Early the following morning Alys found her mum sprawled out in the snug. Pissed her pants she had, something Alys would never share with anyone.
Alys? Anything else? said Ulysses.
Oh, said Alys, suddenly remembering. Mrs Lovell died.
Mrs Lovell died? said Cress. How?
Old age. Face down in her roast.
But she’s younger than me, said Cress. He stayed quiet for the rest of the day.
Ulysses said, When you said Peg seemed smaller …？
Oh, you know. Just older.
Mid-August and Giglio couldn’t come quick enough.
They set out early across the square as they always did and Claude flew on ahead to Betsy, although he struggled to gain height on account of the paunch. （You’ve got to stop carrying him, said Cress.） Betsy fired up straight away and Ulysses bent down and kissed the steering wheel. To Porto Santo Stefano, Betsy!
Glimpses of sunflowers and a turquoise sea, and the air piqued with salt and that herbaceous tang. Windows were wide and Alys’s hair blew free. Now and then she held it back with her hand and her smile was wide and Peg’s. Ulysses watched her in the rear-view mirror. Nowhere else was the passage of time so evident as in her face. Seven years gone like that. From child to young woman. You gotta let her go, the constant refrain.
They were the last to the ferry. The klaxon blared and the ship moved into open water and the soft, cool head-breeze. Claude took flight and tourists raised their cameras. Click! Click! Click! Cressy adjusted his shorts and let the sun get to his upper thigh. Alys drank from a bottle of water and let it dribble down her chin. Ulysses quiet and at peace, the tips of his ears already red.
Ulysses stood alone in the salotto. He could hear Massimo in the kitchen at the stove making coffee. The afternoon light was hazy, insects hovered with plant spores in a soporific trance. The linen curtains billowed and abated, billowed and abated, a slow rhythm in sync with the sea. The tiles were cool under his feet and he could feel grains of sand between his toes. Through the windows the familiar rustle of the eucalypts and the sound of cicadas.
On the walls, the photographs were as good an account of their life as ever there was. Seven years of salt and wine and friendship. Of laughter and tantrums. Of possibility and pain. Saved it up each year, they did, till they were on that ferry and then— Ulysses turned. Massimo handed him an espresso cup. Massimo was no longer with Phil and although the decision had been his, he’d gone in on himself a bit, according to Cress. Massimo leant his chin on Ulysses’ shoulder and said, Look how slim I was there, Ulisse. Only a year ago.
But you’re wearing stripes, Mass.
You’re kind.
You know what Cress told me?
Go on.
That we weigh less at the equator than at either one of the poles.
So I move to Ecuador?
Just one option.
Massimo laughed. How’s Alys?
A bit bruised. You?
Same. But better now you’re here, and Massimo kissed his back.
Will you talk to her, Mass?
Alys was days away from being fifteen. She should have been sleeping in or moping and yet the sun lifted her from that bed docilely and sent her into the hinterland to watch its fiery rise from that eastern line. She clambered down granite rocks and swam as a new day took hold.
On the ferry over, Ulysses had said to her, We need to know what the heart’s capable of, Alys.
Do you know what it’s capable of?
I think so, he said.
Why aren’t you with anyone, Uly? she’d said.
I can’t answer that. Not even for myself.
Is it Peg?
Not any more. We had our moment and moments pass. Learn to seize them, Alys.
He’d never spoken like that before. As if he knew what she was feeling and his silences, his calm veneer wasn’t passivity at all, but quiet reflection, the hidden pain of something unmentionable.
Alys held her breath and dipped her head under the water. Below her, the dark splodges of sea urchins. The distortion of her legs as they kicked to keep her afloat. They looked so pale in dawn’s skylight.
Hey, Alys! （It was Massimo.）
How is it? he said.
Delectable, Massi.
（A middle-aged man briefly in flight.）
Massimo surfaced. There’s a world out there, Alys, he said. Of people like us. Get out of this country and find them.
Mid-August lunch. Twenty-eight degrees Celsius in the shade and a slow economy of movement.
Everyone look at the camera! shouted Massimo as he set the timer and ran back into position.
（Click.） Caught forever.
From left, Alys next to Massimo with Ulysses on the right. Their arms are draped around one another in simple familiarity. Cress stands in front of Ulysses, holding Claude. Claude is lying prone, his face alluringly turned to face the camera. Behind them, the terrace is flush with colour. Geraniums of course, but lavender too, and dahlias of vivid orange and red. The glimpse of a trestle table with the remains of fried fresh anchovies and tomatoes galore and fagioli with clams, the menu devised and cooked by Ulysses. Two bottles of the crisp white ansonica wine native to the island can just be seen over Massimo’s shoulder. One of the bottles is half full. Above them, the grapevine is thick and established and the grapes hang low. It is Claude’s favourite place to rest. He no longer dreams of the Amazon, only of Giglio. He wants to live here forever but hasn’t yet voiced the prospect. A lizard scampers out for a close-up. Alys is wearing cut-off shorts and an old shirt of Ulysses’。 She wears sunglasses and her face is bronzed and she looks older than her years. Just by a year or two, but that is enough to secure the tentative beginning of adulthood. Whilst swimming in those crystal waters, a seed has been planted: she will leave home in two years’ time. She will go to art school. Live in London. She will love again many times. And each time will be as exhilarating as the last, and each person will be the one because she will love deeply and be loved deeply back. Her smile is wide because she senses something is germinating. She’s only thought of Romy eleven times since she’s been there. Cress wears the desert shorts that Paola made him to accentuate the shapely profile of his legs. His collared T-shirt is aertex, a versatile fabric he swears by. His feet are bare, and his toenails clipped. Every day is a new beginning, and Paola told him that she began again with him and Cress walked tall that day. Picked figs without needing a box to stand on. Massimo feels attractive and funny and interesting with his friends and dresses accordingly: a red Hawaiian shirt and white tennis shorts very similar to the ones worn by the great Nicola Pietrangeli. His thighs have lost their comfort padding since the break-up with Phil and have become muscular and lean. Heartbreak suits me, he thinks. He might even use it as a way of controlling his weight. This makes him laugh. A guttural and spontaneous delight of a laugh, a rare sound for him. That’s what prompts Ulysses to turn the moment the shutter clicks. Ulysses is wearing long white shorts and a white shirt over a vest after his shoulders were burnt on an afternoon fishing trip. He’s barefoot. His feet are brown. Caught in profile means the dimple in his cheek is pronounced and his hair has flopped across his forehead. Oh, the way he looks at Massimo! Big old story in that look. The laughter, you see – reminded Ulysses of Darnley.