And what of Peg?
Peg didn’t have a drink at all. Peg sang ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ and afterwards sat out in the square and wrote a letter. Evelyn’s idea. Dear Cress, it began. All those memories, all those thanks. When she’d finished, she walked back into Michele’s and, using Cressy’s phrase book, she ordered a glass of bubbles and a plate of ham. She sat alone and drank and ate. She looked at the phrases he’d underlined in the book. Those early days of what had been important to him. ‘A stamp for a letter to England, please.’
Winter arrived and brought emptiness.
Ulysses could barely lift his head off the pillow, such was the weight of loss. He went in on himself as far as he could go. 1970 and the turn of the decade. So long the Sixties! What have you ever done for us?
Hello? Anyone?
He lay still and let it wash over him. Evelyn sat with him and read out loud until he fell asleep.
And then March came to pass. Warmth crested the air and the shift of nature was felt on the wind and it was uplifting and that couldn’t be denied. Rooms splayed yellow and the first guests arrived downstairs. Alys’s voice saying, Hello, hello, you’re very welcome.
Ulysses was lying on the bed with his mind drifting, when all of a sudden the flit of wings and a sharp chirp caught his attention. He opened his eyes and took a moment to focus. Two swallows flying in and out of the shutters with mud and twigs in their beaks. In the corner of the room was the start of a nest. He watched transfixed and could hear Cressy say, And here endeth an epic journey of trials and tribulations we know not of. These two came up from the Nile Valley, I reckon. Do you, Cress? I do. It’s just a feeling and I may be wrong but – 200 miles a day they’ve covered, Temps. Superb navigation. Flying at up to 20, 22 miles per hour, although 35 miles per hour has also been known. They’ve survived starvation, storms and sheer exhaustion for the sole purpose of being here. And making a home. Sounds familiar, eh?
Ulysses called out to Peg. Peg stood in the doorway and smiled like a kid. Rare to see Peg like that. She kicked off her shoes and lay pressed against his back. And together they watched the swallows.
When Ulysses returned to the globes, which he did at the beginning of April, he put Cressy in the heart of Italy. Gave him an ‘i’ at the end of his name instead of a ‘y’， and this would be the marker of the post-1970 editions. There was something noticeable about these globes. How sorrow ran tributary to beauty. There was a majesty to them, something delicate and precious and startling. Like the image William Anders took from space. They would be Ulysses’ finest.
They set off on a beautiful June afternoon. Big old palaver about what to wear on their feet – something comfortable and practical and with grip, said Pete. Massimo and Ulysses took the rucksacks and Pete – ‘the safest pair of hands’ – carried the urn. Peg and Alys had the blankets and Evelyn’s sole focus was to not die of over-exertion. If I don’t make it, she said, don’t resuscitate me, just roll me over the edge like a boulder.
And in a convoy of Betsy and the Moto Guzzi, they drove up to Settignano and parked in the main square. As the afternoon leant into the evening, they walked down towards the cimitero, down past the fluttering olive grove, and from there they stepped onto the ancient way of the Stone Cutters. Evelyn had been tasked to find the right place for facts man Cress and she’d done him proud. Every step they took was history. Every step was for him. Following in the tracks of those who’d carved out the pietra serena in Renaissance times. How he would have loved that! And, of course, the heavily wooded walk took them up to Monte Ceceri, where Leonard da Vinci had dreamt and had pondered the idea of flight.
This is it, said Ulysses.
The forest had become a cathedral. Beneath columns of sunlight, Evelyn and Peg and Alys lay on the blanket head to head to head in a three-pointed star. Pete felt for a pulse and declared he didn’t have one. Is that possible, Temps? I don’t think so, Pete.
Massimo and Ulysses sat side by side and uncorked the wine and handed around glasses. The wine was still cool, deliciously so, and revived them. Pete opened the urn and as Evelyn recited Constance Everly, they each took it in turns to scatter Cressy’s ashes across the forest floor.
They drank the wine and felt grateful he had walked amongst them. How lucky we were! said Ulysses. He and Alys told the story of Fanny Blankers-Koen again and how Cress had smuggled the money and Claude onto the ferry, back in ’53. And what followed was an impromptu homage from Evelyn, a little nudge to Claude and his Shakespearean leanings: But thy eternal summer shall not fade,