the best loos in italy

Just past the Roman theatre, in a park which contained a ravine which was given the name of a Greek hero’s ear, we quarrelled, again.

I walked on ahead. She remained behind. The path snaked down hill. I walked round a bend and saw her up above me. I kept on walking, blindly. A little later, I heard a thwack as something hit the ground nearby. I turned around. She was a few paces behind. Throwing rocks in my direction. They drifted through the hot Sicilian air. Most of them missed.

I cannot recall the bit in the middle. I think I became upset, again. Somehow we got away from the rocky track and arrived at a public loo. It was tucked away in a glade, made out of timber so that it blended in tastefully with the surroundings.

I’m also unsure how we reached the next stage. Wherein the loo-keeper appeared and started to get into conversation with us. He showed a lot of concern for my ripped jeans. He thought I had to be impoverished to wear them. He wanted to give me a spare pair of trousers he had there. I found it hard to explain that the jeans were supposed to be ripped.

The loo keeper was wiry and energetic and he claimed that his loos were the best loos in Italy, which is something that still seems undeniable. He plied us with home made red wine. We got drunk in the late afternoon sun, sitting on the terrace of his loos, as though we were on the veranda of a Palladian palazzo.

No one ever came to use the loos, but a friend of his turned up. This friend was mournfully comic. The loo-keeper was ebullient and could communicate in any language. The friend was taciturn, with a Buster Keaton face. The loo-keeper explained that his friend was a clown.

We stayed there for ages. The loo-keeper kept trying to offer me his spare pair of trousers. We took a whole series of photos. There are very few photos from those days, but there is ample documentary evidence of the Syracusan loos. Photos of N posing, the loo-keeper posing, the clown looking doleful, and me looking olive skinned, short haired, quizzical, one eyebrow raised.

This was the way the world was. Being stoned by your girlfriend one minute; being plied with red wine by the keeper of the world’s most magical loos the next.