I slam the dish of pasta down hard on the table. The viscous salmon and cream sauce slops to coat the edges of the bowl. Seated at the small, round table in our living room, Jack barely glances up from his mobile phone. The t.v is blaring out a noisy quiz show, scantily-clad, pretty girls are dancing to the music.

Simon is with Alberto this evening, by my request, and I'm trying to give our strained marriage a healthy, private evening for once.

"Can you open the wine, please?" I ask as I sit down, tiredly.

"Huh?" Tap, slide, tap on the phone.

"I said, can you please open the bottle?"

"Okay." Slide, tap, tap.

"Jack!" I bark at him. "I've been slaving over this bloody meal for the last hour. Do you think you could actually do something?"

Not meeting my eye, he sighs, picks up the bottle of red wine and fishes out the corkscrew from under the paper napkins in the middle of the table. "Alright, keep your knickers on." His attention quickly turns to the well-formed females on display as they trade in their integrity for a chance of stardom. "Why are you so moody tonight? That time of the month again?"

"No... " I pick at my dinner with a fork, "I'm just pissed off that I've spent my only day off cleaning, washing, clearing out the bins, sorting out bills and playing happy housewife trying to cook something that's actually edible."

Disinterested by yet another rant and rave session, his eyes still on the girls I get a response of, "Oh."

We eat our dinner in silence. It's pretty tasty if I say so myself and I get some kind of satisfaction from that at least.

"Oh, by the way," he mumbles through a mouthful of pasta, "Got practice at ten. Franco's got a new idea he wants to go over."

I don't believe this.

Sissy feels the tension building and I see her sneaking from under the table, through the kitchen and out into the cool, calm air of the balcony.

"You've got to be joking."

"No. He's already booked the studio for it."

"Well that's great. Thanks."

Looking at me with heavy lidded eyes, he takes a big gulp of wine. Months of my accumulated nagging, sleeplessness, long hours and pushing him away in the bedroom finally flood to the surface on this balmy first Friday of September. He scrapes back his chair, puts his phone in his pocket and stands opposite me, pointing his finger and shouts.

"If you weren't such a frigid bitch I might want to be around you more!"

The blood flushes to my cheeks and my knees begin to tremble. How can it suddenly be all my fault? "Well if you weren't pissed all the time when you crawl back in maybe I'd be willing to do something!"

He grabs his keys from the tv unit and makes to leave, thowing me one last insult. "Don't expect me back tonight, you old bag."

I gasp, clutching the fork tighter. "Good. Go stay with your skanky groupies instead."

He leaves, slamming the door behind him. I drop the fork and my vision becomes blurred. The dancing girls are surrounded in a bubble of water, my bottom lip quivers and my hands shake.

Sissy creeps back to the living room, she lies flat on the floor with her nose on her paws, she watches the hallway, waiting expectantly for Jack's return.

I don't see or here from him for two nights and three days. I haven't the strength to tell Alberto when I go to retrieve Simon the next morning. No doubt I would be the one to blame.

*****

The following Monday is a very big day. Simon is starting 'scuola materna' this morning. My little boy is now the spitting image of Jack. They share the same smile as well as those piercing blue eyes and dark olive skin, so lucky.

After the effort of keeping positive and smiley throughout Simon's breakfast, getting dressed, washed and school bag prepared, I'm already exhausted as the three of us, me, Simon and Sissy, make it up and down the steep streets to the old maternity school.

It's a beautiful day and the bad storm from the night before has cleared away the remaining humidity from August's oppression. The other parents are grouped together, chatting and laughing, content in their lifelong familiarity.

Simon is quite happy to be here. We visited the school together last week and spent a morning acclimatising with the cool, old building and warm, friendly teachers.

A bell rings and the caretaker exits the main entrance, comes out from under the shade of the stone arched facade and gives us a welcome - one and all, with instructions of children only from this point.

Simon lets go of my hand and I understand that this is the final moment of this stage of my life. I hastily pull my sunglasses from off their position as hairband on top of my head to hide my welling tears as I bend down to say goodbye. Simon, nonplussed and cheerful, allows a kiss on the cheek and then spends a good two minutes hugging his best friend - Sissy, before finally joining the last happy stragglers and a few tearful new pupils.

My spirits are somewhat lifted later that day as Ruben and I are closing up the shop. We've stopped gossiping about the heavily-tattooed shop assistant in the clothes shop next door, and are sweeping and rubbing the sticky finger marks from the glass door, when the tall, dark, handsome and weird man that I had encountered in July bows his greetings in the doorway.

Ruben steps away from his manic rubbing at the door, to allow him to pass, smiling and welcoming the customer.

I stop brushing and smooth down my hair as much as possible. "Can I help you?" I feel myself blushing while trying to ignore the mime show of 'oh my God!' that Ruben is doing behind the man's back.

For a while he just stands there, looking about the shop in his black sharp suit with light blue shirt. Deciding on his course of action, the mystery man then does a low, slow curtesy, holding his jacket tails out as if he were a maid in the presence of a queen. He smiles a cheeky grin and says in a fake cockney accent, "How's about this weather then?" He then turns round and walks past a stunned Ruben and back out down the street.

"Come back soon!" Ruben calls after him.

Ruben's my saving grace through my heartache with Jack. He often brings me a brioche when he arrives in late for work and it always has a funny drawing on the top of it. It's hard to stay sad when I'm presented with faces of cartoon characters and private parts on baked goods.

Jack eventually crawled back up our stone staircase late at night on the first day of Simon's education.

I hear Sissy start to growl, from the foot of my bed well before I pick up the grind of the key in the lock. His dark shadow enters the bedroom, first lunging in the direction of Simon's new single bed and then to me, peeling off layers of black clothing like a rook shaking its wings.

"Jilly?" He leers over to my side of the bed and I can smell the stench of beer, smoke and stale sweat.

I pretend to be asleep, unwilling to start yet another fight. He sneeks under the covers and immediately turns his back to me. I lie awake as he drifts off, snoring softly, tears falling and soaking into my pillow silently.

*****

We continued a type of static, civil pattern of living together. Communicating on the most basic level about the most trivial things. He continued to follow his separate existence, appearing briefly without physical or emotional demands. This continued through the next three weeks and I confided in no one but Ruben of the devolution of our love.

I began to have an affinity with the local dog owners. Being creatures of routine, this breed of resident is a constant moment of 'Buon Giorno' and even the odd informal 'Ciao', as we either keep the furry ones from attacking or dry humping each other and sometimes from trying these actions simultaneously.

It's on one of these regular occasions, coming back from dropping Simon at school, when I meet Will.

Passing the open doorway of the truffle shop, I stop a moment to let Sissy breathe in the aroma as I always do, secretly hoping that she will one day be able to find a piece of the black gold for herself one day. The owner of the shop is a sour faced old woman with a bad attitude and she's standing with her arms crossed staring through the window.

Piero, the young, amorous Jack Russell we bump into on this particular stretch of the street, yanks his owner towards us in a panic, scared of losing the opportunity to sniff Sissy's fluffy behind. While I'm doing my best to communicate in pigeon Italian to Piero's ninety-year-old owner about the weather, a hand falls on my shoulder and I hear,

"Excuse me, but can I come through?" In a deep, sexy, rounded American accent. I turn to see the owner of the voice while pulling Sissy out of the way, to which she arrogantly proceeds to squat down and evacuate her bowels right there and then in front of us all.

"Oh shit." I say.

"Exactly!" The American laughs. He's around his early-forties, dark brown hair that's peppered with grey, deep hazel eyes, of a strong, medium build and just a bit taller than I am.