‘I just don’t want to cry in public,’ he mumbled, turning away, although Toni heard him anyway.
Oh, Andreas, she thought to herself.You have no idea what’s in store for you when the baby is born.
His voice stopped her from making the phone call to Ginny, the timbre low and moody. ‘Toni?’
‘Hmm?’ she prompted, studying the deepening lines of his face.
‘I’m proud of you for letting go of the rope. I know it wasn’t easy.’
She understood the graphic climbing metaphor in her gut, knew how difficult it had been for Andreas to open his heart again after losing his friend and partner.
‘You and Gabri seem to think it’s about letting go,’ she began. ‘I won’t. He’s Cilli’s father. But I can let out the rope a little so it’s not so tight. It turns out it’s possible to love both of them… because I do.’
36
Toni wasn’t sure she trusted her heart as she pulled into the car park at the squat, red-brick office building. Dawdling to the sign announcing which businesses were housed in the complex, there it was, right at the bottom, as though recently added: Kinetic S.r.l.
She’d been on the company’s website earlier that day and found a press release in English: the Italian tech company had recently won a tender to provide their optimisation services to the National Grid, with a new office set up in… Weymouth, in this shared office space by Radipole Lake.
Her jaw wobbling, she ran her fingers over the new sticker with the logo. How could he do all this and still think she needed time? He thought love wasn’t enough? He’d just proved himself wrong.
Maybe he couldn’t say the words, but this giant step in her direction – literally, if he was planning to man this office himself, or figuratively at least – was more than a confession of love and if he thought she needed to take things slow, he was wrong. She had to see himnow.
Clutching the small bag she’d brought as a prop to help her make her point in a way he’d immediately understand, she headed inside, waiting as the building receptionist finished up a call. But the answer to her query wasn’t the one she’d hoped for.
‘There’s no one in at the moment,’ he said apologetically. ‘He’s a bit eccentric, the new guy in that office.’
Toni bit her lip over the thrill in her chest. Yes, he was a bit eccentric. ‘Let me guess, it’s full of plants?’
‘Bursting,’ the receptionist confirmed. ‘Smells like a roast dinner – with dessert mixed in as well. He left about half an hour ago – had some kind of surfboard on top of his car, I noticed. He’s got a little electric SUV – a cool ride. Brand new, I think.’
‘Did he say where he was going?’ Toni asked before the receptionist could wax lyrical about the car.
‘No, he just muttered something about the levante. I thought it might be some kind of restaurant.’
Toni paused, the word familiar at the edge of her mind. She thanked the receptionist and wandered back out to her car, her mind racing. She was far too impatient for a puzzle.
The surfboard was obviously a sailboard for windsurfing and the levante… Hurrying the last few steps to her car, she dived in and groped for her phone, opening a web browser. Yes, she’d been right. The ‘levante’was the wind – the east wind, more specifically.
She chuckled to herself, picturing Gabri rushing out of the office early to catch the ideal winds. At least she could be certain he wouldn’t fall into his previous trap of overwork and burnout. She was suddenly desperate to be out there with him, clutching the boom as she skated over the water. In her distraction, she’d forgotten she’d intended to join a windsurfing club. Maybe she’d be able to teach Cillian one day – or Gabri would.
The future opened up ahead of her as tears pricked her eyes. She just had to find him first.
Thinking back to her lesson at Procchio, where he’d steadied her gently and taught her to feel the wind, she realised that levante wind could lead her right to him. One more search and she had her answer: an east wind was best at Overcombe. She’d find him at Overcombe beach.
Shoving her car into gear, she stomped on the accelerator and turned the car north-east.
The shingle crunching under her feet fifteen minutes later, Toni took a deep breath of salty air and gazed out to sea with a smile. It wasn’t quite Elba – it was missing a few degrees of warmth on this cloudy August day – but she could still appreciate the rush of the wind over her skin and the views of the distant headlands, the holiday attitude she’d brought home with her, partly because of Gabri.
The isola would always be there to return to, but she hoped Gabri could be happy here – with her.
There were a few windsurfers out, enough that she struggled to work out which of the figures in dark wetsuits zipping over the surface of the water was Gabri. Then a wild idea assailed her and nothing else would do.
She made her way to the shop offering equipment hire over the road from the beach.
The waves were stronger than in the cove at Procchio and it took several attempts for her to get the board out to a place where she could safely get up. Her hands shook and for a moment, she wondered if this had been a stupid idea.
She’d only done this once and Gabri had been there to soothe her nerves and talk her through it. But she’d been through challenge after challenge with no guidebook for years of her life and this was important, so she took a deep breath to still her clamouring heart, paused to feel the direction of the wind, checked she’d aligned the board in the right direction and then pushed up with all her determination.
