Last Train From Liguria (2010)
“Everything else I’ve grown used to: food, smells, sound, speech, even the heat. I wake in the night and still have to think: is this France or Italy? (One time it was Baden-Baden.) But I always know straight away: this is not Dublin, this is some other place.
Only once did I make the mistake; years ago now. About six weeks or so after I’d left. In a long low cafe, bleaker inside than out, where I had ducked in out of the rain. The place was packed but without conversation. There was only th...e deafening bicker of delft and cutlery; the chomp and slurp of jaw and tongue; a howl at a passing waiter. I looked over the room: greasy moustaches and filthy paws holding sticks of bread like weapons. And the wine. Carafes all over the tables. More of them in a row on top of a nearby counter, alongside which a boy with an urgent face was pacing. When a carafe was emptied, it was thumped off the table, and the boy, hopping to attention, replaced it.
I had little difficulty talking myself into it.MoreLess
Only once did I make the mistake; years ago now. About six weeks or so after I’d left. In a long low cafe, bleaker inside than out, where I had ducked in out of the rain. The place was packed but without conversation. There was only th...e deafening bicker of delft and cutlery; the chomp and slurp of jaw and tongue; a howl at a passing waiter. I looked over the room: greasy moustaches and filthy paws holding sticks of bread like weapons. And the wine. Carafes all over the tables. More of them in a row on top of a nearby counter, alongside which a boy with an urgent face was pacing. When a carafe was emptied, it was thumped off the table, and the boy, hopping to attention, replaced it.
I had little difficulty talking myself into it.MoreLess
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