I had an uneasy feeling about this. I very nearly texted F with all the details – the address, the phone number, the name, etc.
It had been a strange phone call. All in Italian and, unfortunately it didn’t really make sense.
“I saw your advertisement in Easy Milano”.
“Do you have a computer?”, he asked. I replied that I did. “Because I need to have this program modified”, he continued. “Do you have a key?”, he asked. Hmmmm.
He sounded like he was mid-forties or fifties. I said that I didn’t really understand what he wanted but that I would come and see him and we could discuss it – just like we could discuss the price (which he wasn’t happy about). I thought that this was a man who wanted to have some computer program which either taught him English or was a test of English, altered to suit him or make it easier or something. It was probable that it couldn’t be done but, anyway, the price would be at least double.
In the morning, I thought that, perhaps, I should ‘forget’ my laptop and then phone to say I had forgotten it; or just not go; or make some other excuse. I felt that it would be a waste of time. He was, quite probably, a beginner. And he didn’t want to pay for anything.
Of course, my judgement was clouded because, although I didn’t know the particular area where he lived (I looked at it on Google Maps whilst he was on the telephone), it was very close to a place that FfI and I went to see a flat, when I was looking for flats, last year. This place we went to was an out-of-town council estate. I say estate and, of course, since this is Italy, there were no houses, just huge sets of blocks of flats. The flat we went to looked like it had been used as a drug den. I can’t tell you how happy we were to be leaving and getting back to the comfort and safety of Milan proper.
>So, this place was another couple of blocks down.
I had a vision of what would happen. He would certainly be paying for this.
I parked the car next to a car that looked as if it had been vandalised – the front windscreen smashed, the bonnet and front end looking like someone had rammed it. The small car park looks like the sort of thing that was built on the same sort of estates in the 50s and 60s, when no one who lived in ‘those sort of places’ could possibly have afforded a car! The car park had weeds growing – this is how it would look a few months after the whole of the human population had been wiped out – like you see in those sci-fi films.
I got out. I checked with a guy who had just parked his car, that I was on the right street. Yes, I was. The huge, ugly block of flats loomed ahead. Must be several hundred, maybe a thousand, flats in this complex.
Should I take my computer (in a briefcase) or not? Would I be mugged? No, I was being really stupid, I decided, even if there were signs everywhere I looked – one can read too much into things.
I go to the entrance to the block. the block is actually several blocks, all joined together, round a large garden with flowers and trees. I find his button. He answers. I am to go to the F Stairs. The first one on the left is A. As it is, F is nearly the furthest away. I pass all the flats, some with amazing displays of flowers, others with what looks like junk on their balconies. Overall, though, it wasn’t like that other block I had been to before, just up the road. This was not a crack-dealing estate and may, even, be privately owned flats.
Still, I wasn’t entirely happy about it all.
I got to entrance F. I had to buzz again. He let me in. I was to go to the top floor. The seventh.
As I entered the building, the usual smells of flats hit me. This, like any other block, smelled of the latest food cooked. I idly wondered if, in reality, the smell was so different from the ones in my block? It seemed so but maybe that was only my preconception, given where I was and what I was doing. It wasn’t pleasant, in any event.
I thought about the first flat I had ever lived in. When V and I got together. We lived in his council supplied one, near the heart of Birmingham. Just down the road from the red-light district. I remember getting in the lift sometimes (we lived on the 10th floor). It was like this, except that this lift (the one I was in now) didn’t smell of piss like the one in Birmingham often did. Still, it brought back some memories.
When I reached the top floor there were four possible doors to his flat. As I stepped out one was opened. I guess this would be the one, I thought.
My jaw nearly dropped to the floor. In front of me, holding the door open, was an elderly man. I don’t mean retired or anything. I mean O.L.D. He was, probably, in his eighties! He was hunched over and he shuffled, rather than walked.
My first thought was to laugh! This guy wanted to learn English? Why the hell would he need or want to do that?
It’s warm in, what looks like, a one room flat with a single window. There is a door. It could be a bedroom……. or, maybe, just a cupboard. It is very hot. I ask if it’s OK to take my coat off.
I ask him if he speaks any English. He does. It’s not brilliant and he doesn’t have that much vocabulary but it’s passable. He asks where I come from and I explain, as I do, that he won’t know where it is before telling him and then explaining where it is. He tells me he’s been to Bristol. Not that far away after all.
We sit at his table. In front, at the back and slightly to the left is a covered-up typewriter. To the right is a single desk lamp. Between them is a CD and a usb key. In front of those two things, closest to him, is a book; a red-bound book that looks as if it has been well used.
He points to the book. I suppose this is an ‘English’ exercise book although I have never seen one like it.
He opens the book and starts explaining that, as he points them out, these corrections are to be made to the text (or the layout or the spelling or whatever). When all the corrections are done, he would like it transferred to the usb key (to send to the publisher, probably).
As we go through the changes he requires, I ask questions. I suggest that I’ll do it at home – it will be easier. He is doubtful but, as we go through the changes he wants, he becomes more comfortable. I obviously know what needs to be done and can understand his notations and symbols and writing that he has done.
I make sure that I can read the CD and that it is a program I can change. I ask him how long it took him to write (for it is a HEAVY book – not a nice novel for bed-time reading). 38 years is the answer!
I assume he must be some sort of retired professor but it turns out he was a photographer. It took him 38 years because he needed to see and interview some of the people who are quoted in his book. There were some from China, Japan, Africa, etc. It took time for it all to be arranged. He wrote it in Italian and had it translated. The problem is that the translators are not from Milan and, for these few corrections, he wanted someone closer.
We have, in some sort of way, ‘got on’. We were both wary at the start, both unsure – me of his requirement, he of my competence. As he shuffled behind me as I was leaving, we were smiling; he reminded me of many of the people I have met at the festivals.
“Well”, as I pointed out to him, “this is much more interesting than just English teaching”, without adding that ‘and, I can do it at home!’
