“Then let’s go!” I push the button on my GPS tracking watch and stride off. If Marcello thinks it’s odd that I’m wearing two watches – a vintage silver Rolex on my left and my sports watch on my right – he hasn’t said anything, and I’m not about to bring attention to it.
“Wait! What the fuck!” Marcello exclaims and I hear the gravel on the path beneath our feet crunch as he sprints to catch up with me.
It’s a bright sunny day but it rained overnight so the air is still cool at this time of the morning. Had it been up to me, we would have met earlier to take advantage of lower temperatures and fewer crowds but Marcello looked positively crestfallen when I had suggested we meet at eight this morning so I compromised and agreed to make it ten o’clock. Besides, that gave me enough time to do my usual Saturday morning cleaning ritual.
Just as I told Marcello, the crowds have thinned out as we jog further into the park. I’m moving at a slightly slower pace than I usually run at but I’m very conscious that this run is not for me, but for Marcello. Not that I’m not benefitting from it. Having some company for my run and doing it in the relatively flat Hyde Park rather than around hilly Hampstead Heath, which is closer to myflat in Belsize, is going to mean I will likely have enough energy in my legs to go to the gym this evening. It’s not like I have anything better to do.
“Any chance we’ve already done a kilometre?” Marcello asks, noticeably already out of breath.
I glance at my watch. “Not exactly.”
“Go on, depress me. How far have we run?”
“Just under three hundred metres.”
He curses loudly in Italian.
“I don’t know what that means but I’m guessing it’s not ‘I’m having the time of my life’.” I chuckle and slow my pace a little.
“Oh, no. No you don’t. Don’t slow down.” Marcello pushes past me. “I know you’re already going a lot slower than you usually do so please don’t humiliate me further.”
“I’m not trying to humiliate you. I’m trying to make sure we go at a pace that’s comfortable for you.”
“A pace that’s comfortable for me would be lying prone in my bed watching Great British Bake-Off replays on my phone all while hooked up to an IV of espresso.”
“Oh, you’re a GBBO fan? Me too!”
“After the way I’ve seen you devour our chocolate croissants that doesn’t surprise me in the least,” Marcello says and I catch a faint smile on his lips when I turn my head his way. Well, that feels like progress.
“What can I say? Delicious baked goods and fine British innuendo about soggy bottoms and tight dough balls is a winning combination.”
“And as an Italian café manager, I feel it’s my duty to point out that dough balls should never be tight!” Marcello scoffs and I can’t tell if it’s because he’s breathless or making a point. I choose to believe the latter.
“I’ll take your word for it.” I laugh again and then find myself smiling as we continue to jog on in silence. We pass other runners, a few in pairs like us but most of them on their own, and we navigate our way around young families pushing buggies or wrangling toddlers away from picking the flowers that occasionally line the path we’re running down.
I find myself full of questions I want to ask Marcello. About his Italian heritage. About the café, his business. About whether he downloaded a dating app or not. About what he meant the other day when he said living alone didn’t work out well for him.
But I fear this would be overbearing. Furthermore, Marcello is visibly and audibly short of breath and it wouldn’t be fair to make him talk at length about anything. Besides, these things are none of my business. And it would do me well to stop thinking about Marcello more than what he is. A training buddy. A running partner. A sort of pseudo-friend who I’m connected to thanks to Chloe and Radia, and because of the proximity of our respective workplaces. Marcello hasn’t come here today to answer twenty questions. He barely wants to be here, full stop. It’s not going to help if…
And just like that, I’m overthinking things like I always do. I sigh on one of my exhales and am relieved when my GPS watch beeps and vibrates. I look down at it.
“One kilometre down,” I say and wait for Marcello’s relief or surprise or gratitude.
“Is that fucking it?” He pants. “Porco dio!”
“Am I going to have to learn Italian to find out what exactly you’re calling me when you swear like that.”
“I am not calling you anything. But very perceptive because I am absolutely swearing.”
“But one kilometre down is good,” I reassure him. “And I can see we’re nearly at The Serpentine which will bring a change of scenery.”
“Oooh, a change of scenery. That’s exactly the same as a cappuccino the size of my head and a door-stopper-sized slice of red velvet cake.”
“We’ll get to that,” I say. “After.”
“After I’ve died. Because then it will taste really good,” he huffs.
“I didn’t have you down as the sarcastic type.”
