Singular life
Final countdown
Petronella Wyatt
Everyone was talking about the great white shark. How it had swum into the Mediterranean just north of Rome no one could fathom (good pun, that). Perhaps it had made its way through the Suez Canal. What was undoubtedly true was that the shark had been spotted by a number of unreliable witnesses. There was a rumour that it had eaten a frogman who was trying to fix an underwater telegraph pole but the local mayor had hushed up the attack as discouraging les touristes.
Hah. Sharks didn't scare me. Jaws? A few hours of somnambulent tedium. As if many people were killed by sharks anyway — fewer than the number struck by light- ning. A few years ago, there was a rumour in this part of the world about killer piran- ha fish. That was after a child had pilfered some plastic models from a shop and float- ed them off the boats in the marina.
Thus it was that I was swimming off a friend's boat five miles from the mainland, congratulating myself on life's serendipi- ties. The sky was not so much azure as a laser-light violet; the coastline, ornamented with Renaissance fortresses, was out of a Whistler mural. I was looking forward to a picnic of prosciutto and pizza at lunchtime. Back in London it was raining and 68 degrees Farenheit. I was smug enough to be Liberace's smile. And then I saw it.
It was indisputably a fin. It was circling about 15ft away from me. It had an inex- orable look about it; the sort of fin that would, without hesitation, go right to the finishing line and ring that bell. It would see the thing through to the end — my end. There was no doubt about it. I was going to die. I, who didn't believe in rumours, was going to be ignominiously gobbled up by a shark. I hoped, pathetically, that my bikini bottom was clean.
It is at these times, they say, when you realise it's ciao baby, that all the important moments of your life flash past. Those inci- dents which, in American films, are accom- panied by a string section, gauze lighting and then a gigantic crescendo of brass instruments. You know the sort of thing. The time you were voted Woman of the Year. Your wedding day to the love of your life. The christening of the first-born. Enough to jerk the tears out of Milosevic's eyes.
I waited expectantly for the gauze light- ing and the cello concerto. But nothing happened. Nothing was flashing past my eyes. This was terrible. It could only mean one thing. My life had had no important moments. I tried desperately to think of some. It was impossible. I vaguely remem- bered the day my nanny went away, but that didn't really count, did it? It was intensely aggrieving. Everyone else had important moments but me.
Okay, see if I cared. I would have some- thing else instead. What about regrets? Just before people died, they had regrets, didn't they? Regrets were a different story from important moments. I could think of so many that if the shark swam towards me at the rate of one foot per day it would be too fast. It seemed my life was one long roll-call of regrets.
I thought of all the thousands of articles I had written and wished I hadn't been quite so rude in all of them. How were they going to sound when the chief archangel or whoever read them out on the Day of Judgment? Bad. That's how. Lacking in basic charity. Above all I wished I hadn't been nasty about Italian men. It was time to come clean. Secretly, I liked them. Okay there was the odd rotten salami, but as a rule they smelt pretty good.
But I was the Woman Who Hates Italian Men. In Italy it was practically the only thing for which I was known. As the fin moved nearer I retracted mentally every- thing I had written. It was not true that Italians were philistines or had gone gay all of a sudden. They still had hot blood and some of them sang arias from Verdi. They yearned their livings and I yearned for them. In my heart of hearts I loved them to bits. An unfortunate choice of word, I agree, as bits were soon what I would become — and pieces.
And then the fin flipped over. It was a piece of wood after all. Oh, hell. You should never air your dirty regrets in public.
'I've noticed one thing about you — you only argue when there's nothing to argue about.'
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