Rome is a city for lovers, not for single 36 year men with beards who are on their own. Well, itÂ’s OK for them as well, but they will constantly be reminded of their singledom and their age by the huge amount of young lovers who are walking hand and hand down the street and kissing each other passionately on street corners. I havenÂ’t even been asked if I can be fellated by any strange European men using a sophisticated sign language. I have clearly lost it. Not even perverts fancy me any more!
I did come here a few years ago as a young(er) lover. Not with Geoff Quigley (though we did stop off in Rome, but it was strictly separate tents. I couldnÂ’t see Geoff Quigley that way. Though if he was here now, I might have to think about it). We had only recently met and it was a wonderful and romantic trip. We spent a particularly pleasant couple of hours at the Trevi fountain. In our youthful exuberance, but with half an eye on the transience of love, we agreed that this little square would remain sacred to us and our love. That whatever happened we would never come back here with anyone else.
Though the relationship didnÂ’t last, we are still good friends and a little flame of love will always burn in my heart and it seems only fitting that our spoken contract is upheld. So when I passed a sign for the Trevi fountain I wondered whether I should go back there. I reasoned that as I was on my own it would be OK. That weÂ’d agreed not to go there with anyone else, so a solo trip was acceptable. Perhaps it was even a nice little tribute to what we had had.
It didnÂ’t feel like eight years since IÂ’d been here. I even remembered the shop where weÂ’d bought an ice cream. But there was no melancholy or self indulgent heart-ache in my return. I actually felt strangely cheered to be there again. Heart-ache can be a long tunnel to go through, but when youÂ’re out the other side the view is worth all the pain.
Am I turning into a fortune cookie writer? The sooner IÂ’m back to the drudgery of my actual life the better for us all.
The fountain was a lot more gaudy than I remember. It seemed slightly vulgar to have this as a romantic place, but perhaps romance is as much about gaudiness as anything. Like having a song that belongs to you as a couple it is not important whether it is cool or musically perfect, it’s about the feelings that it reminds you of (or hopefully reinforces if you are still together. It’s a bit sad if you’re still with someone and you can go back to a place or hear your tune and then say “Remember how happy we were when we were last here? What young idiots we were. If only I could turn back the clock I’d have drowned you in that bloody fountain there and then while we were still getting on, you bastard.”)
I’ve actually really enjoyed being on my own this week. It’s been great to be able to do what I want and not have to worry about whether anyone else is having a good time. And despite my opening paragraph I have taken pleasure, rather than envy, from other people’s love (or short term lust). I sat by the fountain and read and watched the world go by. Seemingly every nation of the world was united in its desire to come to this place and have a photo taken of them throwing a coin over their shoulder into the water. A mother and daughter from Japan, a group of school girls from the Southern states of America (they had their nicknames on their jackets. One of them was called “Brainiac”), a stylish Italian couple in their forties who had clearly just got married. They all smiled. It made me smile too. I was glad I’d come back here.
My favourite person there though, was a local. A short Roman man who I’d guess was approaching sixty, but who still retained his good looks and had a twinkle in his eye. His thinning hair had been dyed a reddish brown, his skin was tanned, but just a little too orange to be the result of actual sunlight. He was a photographer, touting for trade from the passing tourists, but always in a charming and respectful way. His particular gimmick was that he could print up the pictures he took within five minutes, because around his neck he had a tray with a somewhat cumbersome printer on it. He wore a little jerkin with the words “Foto Espresso” on the back and little phrases like “We send your photo email” fading on the front. The price for such a photo was 5 euros.
In an age when everyone has their own cameras I felt that his clientele might be limited. Why wait five minutes to get a largish print which youÂ’d have to carry around all day which would cost you five euros when you had your own digital camera and could just ask any of the other tourists milling around to take a photo of you and your loved ones for nothing.
Indeed my fears seemed well founded. I waited to see if anyone took up his offer, but no-one seemed to want to. He wasnÂ’t unduly concerned about this. He would sing to himself and smile and ask another person if they wanted a picture, only to be rebuffed. He would shout angrily at passing tourist helicopters disturbing the calm of the piazza, and then wink and flirt unthreateningly with groups of young women.
He seemed very content and very likeable and I felt sorry for him, because he was such a character and I thought that I might ask him to take a photo of me just so his day wasnÂ’t wasted. He was after all carrying a printer round his neck. HeÂ’d gone to a lot of trouble.
I figured that this act must work, that people must be charmed by him and amused by him and so pay the five euros as much out of a sense of fun than anything else. He certainly had some pride, unlike the porter from yesterday. He wasnÂ’t begging, merely requesting and didnÂ’t take the constant knock-backs to heart. He also didnÂ’t force people to have their photo taken against their will and then get all angry with them when they didnÂ’t have the money to pay for something that they hadnÂ’t asked for. So I liked the pleasant photographer better than the petulant porter.
I suppose if he got to take two pictures an hour then that was enough to keep him going. Though after over thirty minutes he still had no-one.
I like the Italians and especially the middle aged men Italians. Maybe because like me, quite a lot of them are short and stocky, but also because they have a fine attitude to life. Relaxed when they have to be, but passionate too. Yesterday in the forum I had seen a tour guide getting very angry about the way that the Christians had dismantled the Roman buildings to use the stone to construct their churches. I’m pretty sure he said, “Whatever Rome did to the Christians, it is not as bad as what the Christians did to Rome.” When an American tourist took exception to this, the Italian forcefully reiterated his position. He was very angry about this desecration. I passed him a few times that afternoon and each time he was making some additional comment to the same point. He was dour-faced, stocky and bullish and I really liked him. Not least because I totally agree with him. It is tragic and ironic that Christianity should bring ancient Rome to its knees. And it was a delight to see a tour guide who wasn’t kowtowing to his audience, who was telling it like it was and who was prepared to argue his case. He even struck the American very gently on the shoulder for daring to question him.
I want to be an old man in this town.
The photographer at the fountain was clearly a stylish man, who still saw himself as sexy and sexual. He looked like a professional photographer. Maybe he was retired and making a bit of extra cash. Maybe he managed to make a decent living with his eccentric scheme, especially when more tourists were around. He was certainly a whole staircase above the other tacky vendors selling little squishy toys and flicking through reams of posters which would place Benito Mussolini next to Martin Luther King next to Jordan without any awareness of how strange the juxtaposition was.
And eventually someone bit and had wanted a picture. A couple. The old fella, took it, very professionally, showed them the image on his digital camera and then with their approval set his printer going.
While I was there he took one other photo. Two in an hour and a bit. Ten Euros. Not too bad. Plus he seemed to have had a really good time.
I was still considering getting a photo of myself anyway. To remind me of the second trip to the Trevi fountain. When I was alone.
But when I looked up from my book the man had gone. Perhaps he had fulfilled his quota for the day. Maybe his neck was getting tired.
Probably better to appreciate everything through memory anyway.
Next time you are at the Trevi Fountain please do get your photo taken by the man (and take a photo of him too) and then email it to me. If I get enough IÂ’ll start up a special page on the website. Hopefully we will also make the orange skinned charming photographer the richest man in Rome.
