The two walked arm in arm chatting about nothing and everything. Jasper thought exactly that as they crossed a tramline and doubled back on themselves towards the river. 'Nothing and everything', it was a conversation that only two people who had really quite intense feelings for each other could discuss. There was the visible, superfluous topic of conversation: the cobbled stones, the light on the city walls, the smells from the nearby bakery, these were the spoken conversations between two young lovers – the visible surface effects. Beneath this though was the main volume of conversation. This was the unseen interaction, the interaction that said more than their words could, it was the glancing of eyes, the smirks and shirks, the moving together during one sentence and pulling apart during another. It was the laughter, the smiles, the frown, the implication, frustration and the clear and unseen fact that these were two people who couldn't help but be drawn to one another. The fact that both of them could feel beyond the surface ripples was that there was a tide beneath them that was carrying beyond pure conversation and both felt it and because they were young and confused, neither of them acknowledged it. Instead they walked together along the bank of the Tiber, moving towards the Castel Sant Angelo with a flood hanging over them that neither could see.
"No really! Look it up, it's a fact!"
"I do not believe you Fig-knight, not for a second."
"They were your people not mine, why would I invent it? The Romans built the Coliseum, the Circus maximus, they created mega-scale engineering before even large-scale engineering was a thing! I promise you Giulia, the Fields of Mars – Piazza Navona and its surroundings - exist because Caesar decided he wanted to move the river and he did!" Giulia looked down at the river beneath them, its enormous concrete walls plunging downwards like a glacial valley. "Two thousand years ago they did this." He grinned and relished the amazement of the sheer audacity of the Romans "Two THOUSAND years ago Giulia" he grinned at her enthusiastically.
"How did I not know this?" She asked with a frown. Slightly perturbed she didn’t share his enthusiasm he looked thoughtfully forward at the line of Plane trees which covered the Tiber banks.
"Probably because it doesn't have the same exciting history as the other Roman places, there was no religion involved, no entertainment killings, no great battles. It was probably built so that the poor could have something to do and the rich could have a new place to build their houses." he frowned himself now.
"You're making this up now I know!" She giggled and he smiled back at her.
"Yeah but I sound pretty convincing, don't I?" They both laughed. A Scooter flew by and honked at the two of them, Giulia waved after it.
"My Brother" she explained simply as the little blue vesper swung around a corner at a gravity defying angle. The vespers were out in fleet that day, hundreds of them buzzing past them, screeching and swearing as they slipped through traffic like grains of sand poured into a jar full of ping pong balls. The brief encounter reminded him just how small Rome was though. Back in the UK if Jasper and his brother had lived in London the chances of them seeing each other in the streets were thousands to one. In Rome you couldn't walk 100 metres without bumping into someone who called your name, for a local like Giulia it was even worse – or better depending on how you looked at it. Rome wasn't a Western capital in the traditional sense. This was no centre of commerce or some sort of grey and depressing financial centre, it wasn't a thriving metropolis that sprawled for miles and miles with glistening skyscrapers looming overhead, though that may have been how the early Romans had envisioned it. At the heart of it Rome had that most Italian quality: it was a family town. Rome was provincial without ever meaning to be, the fierceness of the Italian desire to remain closely knit with one another had ensured that Rome had never escaped that small-town feeling. Everything about it was to create that sense of togetherness, the Italian family ideal and to then show off that ideal to the outside world. The tourists were merely guests in the vast and beautifully decorated Roman living room.
The Dome of St. Peters towered above the Vatican to their left as the ancient brick Castel Sant Angelo loomed up from the water on their right. They stood for a second, leaning against the river wall and taking in the view of the midmorning sun as it lit up the two monuments. Giulia pointed at a collection of houses. "You see through there?" She said her finger indicating a small window at the top of one. "That is the secret route the Pope can use to escape the Vatican if he needs."
"Escape the Vatican?" Jasper looked down at her surprised.
"Yup" she continued "through the top of those houses and a portion of wall over..." She moved her finger down the river towards the Castel "...there, there is a passageway that links the Castel Sant Angelo to il Vaticano and the Pope can use it should he need to escape. Although now I hear it is used more to store art and sculpture for the museum."
"Wow" Jasper said, genuinely impressed. He squinted at the buildings and in fact he could make out a few windows and peculiar architectural features that didn't quite match the surroundings. "The things you learn on an art history course" he smiled at her and to his surprise she grimaced.
"Well actually..." Now she looked sheepish "I learnt that from reading a Dan Brown book..." She grinned and he let out a chuckle.
"Ha ha! Hey that's not a bad thing!" He smiled at her.
"Oh no? How so?
"Well if you ask me, it shouldn't matter where you learn something, the quality of the source doesn't spoil the quality of the fact so long as it is a fact." She mulled this over for a second, looking thoughtful. "For example," he went on, "when I was at school I was on the quiz team – don't look at me like that, knowledge is cool - and we were tied with our rival school's team in the semi final. The final question in the tie-breaker was 'what type of wood was Noah's Ark made out of?'" He paused to see if she would answer.
"La Arca di Noè" Giulia said absently then shrugged.
"Exactly, no one had a clue, it's a ridiculous question if you don't go to a religious school, which we didn't. But I knew the answer." He grinned at the memory.
"And this answer is...?" He smiled at her.
"Noah's ark was made out of Gopher wood. It's not even a real wood, it's an invention in the Bible, but it was the right answer and we won the semi finals, got pasted in the final but that didn't matter."
"So how did you know this miraculous answer to this impossible question then, oh great and wise one?" She prodded him lightly in the ribs with her elbow.
"Simple" he smiled, "the night before I had watched the movie 'Evan Almighty'". He looked down at her still grinning, at first her face was blank but then suddenly she burst into her rich laughter.
"The terrible movie? With the man from the Office? Oh no Jasper I do not know if this is a good boast!" She laughed.
"But it's not a boast, you see! It doesn't matter how you know something, what matters is that you know it. Like your Pope hole and my Gopher wood, if we hadn't read or watched those terrible things we would never have been able to reveal them to each other."
She poked him in the ribs again but when she looked up at him her eyes were nothing but smiles. "Such a philosopher." The two looked at each other, smiling for a second but were interrupted by the tolling of a bell from the nearby Dome, which was quickly followed by the rest of Rome's churches striking midday. Giulia sighed. "Come Philosopher, I must go to work now."
"Philosopher, Fig Knight, I wonder what my next nickname will be?" He mused aloud as they turned and crossed the road.
"'Squished' if you don't keep your eyes open" she said, grabbing him back as a scooter shot out from its hidden spot behind a parked car. They laughed and proceeded off over the cobbles, swapping the sounds of roaring traffic for the quieter back streets as they wound their way South East towards Navona. He knew the area so well by that stage that he could have walked it with his eyes closed and he made the mistake of telling Giulia this, who of course immediately told him to prove it. This then led to a series of awkward bumps into passing strangers and more raucous laughter as they both took it in turns to see who could get the furthest with their eyes closed. Neither of them could get as far as they had thought it turned out.
All too soon for Jasper it was over though, they found themselves standing by the bar and suddenly he felt his heart start to race again, his mind went a little cloudy as adrenaline pumped through his veins, though he had no idea why exactly. Giulia turned and looked back at him and he realised he had stopped in the road just before the getting to the bar. She looked puzzledly at him and although he didn't know it his face was concerned. "Everything OK Caro?" She asked. Of all the names she had called him that day 'Caro' was still his favourite, it had a way of sounding soft when she spoke it, a collection of letters that became infinitely kind when they left her lips.
"Yes. Yes I'm fine" he said, though he didn't feel it. It was as though a spell had broken. They had spent a joyous morning together but now it had to end, the spell was broken and he had to return to his daily life, the monotony of his regular programming, sitting down with his drink, having a read as Giulia served him and they would fall back into the usual routine of barely talking and before he knew it they would be nothing more than customer and waitress again. He almost couldn't bear it.
"Well are you coming in then?" She asked with a smile. He stared at her, words on his tongue but none ready to form a cohesive sentence just yet. He frowned and realised he couldn't do it, he couldn't go in, he had to somehow break the cycle and his mouth moved faster on it than his brain. He blurted "sorry, I've just realised I have to go meet with a friend this afternoon" this wasn't true and he looked surprised at himself for saying it but he couldn't stop there "yeah I'm supposed to be meeting with him over by Villa Borghese. Sorry Giulia, I had fun today. I mean this morning. I'll see you?" He had fumbled the words out and very little of them made sense to him. Giulia to her credit didn't change her face a bit, though the slightest flicker of a knowing smile seemed to flashed briefly behind her eyes, but this went unnoticed by Jasper. She straightened up and sighed dramatically.
"Well if this friend is SOOOO important then I suppose you must see him" she said, rolling her eyes.
"No... he's not.. He's um... he's" Jasper spluttered.
"Jasper, Caro, I am joking, of course you must see your friend, it is not as though your plans here are so important!" She laughed "I am sure someone else will be able to come read alone and not say anything all afternoon" she winked and he blushed.
"Yes... well I'll see you" he gave her a half wave which was a laughably pathetic goodbye because she was less than arms reach away from him. Before his hand had fallen back to his side though she skipped forward and planted a small kiss on his cheek, forcing them to flush even redder than before.
"I'll see you Caro" she grinned one last time then turned and flowed back up the road towards the bar. Jasper stood watching her in utter bemusement with amazement quickly taking over. It had been the perfect morning, but now he felt he had ruined it by cutting their meeting short. He watched as her dress sparkled with sunlight and her feet clicked on the square cobbled streets. Sudddenly he fell calm. Laughter filled him as he watched her, not mirthful laughter but joyous laughter. She was a creature from his imagination and she rode sunlight through the streets.
"Giulia!" He shouted, staying where he was, his brain now completely uninvolved in the words that were coming out of his mouth. She stopped with one hand on the door and performed a small childlike hop to turn to him, her face without a trace of surprise that he had called after her.
"Jasper?" She replied, sounding like an expectant school teacher waiting for the answer to a question she hadn't asked.
"Do you want to meet this evening after work?" He said, a little too quickly. She laughed and he basked in it as it filled the street, echoing of the high walls and window shutters like perfectly plucked chords on a harp.
"I will see you here at six, Caro. Do not be late" and with a flick of flashing red hair she had disappeared into the bar.
