“You almost had me, you fucker,” he says with a growing smile as he finally looks up.
“Giles, you literally wear three-piece suits every day of your working life. There is nothing uncivilised about you.”
I can’t be sure because we’re both still a little red in the face from our run but I think Giles blushes and that makes me smile. It’s fun making him blush.
“So, do you speak it with your mum?” he asks, and again, I make a note of how he doesn’t take my compliment very well. That’s not what I would expect from a man like Giles.
“She wishes,” I say and I feel the caffeine start to hit, perking me up after feeling like I was close to death during the last kilometre of that run. How I’m ever going to run four kilometres more than what we just did,andafter doing a swim and a bike ride, I have no clue. “I understand most of it, but I have to say, speaking it doesn’t come as easily to me as I would like.”
“You’ve never lived there?”
I shake my head. “Not really. Only for the summer months when I was younger.”
“In Sardinia? I’ve never been,” Giles muses. “But I’d love to one day.”
“It’s a beautiful island. I mean, of course, I’m biased, but it’s true.”
“You’d never just go back, to live for good?”
I think on this for a second. “I’ve thought about it,” I say. “But I couldn’t leave my mum.”
“She could go with you?”
I shake my head. “No, she’ll never leave the UK now.”
“Why?”
“It’s where my dad died, and is buried. My dad and my brother who died before I was born.”
Giles’ face freezes, his mouth parted. “My God, I’m sorry, that’s…”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I mean, obviously, it wasn’t at the time. I’ve no doubt that it was hell for my parents. He died from meningitis. They took him to the doctor, but it was too late. I don’t think there was the same awareness that there is now. But I wasn’t there. I don’t know what it was like. I only know that when I arrived, I became my parents’ world.”
“Why didn’t they bury your brother in Italy? Or your dad?”
I swallow, not feeling sad as such, just more morose, more melancholy as I think about these decisions my mum had to make. “They already had the café, the business here in London. And I don’t think they wanted to be far away from him. His grave, I mean. They used to go and visit him every week. They wanted him close by.”
“And then your dad?” Giles prompts so gently his voice is little more than a whisper.
“He died about ten years ago. A brain aneurysm. It happened when he was sleeping. We called an ambulance,took him to the hospital, but he just never woke up again. The doctor said it was a ticking time bomb that could have gone off at any time so I’m just grateful I had him in my life for over thirty years.”
Giles nods thoughtfully and stares out into the crowd and traffic in front of us. I wonder if he’s thinking about his own father and how he didn’t have as long with him.
“He wanted to be buried next to Lorenzo. That was his only request.” I clear my throat, hoping it shifts some of the emotion simmering inside me too. It does, a little. “Mum still goes to their graves every week. I go with her sometimes. Not as often as I should.”
“I can understand why you want to stay close to your mother,” Giles says, his eyes still fixed ahead. “Physically, I mean.”
“I’m also not very good on my own,” I say with a sigh. It’s all coming out now. “I have ADHD and struggle when I don’t have a routine and when I live alone, I find routines… hard. Like I just let them go. Living with my mum helps me because I always know she’s there so I have a reason to pick up my shit, to do my share of the chores and she has her routine that I work around.”
“You’re messy?” Giles asks.
“No, not exactly. But I can be. When I’m stressed or overwhelmed. Meds keep me on track most of the time, but if I’m not in a good headspace, bad habits creep in.”
Giles’ gaze has gone again, and it looks like so have his thoughts. He just nods to himself and I fall silent, wanting to give him space for whatever it is he’s thinking about. Besides, I still have the majority of my cappuccino to enjoy.
“Thank you for sharing all that with me, Marcello,” Giles says and when I look up from my cup, his eyes are back on mine. “When did you get diagnosed with ADHD, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“When I was eighteen. I struggled throughout school. I was the naughty kid who scraped by with my charm and winning smile.” I demonstrate exactly this to Giles who chuckles. “But really I wasn’t being naughty as just trying to entertain myself, my friends and my teachers. I have pretty bad dyslexia and they caught that quite quickly, so they just thought my bad marks at school were down to that and my cheeky personality. But then I completely flunked my GCSEs. Like I did spectacularly bad. It was epic how terribly I did. Even I was shocked. I finished school, worked in the café full-time with Mum and Dad and that’s when they saw what I was really like.”
