Curtis tried not to think about his funeral, then couldn’t think of anything else. How many people would even attend it or miss him? What did life mean? What was his legacy? Therehadto be some reason he’d been put on earth and why he was exiting it so early.
A counselor suggested that Curtis start a blog, to deal with his thoughts and emotions.
He’d initially rubbished the idea, until one night he started to type on his phone and couldn’t stop.Curtis’s Brain Blogwas born, a series of random musings, photos and videos that kept him busy and helped him to express himself. It made him feel in control of his brain, instead of the other way around.
On the gong day in the castle hotel, it finally dawned on Curtis that life wasn’t all about him. Seeing Ginny, Edna, Eric and Heather clinging together like barnacles on a rock made him recognize he wasn’t the only one with problems. Although his were definitely bigger, he felt guilty for the first time at viewing his time in Italy as a free ride.
In offering up the holiday, Ginny had shown him there were good people in the world, and Curtis no longer wanted to take advantage of them. He wanted tobeone of them instead, even if it wouldn’t get him a blue plaque.
Curtis lay back on his hotel bed and scrolled through the photos he’d taken on his phone, pausing at one of him holding Nico’s copper pan in the air. In Vigornuovo, he didn’t need to try to be cool or flash his cash. He was just a man with time running out, having a strangely nice time with people he’d usually cross the road to avoid.
Acceptance of his lot was bringing with it a calmness Curtis hadn’t anticipated. But before he completely resigned himself to the quiet life, the petering out of his days on earth, Curtis wanted to have a bloody good dance. One last big hurrah.
One day, someone, somewhere, might readCurtis’s Brain Blogand take some kind of inspiration from it. For now, though, it was just him and his words.
He flipped onto his side and started to write a new entry.
Number five, man alive. Today I played bingo and it was fun...
25
Maze
Ginny lay dreaming in bed. She pictured opening a door in a wall to find a maze stretching out before her. She entered and tall green hedges rose up on either side of her, so she couldn’t see where she was going. With each corner she turned, and each dead end she encountered, the more she got lost. She began to run and her body flooded with panic. A hedge crashed down on top of her, felling her to the ground, and everything went dark. As she struggled beneath the weight of the branches, she could hear a ringing noise.
The sound of her phone jolted Ginny awake. She held a hand to her eyes against the bright daylight and tried to acclimatize, her heart still pounding. She could hear laughter and the chink of cups and saucers outside. Nico must be serving breakfast in the courtyard.
Ginny grabbed the phone from her bedside table and struggled to breathe when she saw Adrian’s name on the screen. Remembering that he’d messaged Jenny again, yesterday, her first instinct was to cut him off.
“Hello,” she answered curtly.
“Hi there. How’s your holiday?”
She frowned, taken aback by how casual he sounded, like everything was fine between them. She didn’t feel like rewarding his question with an answer.
“Are you still there?” he prompted.
She took a gulp of water from a bottle. “Yes, I’m here and having a great time, thanks for asking.”
Adrian didn’t react to the coolness in her voice. “Phoebe said she’d told you her news. I’ve tried calling you several times this morning. Didn’t you see my missed calls?”
Now you know what it’s like, she thought.
“I’ve only just woken up,” Ginny said, performing a yawn for effect.
“Um, what time is it in Italy?” He sounded confused. “It’s two in the afternoon here.”
Ginny glanced at her watch and saw it was 3:00 p.m. Perhaps Edna’s travel tablets had knocked her out. Nico must be serving afternoon coffee and cake outside, not breakfast. “I must have overslept,” she said with a groan.
“That’s some lie-in.” Adrian laughed, not unkindly. “It sounds like you’re making the most of your break.”
Ginny’s mind flashed back to the previous day, recalling the beauty of Venice, the gondola ride, the mask shop and her walk in the garden with Nico. Her armpits grew damp when she rememberedthatmoment. She’d definitely felt a crackle of electricity between them. Then there’d been bingo and Curtis’s shocking revelation. It felt like she and Adrian had been apart for six years rather than six weeks. “The holiday has been very...eventful,” she said.
“Anything fun you want to tell me about?”
Ginny was about to share a few snippets then clamped her lips shut. “I’ve been doingallkinds of new things,” she said mysteriously.
A few thorny beats passed between them.
