Chapter 1
For me, it was always going to be Tuscany.
I had only been once before, when I was a child. My parents had taken me when I was around ten or eleven I think, and we had stayed in a villa on the outskirts of the city of Arezzo, tucked in the easternmost sector of the region. I am an only child and thus family holidays were never an occasion I looked forward to, but rather an obligation I felt compelled to fulfil in my agreed role as dutiful son. More akin to the experience of a dentist’s appointment. Never entirely unpleasant, but equally never more than a date in the calendar to tick off every passing year.
However, even given those undesirable circumstances, I still found myself completely enthralled by Tuscany. It was a place that encouraged you to lift your head and take in every little detail around you. The soft yellow hue of the ancient walls, the uneven cobbles of the streets, the grandeur of the churches, the beauty of the statues and the dark green lushness of the distant hills. It felt removed from anything I had known before. And everywhere that I visited subsequently could never quite live up to it either.
My abiding memory of that hallowed holiday is a specific one. I had been allowed to wander alone by my parents, a common practise borne out of their simultaneously relaxed and distant parenting style. I had found my way into a kind of park, though these details remain blurred, that ultimately led on to a long, straight promenade made up of a gravel path. And this is where the picture turns crystal clear. To the left was the beginning of one of those iconic hills, with a steep bank slanting upwards, filled with wild plants and bushes. To the right was the view. Vast and glorious. A sun-kissed scene of fields and vineyards, with smatterings of houses, all marked by the bent clay tiles on the rusty, red roofs. In the distance was the first curve of a lake, emerging from another hill and perching on the line of the horizon, like a silver platter on a dining table.
This stunning scenery would flicker in and out of view, between the branches of tall cypress trees that lined either side of the path. Their trunks were thin but they then expanded into bristling bouquets of leaves at their tips, allowing the path to be almost entirely sheltered in shade. It stretched on far beyond my eye and I hadn’t dared to follow it to its end, for fear of being unable to return to my parents in time. Instead, I just stood and admired. It felt to me then that I had disappeared briefly into another world. That I had wandered off the map. That, if for just one moment, I had managed to get lost in time.
Chapter 2
Around thirteen years later, I took a seat at the entrance to Gate Twenty-Three at London City Airport, dragging my suitcase close to my side. I was one of the first passengers to have arrived at the gate, but I squirmed against the back of the chair to try and get as comfortable as possible, knowing it would still be some time before I got on the plane.
I studied the face of the suited airline employee who stood behind the monitor, a few feet in front of the closed door leading down to the apron. I tried to gauge from his manner any clues as to the state of the flight. The airport, and perhaps the entire world, was still stumbling their way back into the light after being trapped under the darkness of a pandemic. It felt, at that moment anyway, that we had made it through the main, seismic tremors of the earthquake but were still suffering the occasional aftershock. The rational part of my mind urged me to therefore look upon the man with sympathy, but its counterpart was trying to hold him personally responsible for my own inconvenience.
The events leading up to me taking that seat at the airport terminal were both recent and relevant. It had been less than two weeks earlier that I had received an email through from Bastille Limited, a premium procurement organisation based in London. It referenced an attached document, a contract of employment set to commence on the 10th August. With my name, in bold, at the top and a space for my signature at the bottom. An official, legal confirmation of what had long since been agreed. That I was to join the company as a ‘Junior Purchasing Assistant.’
In fact, the event was so mundane that it elicited no reaction at all from me at first. I opened the document, printed it and began to flick through the various pages, only reading every other word. I could have been a sophisticated form of an android, programmed to scan and then mark the contract with my signature, as long as it passed successfully through my processing system. It was only when I reached the “Duties” section, that the ghost in the machine roared to life.
“Unless prevented by incapacity, the Employee shall devote the whole of his/her time, attention and abilities to the business of the company.” I stopped reading, retreated my eyes to the start of the sentence and read it again. Pausing to read the same sentence twice can nearly always serve to change its meaning, and such was the case. No longer was I reading a commonplace confirmation of the next progression in my professional life, but a warrant. I ceased to be myself, a sentient, complex human being and had instead become: “The Employee.” Serving no other purpose than to devote the whole of my limited time to “the business of the company.” And in that one instance, I was no longer an ambitious young man who had secured a promising first graduate role, but a lamb, meekly surrendering themselves to their own slaughter.
I became aware that I was sweating and I felt trembles rung along the skin of my arms and legs. I didn’t even to attempt to break myself from the trance that had overcome me. I just stayed staring blankly at the words on the page. Eventually, I was able to finish reading the rest of the contract. Taking out a black, ballpoint pen, I hesitantly scribbled in the necessary section of the final page.
Not signing had never been an option. Even with my anxiety-induced epiphany, I had come too far to quit on the final hurdle. A tenancy signed on a flat in London, which had involved a sizable loan taken from my parents. An announcement on the family group chats of my appointment. A budget drawn up, completely dependent on my agreed monthly salary. I would work for Bastille Limited. I would be their latest “Junior Purchasing Assistant.” That was to be my life. My sentence even. Commencing the 10th August.
Instead, my thoughts turned to the month I had before that date. I had gotten to know myself well enough that I now recognised and understood my reactions to issues and stressors. And I was undeniably, and proudly, an advocate of flight over fight. It had first surfaced in my attempts to randomly board a directionless train after a fierce argument with my mother. It had continued through my pathetic fleeing from a drunken altercation outside a nightclub whilst at university. And now in the face of full-time employment, I wanted to get as far away as possible from anything resembling that impending reality.
I considered my finances. I could certainly afford a holiday. I had worked a part-time job at a supermarket throughout university and I had never been a prolific spender. This meant I had acquired a small but significant surplus. A surplus whose existence was based purely on being there should I ever need it. And I never had.
Locations drifted in and out of my mind, like I was playing myself a personal holiday slideshow. Greece, Spain, Canada, Bali. And then the memory returned to me once more. I was swept back to the long, shadowed promenade. And the path between the cypress trees.
I booked the entire holiday that day. Flights in and out of Florence. A few nights stay in an apartment in the central Santa Maria Novella district. And then down to Arezzo. To stay for the rest of the month. Partly because it was cheaper to stay there than somewhere more renowned. Partly because I wanted to desperately try and reclaim what I had discovered there in my youth.
It had only occurred to me afterwards that my impulsive escape had essentially turned into a twenty-first-century adaptation of a “Grand Tour.” A cultural tour of Europe, to accompany and perhaps complete my education, both as a scholar and a man. This only increased my appetite for the trip. I was a shameless lover of the Romantics and anything that connected me in some way to the likes of Byron or Shelley served as only further justification.
I had decided on only one suitcase to accompany me, with a smaller rucksack inside to be used as required on excursions. My packing list was not an extensive one and consisted of the following items: Ten t-shirts (ranging in colour from navy to grey); two pairs of shorts (one smart pair, one comfortable); as many pairs of pants and socks as I had available; a phone charger and an adapter borrowed from my father; a toiletry bag consisting of little more than toothpaste, shower gel and hair wax; two easy-iron shirts for an occasion on which I might need to impress; my passport; a bottle of sun cream and two books: Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, part guidebook to the area of Tuscany I was visiting, part spiritual companion to my “grand tour” and finally, Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, because I couldn’t bear to be without it. Everywhere I had been after first purchasing the book, Holden Caulfield had joined me.
Similarly minimalist was the list of people whom I informed of my plans. My parents seemed surprised at the timing but were otherwise as neutral and unconcerned as ever. The only other person offered the privilege was my oldest and closest friend, Seb. He had moved away for work himself in the last year and so I couldn’t inform him in person, but we exchanged a series of messages. He didn’t question the decision in the slightest, which was exactly why he was who I chose to tell, and after wishing me well and expressing excitement at me telling him about it on my return, he signed off with the closing quip: “Just make sure you actually come back…”
The airline guy made his announcement. We could finally start to board the plane. The now-full seating area began to empty and filter through the doors, series of passports and boarding passes held out for inspection. I offered my politest, fakest smile as I passed by. Once I had found and taken my seat on the plane itself, I hid myself behind the guise of my earphones and swivelled my head to stare absently out the window, long before the plane began to move. My thoughts briefly returned to the contract. To Bastille Limited. To being “The Employee.” I dismissed them. That could wait. My Grand Tour, my Tuscan retreat, my greatest escape even, was about to commence.
George F Brown 