Apricot Press

Roma, Roma, Roma, fifty candles on the Colosseum. The heat glides like treacle through the short-stay city, faces toffee apples under late spring sun. It glints on our halo halo halo. Sum up sum up say the crowded friends, gladiators on beer tops and pizza so we rollick through mingling memories of thirty-odd years. My brother, my brother, gap-toothed and ugly, cricket and rugby then mostly aloof and alone, he’s dragged us along for the fun – there’s Agnieska and me, we’re up for dancing. The boys spread out, make noise, look burnt British, loud-laugh.

The Forum disintegrates, Agnieska links arms and pulls me to love as the heat pools like honey on the crooks and the hollows of our borrowed bed. She glints like strangeness wherever she goes, eternally foreign like a pope in a tall hat, her moist hands cool on my fevered skin. I fret. ‘No one will know’ she silks as we dress for the festa festa festa.

Then my brother, my brother is happy. He licks oily artichokes from full lips, holds court under terrace lighting that flickers like fairies in the faintest of breezes. Prosecco pops on tongues and loosens the stories that slip up and down perspiring thighs. It’s gone liquid. Mozzarella squelches and dribbles. Agnieska moves her hand to my waist and I melt, ice cream oozy.

Raspberry special and creamy, the cake is a wonder of sweetness and air. My brother drops a tear on my hand, a silent thank you for the thinking and care and we hug under clapping stars. It’s a success, a splendid splendid serata. We lay out glistening shot glasses of our obvious differences and down them like pros. My brother, my brother and me, Agnieska, the separate scrum of malodorous maleness – we’ll end it with dancing.

Photo credit: Mauro Grazzi