By Zoe Hyde
Rutger Hatchett had always been one to find himself amongst the chaos, seemingly unintentionally, yet rather consistently and somewhat coincidentally. Rutger reflected on this as he took his evening dose of Mirtazapine and Lorazepam. He enjoyed the sound that the pills made as they snapped their way through the foil packaging. It was a comforting and predictable melody to his ears. He had survived another day, and soon he could escape into sleep. If his mind permitted him to do so.
His mother first took note of Rutger’s misfortune when he fell through a two-storey window and severed major arteries in his forearm—supposedly a matter of millimetres close to losing his arm, doctors continued to comment. Or was it the time that he got caught in the relentless surf and required literal lifeguard rescuing to escape the ferocious rips and currents on the coastal waters of the South of France? Or when he became a substance addict at just 17, unable to even get through a morning without his friend’s cocaine, of course accompanied with MDMA.
Nonetheless, Rutger had never lived a dull life—marked by addictions, tribulations, broken relationships, prenups, hikes upon Nepalese mountains, and fights in the cobblestone-lined alleyways of Camden and Brick Lane on the streets of London. This is no doubt why, Rutger now intentionally found himself isolated from society in the mountains of Italy. Ascoli Piceno was the region, and while it looked close to Rome on the map, it was deceivingly far and difficult to get too. This was exactly what he craved.
Alas, he wasn’t entirely alone. In his almost Chateau type accommodation, he was of course with Tilda. Tilda and Rutger. Where to begin. Rutger had been in Morrocco, initially working on an article for work about the illegal trade operating between Morocco and Malaga in Spain. Rutger, of course, wasn’t unfamiliar with seeing street dogs. After all, his line of work took him to the deepest crevices of developing countries where the poverty he witnessed firsthand still left haunting images etched in his mind, his consciousness. However, when he had been walking the streets of Marrakesh after dinner—initially observing the market happenings—a medium brown street dog just began to trot next to him. She almost walked with a sort of loyalty yet purpose in her step. Presuming the dog, now known as Tilda, would become distracted and obsessed with something else just as she had seemed to with him, Rutger allowed her to walk in unison with him. He barely registered when he got back to the hotel, and Tilda sat patiently at the door, as if waiting for his approval before stepping through. Rutger looked at her a little perplexed and then nodded, giving her the green light. She strolled through the door with content, inspecting and sniffing every inch of Rutgers room. That’s when he recalls noticing her stomach, and how evident it was that she was not only lactating, but her ribs were beyond prominent. Rutger remembered his family vet once mentioning rice wasn’t very nutritional when he was growing up; however, given his current state of malnutrition and the limited resources available, Rutger figured the vet would make an exception.
Rutger took Tilda to a local vet the following day, after she spent the night sprawling herself across the other side of his bed next to him. He recalls it all feeling both matter-of-fact and natural. The vet scanned the dog for a microchip, and as he suspected, it was in vain. This was Morocco after all. What transpired next happened with consideration, and not too much rumination. Rutger was not an emotional type, yet it seemed that this dog and him were possibly destined to begin walking through life together, not that he would dare to admit it. So, after a slightly extended trip to ensure the dogs vaccinations and requirements for British life fit the standard for travel, the dog, or at that point, Tilda, had barely left Rutger’s shadow.
Rutger continued to work around the UK, mainly Wales, writing about archaeological advances, local effects noted by climate change, and he was always accompanied by Tilda. Most the time, people might say a nice comment, sometimes even a smile glancing down to Tilda, reminiscing about their own dogs passed, but other times, people began to state that ‘that’ shouldn’t be here while Rutger was working. Rutger always assured with a dry sarcasm that Tilda upheld and acted with more integrity, especially regarding privacy and confidentiality, than any other journalist he knew.
When Rutger’s marriage with Jodie had broken down, he couldn’t even cry.
He wouldn’t even describe his feeling as heartbreak, rather, there was a melancholy cloud following his every step. His Mother encouraged him to speak to someone, yet she questioned herself at this point, whether she was just being delusional; her attempts for Rutger to engage in any sort of therapy had never worked for the past 35 years.
So, after Rutger finished his final piece for The London Times, he organised his digital-nomad visa for Italy and purchased an old chateau in the mountains a few hours away from Rome or Bolonga or any other big place. Isolation. As soon as Tilda had her tick of approval, and a literal approval stamp in her European pet passport, they drove to the ferry port a few hours from London, hitched a ride across the channel to France, and by that evening, were driving their way into Italy.
Rutger started today like every other day in Italy so far. He stretched in bed, fluttered his eyelids and commanded his body not to snooze the alarm, and with Tilda at his side with the same intent, he rolled out of bed. After splashing some cold water on his face over the bathroom sink, he walked barefoot into the garden. Spring was a definite season change in this part of Italy, and the mornings of the ground coated in frost, were now mornings of condensation. He enjoyed the remnant water amongst his toes. Tilda, seemingly walking as if she was allergic to the remaining water coating on the grass, seemed to tip toe as she smelled to locate the most intriguing fragrances. Rutger made his way to the orange tree, as he smoked a cigarette. As he inhaled, he felt compounding relief wash over him at the familiar taste of tobacco. The cigarettes from mainland Europe always tasted better. He took this as another sign he was born in the wrong country. He pulled oranges from the orange tree with real mindfulness as he determined which oranges were qualified for his freshly made, morning orange juice.
Back in the kitchen with Tilda, Rutger prepared his juice with a manual juicer, opened his laptop, and began skimming over the latest article from The New Yorker. He scoffed out loud, startling Tilda, at another outrageous Trump policy that had just been approved in the states. He felt safer being in his isolate bubble in Italy.
Shortly after breakfast, Rutger showered, inhaled yet another five cigarettes, and began preparing for today’s restoration efforts. He was renovating the expired building he had purchased for 10,000€, today focusing on rebuilding a wall. As he worked, he listened to Elton John on his small Bluetooth speaker while Tilda lay beside him, seemingly deep in her own thoughts. Rutger observed her expression and considered, perhaps they came from backgrounds more similar than he could predict. Alas, Rutger’s thoughts were interrupted by his phone vibrating on his workbench, just loud enough to hear over the bridge of Tiny Dancer. He glanced down; it was Ben. Without too much hesitation, he answered.
“Hello, how do you do?” Rutger responded.
“Why hello, I was expecting you to say Ciao, come stai? Not the very British greeting you just spoke!” Ben laughed back. Rutger could hear the rain falling over Ben’s voice, which gave him an instant feeling of anxiety about life back in the UK.
“Very funny. What’s up? I’m in the middle of something.”
“Well, politeness has never been your strong suit, has it Rut?” Ben teased. The pair had been best friends since the seemingly totalitarian Cambridge boarding school that they had both found themselves in. They were a good ying to another’s yang so to speak, with Ben being daringly charming, outgoing, social, and Rutger’s interactions were so much more guarded and anti-social as he walked through life carrying the proud label of an introvert, a hermit of sorts. There was something about their polarity that seemed to bring them together.
“Well, I’m going to be in Rome next weekend, for the Euros game. I was thinking of popping round.”
“Oh, yes, that would be great. I don’t really have a spare bed, but—”
“Rut, you know me. I will sleep anywhere. I just want to see my best mate.”
“It would be nice.” Rutger stated with almost a reluctance. It wasn’t Ben. He adored him, he was home personified. It was what Ben represented—his old life and the reminder of it all that he wanted to avoid.
In this moment, Ben wanted to say so much, talk to him about Jodie, ask him what was happening with home back in Bristol, the declining health of Rutger’s mum, and of course more than anything, the investigation and if he was okay. Ben also considered and asked himself, how long Rutger planned to run away and avoid reality at all costs. But he just smiled through the phone and finalised his plans with Rutger. Men didn’t have such conversations, especially over the phone, and especially Rutger.
Rutger continued to work, currently deliberating with Tilda through exchanging glances about what colour shade they should consider painting said wall when all the work was done.
By the middle of the day, Rutger always felt a little more challenged, flashbacks became flickering. In the morning, the sunrise filled him with hope, almost delusion, that things might be different, he might be different. But then by lunch time, such aspirations became tiresome to uphold, and that’s when anxiety began to creep in. Sometimes as he walked with Tilda along the pot-holed gravel dirt roads around his new property, he wondered if the isolation was good for him. With all this uncertainty in his life happening, did it make things worse for him internally to not know any other soul within the country, and to not have any support system besides Tilda in place. No, he would fiercely deny, this was good for him. Also, it’s not like he didn’t isolate himself back home anyway, now there was just a geographical barrier.
And walking on the countryside Italian roads always proved as a bit of a distraction in the sense of literal danger.
Having to avoid the reckless drivers, as they speed at 100km/hr past him, him feeling the swoop of momentum of their cars, centimetres from his body. And it always seemed that the drivers didn’t have too much control in the sense of friction on these roads. Then there was also the fact that there were wolves. Again, animals caused far less anxiety than any human did for Rutger, so he wasn’t too concerned about wolves, in fact, he enjoyed the lullaby of wolves howling in the twilight. However he had to think for Tilda, and that was his only concern.
After eating some pesto pasta Rutger made yesterday from the basil in his garden, he took Tilda for one of these roadside walks. They both walked down the slopes and lingered amongst vineyards that bordered the lower slopes of the mountains. He took a different turn at the end of the road, heading left, toward an old, ruined castle he could spy in the distance. A very typical Italian Nonna spoke in Italian to him on the road, gesturing at Tilda with an apparent annoyance. He wondered if this was just her mannerism, as seemed to be the case with Italians, often talking with a sort of animation of anger, yet with no intent of this. He lights another cigarette, again, a slight instant relief possessed him.
“Mi dispiace, non parlo Italiano,” he offered, trying to articulate to her that he didn’t speak her language, and she continued to strut along. Tilda and Rutger seemed to exchange confused looks, and that’s when he saw the most picturesque cellar door. The castle was only about 20 minutes’ walk ahead, but he was enchanted by the allurement of the cellar instead. Vines danced and threaded their way amongst the brick walls. Two men spoke and exchanged some cash and wine bottles in the driveway, and as Rutger approached them, of course with Tilda in stride, the men broke their conversation.
“Hello there, how are you?” One of the men spoke English instantly, with a charming tinge of an Italian accent shining through his voice.
“Is it that obvious I’m not Italian?” Rutger offered.
“Rutger, I know who you are. You live about a mile over the hill.” This made Rutger instantly nervous. How did this man know him? And what did he know? He made every effort to remain in the shadow of daily happenings in the local village. Yet, he considered that his daily walks with a dog that wasn’t a Maremma, may have caused some locals to gossip about the pale man walking mindlessly, smoking cigarettes, along the roads.
“Oh, how so?”
“I know you and this dog; you take walks every day.” He felt more relaxed; it must have been his neighbour discussing small town gossip with the locals. Harmless, he reassured himself.
The three men began to converse, with the other Italian man a little more reserved and clearly apprehensive and protective about his English. The third man said his goodbyes, thanked the winery owner, Valentino, for the wine, and went on his way.
Valentino encouraged Rutger to come instead, and the men opened a bottle of 100-year-old Prosecco. Rutger enjoyed the simpleness of the wine, he had always had a running affair with Prosecco, long before his parents dragged him to Ascot races, a place he despised for its classism.
Tilda sat loyally as usual at his side, waiting patiently for the afternoon that merged into evening to be over. Despite her efforts, she grew frustrated, as her stomach growled expecting her dinner by now and to be home nestled in front of the fire. She had no idea how Rutger was going to make his way back up the treacherous hill, especially as his awareness seemed to be a little altered at this point from all the wine.
Just as the evening was being wrapped up, after discussions of Italian politics and the education system, food, wine, Valentino leaned into Rutger and whispered to him, seeming to be able to sense Rutger’s presence of unease and crossroads. “Accept your fate.”
“I’m sorry?” Rutger asked confused and taken aback. He knew Italians to perhaps be a little abrupt, but this was unsettlingly personal.
“You seem to me to be running away. Now, I don’t know you, and I think Italy is a wonderful place to become lost, but “accetta il tuo destino”. Good or bad, accept the things that have happened, and will happen.”
“You don’t know anything about me.” Rutger stated with a clear edge of defence, instantly reaching for his coat.
“I don’t need to. And you don’t need to tell me, although if you do, you’re always welcome for another bottle of vino. But I feel your soul, Rutger.”
Rutger seemed to glare back in response, briefly thanked him in Italian for his wine, and instructed Tilda that they were leaving. He became instantly impatient for his Lorazepam tonight and cursed himself for interacting with people. He broke his own rule for self-preservation. Valentino yelled out goodbye in Italian and for Rutger enjoy his evening, but Rutger barely heard it over his spiralling thoughts.
He wasn’t ready to face what he had left behind in the UK, not even here in Italy. It was so much more then bad weather, high cost of living, and expensive train fares. At this moment, tears had begun falling from his face, and that’s when he felt Tilda, closer than usual, brush up against his legs. She didn’t even look at him—and clearly—being a dog, didn’t have to say anything, but he felt the answer. Valentino was right, and he knew it. That’s why he had reacted with so much intensity to his words. As much as he adored Italy, along with the fantasy of escapism it delivered, he knew what he had to do. He could only run and hide from what he had seen, and in response the unravelling to his personal life, for a certain amount of time.
In a tipsy state, he and Tilda, finally entered their declining chateau, yet it was their ultimate haven. He opened his laptop and began to draft the email he had considered to for so long.
He filled in the subject line, and with a tinge of humour, decided to title it fittingly, ‘Accept your fate: what really occurred on April 29th 2023 in Sudan”. He began to write back to The New York Times. They had been persistent with him for months after the accident. As the investigations of war crimes continued, he knew he had to respond to the real-life terror he had been exposed too, as despite his apparent selfishness and reclusiveness, he did care deeply about people. Afterall, Rutger thought, accetta il tuo destino.
