Farewell Trip

But I need to hear your voice, your words, the certain, familiar phrasing that is yours alone. To feel you close to me. Reading that letter in Lampeter was like a drug. I can’t wait any longer.

Talk to me, Trip, talk to me.

Letter 2: Siena

I hope the bar’s still there. I tried to find it on Google but have no idea what it was called. Anyway, assuming it is, and assuming you’re sat there reading this, do you remember being here in 1985? The first time we came here.

This is the place where we had that ludicrous argument about whether it was pronounced Michael Angelo or Michelangelo. We were drinking coffee and we were planning our time, sorting out something suitably touristy and arty-farty and I’d committed the apparently treasonable sin of calling him Michael.

You corrected me. I disagreed. We raised our voices a bit too much and people looked at us. I stood my ground. But you had the whole of Italy and a guide book on your side, and you tried to tell me it was Michel, rhymed with pickle because of TS Eliot.

Well, truthfully, I’m still not sure I see where he fits in. I’m not much of a reader, and you know I never get what you would call ‘literature’. And poetry? Can’t be doing with it, to be honest.

Talking of rhymes, I remember the first time I said, ‘I love you.’ You’ve spent most of your life trying to erase it from your memory. Our final year at Lampeter; our moment in the spotlight as the director and star of Fiddler on the Roof, which even now seems a startlingly original version. What with the Russian Jews becoming teepee-dwelling hippies in Wales. And all the male parts being played by women and vice versa. And you were great in the Topol role. I loved ‘If I Were a Rich Girl’. All those lyric changes we had to make. You were brilliant at all that. And managed to offend just about everyone.

We poured ourselves into that for weeks, didn’t we? All for one glorious night, capped by a wonderfully improvised climax. When the Fiddler fell off the Roof.

Once we were sure I hadn’t broken any bones and the curtain had come down on us, literally, we were the only ones left. You were tending to me.

‘You know,’ I said, ‘if we ever make another musical together …’

‘Promise me, we won’t.’

‘Well, if we ever do, there’s gonna be a few changes.’

‘Like what?’

‘No sheep, for starters.’ We laughed. Well, I laughed. You had tears in your eyes. ‘You know, Ruthie, it really wasn’t that bad. No one walked out. They laughed all the way through. In the wrong places, admittedly. But you were great. Really. I was so proud’

And then I said it. First time ever. To anyone.

Where was I? Ah, yes, Siena. Italy. Our first holiday together. Our first foreign holiday, that is. Our first proper holiday as a proper grown-up couple. Italy, 1985. Hardly enough money to get by, and a hotel room so small you couldn’t actually use the toilet without leaving the door open.

Still, it was the first time I saw you out of the confines or context of Lampeter or our flat in Bristol where you always seemed so at home and in charge. And it was strange to see you not as confident as you usually were. It seemed like I had to do everything.

I had to be the one who spoke dodgy Italian with desperate hand signals, asking for a table in the trattorias and talking to the waiters, buying food from market stalls, asking for directions, booking into the hotel.

You lingered behind me. I assumed at first it was just because I was the man, assumed it was the role I saw for myself and so I adopted it. But then I realised you were hanging back on purpose, waiting for me to take the lead. Going down to breakfast that first morning you actually pushed me ahead.

The thing is, I liked it. Liked being the man with the trousers, the one in charge, the strong shoulder. Which I suppose is one reason why I took to planning everything thereafter. That, and because, if I didn’t, who would? And OK, yes, I can hear you, because I like planning, particularly holidays. The planning’s part of the anticipation and the anticipation is nearly always better than the reality. But also because it was one role I could play where I was in charge.

Anyway, Siena. It was a good holiday, wasn’t it? The enthusiasm of youth, everything a new experience. Long before we were jaded or had seen so much that the thrill of the new was replaced by marking life’s experiences and putting them on some sort of world leaderboard. ‘Umm, yes, nice restaurant, but not as good as that one in Sicily.’ ‘That’s the third skyscraper we’ve been up that says it’s the tallest in the world.’ ‘The Great Ocean Road. It’s all right, I suppose.’

And the sex. Here’s why Siena made it onto the Top Ten. Onto my death-letter leaderboard. Onto the great splash-the-ash road-trip. Not the Palio, which of course wasn’t on when we were there. Nor the Piazza del Campo itself, magnificent though it is. Not even the bell-tower, though if I can digress for a minute, and just have a long giggle about you freezing with fear halfway down the wooden steps from the very top of the campanile. Marvellous. You actually lost all feeling in your legs. Thought we’d be stuck up there for ever. Or you would.

No, the reason it’s in the top ten is because Siena is where I found your clitoris. And I’m sure you will remember, because strangely it seemed to be the first time you’d found it as well. I still can’t quite believe it took us that long to work it out. It must have stowed away with us, or perhaps you caught it on the flight over.

Still, it certainly spiced things up. It was no longer only about holes. It was strange, Totty, wasn’t it, that we sort of learned sex with each other? On each other. Found things out. Slowly, admittedly. And accidentally, in this case. I still have no idea what I thought I was doing, I hadn’t a clue what I’d found, had no idea why I started fiddling with it, and was slightly alarmed at the reaction at first. Thought you were having a fit.

We were useless at talking about sex, that’s for sure. Useless at letting each other know what we wanted or liked. These days sexologists would have us talking to each other. Don’t they suggest a safe word for sado-masochistic stuff? We had our own feedback mechanism — ‘euurgh.’.

We were more like children playing doctors and nurses. Fumbling about in the dark hoping things worked. It’s a strange way for a couple to come together (or, more likely in our case, not). Still, once we’d found it, years later than we should have done, we did spend most of the week playing with it. And that’s no bad way to spend a holiday anywhere.

Of course, I’m being disingenuous. There’s another reason why this place is on the list. Let’s get back to that argument over Michelangelo. Here’s what I remember. There was a small glass of flowers on the table. I’ve no idea what they were, small blue flowers on top of a thin slender stem. Anyway, whilst we were arguing you took one and twisted it in your fingers whilst you talked. Were you aware of this? Did you do it on purpose? Were you channelling TS Eliot? See, I do remember. Portrait of a Lady. ‘Now that lilacs are in bloom she has a bowl of lilacs in her room and twists one in her fingers as she talks. You do not know, you do not know …’ Or something.

The thing is this. I know I’d already been telling you for years that I loved you, and I’d meant it. Ever since Fiddler on the Roof. But there and then, in Siena, as you twisted the flowers in your fingers. I properly fell in love with you at that moment.

* * *

It’s so strange. These words, these letters, they sound just like you. I can hear you saying them in my head. But, at the same time, it’s so unlike the Trip you were when you were alive. You weren’t one to wax lyrical. You never called me darling or sweetheart or anything like that. Mostly when I told you I loved you, you’d look rather smug and reply, ‘I know, Totty.’ I knew you loved me, of course, there was never any doubt in my mind about that. And, though you were about as romantic as a Valentine’s Day card on February 15th, I always felt … I don’t know, cherished, I suppose.

And we talked about everything, didn’t we? Maybe not about love or our hearts, but about everything else. I could say anything to you and know you’d have a view, a point, an answer that would illuminate. I loved that about you.

What I loved too was how we just fitted together, right from the very start.

I mean, we talked in the bar that first evening and you kissed me. You insisted on walking me back to my room and we stood outside in the corridor. It would have made a fabulous movie kiss. You wound your fingers into my hair, bent your head so slowly, looking right into my eyes the whole time, and then you kissed me.

I actually went weak at the knees and had to lean back against the door. I wanted to invite you in right there and then, but was so scared of looking like a slapper that I didn’t. But we agreed to see each other the next day, didn’t we? You came to my room that afternoon and never really left.

That was all it took to create us.

I didn’t take a lot of wooing, for sure. But, equally, you weren’t running away leaving me to chase you. We found each other and somehow realised immediately what we’d found. Boy Meets Girl. Boy Kisses Girl. Boy and Girl Live Happy Ever After. There was no ‘Will they or won’t they?’ There were no games, no high-tension drama. We just knew we were better together than apart. We’d still be better together than apart …

And, oh, Trip. Eliot. You quoted Eliot.

After all the years … you remember so much. So much that I don’t. What we were drinking, what we were talking about, blue flowers. You remember that I was playing with a blue flower.

I properly fell in love with you at that moment.

Oh, God, I’m going to have to wipe my nose on my sleeve.

You bugger, Trip, you bugger.

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