The Italian Teacher(52)







43


Bear Bavinsky has soured on matrimony. His latest ended in a divorce, with Elodie contesting ownership of his entire art production—the paintings he labored on for decades and kept, those that survived his scathing judgment, and which have held out all this time, awaiting a call from the great museums. Eventually she settled for a hefty lump of cash. But the close call unnerved Bear. He moved all his works to a private storage location in Europe, away from “the rats,” as he refers to anyone who dares meddle with his hoard.

“I know you’re not enthused about weddings right now, Dad, but could you be persuaded to attend one if you weren’t the sucker in question? If it was me?”

“Charlie boy!” he responds, dropping the phone in enthusiasm, grabbing it again and apologizing. Was that the first time, Pinch thinks, that Dad has said sorry to me? “Happiest news I ever heard, kiddo! Congratulations, son! Who’s the lucky lady?”

Pinch purposely kept details of Julie from his father. Now he pours them out, with Bear’s enthusiasm serving to confirm his own, assuring Pinch that he loves her. After the call, he finds Julie doing the dishes and kisses her. “Let me finish. You call your sister.”

Julie leaps off to do so, spreading the happy news. After rinsing the last knife, Pinch turns off the faucet and catches a snippet of her conversation in the other room.

“Not weak at the knees, Queenie. It’s hard to explain . . .”

Pinch tries not to mind—he can hardly expect to stir a woman’s passions! He knows what Julie likes about him: He’s from a world more appealing than this dreary country, where her father is still fulminating about the strikebreaking scabs, her mum worries about the broken boiler, her brother spends his days at the new video slot machine in his local pub. Lately Julie talks about leaving England and setting up overseas; Australia maybe. He flips through the atlas in bed, and she tests him on capitals.

“Ouagadougou,” he answers.

“How do you know that, Charlie?” She flicks off the light, not for romance but to dream open-eyed beside her foreign bloke.

A month before the ceremony, Pinch checks that Dad has his travel booked. Bear is finishing an important painting before flying over, and it’s hard to know when he’ll be done. It’d be crazy to buy a flight when there’s a chance he’ll be tied up. Pinch nods—he never entirely expected his father. “Either way, you’ll be here in spirit. We’ll raise a glass to you.”

“A glass? Hell, a bottle at least! Here’s what, kiddo: I’m sending over a case of champagne.”

The event takes place at a register office with Julie’s friends and family, plus Mr. Khan from Imperial Foods and a huge bouquet from Birdie, who is about to give birth in North Carolina, so can’t make it. After the formalities, husband and wife step out into a drizzle, Pinch looking skyward, a droplet hitting his eye. He blinks, seeing Julie in a blur. “Nice weather for ducks,” she says, and he lifts his new spouse off her feet, prompting her to wave theatrically, damsel in distress. Out of breath, he puts her down, presses his face to hers, the coolness of her powdered cheek against his warm temple.

“It’s just you and me,” she whispers.

“Well, for now,” he responds, catching her eye.





44


A honeymoon is beyond their means, so they spend a week vacationing at home, starting with a fancy Italian meal prepared by Pinch. It’ll be indulgence for days, with cakes and wine, reading in bed, sleeping late. He’s a little embarrassed to have promised a case of champagne, which never arrives.

As the months pass, Pinch thinks more about having children of their own. In the past, when Julie hinted at starting a family, he dismissed the topic, speaking of finances: couldn’t afford a baby, me as a freelance translator, you part-time cashier, part-time student. But lately, to himself, Pinch brushes aside all objections. He stops in the middle of the sidewalk, ruminating. Julie always depicted him as an intellectual of range and experience. Yet she is catching up—already, she knows plenty of professors more erudite and sophisticated than he. When she takes him on a trip to her hometown, he wants to treat her parents to dinner out. But it turns out that going for dinner strikes them as a showy extravagance. They only come to a shabby French restaurant to accommodate him, turning out in their Sunday best, worried about garlic, disliking most of the funny tastes. To make matters worse, Pinch cuts himself shaving before they set out, and the nick won’t stop bleeding throughout dinner. When the bill comes, Julie’s father insists on paying. This was not the agreement, but the man—in his early sixties, with a craggy face of a hundred—is offended by Pinch’s insistence.

On the train to London, he recalls sitting beside Bear when they returned from New York City to Dad’s wife and kids in the suburbs. He leans to Julie’s ear. “I need to discuss something.”

“In whispers?”

“Yes,” he says, smiling. “Thinking about your nephew and niece.”

“What about them?”

“Just thinking, I don’t know.” He pauses. “About a little person to join us.” He leans back to see her eyes. “You don’t seem overwhelmed by the prospect.”

“We agreed: Not now.”

“That was more than a year ago.” His proposition—a source of doubt for Pinch until he spoke it seconds ago—feels like an urgent need now. “I wrote a list of baby names,” he says, to lighten the mood, or perhaps cajole her.

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