Just Come and We’ll Find You Something

After finishing my diploma in languages, I spent a few weeks in the UK that summer. On the flight back home to Sardinia, I happened to sit next to a British woman who spoke very good Italian. I don’t remember her name, so let’s just call her Helen.

Helen told me she was married to an Italian; that’s why she spoke my language very well. We chatted for the duration of the entire flight and we became friendly. We spoke both in English and in Italian and she asked me what my plans were now that I had finished my diploma.

I told her that my dream was to spend one year in England, one in Spain and one in France so that I could master the languages that I had studied.

She congratulated me on my English and said that  in her company they were always looking for people who could speak both Italian and English, and should I ever come back to London, I could work for her.

I asked what she did, and she told me she owned a travel agency specialising in holidays to Italy.

It sounded perfect.

She handed me her card and insisted that I give her a call if I decided to come back.

I was excited about this opportunity. At twenty years old, the world seemed such an adventure. I just wasn’t quite sure which country to try first.

Over the next few months, I kept thinking about what Helen had said. In the end, I decided that since she had offered me a job, that choice had been made for me.
Call it destiny.

So, in February the following year,  I called her from Sardinia and told her that I was coming. But I wanted to make sure that she still had a job for me.

“Of course! We have plenty of jobs,” she told me. “Just come and we’ll find you something.”

So, that was it.

I packed my bags. My parents insisted that I take a gift for Helen to thank her for the opportunity: a bottle of Vermentino, a typical Sardinian white wine, and a wheel of pecorino cheese.

I really didn’t want to carry that extra weight in my luggage, and cheese and wine seemed such old-fashioned gifts to twenty-year-old me, but I gave in to please my parents.

So, I got to London and I stayed with some friends of friends. I didn’t know them well, but they were kind enough to have me until I found my place.

Once I got my bearings, after a few days, I decided to call Helen.

The receptionist told me she was in a meeting and suggested I try again that afternoon.

I did.

No luck.

In those days, we didn’t have mobile phones and my friends didn’t have a landline, so there was no way for Helen to call me back. That was fine, I was going to phone again the next day.

The next day came, but the receptionist told me that Helen was in another meeting. I asked if she could give me a time when I could call, but she couldn’t.

After about a dozen calls over the following week, I didn’t know what to do anymore.

Could Helen be avoiding me? Unlikely. Maybe, being the boss, she was just too busy.

Meanwhile, I still had that bottle of Vermentino and wheel of pecorino waiting for her, taking up space in my friends’ fridge. They’d started hinting that if I left them there much longer, both might mysteriously disappear.

So I decided to pack the goods in a bag and go directly to Helen’s office.

The travel agency looked modern, with a bright and welcoming reception. I introduced myself and I asked the receptionist if I could see Helen. I felt a little nervous about turning up unannounced.

She asked me if I had an appointment. I said I didn’t have one, but I was happy to sit and wait.

“You could be waiting for hours,” she told me. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am.”

She disappeared in one of the offices and, when she came back, she told me that Helen would see me at lunchtime.

I waited.

Helen appeared around 1pm. She welcomed me with a big smile and a hug.

“I’ve been meaning to call you, but I didn’t have a number for you,” she said.

“I know, but now I’m here!” and I handed her the gifts.

“Oh my! I love Vermentino! And pecorino sardo is the best!” She looked really pleased.

“Do you have a minute to talk?” I asked.

“Just a few minutes. Let’s go to the pub and grab a drink.”

We went to a nearby pub. She ordered a glass of wine, and I had an orange juice.

We started chatting about all sorts of things, and I noticed that Helen was occasionally glancing at her watch. I was aware that she didn’t have long and in the end I had to ask the question:

“So, do you still have a job for me?” I guess Italians are direct.

She hesitated, then said: “Not right now, we’ve had some new people start recently, so we don’t need anyone at the moment.”

My heart sank. For a moment I thought I might have misunderstood her. After all, she was speaking English, which wasn’t my first language.

“But when I called you a couple of weeks ago, you said I should come and you would have something for me.”

“Ah, but that was then. Now it’s different. People come and go.”

“OK, so when is someone going?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” She touched my hand. “Don’t worry, something will come up soon.”

“But I need a job now. I don’t have anything else and my money is going to run out.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find you something.”

She must have noticed how discouraged I was.

“How will I know if you have something for me? Should I call your office once a week?”

“Oh, no need for that.” She thought for a bit. “Since you don’t have a phone, I can send you a letter. First-class post will get to you the next day.”

She asked me to write down my friends’ address, and I did.

“I have to go now.”

We walked out of the pub together.

She hugged me and said: “I’ll be in touch!”

I didn’t believe her. I had that gut feeling that tells you something’s wrong. And it was right.

I never heard back from Helen.

I tried to call her office a few times, on the off chance that her letter might have got lost in the post… but she was never available.

I was gutted. I think this was the first big let-down of my life. I was barely twenty and someone had promised me something, then hadn’t kept their promise. And it wasn’t a small thing either: I’d left my home country to take a job that, as it turned out, had never really been there.

I also remember bitterly regretting giving Helen my Vermentino and pecorino. I would much rather have shared them with the friends I was staying with!

But I was already in London, and going home wasn’t what I wanted.

So I carried on looking.

Eventually, I found a job. And then another. A few of them came with stories of their own that I might tell you another time.

Looking back, that was really the beginning of my new life abroad. Not quite the beginning I’d imagined when I packed my bags in Sardinia, but a beginning all the same.

And that experience eventually inspired Una nuova vita all’estero, a word match all about leaving home and finding your feet in a new country.