The friendship archives: a generational bond

“I’m searching ‘cash-for-gold shops’ near us.” My cynical stare shifted from Domenica, who was beside me frantically scanning the map on her phone, to the bustling sun-baked square in front of us. We had slumped ourselves against the stone benches of Piazza della Signoria in Florence, with Palazzo Vecchio looming before us – a historic fortress-palace housing an art museum and the city’s working town hall. Tourists, soldiers and government officials milled around the building’s entrance.

I’d been living in Florence for nearly a year. Domenica, my godsister, had been in Venice and Rome during the same period. We were both freshly 18, earning peanuts between us, but we had fallen into the seductive habit of visiting each other every few weeks and splurging on extravagant weekends far beyond our means.

The day before, Domenica and I had eaten breakfast at Caffé Gilli – the city’s oldest café – shopped along the elegant Via de’ Tornabuoni, had drinks at Santo Spirito, and dined at Trattoria Sostanza, a Florentine institution whose reputation was built on butter chicken. That morning, before Domenica’s return to Rome, still floating on our delusions of grandeur, we headed for a late breakfast near the Basilica di Santa Croce, often called the Temple of the Italian Glories, which houses the actual tombs of Michelangelo Buonarroti and Niccolò Machiavelli.

Four cappuccinos, two pastries and two green juices later, a €30 bill arrived at our table. I tapped my card to pay my half, balking slightly at the realisation that I had about €25 left to last me the week. My next wages were due the following Sunday. As I mentally calculated how to stretch my grocery list, I saw panic spread across Domenica’s face.

Card Declined.

“I’m out of money,” she said through a hand clamped over her mouth, trying to stifle one of those uncontrollable laughs that only seem to arise at the most inopportune moments. The unimpressed waitress towered over us, card machine extended, making it abundantly clear that one way or another, we were going to pay.

“I’ve got it,” I gulped, tapping my card for the second time. My grocery budget had just sunk to €10.

“I’ll pay you back. I promise,” Domenica said. Our chairs scraped against the terracotta floor, and between nervous giggles we stumbled towards the piazza where she came up with the foolproof plan of selling her gold bracelet.

“Do you think our mums were ever in this sorry state?” I asked.

In a tenuous attempt to shift the blame elsewhere, we began to argue that it was our mothers’ fault we were sitting there penniless. It was their influence, their love stories and their friendship that had led us to this very moment. To our left stood Rivoire, another storied Florentine café. There, 42 years earlier, our mothers had sat drinking hot chocolate during winter, getting to know each other and, unbeknown to them, forging a lifelong friendship. It was funny to think of them as teenagers, sitting just 20 metres away from where we were, creating a bond that led to weddings, christenings, becoming godmothers to each other’s children, and nearly half a century of being part of one another’s worlds.

Our mums met in Florence when they were 18, having developed their curiosity about Italy through art, childhood travel and their parents’ influence. Both have different recollections of how they were introduced, but given that it was 50 years ago, they can be forgiven for that. What is important is that they met in the first place. Domenica’s mum remembers mine zipping around on her scooter, looking cool (apparently), while my mum reminisces about those hot chocolate dates. As with us, they were both about to start university in London, something they had learned about each other while walking these medieval streets, each new nugget of information strengthening their bond. This happy circumstance set them on a similar path, but there was so much more that tied them together. 

The same can be said of their two daughters. Through a shared age and our mums’ love for each other, we were thrown together since we were babies. But it isn’t circumstance or forced playdates that intertwined us. Growing up in England, our friendship was strong but it was solidified in the trattorias and galleries of Italy. That’s where we came to understand our kindred paths, our shared interests and our ability to talk late into the night about everything from boys to Renaissance art. Domenica has since told me that her travels to Italy are associated with our friendship; that the streets of Florence are filled with shared memories. We like to think our own have been layered upon our mums’ too. We often wonder what they talked about back in 1976, standing exactly where we stood.

The beauty of this city is that it’s eternal – the same restaurants, monuments, bars, cafés, even waiters, have existed across our generations, allowing me and Domenica to walk in our mums’ footsteps as we defined our friendship on our own terms. Though my mum is an avid photographer – our house is brimming with albums fraying at the seams, filled with memories from her youth – I was never able to find many photographs of our mums together in Florence. To make up for that, Domenica and I documented our lives, from baby-faced 18-year-olds grinning over plates of pasta to women with better clothes, better phone cameras and a better sense of ourselves.

Since that one destitute morning (neither of us can remember how we managed to bail ourselves out), Domenica and I have returned to Italy together every year. In a few weeks’ time we’re going back for the 12th year in a row, with the same fine-tuned approach to planning our days, but with less reckless spending. 

Our mums gifted us their love of Italy, a blueprint for what a lifelong friendship looks like, a love of art, an understanding that capturing memories through words or photographs is something you’ll never regret, and, most importantly, in richer and poorer, they gifted us each other.