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He stared at his swollen red ear lobe, and then shifted his gaze to the other one, which was as white as the rest of him.
He had no idea why he only ever scratched and butchered his right lobe.
Initially, it was an unconscious response to the pain emanating from his tooth. The tic had stayed with him ever since. It wasn't an attractive habit, he knew that much, so he tried to make sure he only ever did it when he was alone.
It gave him such a thrill...not as much as rubbing his tongue against the cavity, mind.
He scratched his right lobe and slowly slid his tongue over the decayed incisor. He weighed up which gave him more pleasure and decided that it was indeed the tongue on the cavity, by some distance. No contest.
He looked once more at his reflection. His hair was totally dishevelled. He dipped his fingers into a tub of gel and retrieved a small amount, which he carefully applied to the tips of his short hair.
Now he was ready.
Although he kept staring at himself in the mirror, his mind was elsewhere. On his mission. His obsession. He removed his phone from his pocket and re-read the message.
It was time. To hell with the arguments. It was all water under the bridge. Some things were more important.
He slid the phone back into his pocket and walked out of the room.
He needed to get a move on.
CHAPTER 7
She was still wondering whether to accept his job offer. If she said yes, she'd have to leave her hometown behind for...months? Years?
Move to the back and beyond somewhere in Tuscany.
If she said no, she'd be throwing away a golden opportunity. Paid employment at a time when jobs were at a premium.
A wave of disgust washed over her as she thought back to her work at the strip club.
She hadn't enjoyed getting naked in front of all those lust-fuelled men; she'd just needed the money. She'd put up with it for around three years and probably would have kept doing so had it not happened.
One evening, while she was changing before heading home, Signor Tironi came into the changing room and asked for five minutes of her time so the two of them could talk business.
Business, that's what he said.
She agreed and he embarked on a seemingly never-ending monologue
before eventually getting to the point.
The business.
He told her she was one of the best dancers and strippers he'd ever worked with. And also the most beautiful. She was loved by all the customers, but one was particularly keen. A wealthy businessman in his fifties. Tironi told her the man was willing to pay anything to spend a night with her.
Chantal raised an eyebrow and looked at him disdainfully.
"So, what do you think?" he asked casually. "What are you looking at me like that for?"
She answered quickly and firmly.
"I'm a dancer, not a whore."
He smiled.
"If you were some kind of nun, you wouldn't be flashing your tits about in my club. Think about it, Chantal. This guy is our best customer. He's got more money than the lot of us put together," he said, drawing a circle in the air with a nicotine-stained finger.
"I strip because I need the money," she replied coldly. "I'm not proud of what I do, but getting your kit off in front of men is one thing, and going to bed with them is something else entirely."
Tironi drew closer and stroked her hair, his stubby fingers brushing against her face.
"Perhaps...but you may not even have to sleep with him." He smiled at her again. "He might be happy with...you know...flirt with him a little, get him hard, suck him off. Close your eyes for three minutes, swallow like a good girl and walk off with five hundred big ones."
She tied up her shoes and stood up. Walked over to the little table and picked up her soft drink.
"So, let's see if I've understood." She stroked her boss's cheek. "I flirt with him a little." She brushed up against him. "I get him hard." She bit her lip. "And I suck him off." She slid her index finger inside her mouth and bit down. Hard.
Tironi smirked.
Chantal continued.
"Then I close my eyes," she whispered, gently pushing down her boss's eyelids. "Three minutes and..."
She threw her drink in Tironi's face.
"Fuck off, you prick!" she snarled.
"What the fuck do you think you're playing at, you stupid girl? You do realise that I could..."
She never heard the end of that sentence. She had already stormed out of the changing room and slammed the door behind her.
She hadn't worked for the strip club since and never would again. She'd been out of work for nearly two years before Robobi's forced her into a two-year contract earning a few hundred euros a month. And then chose not to renew it.
"Bastards," she said, piercing a cube of mozzarella with her fork.
She convinced herself that the offer from the guy in the chat room – What was he called again? Oh yeah, Alfredo – really was a golden ticket. Salary, board and lodging. It was the answer to all her prayers.
If she accepted the job, she'd have to go and see her father before she left. He might have been off his rocker these days, but she would still have to say goodbye.
CHAPTER 8
On reaching the roundabout at the intersection of Via Paglia and Via Carducci, she'd considered doing an about turn and heading back home. But a little voice inside her head had told her she couldn't leave town without saying goodbye. So she'd gone round the roundabout three times before taking the exit towards the clinic.
Giancarlo Moretti was in bed, the covers pulled up to his chest. Beads of sweat glistened on his furrowed brow. His eyes were closed, shutting out the world that had robbed him of his wife a year earlier.
He was asleep. Perfect. She no longer needed an excuse not to talk to him.
Chantal breathed a sigh of relief, but immediately felt like a coward: she had neither the courage nor the desire to enter the room and talk to the man who had always been a perfect parent.
Nearly always, she corrected herself.
Chantal watched her father and reflected on the unfortunate circumstances that had brought him there.
Giancarlo Moretti had led a troubled life but had always got by, even when his problems had seemed insurmountable. But the premature loss of his wife had floored him for good. He'd let himself go one day at a time, alcohol the only point to his existence. The drinking had started the week after the funeral. Before being admitted to the rehab clinic, he would get up in the middle of the night and guzzle whatever he could lay his hands on. Whatever could make him forget the sad reality of life.
Chantal knew what he was doing, but he'd always denied it. That was, until he came home in the early hours one morning and collapsed on the living room floor. The colossal crash had woken Chantal with a start. She'd feared they were being burgled, and her instinct was to lock herself in her room. But then she'd recognised the sobbing and phlegmy coughs of her father. She'd turned on the light and headed towards the noise. And there he was. She'd walked over to him, helped him to his feet, looked him straight in the eye and seen a pitifully drunk old man.
Having struggled to get him to bed, Chantal didn't sleep a wink that night - unlike her father, who was out for the count and snoring within minutes.
The binges became increasingly heavy and frequent, and he started to get nasty with her.
Then he hit rock bottom. He came home one night and Chantal went in to find him sprawled on the sofa, a knocked-over bottle of whisky by his side and vomit down his greasy shirt. His head was back and he was foaming at the mouth.
Chantal was petrified. Her hands shaking, she'd fumbled around in her handbag for her phone and rung the emergency services. They'd managed to save him, but the doctor told her he would be better off in a rehab clinic. He'd advised her to take her father to the nearest SerT, a public drug treatment centre. After all, they couldn't afford private care. So that's what she had done, hoping that he would respond well to treatment and make a full recovery.
But months later, Giancarlo Moretti was still in the clinic. The detox process had resulted in a string of psychiatric problems that had put even more strain on the father-daughter relationship.
Chantal came back to the present, pulled a tissue from her bag and dabbed at her eyes. She glanced over at her father and couldn't help but cry. She raised a hand to her mouth and blew him a kiss.
"Good luck, Papà. I just came to say bye," she whispered.
But she feared it was more than just goodbye:
"Farewell, Dad."
She took a couple of steps away, then turned around and looked back through the glass wall of her father's room:
"I love you. I've always loved you."
CHAPTER 9
Chantal's computer flickered into life.
This was it. Decision time. The job she'd been offered would give her a fresh start. Hopefully, it would be a change for the better.
Could hardly be any worse than the previous year, she told herself.
She manoeuvred her mouse over the mouse mat, clicked on the smiley face and watched as the chat window opened and displayed her most recent messages.
She had no problem finding the right words this time. They came pouring out effortlessly, and she was so sure of herself that she hit 'send' without even bothering to re-read what she'd typed.
06/02/2016
SadChantal 17.43
Hi Alfredo. I've thought about your offer and have decided to accept it. Just let me know when I can start! Have a nice evening.
No sooner had she sent the message, she couldn't wait for her new adventure to begin. She got up and located her cigarettes. If her mother had been there, she'd no doubt have chastised her for restricting herself to tinned tuna and cheap pasta so she could afford to buy fags. On four hundred euros a month, she couldn't have her cake and eat it.
She felt a bit stupid, but she couldn't suppress her desire to smoke.
She lit up and inhaled greedily. As she blew out a cloud of smoke, she chewed nervously at a hangnail on her thumb.
She took another drag and looked around the room, searching for something else to make her forget her current plight.
She looked right, then left, but nothing she saw managed to distract her.
Until she glanced over at the shelf next to the stereo. A photo showed her striking a pose in her swimming costume as she lay on a brilliant-white beach. She could remember the exact moment the snap had been taken.
The exact moment he had taken it.
It was only just over a year ago, but it seemed like a lifetime.
That was the last time she had gone to the beach and smelt the sea air.
She'd forgotten the smell itself,
but she knew it was the most wonderful thing she'd ever smelt.
She smiled as she thought of spending the rest of her life by the seaside. That would be her ideal scenario. By the sea, she felt only joy; no anger or bitterness. By the sea, she felt only calm; no sudden bouts of anxiety.
Whatever the problem, the sea could resolve it. At least that's what she'd thought until that last holiday, the one immortalised in the photo she was now staring at.
They'd decided to go to Mauritius.
As they'd flicked through the holiday brochures, they'd fallen in love with the views, which were seemingly from another world. They'd hoped that the trip would repair the cracks that had started to appear in their relationship after months of fighting. An eight-year relationship.
Eight years of being Chantal and Giulio.
They were so happy in Mauritius: swimming in the sea; walks on the beach; candlelit dinners; sex morning, noon and night. So much sex.
Before jetting off, they'd decided they would make a baby right there in that paradise on earth. They'd certainly tried hard enough, but Chantal had her period when they got back to Italy. They kept trying, but there was no sign of her falling pregnant so they went to see Dr Cresti, a gynaecologist, who referred them for tests.
They waited for ten long days for the results.
There was no problem with Giulio's sperm, but Chantal's ovaries were considerably swelled by cysts, which were preventing fertilisation.
She went under the knife, and the operation was a success, but she still couldn't get pregnant. They subjected her to more tests, which revealed she would not be able to have children. Chantal had cried for a whole week, and just as the tears had finally begun to dry, she'd caught Giulio in bed with another woman.
"It would never have lasted anyway," he'd told her in an attempt to justify his infidelity. "I'd never have stayed with a woman who couldn't give me a child."
His words had cut like a knife. And her scars would never heal.
On the very same day, she'd packed a case and headed back to her childhood home. Not that it felt like her childhood home anymore. First her mamma had died of stomach cancer, and then her grief-stricken papà, Giancarlo, had been forced into rehab after descending into a spiral of drinking.
Chantal snapped out of her daydream and opened her eyes.
The Mauritius photo was still there in front of her.
