My Summer Love

Published in Ireland on Sunday, August 2004

My last summer romance was a love affair to top all love affairs. Two amazing men for the price of one, and a lifetime’s worth of memories, both happy and sad. Perhaps I should explain - one of the men in question is my ex-boyfriend, Mark, and the other is my ten-year-old son, Sam.

It all began eleven years ago on the glorious shore of Lake Como in the North Italian hills. Lake Como is just an hour from Milan, and full of dramatic and breathtaking views, the perfect setting for a holiday romance.

I had travelled to Italy to visit my best friend, Orla who was living and working in a small boutique hotel called the Hotel du Lac on the shores Bellagio, a small tourist town on the lake. She was being courted by a stunningly handsome and besotted Italian waiter a few years her senior. Luca had dark hair and even darker eyes and Orla was determined not to fall for his Mediterranean charms. Eventually she succumbed, bored with saying no to the most attractive and charming man in the village. In the end he was so taken with Orla that he followed her back to Dublin where they lived together for several months before the Irish weather turned his head and he went running back to his far warmer homeland.

Co-incidentally Mark and his friend, Gary had travelled from Belfast where they lived to Lake Como to compete in a sailing event, the Laser 2 Worlds. They had driven the whole way in a large dark blue Hi-Ace van with two other sailors from Northern Ireland, towing two boats behind them; an eventful and rather long and hot trip by all accounts. While they were pitching their tents in the large, yellow grassed camping ground adjacent to the Lake Como sailing club, I was watching Orla and Luca frolicking on one of the local Bellagio beaches, he flicking sea water at her and she giggling attractively. As I watched them I longed for my own boyfriend, someone to flirt with, to flick water at. Little did I know then that my wish was about to be granted.

One evening Orla and I caught the ferry across the lake to the yacht club, looking forward to meeting up with some of our Dublin sailing friends who were competing in the very same sailing event as Mark and Gary. The first time I saw Mark, he had just come in from sailing with Gary in their Laser 2. They had done well in the race, securing a place in the top ten, and they were both delighted with themselves, whooping and splashing in the shallows as they shouted out to the Irish spectators who were waiting for them on the shore. I noticed Mark immediately. His face, legs and arms were already scorched lobster red from two days in the searing Italian sun, his blond hair, salty and windswept from a day on the water. There were crystals of salt crusted on his face and after they had brought their boat in and had de-rigged it, we were introduced by a mutual sailing friend:

‘Mark, this is a friend of mine from Dublin, Sarah.’

‘Well done in the race,’ I said a little nervously. ‘I’m impressed.’ Mark gave me a wide, generous smile and I basked in its warmth. ‘Thanks,’ he murmured. He looked great in his tight fitting black neoprene wetsuit, which hugged his body in all the right places and showed off his sailor’s muscle tone.

‘Are you sailing?’ he asked me.

I shook my head. ‘I’m on holidays. I’m staying with a friend in Bellagio.’

‘Will you be here later?’ he asked.

I gave him what I hoped was a casual smile. ‘Sure. I might see you around.’

‘I hope so,’ he replied and my stomach gave a somersault.

In the bar that evening my eyes were glued to the door, waiting for Mark to walk in. Every time I saw a tall, blond sailor my heart gave a leap. But after a while I resigned myself to the fact that he wasn’t going to turn up. I stopped looking for him and began to chat to some of the other competitors.

‘Hello again,’ I heard the familiar voice just after midnight. I was standing at the bar and I whisked my head around. It was Mark. Smiling at me.

‘Oh, hello,’ I said nonchantally.

‘I was looking for you earlier,’ he said. ‘In the other bar.’

‘Really?’ I said, acting cool. ‘Well you’ve found me now.’

We brought our drinks outside and walked towards the edge of the lake. It was still warm, the air smelling faintly sweet and heady. We sat down on a large rock and began to talk and to my delight we hit if off from the start. I gabbled at him about everything under the sun, as is my way when I’m nervous: he grinned and nodded, laughing in all the right places and adding the odd comment. He seemed just happy listening to me. He asked all the right questions, inquiring about my burgeoning writing career - I had just started writing fiction at that stage and was eager to share my character and plot ideas with anyone who would listen. I told him my ideas for children’s books, romantic comedies, even plans for my own bookshop and he listened patiently and with genuine interest.

In turn, he told me about his close family, his brothers, his parents; about life in Northern Ireland and about his job as a graphic designer.

Later that evening we returned to the bar hand in hand and danced to

the terrible Italian band, high on the sheer joy of finding each other and drunk on he expectation of what was to come.

One evening there was a raging thunderstorm. I’ve never seen anything like it - as we walked towards a local restaurant the heavens suddenly opened and threatened to soak us with warm sheets of the wettest rain ever, drenching us to our very bones. We arrived at the restaurant dripping slightly but laughing; resigned to spending the evening slightly damp. It could have been worse - luckily, fearing bad weather, some of the sailors, including Mark had had the good sense to bring oilskins and all was not lost. In the restaurant, buoyed up by a few glasses of Italian wine, I cajoled the chef to let me help him with the pizzas. After several disastrous attempts, and after removing one disc of silky pizza dough from the low ceiling fan, I succeeded in ‘throwing’ my first pizza base. I then piled it high with toppings, cooked it in the pizza oven and served it to Mark.

‘Made it myself,’ I said proudly.

‘I was watching you,’ he replied. ‘You’re some woman for one woman.’ Then we tucked into his pizza. Happy memories.

A week later we all returned home, Mark and Gary to Belfast, me to Dublin. From that time on Mark and I were inseparable. But there was the small matter of several hundred miles between us! Mark valiantly offered to drive down to Dublin every weekend that he wasn’t sailing, and after a while he grew to love Dublin and we both became accustomed to the ebb and flow of a long distance relationship. But harder times were to come.

Unexpected pregnancies happen all the time - but to other people - I never expected to find myself staring at the small white box of a pregnancy test, willing it to stay clear.

Everything changed almost overnight. My summer romance turned into something quite different - something a lot more serious and Mark gallantly moved down to Dublin to be with me.

I went into labour during one of the biggest sailing events of the season, Cork Week, once again our relationship was linked to the nautical world. Mark, who was about to go out sailing when he received the message from a rather overexcited race official (it was the talk of the week apparently!) drove the two hundred odd miles to Dublin to be with me for the birth.

Sam was an adorable baby from the start, hard work - especially for two young and highly inexperienced parents - but an absolute joy. Time moved on as it does, we drifted apart and there was no happily ever after for Mark and I, but we remain close to this day. And we both remember our summer romance with fondness. After all it produced our amazing son and that can’t be bad. Which in turn, gave me the drive and ambition to follow my dream and become a full time writer. But that, as they say, is another story.