Marsala

Kate leans against the railing on the Lungomare and inhales deeply. Ahh! The sea... so calming, so versatile in matching her moods. And this sea in particular, the Mediterranean - well, the Mar Tirreno, to be exact - has something truly special. Maybe it is the intense blue colour that tends to be missing in the other bodies of water that she has known.

The sun spangles onto the sea, breaking up the reflection into a million particles of sunshine, like mirror fragments bobbing on the surface of the water.

This part of the city, the Lungomare Boeo is fast becoming one of her favourite places, along with several others. She loves the way the city is perched so close to the water’s edge. She is fascinated by its sights and features, which somehow manage to feel strange and familiar all at the same time.

This promenade, curving and twisting along the contours of the outcrop on which the city is built, was the first place she’d discovered when Tom and herself came here on a recon visit a couple of months ago. They had stayed at a B&B, only five minutes away from here - an ancient, crumbling house, its rooms converted into bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms and cable tv, 

Later in the evening, disoriented and a bit jet lagged - they had to take a connecting flight - they had walked up the street instead of down. And instead of heading towards the city centre, they had ended up here on the Lungomare Boeo, which eventually gave way to via Boeo. And just at that juncture, there’d been a restaurant where they’d eaten what was almost certainly hands down their best meal out ever. The seaside-themed, blue-and-white decor, and the sound of the sea slapping gently onto the rocks only feet away had made it the perfect evening. And the best sort of mistake. 

Kate had learned that Boeo was short for Lilibeo, which was the name of the ancient Roman city founded here sometime in the 4th century BC. An ancient city whose ruins still lay below the current city. She had seen some of the excavations in the Parco Archeologico, and had been impressed just how much of the old survived, and somehow co-existed with the new. 

Tom’s contact from the Università degli Studi di Palermo, Matteo Anastasi, born and bred in Marsala, had explained to them how it had been impossible to excavate all the remains. To do so would require digging up the whole city, tearing down all the other buildings which had come after the Romans. And there were plenty; Matteo had told them that there had been thirteen different dominations in Sicily’s history, and all had left somewhat of a mark on it. ‘Noi siciliani,’ he’d said with more than a hint of pride, ‘we have the DNA of many nations in us.’

Katie had been intrigued. All of her ancestors were as far as she could tell, British. Even though she knew that hardly anyone can claim to be ‘pure’ anything, she couldn’t help wonder how such a varied gene pool must have moulded the nature of an entire people. With her staid Britishness, she felt lacking compared to such a rich variety of lineage.

She will not say this to Tom however. He’d been quite upset when she mentioned it to him once. ‘We don’t have all that “variety”,’he’d said, making quote makes in the air for emphasis, ‘because we’ve always been a leading nation, not a parcel of land passed around from one nation to the other, like some sordid prize’.  

Tom’s response had come as a surprise In the two years they’d been together, he’d never given any indication that he valued Britain’s leading and conquering particularly highly. She understands what he was saying - history is history, after all - but she still thinks they are poorer in this respect. Poorer, and less colourful.

The sun slips in behind a cloud. Katie sighs. Is there such a thing as ‘unlove’, she wonders. Because that’s what seems to have happened with Tom and Marsala, and Sicily in general. Unlove at first sight. Even if he hasn’t said as much, she knows him well enough to pick up on it. She in the other hand, is well and truly enamoured of the place. There is something about it that calls to her in a way that she cannot explain or put into words. She is not even sure she understands it herself. This city feels like she has suddenly, unexpectedly come home, which even to herself feels faintly ridiculous. Tom would call it rubbish. Till six months ago, she didn’t even know this city existed. Her knowledge of Sicily only extended to Palermo and Catania. The only Marsala she knew about was the sweet dessert wine her grandmother used to drink out of a patterned shot glass of every evening. She remembers the embossed patterns on that glass with the crystal clarity of childhood memories.

Ever the pragmatic physicist, Tom cannot understand when she tries to explain how this city has touched something inside of her, filled a void that even she did not know was there. And yes, she understands it all sounds very airy-fairy, but she cannot help how she feels now, can she?

Katie inhales the briny sea-air again. And feels herself expand and fell lighter all at once. She’s missed this. She’s lived away from the sea for far too long. She grew up in a little seaside town on the Lincolnshire coast, moving inland to Sheffield, first to study, then to work. But she missed the sea, and it’s taken her coming here to realise just how deeply she missed it. She is incredibly grateful to be here, for a year at least. Maybe longer. The thought takes her by surprise, discombobulates her. She isn’t thinking that far ahead. Especially not in the light of Tom’s reaction to the city.  

Shaking herself mentally, she begins walking, heading towards the general direction of via XI maggio; she’ll have an espresso, clear her head.

The Lungomare is very quiet; most people are at work, or rather, at this time of the afternoon, having their extended lunch break. Everything stops around lunchtime here, for a good two hours at least. Even the faraway noise from the port - Marsala is a port-city - seems to have stilled for the pausa pranzo. In any case, most of the locals consider this too hot to be wandering about outside. The phrase ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’ comes to mind, and a smile tugs at her mouth. 

But hey, someone is actually out. A man with a dog on a lead is heading her way.

‘Bella signora, come mai da sola?’ he says, as he walks past with an appreciative glance. Even with her not-so-great Italian, she understands. Simple, harmless flirting, in the way most Italian men do. She still hasn’t decided whether she’s comfortable with it, the way they will shamelessly eye you up and down, interest transparent on their faces. 

In some ways, it feels like a frank and direct appreciation of female beauty, although she suspects there is some double standard to this too. In others, it’s all a bit Pavlovian, as Tom put it. She hates herself for framing anything about this place from his warped perspective.

She walks along via Isole Egadi. Her steps are short and angry, like her thoughts. She loves this place; she loves everything about it. Why can’t Tom see that? 

She’s taken to walking alone because every single bliddy time they’re out together, and something catches her eye, he is sure to respond with some negative comment.

After all, he was the one who had volunteered for this overseas assignment, never once stopping to consider that Italy has twenty regions, and not all of them are like Rome or Milan. Tom had seen the assignment as a step up the career ladder. She had been relatively happy living her uncomplicated and rather - as she sees it now, flat - life in Sheffield. However, as one of the world’s relatively new army of workers from home, she was free to move to wherever she liked, and the idea of living again in a coastal town appealed. At least for a year, the length of Tom’s assignment with the University in Trapani. 

Only it wasn’t even a real university, he moaned; just a regional branch of the prestigious Universita’ deli Studi di Palermo. An ugly breeze-block building, barely a hundred metres away from the beach with its beach clubs and lidos. Before he’d even set foot inside, he’d hated it. Completely lacking in the gravitas a university should have, apparently. The kind of thing you find in ‘the arse-end of nowhere’, somewhere like this place, apparently.

For the past two weeks, sixteen days to be exact, she’s listened to him moan and complain about how awful it all was. All while she was in a blissful state of completeness she’d never experienced before. Maybe that was why she’d put up with it She tried to offer support, to make all the right noises of encouragement.

She shared all the little gems she discovered. She took him to the Santuario dell’Addolorata with its bright green mosaic dome down by Porta Garibaldi; showed him the chequered roof of the Museo Civico, which she was yet to visit. 

She found out that this city was where Garibaldi had begun his mission to unify Italy; she explained that the famous sbarco dei Mille had in fact happened in Marsala, on the 11th May 1860 - which explained some street names. Like the via XI maggio, the city’s pedestrianised ‘high street’, with its cafes and restaurants, independent boutiques and bookshops, so different from the chains found on high streets back home. 

She pointed out the churches, with their overdone Baroque facades, adorned with flamboyant scrollwork and statues. She showed him the pretty mosaics on street corners, the narrow streets with their old-style lampioni, the kind which reminded her of the old Lili Marlene song her gran used to sing to her at bedtime. 

Only for him to point out the graffiti on walls and shutters; the used condoms dumped in the grass in the park; the dry, dusty landscapes and the weathered walls, eaten away by the brine in the air. She’d lost her patience on that last one... we’re in the Mediterranean - the climate is dry and arid. This is a coastal city - of course there will be weathering and erosion..

Frankly, it was getting a bit annoying. He was getting a bit annoying. More than a bit, actually. 

He’d leapt at the chance of this post, thinking only of the leg-up it would afford his career. He’d simply assumed that she’d be fine, because ‘you work from home’. In truth, she’d worried that she might not like it, and then she’d be stuck there for a whole year.

And now, she had fallen in love with this city, and he could do nothing but complain. About bliddy everything - the noise, the near-constant tooting of horns while out on the road, the way they drove on the right side of the road. Nothing escaped his scathing commentary. 

Even the house Matteo had found for them, a pretty, two-tiered apartment with the front door painted the same turquoise of the sea. All he could do was lament that it had no lift. He did not see or appreciate the little landing outside their front door with its potted plants which trailed rather beautifully into the courtyard below, so that climbing the stairs, you were surrounded by cascading greenery. It was only a first floor apartment, for God’s sake, and they were hardly eighty years old.

She is getting really really tired of the constant whingefest. It is wearing her down. His complete inability to at least appreciate that she has a different perspective from his own is so frustrating she could scream.. or cry.

She stops short outside a church,. Where has she ended up, lost in her thoughts? 

She takes a moment to orientate herself, realising this is one of the chapels that dot the cityscape. When they first got there, she was amazed the multitude of churches, often bumping up against each other; and then disappointed when she was told that most of them did not open, except at specific times.

This one is Chiesa San Francesco, according to the sign outside. The door is ajar, and she slips into the cool, dim interior, relishing the instant relief from the heat outside. The church is empty, except for one elderly woman wearing a veil on her head. She didn’t know that veils in a church were still a thing. 

She takes a sip from a water bottle, and closes her eyes, resting her head against the straightbacked monastery-style pew. As her heart rate slows down, she acknowledges that something has to shift. She has an uneasy sense of an impending debacle. 

She loves Tom, and she has to say he’s pretty much been a decent chap. But these past two weeks have shown a different, rather insufferable side to him, which she’s not ready to put up with. Definitely not for a whole year. She couldn’t survive it. Their relationship couldn’t survive it.

She can not deny the call of this city, the deep connection she feels with it, inside her bones. Ignoring it would be a mistake. She needs to follow its lead, without distractions, see where it takes her, for a while at least. And then decide what to do.