Cock-a-doodle-doo.
I take two pillows from the mountain surrounding me and muffle my ears. Okay, now we’re talking.
I’m about to drift back to sleep when thecock-a-doodle-dooerupts more violently than before. What’s happening? I lift my head to find that perched on my windowsill is ... a parrot?!
That’s right, a bright-green parrot with a red head singingcock-a-doodle-doo.
I start to question my grip on reality.
Undaunted, the parrot looks at me first with one eye, then with the other, and ...Cock-a-doodle-doo...
Bam!
“Take that!” I exclaim, hurling my pillow at him as he flies away.
Okay, so I won’t be going back to sleep. Why not check the news. I open the app on my phone, but there’s no network.
I search for a Wi-Fi signal, but my brand-new phone detects nothing. No network, no Wi-Fi ... maybe I need to update the operating system.
I turn on the old tube TV, which looks like some kind of antique prop, though the remote control on the bedside table suggests it might actually work.
The speaker crackles as flickering images appear on the faded screen. I flip through one channel after another. “Where on earth are the international channels?”
I have millions in investments to manage. I can’t not have access to the news in real time!
I’m not one to give up, but the only channel I can get is the local home-shopping network.
“Eat whatever you like, whenever you like, and watch the kilos melt away! Ladies and gentlemen, finally, straight from Brazil, a miraculous musk ointment found exclusively in the rainforests of Manaus. Just for today, two for one at the extraordinary reduced price of not three hundred, but two hundred euros! Just a slather before bed, and you’ll be half a kilo lighter by morning, guaranteeeeed! Do you understand?” shouts the seller.
I switch off the TV, unnerved.
I need a shower. I drag myself to the bathroom, which, I’m relieved to admit, is up to par. For all intents and purposes, it is a bathroom, with a big Carrara marble bathtub, a long vanity, a shower that mightas well be a fairground, and a stupendous coffered ceiling with all its original details.
When we came here as kids, we slept in the more spartan rooms. Not that we cared much about luxury back then.
I open the tap and jump in, but after less than two minutes, it goes from lukewarm to cool, to melted snow directly from the Himalayas. “Fuck!” I exclaim with a jump. I turn the knobs but nothing happens. It’s still freezing, and my mood takes a definitive nosedive.
I dry off and go back to my room to get dressed, only I don’t see my suitcase anywhere. Where did I put it?
I replay everything I did yesterday, but I can’t remember putting it in my room. Maybe I left it downstairs. When did I last see it?
So ... I had it in the taxi at the Florence airport, dragged it with me on foot to the villa, then dragged it back into the taxi when I reached the fair in Belvedere and ... “I left it in the trunk!” I shout, punching the bathroom door.
All I need now is coffee.
I pull on my clothes from yesterday, except the jacket, and go downstairs, but on the way down, I notice something I hadn’t before: The house looks neglected. For such a historic villa, I’d expect to see signs of age, but this place actually seems as if it’s been abandoned, with cracked walls darkened by dust, warped doors, and threadbare curtains, not quite as I remembered it.
In the kitchen I find Mariana, already busy at the stove, and a girl sitting at the table. She gets up, takes a banana from the fruit bowl, says goodbye and leaves, as Mariana says: “See you at lunch, Linda.”
“Good morning,” I say as I enter.
“Oh, hello, Michael. You’re up early!”
“Yes ... a parrot with an identity crisis came to cock-a-doodle-doo on my windowsill at dawn.”
“So you’ve met Renato!” she gushes.
“Renato?”
