If you’d said to me at the beginning of the evening on Saturday 16 November that I’d be climbing up Etna at 3am the following morning, to watch her erupt close-up, I’d have said you were crazy.
And yet …
(Story to follow in due course when I’ve had a moment to write it all down.)
A version of this post was originally published in November 2011, when I first arrived in Catania. Two years on and November (up until the beginning of this week) had been milder and less blustery. The cold is beginning to set in now, though. I’ve got a blanket on the bed for the first time since April, and walks by the sea require a jacket. Like a bear, I’m beginning to feel the need to hibernate. Sadly, unlike a bear, I don’t think I’d get away with calling in to work with the excuse of a duvet day. Oh well: at least I don’t have to pee in the woods.
Photo: Google Images
Waves crash and a faint thrumming passes through the soles of my shoes. Black basalt rocks split grey-green water, revealing its bright opaque turquoise heart. A second later, and it is frothy white, erupting over the top of the front line of volcanic rock, spilling and foaming through any available space.
People pass. Snippets of conversation: ‘… then you saute the mussels …’ ‘… ma, tesoro …!’ ‘ … don’t want to live in Milan because …’ A mother and daughter walk past, the mother hugging her daughter’s shoulders while the girl hunches under the weight. La mamma is all in white with honeyed blonde hair, glamorous to the max. Her daughter, meanwhile, is lumpen and awkward, wearing the teenage uniform of too-tight skinny jeans and hoodie, teamed with oversized trainers and long curtains of dark hair. Mamma is grilling daughter on her lovelife. ‘…you don’t want to see him any more?’ The girl shakes her head and twitches her shoulders against the weight of her mother’s encircling arm. Mamma sighs.
A Fiat Panda draws up behind, playing a loud, bland remix of an eighties song. ‘It takes a strong man, baby, but I’m showing you the door.’ Heavy bassline obscures the melody and it takes a moment or two to work out why the lyrics are so familiar. A rap cuts in. The boys in the car don’t get out, but sit, windows open and music blaring, until a phone rings, at which point the music is snapped off and replaced by their plan for later. ‘You’re at home, yeah? We’ll be there in ten minutes.’ The phone is flung onto the dashboard and the stereo returned to its former levels as the boys lean back in their seats and roll cigarettes.
Photo credit: Enric Juvé
Fishermen congregate on the seawall, rooting through brightly-coloured cold boxes in search of bait. Or maybe lunch. Seagulls float overhead, making the most of the sea breeze and keeping a beady eye on the food situation below. An old man wheels his battered bike along the sea wall at a snail’s pace, stopping every few yards. As he passes the various fishermen he peers into their cold boxes, checking out their catch or lack of it. One circuit done, he parks the bike with care and potters over to the nearest fisherman. After a short, animated conversation, Old Man picks up a seat pad and bumbles back to his bike before laboriously settling himself down next to it to regard the waves.
The Fiat’s door slams, rocking the car from side to side on its narrow wheels. The driver comes round to the seaward side of the car and lights his carefully-rolled cigarette, cupping it in the palm of his hand. The tang of marijuana fills the air as he passes it back through the passenger window to his friend.
Photo: Google Images
A family of three park up. The daughter, aged about four, totters out of the car. She is already bundled to the max against the weather, but Mum adds a scarf for good measure. The tiny cocoon of winter clothing staggers to the railing and gazes, transfixed, at the waves. Her parents have a hard job persuading her to leave the view and follow them. ‘Come on, let’s go down the steps!’ The girl follows reluctantly, still gazing seawards. Dad plays doting father, carrying his little girl along the uneven, stony beach, and pointing out different sights as they head towards a rock which has been painted to look like a giant ladybird. Mum, on the other hand, trails behind, splitting her attention between her mobile phone conversation and her camera.
A middle-aged woman settles herself on a bench, her bright yellow scarf wound firmly around her neck. Pulling up her hood, she fishes a book out of her bag and wriggles into a more comfortable position. Her face creases with concentration as she reads. An ill-timed page turn coincides with a large gust of wind, and she wails – a short, thin sound – as she loses not only her page, but almost the entire book. Clutching the book hard and regaining her composure she turns away, curving her body to shelter the pages from any further breezy attacks.
Another family comes onto the beach: Mum, Dad and two children. The girl – five or six years older than ladybird girl – charges on ahead and clambers onto the biggest rocks. Her little brother tries to follow, but can’t keep up; he calls for her to wait as her red jacket starts to disappear into the distance. She throws a glance over her shoulder as if considering the wisdom of this, and seems to decide that it will be more fun with than without him. She scrambles back to fetch him.
Photo credit: Chriss Pagani
A black cat slinks out from behind a rock and begins a fastidious grooming procedure. In the distance the little boy calls again to his sister, startling the cat and leaving it suspended mid-lick, one foot in the air and tongue hanging out. It glares with baleful accusation at the nearest human before stalking to a more sheltered position. Never underestimate the ire of an embarrassed cat.
Big sister has, by now, abandoned both red jacket and little brother, and sits kicking her heels on top of the ladybird, holding court for her adoring parents. Li’l bro, meanwhile, is still struggling happily over rocks too big for him to climb without resorting to hands and knees. Crawling, and in dirty jeans, he’s in his element.
The smell of fried fish wafts from an open door. There is a passing glimpse of a chef preparing the evening meal, blue and white chequered trousers pulled up high over large paunch. A pudgy hand, belying its appearance, reaches deftly into a large tray of dark fish and flips one out onto the table. Quick as a flash a knife appears in the other hand and slivers into the fish’s flesh.
The door closes.
“So there are three routes tomorrow: easy, medium and heroic. Which one does anyone want to do?”
Curled up in front of the fire after eating an obscene amount of barbecued meat it’s easy to plump for heroic. The way that it’s been described, it doesn’t sound too bad. The difference between the three seems to be one of distance, rather than difficulty, and it’s only walking, right? Putting one foot in front of the other and all that. How hard can it be?
Photo credit: Davide Spina
The ‘easy’ route finishes at a point high above the Valle del Bove. It’s a spectacular spot: a giant bowl, partially filled with hardened lava from Etna’s 1991-1993 eruption. Its roots are ancient: it was formed around 64,000 years ago by Etna’s predecessors, Trifoglietto I and II, when the two erupted and partially collapsed, forming a caldera. Nowadays the valley bottom is thirty-seven square kilometres of blackened, lava-filled desert; the walls are steep and alternately grassy, scrubby, and covered with charcoal-grey volcanic sand. “Does it snow up here?” I ask with a hopeful glint in my eye. “You can’t ski it,” I’m told with amused finality. “It’s far too dangerous.”
Clouds scud over the top of the valley, whirling and eddying with gay abandon in the air currents which rise from the valley bottom, before being buffeted every which way by the wind whistling down from the top of the mountain. Neither photo nor video do this spot justice: I keep trying, but even as I click the shutter release on my camera I know that this is one to keep in my mind’s eye, rather than on my hard drive. We continue on. It’s less of a walk than a hike now, scrambling over rocks and bits of thorny scrub which send spikes even through jeans, thick socks and boots. We’re somewhere around 2,300m up, and still climbing. The air gets ever thinner and colder.
We crest the top of the valley and are hit by a wall of icy wind. Ahead of us stretches a sea of black sand, punctuated at infrequent intervals with silvery-grey rocks. In contrast to the easy banter earlier on, nobody’s talking much now. Every spare bit of energy is being concentrated on keeping warm and staying upright as we traverse the forty-five degree slope. We trudge across it, slipping sideways on crunchy, ankle-deep chips of volcanic pumice which work their way into boots however tightly they’re laced and send clouds of ash up into the eyes, noses and mouths of anyone following behind.
“This is where we start going down, right?” asks someone as we reach an island of rock jutting out from the ash. Donato shakes his head and points 500m uphill. “No. We need to reach that outcrop over there first.” There’s a collective hiss of disappointment – in our current state of cold and tiredness it might as well be 500 miles – and then the mutiny starts. “When do we get to eat?” “Yes, when?” “I’m not going any further without eating.” The matter’s settled by a good half of the group voting with their bottoms. We huddle behind insufficiently substantial rocks in a vain attempt to stay out of the wind and wolf down food as fast as we can, concerned less with taste than with getting enough food in our bellies to get us home.
Ten minutes later – digestion be damned – the biting wind spurs people into action again and we stride, heads down and with renewed energy, to the next rock outcrop, where Davide grabs my hand. “OK. Let’s go!” He turns to face downhill and starts to run, pulling me with him. Black clouds of ash billow around us as we barrel down the slope, skating a perilously thin line between our increasing speed and conversely decreasing control. Later I’ll tell Davide the story of my youngest brother, aged ten or eleven, losing his feet at the top of Tortin in Verbier and cartwheeling all the way down, narrowly missing a pylon and bellowing as he went, using language that would make a sailor blush. For now I’m just concentrating on staying upright, knowing that if I fall there’ll be nothing to stop me from rolling all the way to the bottom unless I’m unlucky enough to hit a rock headfirst. The blood rushes in my ears and I shriek with exhilarated terror. From behind me I hear a yell from Donato: “Ski it, Kate, ski it!” I swoosh and tack across the slope, cackling as I go.
This truly is the life.
Some days, when you’re tired and fractious and under the weather, the only way to find balance again is to take a walk among the pines. And if those pine trees sit below a smoking volcanic crater turned deep red by the setting sun? So much the better.
*Breathes*
“They’re totally synchronised; look!” comes a laughing stage-whisper from behind us. I turn my head and poke my tongue out at Donato and Roberta, who are trying to distract us as we power-walk down the mountain. Davide grins but keeps his eyes fixed straight ahead, concentrating on his end goal: lunch. Never go in against a hungry Sicilian when food is on the line.
A few minutes later Donato tries another tack. “Are you tired yet, Kate?” I glance back at him and wink. “Nope. Not at all.” I miss what he says next, but Davide laughs, then translates for me when he realises that I haven’t heard. “He says that’s a shame – you were their only hope.” I look at Davide with a grin and we up our pace. I can hear conversation and laughter behind us, but don’t take much notice until Davide starts chuckling. I look sideways, knitting my eyebrows in a mute question, and he translates once more. “Donato says that they’ve discovered something new about you – that you’re a marathon athlete.” I look back over my shoulder – “Only when I’m walking; running’s a lost cause!”
There’s another shout from behind us. “Ragazzi! Stop a moment, will you?” We assume it’s another distraction technique and don’t break stride, but Donato calls again: “No, seriously: there’s something I want to show you.” He sounds serious this time, so we come to a halt. Donato points upwards into the tree next to us. “Look. Mistletoe. But how does it grow? It doesn’t have any roots.” I have a vague memory of the explanation for this – boiling down to the fact that mistletoe is a parasite and lives off its host – but no idea of how to say this in Italian. As I’m gathering my thoughts, however, Donato and Roberta look at each other with a wicked glint in their eyes. “Are you tired yet, Kate?” asks Donato in an innocent tone. I laugh and deny it, but it wasn’t so much a question as a diversionary tactic.
It turns out that while they were distracting Davide and me with talk of mistletoe, Donato and Roberta have worked their way down the path in front of us, and they now barrel off at a run. Their rucksacks bounce with wild abandon on their backs and Roberta’s hoody, which she’s been wearing wrapped around her neck as a scarf, flaps around her shoulders as they charge down the path. Their voices float back to us, punctuated with breathless giggles: “See you later, ragazzi!”
Davide and I head off at a fast clip in pursuit. I assume that, having got their head start, Donato and Roberta will slow down and we’ll catch them up, but we don’t seem to be gaining ground at all. Then I see them rounding a corner 200m ahead of us – at a jog. They’re determined to get to the restaurant first, and I’m happy to let them do so. Davide’s competitive streak isn’t so convinced, but his gentlemanliness wins out and he stays with me, albeit lengthening his stride and walking even faster than before. We cover a distance that would usually take 20 minutes in half that time, arriving at the restaurant to find that Roberta and Donato – who I spotted running through the door a bare minute before we did – have bagsied a table and are feigning nonchalance. “What took you so long?”
Lunch is mixed antipasti, two types of pasta and large plates of grilled meat, with side orders of local red wine and pumping Kate for background information on her life. There’s nearly an international incident over coffee. “You don’t know how your parents met?!” Three pairs of eyes stare at me, round with humorous incredulity, mirrored by the three mouths below them. I shrug, embarrassed by the attention, and give a mollifying story, in halting Italian, of how my parents went to a party thrown by a childhood friend of my dad’s – only to find out that the childhood friend’s new girlfriend was a friend of my mum’s. This appeases them momentarily, but when I later reveal that my dad was born in Malacca – but that I have not the faintest idea of why my grandparents were living there – the three Sicilians around me throw their hands to the heavens. “You need to phone your mother as soon as you get home and get some answers!” says Donato. He’s only half-joking.
Lunch finished, it’s time to put Project Hitchhike into action. The plan was outlined to me earlier as we trekked over deserted swathes of black volcanic rock. “So the car’s parked ten minutes’ drive up the mountain from the restaurant where we’re planning to stop for lunch, okay?” I nod to show that I’m following and Donato continues. “So we’ll have lunch, then you and Roberta will stay there and have aperitivi” – Roberta grins and winks at me – “while Davide flashes some leg and gets us a lift back up the hill. Sound like a good idea?” I nod in approval, ignoring the mildly disturbing sight of my boyfriend hitching up his trouser leg and twirling his ankle at me. “Yep. Sounds like a great idea!”
In the event, Project Hitchhike is almost scuppered by all four of us standing at the side of the road. Half the cars coming up the hill, therefore, don’t stop; the ones that do are already full of people. A late afternoon chill sets in as the warm glow of exercise and good food begins to wear off. If Project Hitchhike is to succeed, we’re going to need to change tactics, so Roberta and I peel off to be inconspicuous on a bench outside the restaurant while Donato and Davide head off separately to try their luck asking around the various car drivers in the parking area.
Seated on the bench, Roberta goes a bit pink and starts to giggle. “You know earlier, when we ran off?” I laugh. “Yes.” She carries on. “Well, it was kind of a matter of honour. Davide always teases us about being old and slow, so we wanted to beat him just for once. You don’t mind, do you?” I grin at her. “No, not in the least.” She smiles, relieved, and looks up the hill to where Donato is returning from his recce mission. Roberta signals to him, spreading her hands and shrugging a question, but he shakes his head: no luck. Just at that moment, however, there’s a shout from below us – it seems that Davide has been more successful. He waves at us and points at a man who’s heading towards a large, blue estate car. Davide may not have won the race to the restaurant, but his leg-flashing technique is clearly the superior one. He climbs into the car and the driver accelerates up the hill, tooting the horn and waving at us as he passes.
Half an hour later Davide’s back, looking a little wild-eyed. “I felt so sorry for the poor guy!” It turns out that the man was part of a big group from Enna, in the centre of Sicily. Roberta interjects – “Agira, actually. I heard the accent.” She’d noticed them as we waited outside the restaurant. They were gathered in a twittering crowd at the side of the road, gesticulating and winding each other up into a frenzy. I didn’t understand why at the time, but Davide’s story unravels my confusion. “Ragazzi, his wife was *crazy*!”
It took about a minute for the first phone call to arrive to the man’s mobile. “I can’t believe you’ve just left us at the side of the road! Where are you? How long are you going to be?!” After the third or fourth call – which the man meekly answered every single time (“Yes, Anna-Maria. No, Anna-Maria. Three bags full, Anna-Maria.”) – he turned to Davide with a hunted prey expression in his eyes. “Don’t *ever* get married, son. Just – don’t, okay?”
As the laughter subsides we fall into comfortable silence. It’s broken by Donato in the back seat. “So, Kate – are you tired yet …?”
Everyone has some kind of vice – something that they’re a little bit obsessed by. For some people it’s shoes. For others it’s food.
Then there are those who just can’t get enough of either.
These beauties were spotted in a shop window in Bronte at the Sagra del Pistacchio a couple of weekends ago. Sicily, you’re crazy, and I love you for it.
“More people are killed by lightning bolts on Etna than by lava flows,” says Donato as we walk up a shallow incline, paved with blocks of lavic stone. He points to a corner a little ahead of us. “My grandfather was hit by lightning just there, in fact.” Davide and I gape at the point Donato’s just indicated, a little unnerved. Donato, meanwhile, carries on walking, unperturbed. “Ooh, look: blackberries!”
We’re out on a gentle Sunday morning hike-slash-foraging session on the south-eastern slopes of Etna: Davide’s colleague Donato and his girlfriend Roberta, their friends Bruno and Tania, and Davide and me. The day started early with a volley of WhatsApp conversation in Catanese dialect between Davide and Donato. ‘Will we need jackets?’ asked Davide. Quick as a flash, Donato replied: ‘Mate, you’ll need woollen knickers’.
Backpacks duly stuffed with extra clothing layers, we make our way to the assigned meeting point outside Planet cinema. We’re the first ones there. We sit and discuss the English legal system – as you do at half eight on a Sunday morning – and I realise once again how much I’ve forgotten (or how little I knew in the first place) about my own country. Thank god for Wikipedia.
Davide’s phone dings. It’s a message from Donato. ‘Where are you?’ Davide replies: ‘We’ve been here fifteen minutes already!’ Donato sends another message. ‘We’re by the edera.’ I look at Davide. “What’s an edera?” He snorts with laughter. “It’s a plant.” He twists in his seat and looks behind him, then waves his hand at the ivy crawling up the building at the end of the road, exactly as it does on pretty much every street corner in this zone. “Like that.” I giggle; I’m beginning to get the measure of Donato’s sense of humour, and I like it.
A battered turquoise Ford Fiesta with peeling paint zooms around the corner and screeches to a halt beside us. Donato winds down his window and grins at us. “Right, let’s get some breakfast.” He revs the engine of his little car, loaded down with people, and accelerates away, leaving us momentarily standing, despite our bigger, more powerful car. Davide nods towards the streak of blue disappearing into the distance ahead of us. “He’s had that car since twenty years ago. For an engineer, it is a disgrace!” I laugh. “The bodywork may be falling apart, but the engine’s still going strong – I’d say it’s exactly the kind of car an engineer should have …”
Later, up on the mountain, Davide calls across a clearing to Donato – our resident foraging expert – to check whether the mushroom he’s just found is an edible porcini or something more ominous. Donato shouts back, “Nah, mate, that one’s poison – don’t touch it!” Davide’s shoulders slump in frustration. Every time he’s thought he’s struck mushroom gold this morning Donato’s been forced to disillusion him. Bruno’s the first to cotton on. He starts to laugh. “Davide, don’t trust him – he didn’t even look! He’s just going to pocket it himself when you’ve moved on!” Donato roars with laughter. “Busted!” Davide admits cheerful defeat and heads across to the ancient, giant tree in the middle of the clearing to concentrate on what he’s best at – sport. Specifically for today, tree-climbing.
It’s no easy task. The one branch that comes down low enough to be able to get hold of is smooth and slippery, and set at a forty-five degree angle. He slides backwards more than once, struggling to pull himself high enough to get a hold on the main branch above. I turn on the video camera. Tania shouts with laughter and calls across to me: “Kate, I hope you’ve got his car keys!” Ignoring the good-natured teasing from Donato and Bruno about monkeys, Davide hauls himself up into the tree, reaches the main branch and crouches on top of it, froglike, chest heaving from the exertion. A moment later he leans forward and drops his legs either side of the branch. He then snorts with laughter and calls across to the others. “I tell you what, guys, monkeys are STRONG!”
On our way back down the mountain in search of lunch, Donato and Bruno divert off the path in search of more mushrooms, leaving the rest of us to walk on. There’s a shout from the bracken above us. “Roberta!” Roberta, deep in conversation with Tania, either doesn’t hear or ignores it. There’s a more urgent yell: “ROBERTA!” This time she responds, and Donato’s voice floats down to us, muffled by trees and undergrowth. “You want to see a lightning strike …?” The four of us look at each other and without any further ado start up the hill through the ferns.
We reach a clearing to see Donato and Bruno kicking at what looks like a pile of earth and cinders. Donato looks at us knowingly. “This was a tree, once upon a time.” Bruno doesn’t look so sure. Roberta isn’t convinced, either. “No, you’re crazy! This was a bonfire. There isn’t enough of it to have been a tree.” Donato shrugs. “A direct strike, and the tree’s vaporised. Look at all these bits of carbon.” Roberta, Bruno and Tania turn away, disappointed. It feels like a lightning strike should result in at least a crater, and hopefully more, like bits of glass, or diamonds, or pieces of stars. Davide kicks deeper into the pile of ash. I watch him uncovering bigger and bigger bits of carbon and lose the thread of the conversation for a moment. When I come to, Donato’s talking about trees making a noise when they’re super-heated. “There’s so much water in them that they start to boil.” I don’t know whether he’s talking about when they’re heated from underneath by lava, or from above by lightning, but the child in me – the one who wanted to be a fairy when she grew up, who’s read all the Narnia books ten times over and who loved the Ent characters best of all in Lord of the Rings – can’t help but imagine the sound as a scream. I shiver and head out of the clearing, back into the sunshine. Behind me I hear Donato exclaim in delight: “Ooh! Pomegranates …!”
It’s my first day back at school today, teaching new levels that I’ve never taught before. So to distract myself from the terror excitement, I’m thinking back to a day a few weeks ago in Agrigento, when my parents and I visited the Valley of the Temples. Another first, both for me and for them – their first time in Sicily and my first in Agrigento. It went down well on all counts, so here, for your delectation, are some of the photos. Enjoy!
September 2013 marks the start of my fifth year in Italy. At the end of this year I’ll automatically qualify for residence here, no questions asked. In many ways I feel like I haven’t progressed at all in the past four years – and then I go back to the beginning and read, and realise that I couldn’t be more wrong.
As this post publishes, I will be at school, talking with my boss about my classes for the coming year. For the first time since my arrival in Italy I’m returning to a school for a second year running – up until now I’ve cut and run at the end of each academic year. The plan is to go back on a part-time basis, leaving me time to continue writing and working on other projects while having enough guaranteed income to pay the rent.
Speaking of which, it’s the start of my third year in Catania, and I’ve moved flats once again – a hard decision, due to the fact that my Sicilian flatmates have become not just the girls I lived with but friends over the past year. However, my new flat is closer to work, and has a parking space for my bike, meaning that it will get used, rather than languishing in a friend’s garage. It also has a double bed.
When I told Clem, my old flatmate, that I was moving out, she gave me a big, sad hug and then perked up. “Well, at least the room’s worked for you, too!” She’s seen a fair few flatmates come and go over the ten years that she’s lived there. Some of them have become her friends, some haven’t, but one unfailing constant has been that everyone who’s stayed in my old room has moved in as a singleton and left as part of a couple. So yes, to those of you who’ve been probing for gossip (“Who’s this ‘Davide’ chap then …?”), it’s official: I’m off the market and outrageously happy.
Bring on year five.
“Hey, it’s the kids from Catania!” The rangy, middle-aged man in the grey safari hat greets us with pleased surprise, calling out to his curvy, catlike wife in the water. She’s one step ahead of him, having already said hello to us as we picked our way across the rocks. She gives her husband a knowing smile as she floats in the shallows, her ample bosom resting on an inflatable cushion, bobbing in time with the waves. Davide laughs: “You remember well!”
We met them first two or three weeks ago, when we spent the day down here at Plemmirio just us two. On that day we ended up in conversation with rangy man and his wife, along with a retired couple who’d spent time living in Germany. Three generations shooting the breeze, talking about politics, travelling, recycling and every other subject under the sun.
“Where are you from? You’re English?! Oh, goodness, I hadn’t realised! Your Italian’s good, isn’t it?” Davide chuckles quietly – he knows better, having spent so much time hearing me making crashing mistakes – but keeps schtum. I shoot him an amused, wry glance and turn back to my conversation with the retired man, who looks like Father Christmas. He used to speak English well, apparently, but years of living in Germany and now having returned to Italy have taken their toll and he stumbles over the words, mixing English, Italian and German. It’s fine. God knows I do the same thing enough of the time.
Father Christmas smiles at me. “We’re going now, but I’d like to invite you and your …” He nods towards Davide and gives me a questioning glance, not wanting to use the wrong term to refer to him. I crinkle my eyes at him in understanding. “Boyfriend.” Father Christmas nods in relief. “Wonderful. We’d like to invite you and him to tea one day.” His wife laughs. “Tea?!” Father Christmas chuckles. “Well, she *is* English!”
They clamber out of the water to dry off. Davide and I, meanwhile, get drawn into a political discussion, sparked off by a passing mention of attitudes towards the environment, with rangy man’s wife. “I love Italy, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, but people’s behaviour here drives me crazy!” She rants with sardonic good humour underpinned with genuine frustration until Father Christmas shouts from the beach. “Kids! We’re leaving! Phone number? Tea!” Davide and I pick our way carefully over slithery submerged rocks and out of the water onto the beach, where he swaps phone numbers with Father Christmas. He and his wife wave us goodbye with fond smiles and promises to call us soon. Rangy man, meanwhile, starts to make pointed comments about what there is to eat at home. His wife laughs. “We’ve got things in the kitchen and I’m sure I can sort something out. Just a little longer, though – the water’s so lovely …”
Today we’re here in a bigger group, with Davide’s twin brother, his best friend and their two girlfriends. We start to hunt for a good spot in which to set up umbrellas, towels and picnic for six people. It’s not easy on this small, rocky beach, but Davide mutters to me quietly, “Don’t worry. I think they will go soon.” Sure enough, rangy man’s wife calls out from the water, “Kids, we’re leaving soon. There’ll be space when we do.” Rangy man looks surprised. “We are?” His wife raises her chin and pulls down the corners of her mouth in a very Sicilian-looking gesture. “Well, what time is it?” Davide answers for him, having just looked at his watch: “Twelve twenty.” Rangy man nods in surprise. “Eh! OK, yes, I suppose we will be going soon then.” His wife nods in confirmation. “About half an hour, then there’ll be plenty of space. Don’t you worry!” She bobs comfortably on her inflatable cushion, her feline eyes drooping closed with a blissful expression of contentment on her face.
We set up a solitary umbrella to shade the cool bag and head into the water to make the twenty-minute swim out to the little island that sits just offshore.
When we get back, they’ve gone.
