SOGNI DI SORRENTO

Somewhere at the back of my mind is a little hotel balcony in Sorrento. The sky is a warm September blue and the sounds of car horns and church bells float up from the town and hang in the air. Beyond the tumbling roofs and treelined avenues, the Bay of Naples stretches vast and smooth out into the hazy distance, where Vesuvius looms and fluffy clouds tag along the smoky horizon.

I pull my cap down so that it meets the top of my sunglasses and I breathe. For the first time in a long time, I just breathe. Later there'll be lemons, wine, pasta, the sound of a piano in the lobby; Germans will be happily chatting away in linen shirts and slacks, the ladies in comfortable sun-dresses, while Italian waiters glide effortlessly between them. French bathers, silken-skinned and tanned, will slip almost silently into the smooth waters, swirling the currents, piercing the stillness with elegant ease.

Vorrei una bottiglia di vino rosso, I practice saying confidently, per prendere accanto la piscina per favore signore.

For now though, I'm left to feel the lightness of the Neapolitan breeze from the warmth of the Hotel Gran Paradiso and the sun-soaked balcony of stanza Due Zero Uno. I close my eyes and smile. Everything about this place, a thousand miles from the real world, seems utterly perfect.

I open my eyes, one at a time.

My computer is flashing some unreadable error message at me and my to-do list is flapping around in the jet of cold air from the air-conditioning vent. I reach out for a swig of cold tea.

"Daydreaming again, Matt?" says a colleague, who'd caught me with my eyes shut. I smile and slop the mug down on a coffee-ringed coaster.

"Yeah, something like that," I say.