Me and You Read Online Free PDF Page B

up the mirror like it was a robin with a broken wing. ‘Maybe it’s not serious for you. For me it is. I just picked my car up from the garage. Do you
know how much this mirror costs?’
    My mother shook her head. ‘A lot?’
    I was running my hands through my hair. She shouldn’t play around with this guy. She had to apologise. Give him the money and end of story.
    ‘A quarter of a waiter’s pay. But what would you know? You don’t have that kind of problem.’
    I had to get up, out of the car, take her by the hand and run away, but I was about to faint.
    My mother was shaking her head in dismay. ‘Look, you were the one who drove into me . . . It’s your fault.’
    I saw the Lazio supporter hesitate slightly, close and open his eyes as if he were absorbing the blow he’d just been dealt. His nostrils were flaring like a truffle hound’s.
‘My fault? Whose? Mine? I drove into you?’ Then he stood up, threw his arms wide open and grunted. ‘What the fuck are you saying, bitch?’
    He had called my mother a bitch.
    I tried to undo my seatbelt but my hands were tingling like they’d fallen asleep.
    Mum was trying to look confident. She had got straight out of the car, in the rain, polite, prepared to accept the responsibility, if necessary. She had done nothing wrong and some guy that she
had never seen before had just called her a bitch.
    ‘Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.’ I repeated it to myself three times, tasting the painful scorn of that word. No kindness, no politeness, no respect, nothing.
    I had to kill him.
    But where had my rage gone? The red blood that filled me up whenever somebody annoyed me? The fury that set me off like a raging bull? I was a flat battery. Overcome with fear, I wasn’t
even able to undo my seatbelt.
    ‘Why? What did I do?’ my mother said as if she had been punched in the chest. She staggered and put her hand to her chest.
    ‘Honey? Sweetie?’ The round face of a tubby, curly-haired girl poked out of the Smart car window, wearing green sunglasses and purple lipstick. I hadn’t even noticed her.
‘Darling, you know what you are? You’re just a bitch in a BMW. You drove into us. We saw the spot before you.’
    The Lazio supporter had begun to point at Mum with his hand out flat. ‘Just because you’re a skinny bitch loaded with cash you think you can do whatever the fuck you want. The world
is yours for the taking, isn’t it?’
    Curlytop began clapping her hands from inside the Smart car. ‘Good on you, Teodoro. Give this slut a piece of your mind.’
    I had to react, but all I could think about was that his name was Teodoro and I didn’t know anyone who was called that.
    I breathed, trying to push that stupid thought out of my mind. My ears and my neck were now boiling hot and my head was spinning.
    Maybe Teo, the old cocker spaniel that belonged to the woman on the first floor, was actually called Teodoro.
    I had to get out of there straight away. I had nothing to do with this. I had told her that the dress was saucy and if she had listened to me . . .
    I undid my seatbelt, but I still couldn’t move.
    I was sitting on a huge giant made of stone that was hugging me and wouldn’t let me go.
    I looked towards the pavement hoping that someone would help us. The passers-by were a swarm of fuzzy silhouettes.
    The Lazio supporter grabbed my mother by the wrist and yanked her. ‘Come and have a look, sweetheart. Come and see what you did.’
    Mum lost her balance and fell over.
    The high-pitched squeal of the woman: ‘Teo! Teo! Leave her alone. It’s late. She doesn’t understand anyway. Stuck-up cow.’
    My mother lay on the cobbles, one of her stockings laddered. On the cobbles covered in who knows what. They don’t clean the streets in Rome. Infected pigeon shit. She was lying next to the
wheel of the car, the guy towering above her.
    He’ll spit on her now, I thought. But all he said was, ‘And you better thank God that you’re a woman. Otherwise . .