Contessa

Clive met Liliana in the autumn. That October and November they went everywhere together and London belonged to them. He liked Liliana because she was exotic, petite, feminine, stylish in her well-matched outfits, and intellectually clever and bright. She never let him call her Lily though. ‘I am not a flower, certainly not one that’s white, sort of cheap and standard at weddings and funerals now.’ She liked him because he was very English, tall, strong, stylish in his well-matched outfits, and intellectually clever and bright.

He impressed her with his ambition and hard work ethic. She impressed him with her flair. At his 37th birthday drinks in December he hoped she hadn’t noticed only three of his friends turned up (the other four were acquaintances). One was an ex girlfriend, but he didn’t tell Liliana that. One was an architect Liliana had slept with a few years before, though Clive was never to know it.
They went out several times and he always paid her taxi fare back. One evening she gave him a lift to his flat in Islington and said: ‘Am I going to come up for coffee then or what?’ And with that she did. He was afraid she might not like it, as it was much smaller than it looked from the Georgian façade outside. It was decorated in a 70’s theme throughout. Each room had splashes of colour: yellow in the study, bright green in the living room, blue in the bathroom and red in the bedroom. Liliana said ‘You would so get on with my mother who thinks my kitchen should be peach and gives me items accordingly - tea towels, place holders, crockery - I thank her and take them to the charity shops as I like white, just white.’ A few weeks after they first slept together, he took her suggestion and swapped the red linen in the bedroom for white Egyptian cotton.

That New Year’s Eve Clive was on his way to a trendy party - a few friends had joined up and splashed out on a suite at the Hempel Hotel, bringing a few bottles of champagne each. He wasn’t sure if he would meet someone at this party; he thought not as most people were couples, so, to reassure himself he called Liliana who was skiing in Austria. He told her: ‘Seeing as I am glad I met you and have totally enjoyed our time together so far, I wanted to tell you I would like to see even more of you in the coming year.’ He paused. ‘Would you like to be my girlfriend?’
Liliana, on seeing Clive’s name on the display of her mobile phone, had disentangled herself from the arms of her skiing instructor, Anton (a repeat performance from the previous season) and shushed him. The TV was showing Jaws, which was an odd choice of NYE programming, even for Austrians. They hadn’t gone out because frankly what was the point? Anton was so healthy he only drank fruit teas! On hearing Clive’s slightly old fashioned words Liliana said a breathy ‘Yes, oh yes’ and a few more words to ensure he would not fall prey to temptation at his party. She had already climaxed and didn’t have further sex with Anton after this, so technically, she reasoned, she hadn’t been unfaithful and exclusivity hadn’t been previously discussed.

At the airport on her return Clive nearly missed her at arrivals. She was excited to see him and they sat drinking Vecchia Romagna brandy on the journey into Liverpool Street station. He didn’t want to miss her face when she opened the door to her home. ‘Oh my god’ she exclaimed, when she saw the assorted flowers he had scattered on the stairs and the trail ended with a quilt of red rose petals on her bed. He had also bought her that month’s Vogue in all its foreign editions (Liliana spoke several languages). They had a splendid afternoon chatting and having sex the way he liked it, soft and gentle.

He called her his Contessa. She was charmed that some of his circle upon meeting her seemed to know her by that name. ‘Look’ she sometimes pointed out, ‘I appreciate the flattery behind it, but my father is working class. Clive may love this little delusion, but please know that I am not ashamed of my humbler origins! Besides, to my previous boyfriend I was a Princess,’ she giggled.

All was well but there were little tensions. Liliana didn’t seem to remember Clive hated scaly and bony fish; one time she cooked him trout and another time she cooked sardines. He was upset that she had forgotten his preferences. Also she couldn’t hold back on the spices he disliked. ‘But darling’ she said ‘what will you do when we go to Rajasthan?’ Clive didn’t have the heart to tell her that the dust of India was never going to stick to his clothes. That was definitely not his kind of country.

At Easter he took Liliana to meet his parents in Bristol. ‘You know’, she said, as he resolutely refused to break the speed limit on the motorway, ‘I don’t mind this car, gets you from A to B, but if you really want to impress clients and charge higher fees, driving an H reg Peugeot 205 is not going to do it.’ Noticing his expression had clouded she quickly added ‘It doesn’t have to be a shit hot new car, but how about an old Merc? I see you with that, we can go halves on getting one if you like. Oh, and sorry for swearing, I know it’s not ladylike.’
On arrival at the grand house in the crescent Liliana was ecstatic. As she took in the intense population of objects in all the rooms: the shawls draped on the banister, the hats displayed on the walls, the numerous collections of china sets, the antique mementoes and variety of fabrics, she squealed sidling up to him when his parents were in the kitchen. ‘Oh my god, now I know why your flat is so minimalist and you don’t like spending time at mine, it’s like your former home! Your mother is a kindred soul and you hate us both probably.’
Clive didn’t reply, but he thought ‘Yes, maybe my mother with her love of amateur dramatics and the starving minorities of the third world and you with the India obsession and your ethnic music and your Third World Development studies are similar people. And my mother was a sharp dresser in her youth too.’

Liliana liked to bathe; Clive liked showers because he said ‘Sitting in a bath is like sitting in your own dirty water’.
‘But, darling’ she answered, ‘never mind that neither of us is a construction labourer and we wash everyday. Sure if I washed my hair and shaved my legs at the same time the water may be a bit scummy, but I don’t do that. It would be so nice to have a bath together…and play about.’ Clive said his limbs were too long to fit in and he really didn’t like baths. Once on walking in on her he saw the water was yellowish and was horrified that she had peed in it. ‘It happens to everyone!’ she’d said, and made a point of fetching the Mr Muscle and a J-cloth.

Clive also resented that she would notice that his Gucci shoes needed re-heeling or that she took his coats to the drycleaners and mothballed one he hardly ever wore.
‘I didn’t ask you to do that’ he said. Liliana replied ‘I may be a Contessa, but as you don’t provide any maids I might as well deal with these things for you’. She further offered to wear a maid’s outfit and pretend to have used brown polish for his black shoes so that Clive, if he felt like being the Count, could punish her, but ‘outfits’ did not turn him on.

In the expensive shops he loved, they looked and touched suits and coats, but always found a reason not to buy anything. It was clear to Liliana that Clive could afford the ties, perfumes and the shoes, but not really the briefcases or the suits that cost close to a grand. Though she’d heard him say to friends that he did really well with his marketing consultancy, she’d seen the bank statements he kept under the bed. She wasn’t prying, they were loose on the floor and she was looking for space to store winter clothes.

They had their first real argument on holiday in Majorca. Clive had booked four nights at an all inclusive holiday resort. Liliana asked him to change it to two nights ‘Because we might not like it and this way we can go somewhere else and explore’. He complied, but when they got there he loved it and went to Reception to reinstate to four nights but it was now full. They went wandering round the sea front to find something else but nothing pleased him and they couldn’t afford the five star hotels. They chose a place that, according to Liliana, looked like something out on one of the old Hollywood boulevards. It was a three star and she liked the fact it had a seventies faded feel and bougainvillaea in the garden.
‘Look here we have a real sea view,’ she said, ‘Only mass tourists don’t stray from the swimming pools in the compounds, and we can go eat at the harbour, it’s bound to be more picturesque than the buffet.’ But to Clive The Rivarosa felt sad, it was empty apart for them and a few other couples, and it had no pool and no giant dining room laden with abundant foods. On the third day Liliana said ‘Look we both have credit cards, let’s go to the five star, what the heck.’ But Clive refused. Liliana made fun of him ‘You are sulking like a little boy, come on, what does it matter, we are on holiday and we are together, what more do you need?’

This was after they had had a mini break in Naples, where Liliana had arranged to stay with old friends of hers. They put them up in a room with twin beds. Liliana thought it was funny and wanted to pretend they were teenage lovers hiding in the bedroom to study maths together with the parents in the living room. Clive booked them into a hotel from the next night. On a shopping spree that afternoon, egged on by Liliana, he bought a pair of leather trousers and some funky sunglasses. That night they had fun with Liliana pretending she was a chambermaid and Clive was Michael Hutchence, on a lost weekend still in town on his own after INXS had gone on to the next date of their tour. But neither was comfortable with the fake script that they’d improvised and had to agree acting is harder than you think. Liliana added, ‘Now do you believe that I never had a one night stand with a rock star?’

Back in London the leather trousers seemed stupid and he never wore them again. ‘Keep them’, Liliana said, ‘You never know when you may want to try a fetish club or pretend to be gay at Halloween, I could get you a diamond stud earring, like Beckham!’ Clive thought ‘Hell will freeze over first,’ but didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to encourage her. Like that time she’d asked ‘Can we, like, watch a porn video?’ Clive was astounded ‘That’s not real, it’s so fake, how can you…?’
She looked at him puzzled, ‘Yes I know it’s not real, you’d have to be a sad person to be that deluded as to think that’s how people relate to each other. And frankly you don’t see the edits, when the girls have to stop because they are gagging. I hate the propagation of that myth - that you can go on and on, but…ok can we just have some dirty sex, you know, you throw me around a bit, maybe change positions? Or just talk dirty to me? Sometimes? One time?’
He acquiesced, but the ensuing result was not hand in glove, more like elbow in neck, knee in groin and Clive couldn’t come up with any words. Liliana said ‘Say anything, say… “diesel”. So long as you repeat it in a low voice and get a rhythm it will turn me on.’ But “diesel” was not the right word and he couldn’t use any other that she suggested.

For her birthday Clive gave Liliana a delicate bracelet, a pair of pink satin marabou feather mules and a photo biography of Jacqueline Kennedy, a woman whose style he greatly admired, together with that of Audrey Hepburn. Liliana commented ‘Ah Jackie O, so pristine, so well turned out. Shame old Jack K liked his other women to be more like Marilyn. If he weren’t a President he’d have made a great gangster. Hey, let’s pretend you are Jack and I am Marilyn and you just found me kissing your brother in law, so you can get angry?’

When he left her in September Clive thought it was because Liliana wasn’t his Contessa after all and he couldn’t be a number of people for her: ski instructor, rock star, a haughty count, a merchant banker, a scriptwriter, a baker, a gangster. He didn’t feel guilty letting her continue her search.