Move to the back and beyond somewhere in Tuscany.
If she said no, she'd be throwing away a golden opportunity. Paid employment at a time when jobs were at a premium.
A wave of disgust washed over her as she thought back to her work at the strip club.
She hadn't enjoyed getting naked in front of all those lust-fuelled men; she'd just needed the money. She'd put up with it for around three years and probably would have kept doing so had it not happened.
One evening, while she was changing before heading home, Signor Tironi came into the changing room and asked for five minutes of her time so the two of them could talk business.
Business, that's what he said.
She agreed and he embarked on a seemingly never-ending monologue
before eventually getting to the point.
The business.
He told her she was one of the best dancers and strippers he'd ever worked with. And also the most beautiful. She was loved by all the customers, but one was particularly keen. A wealthy businessman in his fifties. Tironi told her the man was willing to pay anything to spend a night with her.
Chantal raised an eyebrow and looked at him disdainfully.
"So, what do you think?" he asked casually. "What are you looking at me like that for?"
She answered quickly and firmly.
"I'm a dancer, not a whore."
He smiled.
"If you were some kind of nun, you wouldn't be flashing your tits about in my club. Think about it, Chantal. This guy is our best customer. He's got more money than the lot of us put together," he said, drawing a circle in the air with a nicotine-stained finger.
"I strip because I need the money," she replied coldly. "I'm not proud of what I do, but getting your kit off in front of men is one thing, and going to bed with them is something else entirely."
Tironi drew closer and stroked her hair, his stubby fingers brushing against her face.
"Perhaps...but you may not even have to sleep with him." He smiled at her again. "He might be happy with...you know...flirt with him a little, get him hard, suck him off. Close your eyes for three minutes, swallow like a good girl and walk off with five hundred big ones."
She tied up her shoes and stood up. Walked over to the little table and picked up her soft drink.
"So, let's see if I've understood." She stroked her boss's cheek. "I flirt with him a little." She brushed up against him. "I get him hard." She bit her lip. "And I suck him off." She slid her index finger inside her mouth and bit down. Hard.
Tironi smirked.
Chantal continued.
"Then I close my eyes," she whispered, gently pushing down her boss's eyelids. "Three minutes and..."
She threw her drink in Tironi's face.
"Fuck off, you prick!" she snarled.
"What the fuck do you think you're playing at, you stupid girl? You do realise that I could..."
She never heard the end of that sentence. She had already stormed out of the changing room and slammed the door behind her.
She hadn't worked for the strip club since and never would again. She'd been out of work for nearly two years before Robobi's forced her into a two-year contract earning a few hundred euros a month. And then chose not to renew it.
"Bastards," she said, piercing a cube of mozzarella with her fork.
She convinced herself that the offer from the guy in the chat room – What was he called again? Oh yeah, Alfredo – really was a golden ticket. Salary, board and lodging. It was the answer to all her prayers.
If she accepted the job, she'd have to go and see her father before she left. He might have been off his rocker these days, but she would still have to say goodbye.
CHAPTER 8
On reaching the roundabout at the intersection of Via Paglia and Via Carducci, she'd considered doing an about turn and heading back home. But a little voice inside her head had told her she couldn't leave town without saying goodbye. So she'd gone round the roundabout three times before taking the exit towards the clinic.
Giancarlo Moretti was in bed, the covers pulled up to his chest. Beads of sweat glistened on his furrowed brow. His eyes were closed, shutting out the world that had robbed him of his wife a year earlier.
He was asleep. Perfect. She no longer needed an excuse not to talk to him.
Chantal breathed a sigh of relief, but immediately felt like a coward: she had neither the courage nor the desire to enter the room and talk to the man who had always been a perfect parent.
Nearly always, she corrected herself.
Chantal watched her father and reflected on the unfortunate circumstances that had brought him there.
Giancarlo Moretti had led a troubled life but had always got by, even when his problems had seemed insurmountable. But the premature loss of his wife had floored him for good. He'd let himself go one day at a time, alcohol the only point to his existence. The drinking had started the week after the funeral. Before being admitted to the rehab clinic, he would get up in the middle of the night and guzzle whatever he could lay his hands on. Whatever could make him forget the sad reality of life.
Chantal knew what he was doing, but he'd always denied it. That was, until he came home in the early hours one morning and collapsed on the living room floor. The colossal crash had woken Chantal with a start. She'd feared they were being burgled, and her instinct was to lock herself in her room. But then she'd recognised the sobbing and phlegmy coughs of her father. She'd turned on the light and headed towards the noise. And there he was. She'd walked over to him, helped him to his feet, looked him straight in the eye and seen a pitifully drunk old man.
Having struggled to get him to bed, Chantal didn't sleep a wink that night - unlike her father, who was out for the count and snoring within minutes.
The binges became increasingly heavy and frequent, and he started to get nasty with her.
Then he hit rock bottom. He came home one night and Chantal went in to find him sprawled on the sofa, a knocked-over bottle of whisky by his side and vomit down his greasy shirt. His head was back and he was foaming at the mouth.
Chantal was petrified. Her hands shaking, she'd fumbled around in her handbag for her phone and rung the emergency services. They'd managed to save him, but the doctor told her he would be better off in a rehab clinic. He'd advised her to take her father to the nearest SerT, a public drug treatment centre. After all, they couldn't afford private care. So that's what she had done, hoping that he would respond well to treatment and make a full recovery.
But months later, Giancarlo Moretti was still in the clinic. The detox process had resulted in a string of psychiatric problems that had put even more strain on the father-daughter relationship.
