Scott’s editor wanted him to stay in Rome over Christmas and New Year so his parents said they would fly over from the States to spend the holidays with him. He booked them a suite at the Intercontinental Hotel and arranged for a driver to pick them up at the airport, all the while bracing himself for the moment when his mother walked into the lobby and saw his broken nose. She’d be hysterical.
However, on the 23rd of December, the day they were due to arrive, there was a horrific train crash in Calabria and Scott’s editor sent him to cover the story. The train had been crossing a viaduct when it derailed and carriages plunged 130 feet into a river below. Scott sped south in a hire car and spent some time at the crash site talking to investigators, in the hospital talking to survivors, and at a nearby shrine created by relatives of the seventy-one passengers who lost their lives. It was the first time he’d covered a major tragedy and he felt very moved by it and unsure how to talk to the traumatised survivors. As he shaved in his hotel room that evening, he found tears rolling down his cheeks.
He drove back to Rome late on Christmas Eve, amidst the clamour of church bells announcing midnight mass. When he got to his apartment, he found a long letter had been slipped under the door and he ripped it open and started to read. It was from Rosalia. She had been hoping to spend Christmas with him and his parents; she’d arranged her hospital shifts so she would be free on Christmas Day, but he hadn’t been in touch. What was she to think?
Scott hadn’t invited her to meet his parents, hadn’t even hinted at the possibility – that was all in her head – but at the same time he knew he had behaved badly towards her. As soon as Christmas was past he’d have to let her down as gently as possible.
The following morning, he telephoned a subdued Rosalia and lied to her, saying that he had been delayed down south covering the rail crash and didn’t know when he would be back. She couldn’t argue with that but he knew he had ruined her Christmas and felt very guilty. He dressed in a suit and tie for the first time since arriving in Rome, and jumped on his Vespa to drive to the Intercontinental. As he walked in, Rosalia was still on his mind so at first he couldn’t work out why his mother screamed when she saw him.
‘Sweet Jesus, what happened to you?’
His nose. Of course. ‘A man attacked me in a bar. It was a case of mistaken identity. He was arrested. Don’t worry, Mom, I’m fine.’
‘But your nose is broken. Couldn’t they fix it up better than that? It’s a mess.’
‘It’s OK, Mom.’
She turned to Scott’s father. ‘We should take him back to the States for plastic surgery with that colleague of yours. What’s his name?’
‘He doesn’t do cosmetic work,’ Scott’s father replied gruffly. ‘If the boy says he’s fine, he’s fine.’
They drank Martinis in the lounge before going into the grand dining room for Christmas dinner, and throughout Scott’s mother wouldn’t stop asking questions about the attack and worrying that he wasn’t safe in Rome. Maybe he shouldn’t go out after dark. Certainly he should stop going to bars. Every time he had to wipe a drip from his nose, her face wore an anguished expression.
Eventually his father changed the subject. ‘I haven’t seen any Pulitzer Prize candidates in the articles you’ve been writing. What’s with all this movie star nonsense?’
Scott shrugged. ‘I have to do what the editor asks.’
His father snorted. ‘You’re in Europe in the middle of the Cold War. Why haven’t you interviewed Italian politicians about their views on the East–West divide? How does post-Mussolini society view the Reds?’
‘I did write a piece on the Italian Communist Party. And I’m working on something important, but it’s taking a lot of research.’
‘You don’t want to get a reputation as a shoddy gossip columnist. You’re not exactly using your brain, are you?’
Scott felt wounded. His father had always been critical: his high-school marks were never quite good enough; he didn’t try out for the football team, preferring athletics, to his father’s grave disappointment; and he hadn’t got into the most prestigious fraternity at Harvard. Ridiculous that it still affected him, but he couldn’t help it. It was partly to get away from the pressure his father subjected him to that he had sought a foreign posting in the first place.
The meal stretched on interminably, from an antipasti dish of cold meats to a pasta course and then roast turkey. There had been an option of stuffed pigs’ trotters, which the waiter assured them was a great delicacy, but the Morgans all opted for a traditional turkey dinner. Of course, it didn’t come with all the trimmings they’d expect in the US – no cranberry sauce, no stuffing even – but it was moist and tasty.
‘Have you heard anything from Susanna?’ his mother asked, and Scott sighed. She was the college girlfriend who’d left him. His mother had frequently intimated that he’d been crazy to let her ‘slip through his fingers’, as if there was something he could have done differently, some way he could have stopped her choosing his team-mate instead.
‘Not since I’ve been here,’ he said. ‘I don’t think she has the address.’
‘She could find you if she tried. She could always call me. Never say never,’ his mom said, trying to sound upbeat.
They exchanged presents after the meal. Scott’s parents had bought him some binoculars and a new pair of chinos. What on earth was he supposed to do with binoculars, he wondered. Take up birdwatching? He gave his mother a silk scarf and his father a cigarette lighter with the Colosseum engraved on it. Everyone remarked on how well-chosen the gifts were and self-consciously tidied them back into their boxes, then they went for a walk round the nearby streets. Scott pointed out some landmarks but everything was closed and there was a chill in the air so before long they went back to the hotel for a coffee. He tried to stop looking at his watch, but time dragged as his mother chatted about friends of theirs from home and his father scowled, bored to distraction.
In the early evening, Scott pretended he had to go to his office for an hour or so to check in with the newsdesk, but it was an excuse to get away. His parents were staying in Rome for another three days and they stretched in front of him like a jail sentence.
‘I’m not sure that motorcycle is safe,’ his mother called as he mounted his Vespa. ‘Why don’t we buy you a car instead?’
He pretended he hadn’t heard, struck his foot hard on the pedal and accelerated up the street as noisily as he possibly could.