Casa Mario

Photo©Benreis

Casa Mario

Casa Mario had become their restaurant, ever since their first holiday together as students, when he had proposed as they watched the sun set over Rome from the Gianicolo. They had both fallen in love with Italy and projected a life together there. He had said, with his degree it shouldn’t be too difficult for him to find work there, and she had that family friend who would get her into a job with her bank.

They graduated, she contacted the family friend, who said to just give the word. Whenever she was ready. He had been hard to get hold of during the couple of months before their finals. Working, he’d said. When their exams were over, he was still elusive. She began to worry that it was all over, began to plan her own life without him. Would she go to Italy anyway, on her own? When he did get in touch he was full of the job he’d been offered.

‘But what about Italy?’ she’d protested. ‘I thought that was the dream, not Birmingham!’

‘It’s a great offer, pays well, and we can start saving. We’ll need some capital behind us in Italy. You have to shell out money to everyone there, doctors, schools, rubbish collectors, the local mafia, everybody.’

She saw the sense in what he said, but she also saw the dream receding. She found a job, just to bring in some money. It had no interest at all. The only thing that kept her sane was the thought that soon, they would have enough capital to risk the move to a country run by criminal gangs. That was how he described it anyway. They bought a small house. ‘An investment,’ he’d said. ‘Better than money in the bank.’

She could never look on the house as anything else. It certainly wasn’t a home. A tacky 1970’s build on a small estate that had long lost any attraction it might have had, she feared that they were more likely to sell it on at a loss than break even. But he stopped talking about selling, moving, taking the romantic leap in the dark. Instead, he thought they should start a family. She refused. A child would tie them to the house, the city, the country. She refused to let go of the dream.

He enjoyed his job, was promoted, earned a good living. She struggled to find anything to justify getting up in the morning and joining the crowds on the commute into town, the commute back again. When he found them a better house in a more attractive area, she knew there would be no leap in the dark. She reminded him, one last time, about the dream, how they had whispered their plans in those balmy summer nights beneath the Roman stars. He laughed.

‘We have Casa Mario. You can’t get more authentic than Mario, and it’s right on our doorstep.’

Years later, for their anniversary, he still insisted on going to Mario’s, always gently with a smile, never giving her a chance to say she wouldn’t mind trying somewhere different for a change.

She would take his hand, trying not to let her smile slip, trying not to look with too much longing at the noisy, bright, banal restaurant fronts they passed, none of which reminded her of the dreams tossed away like coins in a fountain.