They meandered through the streets, weaving through fellow tourists and eventually arriving at the town square with the old town hall. Anna glanced at her watch.
‘If we wait a few minutes we can watch the astronomical clock strike the hour and see the twelve apostles.’
‘Have you swallowed that guidebook again?’ asked Leo, back to his usual cheerful self. That was one thing about him, he didn’t bear a grudge. Not that he was entitled to.
‘No. I like to read up on things before I go and see them. Then I get to actually look at them instead of peering at my phone all the time googling everything.’
‘Good point. Okay. I’m happy to wait for lift-off.’
A crowd of tourists had already gathered in front of the famous clock tower, peering upwards at its colourful face, adorned on either side with small figures including a macabre skeleton. As the bells began to chime the hour, the skeleton began to ring the bell in its hand and two wooden windows above the clock opened to reveal the procession of twelve apostles.
The whole performance lasted twenty-seven seconds, one of the guides informed her group in heavily accented English. Anna listened in to other facts that were being relayed, rather charmed by the whole experience. It fascinated her to know that the clock had been here for so long and was the oldest astrological clock in the world. There was something about history that put your own life into perspective. People had lived, loved and laughed for hundreds of years before her and sometimes it was good to remember that.
They spent some time in the square, looking up at the historic buildings, stepping along the cobbles and absorbing the atmosphere. Anna smiled and Leo caught her.
‘Penny for them.’
‘I was thinking how lovely the city is. I’d never really thought what it might be like. There’s so much history here, it permeates the fabric of the buildings and layers the streets.’
‘I know what you mean,’ said Leo. ‘It makes me feel quite inadequate.’
‘You!’ Anna couldn’t hide her surprise. Leo was the golden one, rich, handsome. Everything came easily to him.
‘There’s so much culture here. Art, architecture, theatres – people have created things. What’s my legacy going to be? It makes you aware of your own mortality and how small we are in the grand scheme of things.’
‘I was thinking along similar lines, although funnily enough I didn’t think of inadequacy. I thought more of how minor our problems are when you set them against the shared experience of history. I remember my mum saying we should live our lives to the full because we’re here for such a short time.’
Her mum had been a positive force of energy, always ready to see the good in things rather than the negative. Her regular pithy comment, ‘Well, we can’t change things, we have to work with them,’ had steered the family through many a rainy day, cancelled event or disappointment.
‘Good philosophy,’ he said with a nod, the shadow of sympathy in his eyes.
Anna swallowed her guilt. Poor Mum had no idea that her own life would be cut so short, which made it even worse that Anna had never lived up to that adage. She’d been so desperate to blend into her new life without causing any trouble, in case her aunt and uncle changed their minds about having her, that she’d absorbed their ways and values, never defending their snippy comments about her cheery mother, whom they clearly hadn’t approved of.
She decided things were getting a bit too serious. ‘Shall we head to the bridge?’
The bridge across the Vltava was much wider than Anna had supposed it might be and was lined with statues, which she immediately wanted to know more about.
‘So what can you tell me about the bridge, Tour Guide Barbie?’
‘It’s old,’ said Anna with a giggle. ‘I didn’t look this one up, I’m afraid. I don’t know anything about it.’
‘Why don’t we walk across? We’re going to be here for a while. Veronika has offered to show me around one weekend. It’s always better to hear about a place from people who are native, I think.’
Anna wasn’t going to ask who Veronika was. In a few weeks’ time she’d have Steve here to show around.
‘You’re right. You get a different perspective.’
‘Yes, like the time my great-uncle Pavel tried to push his wife off the bridge and the truly dreadful occasion when my great-aunt Sophia dropped her handbag over the edge.’
Anna giggled. ‘You idiot.’ That blithe irreverence had always been able to make her laugh. Already she could feel the lightness of spirit that being around Leo had always given her. Or maybe it was the autumnal sunshine. Either way it felt good.
They walked across the bridge among all the tourists, both of them stopping to take pictures with the leisurely ease of people on holiday. Anna couldn’t remember the last time she’d not had to be somewhere by a certain time.
They meandered past shops peering in the windows. Passing the impressive baroque façade of St Nicholas Church, they found themselves walking uphill on a cobbled street just one car wide, lined with cream-and-golden stone buildings and with attractive double-lanterned lampposts which at home Anna would have described as Victorian, although that couldn’t be the right word here. The buildings varied in style, some with detailed stone covings, others topped with statues. There were elaborate sculptured porticoes, plaques, decorative window sills. Everywhere, there was something new to see and Leo was as quick as she was to observe a new feature, like a wrought-iron balcony flamboyantly framing a large upper-storey window, or the carved columns of the Romanian Embassy.
They were so busy chatting and pointing things out to each other that all of a sudden they were at the top of the hill and almost upon the castle. Following the cobblestone lane up a sharp right turn, they came upon the perfect viewpoint. Below them, the city opened out on a magnificent vista of spires, turrets, gables and cupolas, grand stone buildings with terracotta tiled roofs, the whole scene dappled by patches of greenery. The straight lines of the buildings guarding the waterfront, with their symmetrical windows. Gothic towers, baroque cupolas, white gables.
After admiring the view in comfortable silence for a good ten minutes. Leo turned to her.
