groan. I realize that if I was in a sexual relationship in Italy I would say “Bagsy me being on the bottom” a lot. In Italy I lose my libido. I muse it is because of; 1) The spaghetti 2) The fact that I am having a lovely time with friends. The presence of Man would bugger it up. 3) The fact that I lost my favourite pair of shoes on my birthday. (These were my ‘Fuck-Me-Shoes.’ Without a valid pair of ‘Fuck-Me-Shoes’ I feel only half a woman. I feel like a woman taking man hormones.) On the last day in Italy I buy the perfect pair of ‘Fuck-Me-Shoes.” Shod in these I become whole again. Homeless Friend says these shoes go beyond “Fuck-Me.” They enter realms of “Fuck-You.” “Wow.” I whisper, feeling their power. They are a little small but like any woman I have two thoughts “they will stretch” and “suffer for beauty.” The problem with Italy is that all ages go out together. You gear yourself up for focused pulling. You end up chatting to granddads or playing with children. On the last night I find myself playing with a five year old girl. We spend hours trying to swat pretend flies. Obviously as she is five I cannot stop playing with her. My only option is to wear her out. She is teaching me a clapping game when I feel something warm crawling over my feet. I look down. I see a man in terrible jeans taking mobile-phone-photos of my feet. ‘What are you doing, Freak Man?’ I enquire. “Taking a photo of your shoes, Sexy.” “They’re amazing aren’t they?” I say, gleefully offering him my feet to photograph. “I own shoe shops in Zurich” “You own shoe shops!!” I sigh in reverence. 
I overlook his terrible jeans that could only suit Shakira and he becomes my new best friend. He takes seventeen shots of my shoes. Homeless Friend gesticulates behind him, mouthing the words, “Who’s that, he’s gorgeous?” She hasn’t spotted the jeans. I don’t tell her. Terrible Jeans introduces us to his friend, Slightly Honky Intrepid Man. They run the shoe business together. “We’re doing a bike trip in the mountains.” “Urgh, extreme fitness and sweaty chaffing!” I grimace to Homeless Friend. “A motorbike tour. Fool!” She whispers back. She is seriously smitten with Terrible Jean Man which is odd as she’s very stylish. The Swiss Men take annual Man-Trips. Last year they went to Brazil, built a raft and sailed it down the Amazon. Slightly Honky Intrepid Man shows me his mobile phone pictures of smiling brown children helping him build his raft. He is an intrepid man with amazing English, who happens to be a Shoe Mogul, probably with Swiss Bank accounts. I imagine Homeless Friend and I being given credit cards and told to spend a month in Rio looking at shoes while they do rugged man things. His breath is a little honky and I would have to tell him that I can’t date a man with a motor bike. (He’ll have to sell it and buy a nice safe Volvo if he intends to do mountain road trips.) Still, I think this is love. They invite us back to their apartment. We say “no of course not, we’re ladies.” They leave. I wave goodbye to multi lingual children and my shoe wing. It is a relief to be able to breath through my nose again though. I look at my new shoes, “I love you,” I sigh. Homeless Friend is standing with her mouth open, she clutches my arm, she looks like a taxidermied ferret. She’s finally noticed the jeans. Suddenly Slightly Honky Intrepid Man runs up behind me. “Can I tell you something?” “Of course” I say holding my breath, he has leant a bit close “You’ve got an amazing bottom.” It is a sacred moment. Years ago Robert Browning is purported to have said, “Open my heart and you will see, Graved inside of it ‘Italy.’” “Robert you’re right,” I ruminate, “Italy really is Paradise.”
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Book publication day post.