by Paige Toon
‘You’ve never held a girlfriend’s hand?’ I ask warily.
‘I’ve never had a girlfriend.’
‘Never?’ I shoot a look at him.
‘You heard Lea,’ he replies. ‘What woman would stand for what I do?’
‘But that’s such a lonely way to live.’
He shrugs. ‘I’m a loner.’
I frown. ‘That’s tragic.’
He laughs drily. ‘There’s a lot about me that’s tragic, Angel.’ And the look in his eye when he meets mine makes me shiver. His expression momentarily sobers and he averts his gaze.
‘Have you ever been in love?’ I ask.
‘Oh, I was besotted with Giovanna. She was the first girl I ever kissed.’
Is he teasing me?
‘How old were you?’
‘Thirteen.’
Yes, he is.
‘It was before she ran off with Giancarlo,’ he adds, drawing a smile out of me.
It dawns on me that this happened the year before he lost his mother and sister. There can’t have been much room for everyday teenage rites of passage after his life catapulted so swiftly downhill.
‘Oh, look, the Lupanar is just here,’ he says.
‘What’s the Lupanar?’
‘Wolf den. A prostitute was called a lupa. It’s the brothel, Angel,’ he says when I don’t put two and two together. ‘My mother wouldn’t let me go inside when I was a boy.’
I’m not sure I fancy seeing it now, but how bad can it be?
Bad, is the answer.
There are paintings of naked people having sex with each other!
She’s riding him, he’s riding her, they’re doing it doggy style… I don’t know where to look.
‘Your cheeks have gone red,’ Alessandro says playfully.
The fact that we are still walking around with our hands entwined is not helping.
‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ I mutter eventually, my embarrassment overriding everything else as I extract myself from his grip.
In the bright daylight, I lean against a wall and will my cheeks to cool down.
Alessandro emerges, chuckling.
‘Stop it,’ I mutter with a smirk.
‘When did you last have a boyfriend?’ he asks casually as we set off again.
‘Three years ago.’
He reaches over and takes my hand and this time the contact sends what feels like a jolt of electricity zipping up my arm. It’s different to the shock I gave him when my hair was full of static electricity – this is a far more pleasant sensation.
‘He was from Bosnia and Herzegovina,’ I tell him, trying to sound unaffected. ‘Davud. He came to Coober Pedy to mine opal, but he became homesick. I felt sorry for him so I emailed his mother back home to ask for the recipes for some of his favourite dishes and cooked him a meal one night.’
‘You got to him through his stomach,’ he states.
‘I wasn’t trying to get him at all, to be fair,’ I reply. ‘I was only being friendly, but then he kissed me and that was that.’
‘You fell head over heels in love.’
Is he mocking me? I remember him calling me naïve the other night and feel a prickle of annoyance.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says contritely, noticing the look on my face. He lets go of my hand and drapes his arm around my shoulders instead. ‘Please don’t stop talking to me,’ he says quietly in my ear. My stomach flips. ‘Why didn’t things work out?’
‘Things were always a bit difficult, that’s all,’ I continue when I feel able. ‘I hardly ever left the house because of Nan, and I didn’t feel relaxed if we were at home and she was asleep in her room. It didn’t make for the most exciting love life, to be honest. He got bored quite quickly.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he says again, and now it feels like he’s taking me seriously.
‘It’s okay. It’s just the way things were.’
Davud returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the end, but we’ve stayed in touch.
‘You must have felt very trapped at times.’
I nod. ‘I did, but Nan had a lot of friends who would come to visit so I wasn’t too lonely.’
We wander aimlessly for a while. There’s so much to see that it becomes almost overwhelming – I’ll have to visit again so I can fully appreciate it.
‘I’m about ready to go and get something to eat,’ Alessandro says.
‘Me too.’
There are a few people going in and out of a building we’re approaching. ‘Let’s have a quick look in here first.’ He takes my hand again and pulls me in after him.
We find ourselves inside an incredibly well preserved Roman bath house. The marble baths are in near-perfect condition and in one room there is a domed ceiling, complete with oculus. It’s tiny compared to the Pantheon, but it’s exquisite.
Lea and Logan appear from the next room.
‘Hey, strangers!’ Lea exclaims.
I expect Alessandro to let me go, but he doesn’t, not even when Lea glances down at our joined hands with surprise.
‘We were about to call it a day,’ Logan says.
‘Same here,’ Alessandro replies.
As Lea and Logan caught public transport in, Alessandro offers to give them a lift to their hotel. But first Logan wants a tour of the van.
‘Hashtag van life,’ Lea says with a good-natured roll of her eyes. ‘When I met Logan, he had one of these. It was a later model, but not much has changed.’
‘It was very cool,’ Alessandro comments.
Logan nods nostalgically. ‘I loved that thing.’
‘Come on, I’m starving,’ Lea hurries them along. ‘Where shall we go? There’s an Italian restaurant next to our hotel?’
‘I’d kill for a burger,’ Alessandro replies with a grin.
I love that he’s steering them away from going anywhere that would likely be a pale imitation of Serafina’s.
‘Always up for a burger,’ Logan states, and Lea and I nod in agreement.
When we’re seated at a round table in the middle of the restaurant, drinks in hand, I turn to Lea.
‘How did you two meet?’
‘Oh no.’ She shakes her head. ‘You first. I’m curious.’
I wrinkle my nose at Alessandro. Where to start?
‘Okay…’ I give it a go. ‘My mum came over here from Australia about twenty-eight years ago and worked with Alessandro’s stepdad.’
I’m already starting to feel uncomfortable – I hate admitting that my mum had an affair with a married man.
‘Giulio,’ Alessandro tells Logan and, from the way Logan nods, I’m figuring he already knows part of Alessandro’s past, if not all of it. ‘Giulio married my mother when I was seven,’ he explains to Lea. ‘But it was a marriage of convenience. They weren’t in love when Angel’s mother came along.’
I’m grateful to him for making that clear, but I’m still squirming. ‘My mum returned to Australia, not knowing she was already pregnant.’
Lea gasps.
Wait till she hears the next part…
They’re both suitably gobsmacked when we’ve finished recounting the story. We’re half a bottle of wine down already.
Logan lifts up the bottle, offering it to Alessandro.
‘Not for me,’ Alessandro says. ‘I’m driving Angel home.’
‘Why don’t you guys crash in your van?’ Logan asks in a way that makes it seem weird that we’re not doing that.
Alessandro shakes his head before I can even consider the idea. ‘I don’t want to give Giulio anything else to worry about. He’s already suspicious about my intentions towards her.’ He casts me a sidelong look.
I can feel Lea’s eyes on us, trying to work us out.
You’re not the only one who’s wondering what’s going on here.
‘Come on then, tell us about you two,’ I prompt, changing the subject.
‘Lea was working for the air ambulance,’ Logan says. ‘You remember Dave?’ he asks Alessandro.
<
br /> Alessandro nods. ‘Yeah, how is he?’
‘I’ll get to that.’ He smiles sardonically. ‘So Dave and I were jumping off Half Dome—’
‘Stupid,’ Lea interrupts.
‘Yeah, okay, babe,’ Logan says, still grinning as he squeezes her shoulder. ‘Anyway, Dave’s chute got into a bit of a tangle—’
‘Was he okay?’ Alessandro interrupts to ask.
‘Just about,’ Lea replies darkly.
‘Lea was part of the rescue op,’ Logan continues. ‘She gave me hell, didn’t you, babe?’
‘God only knows how I fell for you,’ she mutters.
‘What’s Half Dome?’ I ask, yoyoing between concern and amusement.
‘A granite peak at the eastern end of Yosemite Valley in the Yosemite National Park,’ Lea explains. ‘One side is sheer faced and the other three sides are smooth and round, making it look like a dome cut in half. I’ll show you a photo of it.’ She gets out her phone.
‘I remember it well,’ Alessandro murmurs, peering over my shoulder.
Logan sighs in awed agreement.
‘Don’t you go getting all sentimental on me,’ Lea cautions her husband.
‘Was Dave hurt?’ I ask.
‘He was pretty badly broken up,’ Logan replies, his tone growing serious. ‘But he’s walking again now.’
Whoa.
‘Where are you doing your next jump?’ Logan asks Alessandro.
‘I’m heading to Norway this year.’
‘Kjerag? Trollveggen?’
Alessandro nods and, once more, Logan seems wistful.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Lea snaps him out of it, pointing a threatening digit in his face.
Logan shrugs at Alessandro, nonplussed.
I turn to Alessandro. ‘What’s Kjerag and… What did you say?’ It sounded like something out of The Lord of the Rings.
‘Trollveggen. Kjerag is famous for an unusual boulder stuck between two rock walls.’
Lea looks it up on her phone to show me.
‘I’ve got a postcard of it!’ I exclaim. Astrid of the hip operation had her son Erik send it to me. ‘I’d love to go to Norway.’
Alessandro smiles at me. ‘Angel’s never been anywhere,’ he says softly.
‘Have you heard of Pulpit Rock?’ I ask him, remembering the other postcard Astrid and Magnus sent me.
‘Preikestolen?’ Alessandro asks. ‘Of course. I’ve camped up there. It’s beautiful.’
‘You can camp up there?’
‘Not right out on the plateau – you’re not allowed to do that – but very close by. Norway has a right to roam policy, even in National Parks.’
‘Oh wow, I so want to go!’
‘Why don’t you go with Alessandro?’ Lea chips in.
Alessandro looks regretful. ‘Angel knows that I’m too much of a loner to keep company.’
Ouch.
He turns to Logan. ‘Are you still in contact with Clive?’
Now any residual humour that Logan was carrying dries up completely.
‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘We lost him, man.’
Lost? What does he mean lost?
‘Where?’ Alessandro asks gravely.
‘Lauterbrunnen,’ Logan replies.
He died?
‘And this is why I’ve said no more,’ Lea interjects pointedly.
‘Yeah, enough’s enough,’ Logan concedes with a sigh. ‘We want to start a family soon and I don’t want to run the risk of leaving a kid without a parent so it was time to give it up.’
The more I hear, the more my emotions stop yoyoing. I no longer feel any amusement, only a straight, heavy drop of concern.
‘I gotta tell ya,’ Logan says to Alessandro, ‘when I didn’t hear from you for a few years, I thought you were a goner.’
‘If I’d come to America, I would’ve looked you up,’ Alessandro replies.
‘Ever thought about cutting your losses and calling it a day?’ Lea asks.
Alessandro shakes his head. ‘No.’
‘What if you had children?’
I’ve got to hand it to her for her direct questions.
‘I’ll never have children,’ Alessandro bats back.
Lea’s eyebrows shoot up, as do mine.
‘No kids, no wife, no girlfriend,’ he states obstinately.
‘You’d choose jumping over love?’ Lea asks, her eyes darting towards me.
‘I don’t plan on falling in love, either,’ Alessandro replies wryly.
The waitress appears, belatedly, with our burgers.
We’ve been waiting forever and I’ve been hungry, but strangely, not so much anymore. I struggle to concentrate on the conversation as it moves on to Logan and Lea’s recent travels.
By the time we’re paying the bill, I’ve managed to pull myself together.
‘It was great to meet you,’ Lea says warmly, giving me a hug. ‘Let’s definitely hang out in Rome.’
‘I’d love that,’ I reply, glancing at Alessandro.
‘Absolutely,’ he says, shaking Logan’s hand and slapping his back fondly.
‘Weekend after next?’ Logan asks.
‘Sounds good,’ Alessandro replies. ‘Call me when you get there.’
*
Up ahead, the sun hangs low over the centre of the road, a brilliant, burning orange disc.
‘Thank you for taking me today,’ I say, looking across at Alessandro.
‘It was my pleasure,’ he replies with a warm smile, reaching over and squeezing my knee. I cover his hand with mine and my heartstrings twang plaintively.
I am so confused.
‘Thank you for listening today,’ he says. ‘And for not judging. I like being able to talk to you,’ he continues, turning his hand over and lacing his fingers with mine. ‘I like being close to you. I like that we’ve had some time alone today with no one from home around.’
My butterflies have been replaced by grasshoppers. They’re bouncing around the walls of my stomach, making me feel nervy and edgy.
‘Giulio wouldn’t understand this.’ He nods at our entwined hands. ‘But I promise that you’re safe with me, Angel. We’ll never be more than friends.’
My heart stutters.
He glances across at me and I see it in his eyes: honest, open and sincere. Every touch today has been completely platonic.
‘He’ll never lay a hand on you,’ Cristina told me. ‘Alessandro loves Giulio. He’d never disrespect him by sleeping with his daughter.’
And how did I reply?
‘I would never have slept with him in any case. I’m no Teresa.’
I hate that I’m now doubting the truth of that statement.
Chapter 29
That night, I fall into bed feeling too confused and unsettled to sleep. I finally drift off, but a nightmare about Nan has me jolting awake in a cold sweat. I dreamt that I had forgotten her – not posthumously, but in the last stages of her life. I had forgotten to give her water, forgotten to change her incontinence pad, forgotten to turn her over. She had been lying in her bed all night and day, with no one to care for her.
My heart is racing and my cold chills are replaced by a hot flush.
It’s okay, I try to reassure myself. I didn’t hurt her. I did everything I could to help her.
I open the drawer of my bedside table and rummage around for my opal, rubbing my thumb across the surface in an attempt to comfort myself. But I can’t shake the feeling of guilt and despair.
It’s not even three o’clock in the morning, but I realise there’s no way I’m going to sleep, so I hunt out my laptop and bring it into bed with me.
Base jumping. I type it into Google.
One of the first things that comes up is, ‘What percentage of base jumpers die?’
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
The more I research base jumping and wingsuit flying, the more terrified I become. I spend hours in a perpetual state of nervous anxiety, clicking on links, watching
videos and reading articles.
I’ll see names… Like Valery Rozov from Russia, who set a new world record for the highest base jump in 2013 when he launched himself from Changtse, the northern peak of the Mount Everest massif.
And then those same names appear again in headlines:
2017: Valery Rozov has died in a base-jumping accident in Nepal.
This happens over and over again.
Mark Sutton, the man who played James Bond in the 2012 London Olympics Opening Ceremony…
…killed after crashing into a ridge near Martigny at the Swiss-French border: 2013.
Celebrated climber and National Geographic’s 2009 Adventurer of the Year Dean Potter…
…died alongside jumping partner Graham Hunt in Yosemite National Park: 2015.
World-renowned Canadian wingsuit flyer Graham Dickinson…
…died while attempting to fly through Heaven’s Gate, Tianmen Mountain, in China: 2017.
His friend and fellow filmmaker, Dario Zanon, had died a year earlier.
Ludovic Woerth and Dan Vicary, two of the world’s most experienced wingsuit flyers…
…crashed into the ground and killed on impact in the Lütschental valley in Switzerland: 2014.
Fellow flyer, Brian Drake, succumbed to fatal injuries four days later.
In Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland, which I recognise as the place that Alessandro and Logan lost their friend, a farmer despairs of the number of the deaths that have happened on his land, and a local schoolteacher talks about being with the children when a shrill scream prompted them to look at the cliffs in time to see a base jumper slamming into them.
Even the father of modern-day base jumping, a filmmaker called Carl Boenish, who coined the term BASE along with his wife Jean and friends, Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield, died the day after he and his wife set a Guinness World Record for the highest jump from Troll Wall in Norway in 1984.
Base jumpers and wingsuiters have lost their lives at all of the locations the men mentioned at dinner, including Kjerag, the place where Alessandro is intending to jump later this year. That location, at least, is legal, but Table Mountain, Yosemite National Park and God only knows how many other cliffs he’s launched himself from are not.
What makes me feel so out of control here is that I don’t know how to stop him. He wouldn’t agree to quit anyway – I remember his face when Lea asked if he’d thought about calling it a day. It goes against every single one of my natural instincts, but I can’t share my concerns with him because he’ll stop confiding in me.
