Forbidden Pleasures

Marta was certain Giuseppe was keeping something from her . . .

AS soon as the doctor said, “You should avoid sugar”, I knew I had made a terrible mistake taking Marta along.

“Don’t worry, Doctor: I’ll look after him,” she said, which seemed to reassure the doctor about as much as it terrified me.

We both know Sicilian women.

Nothing’s more effective in making you crave something than knowing you can’t have it. Already on the car journey home I was fantasising about

cannoli and cassata cake. “What are you looking for?” Marta asked me when, after dinner, I was rummaging inside the kitchen cupboards.

“Well, I’d like a little sweet treat, one last time. My last dessert!”

“I’m sorry, dear, but there’s nothing sweet left in the house.”

“How about a biscuit?” “Nope.”

“Then I’ll sprinkle some sugar on an apple.”

“There’s no sugar in the house.”

“What? And what will I put in my coffee?”

“Nothing. You’ll have it bitter.”

“But what about you?” “It’ll be good for me. I’ve given away the sugar beets, too,” she said, all self-righteous.

“Even convicts on death row are allowed one last meal,” I grumbled.

“It’s your health we are playing with, dear,” she said sternly.

Even though I pointed out that the doctor had said “should avoid” and not “must avoid”, Marta didn’t budge. It was a serious matter and I should take it seriously, she said.

I wrapped myself in my dressing-gown – it’s a known fact that the cold bites harder on an empty tummy – and plodded to my armchair.

I switched on the TV, looking for distraction.

Unfortunately, “Masterchef Italia” was on.

Without me, where would Giuseppe be? I buy, prepare and steam his vegetables. I enrolled him at the gym. I cleared the house of sugary temptations.

But sometimes we don’t know where temptation will come from, or what form it will take.

A man should learn to resist.

Carla and Massimo invited us to dinner at their flat.

“Giuseppe can’t have sugar,” I told her.

“Not to worry. I’ll cook his favourite first and second course so he won’t have room left when it comes to pudding time.”

As we entered their block of flats a lovely smell of seafood and tomatoes filled the stairways.

“I think it’s seafood pasta, your favourite!” I said to Giuseppe, climbing the stairs. We don’t take the lift any more.

Carla was waiting at the door for us, bubbly and cheery as always.

“Come in, come in. Let me introduce you to everyone.”

The dining-room was full of people. I’d known we weren’t to be the only guests, but I wasn’t expecting so many people. They must have been work colleagues because, except for Carla’s next-door neighbours, I didn’t see any familiar faces.

“No, no, don’t worry! You must be very busy,” Giuseppe and I said together.

Giuseppe and I haven’t got much in common, but one thing is shyness.

“OK. I’ll go back to the kitchen and you get to know people at your own pace. They’re a friendly bunch.”

Carla scuttled off. Giuseppe and I stayed near the door where Carla had left us, shifting from one foot to the other and trying to look relaxed and casual.

From the other side of the room, a woman in a red dress smiled at us – well, at Giuseppe, actually – and set off towards us, tottering on very high heels.

“Who is she?” I asked Giuseppe.

He didn’t answer but blushed. His eyes were round, like a dog found chewing a shoe.

All my alarm bells rang – no, clanged – furiously. “Hello,” the woman said. She smelled like a detergent factory. Her lips were the colour of a red Ferrari and matched her dress.

She had long blonde hair, obviously bleached, and her eyeshadow looked like a painter’s entire palette had been poured on her eyelids.

“Hello,” Giuseppe mumbled.

“Is this your wife?” the woman said, smiling at him.

“Yes, I am,” I answered, stepping forward, “and who are you?”

“My name’s Amanda and I’m Massimo’s cousin,” she said, offering her hand, which I ignored. “I’ve only recently moved to town so he thought I should come tonight and meet new people.”

Then she turned to Giuseppe.

“But we already know each other.”

Giuseppe seemed to have lost the power to speak.

“How do you know each other?” I asked Amanda.

“I meet a lot of people in my job –”

“Let’s get something to drink!” Giuseppe interrupted.

“Ah! You’ve already met my little cousin,” Massimo boomed, coming towards us with two drinks.

“I’m not ‘little’ any more,” she said coquettishly.

“You will always be my little cousin, my dear. Come, dinner is ready. Take a seat,” he said, gesturing to us to take three adjacent seats.

“Thank you, but it’s good to get to know everyone,” I replied, steering Giuseppe to some other seats, far from that bimbo.

As soon as we were out of earshot, I turned to Giuseppe:

“Who is that woman? How does she know you?”

“What woman?” he replied, as if he didn’t remember.

“Don’t be silly! The bimbo in red!”

“I . . . met her at the gym,” he said, looking at his lap.

“You go to men’s circuit training. Unless you have been attending the wrong class, or frequenting the wrong changing room, you wouldn’t be meeting any women,” I argued.

“She is – the receptionist,” he said shiftily. Needless to say, I was not convinced.

The first course was, as I had guessed, seafood spaghetti. Delicious, no doubt, but the vinegar of suspicion and worry spoilt it for me.

I could only manage monosyllabic answers to the questions that the old man sitting next to me – a seafood enthusiast – asked: did I love seafood; how did I cook it; where did I shop for it, etc.

Another time I would have happily engaged in such conversation but, just then, all my brain power was absorbed by one question.

How did the bimbo and my husband know each other?

No matter how much I strained my hearing, I was too far from the woman to eavesdrop on her conversations. The old man next to me had never seen her before.

Carla and Massimo were sitting at the other end of the table.

“I thought you loved seafood?” Carla said when she collected Giuseppe’s plate, barely touched.

The second course was grilled bream, superbly cooked, moist and tender.

Giuseppe didn’t touch it. I managed a mouthful only. The worry was eating me inside.

Giuseppe was hiding something, I had no doubt about it.

Could it be that, now that he had lost weight – thanks to my efforts – he was seeing himself as more handsome and had started gallivanting about? A mid-life crisis, in fact!

After that course came a fruit salad, dressed with liqueur. Emboldened by the alcohol, I picked up a few dirty plates, got up and followed Carla into the kitchen.

As soon as we were alone, I challenged her.

“Carla, dear, tell me: who’s the blonde b– ahem, woman in the red dress?”

“Amanda? She’s Massimo’s cousin,” Carla replied. “You can’t fail to notice her, I’m afraid. She has recently broken up with a long-term boyfriend – a long and messy story – and she’s moved here to start a new life. I guess that she dresses like that because she feels insecure after the break-up.

“But she’s a good girl, really. I wouldn’t have managed this meal without her help. And she’s excellent in the kitchen, which is no surprise, as she works in catering.”

I knew at that moment that Giuseppe had been lying when he said that she was the gym receptionist.

“Oh, Amanda! We were just talking about you. Come and meet my friend!” Carla said, turning to the kitchen door, where the woman had just appeared with a pile of dirty plates. I slid out of the room. “Giuseppe, we’re going home now,” I said when I returned to the table, which was slowly emptying.

“Great!” he said, jumping to his feet.

We waved a cursory goodbye to Carla and Massimo and, before they could reach us to insist that we stayed, we were rushing down the stairs like Cinderella.

At every flight of stairs, Giuseppe’s forehead smoothed, and by the time we had got out, he looked as relieved as a child who has managed to escape a school test. I didn’t want to ask him anything more: I couldn’t bear to see him lie to me.

In the following days, I wondered how far things had gone between them and if it would have been better never to have found out about it. I stopped talking to him and going for walks together.

I enrolled myself in a gym – a different one. I went on a make-up course and tried different hair colours and, when the single ladies at work were discussing a girls’ trip in Thailand, I told them to count me in.

I needed to boost my self-confidence. I needed to find the new me.

Marta has been behaving strangely lately. Withdrawn and quiet, very unlike her.

Sometimes her cheeks are flushed, as if she has a fever. I told her that she shouldn’t be going to the gym if she feels unwell, but she ignored me.

Why she didn’t join my gym, where we’d get couples’ discount, instead of another one miles away, I don’t understand.

But the oddest thing of all occurred this morning. I was drinking my coffee – unsweetened, of course – and Marta was loading the washing machine, when she leaped up, clutching something to her chest.

“Thanks be to God!” she shouted. “Naughty boy!” “What’s the matter?” “You naughty, naughty boy!” she kept saying.

“Sorry, I don’t understand,” I protested, shaking my head.

She rushed to hug me and kiss my face all over. She hadn’t kissed me in weeks.

“This was in your trouser pocket!” she said, showing me a receipt. “You bought a jam doughnut at eightfifteen a.m. and you were served by . . . Amanda!”

It was true. Since the diet started, every morning, on my way to work, I have popped into the bakery, the one where Massimo’s cousin works, and bought myself a sweet treat to eat in the office.

I usually bin the receipts in the office, but this one must have escaped.

“You cheeky boy!” she said, squeezing me tighter.

It reminded me of the prodigal son’s welcome, only, unlike the parable, I had been caught unrepentant and redhanded.

Who could have imagined that she would react this way when she found that I had broken the diet?

Everything in moderation, I suppose.

Apart from the love we share, which knows no bounds. n