After the heat of Rome a mountainside retreat sounds divine, and I might even get to see Osh while I’m there because he’s filming a commercial nearby for a few days. I’ve missed my friends so much. I still get snippets of updates from them occasionally but being able to hang out with Osh, even for a few hours, will be so good. I’ve missed his gossip and big loony smile.
I have a confession – one I won’t even tell Osh: I looked at Gabe’s Instagram last night. Instantly hated myself for doing it, of course, and I still don’t really know why. I saw the images of him, always smiling or laughing, in faraway places or hanging out with beautiful friends on beaches during rare summer weekends when nobody was busy. It looks like another world, one that revolves around him and his perennial smile.
I even found myself in one of the group shots – me and Osh, Meg and the gang with Gabe at our centre, a sentinel. We’re all laughing; we all look like life is a blast. What did Tobi call it? The beautiful ones in the beautiful life. Except I know Gabe was out of work then, had just had the biggest fall-out with his agent and had spent a whole week convinced his career was sinking. In desperation Osh dragged us all out to Brighton (he’d threatened to chuck Gabe off Brighton Pier if he didn’t smile). He’d filmed us that day and I remember the unreal feeling of us all watching it back in London, seeing filtered versions of ourselves dancing around in a parallel universe.
Funny how you forget the boredom, the frustration, the wishing to be somewhere else, when you’re outside looking in.
The Instagram Gabe is in final rehearsals for his play. He’s grinning for the camera, mucking about with daft videos, star-jumping off chairs in the rehearsal room, smouldering beneath street lights with a pint during Pride, posing shirtless and sweaty on his early morning run. Every image has four thousand likes, with hundreds of adoring comments, hopeful questions about his sexuality, proposals of marriage and desperate begging for him to notice them or follow them back. I don’t know if he ever even reads them. But he needs it: the reassurance of seeing the red hearts in his notifications. He’ll be in a panic right now, as he always is just before a production opens, convinced it’s a wrong move that will side-track his career. He’ll be seeking the affirmation from his followers more than ever, all the while playing the cool, fun-loving actor at the top of his game.
Is any of it real?
My own images tell of a carefree traveller, exploring Europe and following her heart. My few hundred followers post occasional messages of encouragement, a little shower of hearts and smiley faces dancing down the comments. But do they think I’ve got it all sorted, like they believe Gabe has the perfect life? Do they think I’m happy?
Has Gabe seen my squares while I’ve been away?
Has Sam?
I didn’t ask if Sam was on Instagram. I didn’t get his Twitter handle or FB profile. When I was with him what mattered was being with him. Not viewing him through a lens or trying to filter him into a perfect image of the moment. What mattered was his touch, his breath against my face, the way he’d held me.
I wish Sam were here. Maybe then we could sort everything. Perhaps it’s the niggling uncertainty that arrives whenever I think of Sam, but on the train I find myself composing a text to Gabe.
* * *
Hey G. I figured you’d be panicking about opening night. DON’T. You’ll be amazing. You always are. Sorry I won’t be there to see it, but I’ll raise a glass to you from the cheese farm (!) where I’m staying. Break a leg (please don’t really) P xx
* * *
I don’t expect him to see it – the last few weeks before a theatre production are fraught to say the least. It just feels good to know my message will be waiting on his phone.
* * *
I reach Siena with an hour to kill. Noura and Stephan’s farm is near Montalcino, so they are going to meet me here and drive me up. Finding a café I order coffee and crisp pistachio cannoli and settle in to watch the world go by.
The café has free WiFi so I log in and check my email inbox. I’ve learned to do this when I find signal and not worry about it when there’s none. I have the best excuse to miss messages this year so I intend to use it whenever I can. And I mostly haven’t missed being contactable.
That’s odd. Three emails from the accommodation website, the most recent flagged with an urgent sticker. I open it – and my heart sinks:
* * *
Due to personal issues your booking has been cancelled. Your deposit has been refunded. STAYHERE.com apologises for any inconvenience.
* * *
There’s a personal note from Noura and Stephan added beneath the standard message:
* * *
Miss Jones, we are sorry to cancel at short notice. My mother was taken ill last night. She has been released from the hospital but will be staying in the guest accommodation so that we can care for her.
* * *
We offer our sincere apologies and hope you will visit us in future.
* * *
My heart hits the floor. What am I supposed to do now?
I can’t be angry with them for cancelling, but it leaves me in a city I hadn’t planned to stay in, with no idea of alternate accommodation. Even if I find somewhere to stay tonight, I’d planned to spend four weeks in Montalcino. How likely is it I’ll find accommodation for that amount of time at short notice?
Think, Phoebe!
I’ve become so used to all my accommodation bookings going without a hitch. It never occurred to me that they might fall through and I would need a contingency.
A year ago, a problem like this would have terrified me. Even six months ago I would have been thrown into panic. And while this is a mess for sure, I’m not the scared Phoebe Jones who almost didn’t wait for her train at St Pancras when the delay was announced.
I make myself breathe. I can sort this.
A waiter in the café directs me to the local tourist information centre, a short walk from the square. I just need to find a room for tonight and then I can work out where to head next.
The woman at the desk smells of expensive perfume and wears the kind of flawless make-up that looks as if it’s been airbrushed on. She speaks perfect English and has an economic smile that appears for exactly two seconds at a time.
‘It is a busy time,’ she says. ‘We have a festival.’
‘But there must be rooms in Siena for tonight? I’ll take anything.’
She wrinkles her nose and taps at her keyboard. ‘I am sorry. No vacancies.’ She twists the computer monitor to face me and grants me a two-second smile for solidarity. ‘Perhaps next week? It will be quieter then.’
The sun stings my eyes as I emerge from the building. The street hums with the beat of hundreds of feet. I’d seen the crowds but not registered how busy Siena is. Being in Rome for the last eight weeks must have desensitised me to waves of tightly packed tourists. I wander the streets for a while. I don’t know if I’m hoping to magically spot a hotel with vacancies or if it is just that physically moving feels less like defeat.