apparently, the plan worked. Hence my final date. After all that I just needed to speak to someone normal, you know?’
Harri laughed. ‘Oh, let me guess: the normal person didn’t answer their phone so you had to call me instead?’
‘Yeah, something like that. No, actually, I value your opinion.’
Quite taken aback by this unexpected compliment, Harri took a few moments to respond. ‘Oh – right – er, thanks, Al.’
The ice thus broken on the subject, discussions about Alex’s love life began to pepper their Wednesday night conversations. Harri didn’t mind, really – it was worth it for her armchair adventures traversing the globe.
It was about this time that Alex took the brave step of tackling the thorny subject of Harri’s lack of travel.
‘OK,’ he said one Wednesday night as he passed a bowl of spicy, smoky Hungarian Goulash to Harri. ‘Imagine right now I could give you a plane ticket to anywhere in the world.’
Harri tore a strip of still-warm walnut bread and dipped it in the paprika sauce. ‘Then you’d be a millionaire and I doubt we’d be eating dinner in a tiny flat above a coffee shop.’
Alex pulled a face at her. ‘Seriously, think about it, H: if you could pack a bag right now and just go anywhere, where would you go?’
‘Well, it depends.’
‘Depends on what? Come on, H, you don’t need to plan an entire itinerary before you go. This is make-believe, OK?’
Harri scooped up a spoonful of goulash and blew on it, feeling cornered. ‘I don’t know how I’m supposed to just pick somewhere, Al. It doesn’t work like that.’
‘It does, Harri! I’m talking turn up at the airport – money no object – and choose anywhere in the world. Just like that.’
Harri dropped her spoon with a loud clank. ‘See, that’s so easy for you. Just pack your bags and go, without any thought for who or what you’re leaving behind. I have responsibilities, you know: my job, my cat, Rob . . .’
Alex held his hands up. ‘Whoa, Harri, my good friend, it’s not real.’ He observed her carefully. ‘OK, seeing as you’re so woefully inept at this, let me help you. Let’s go for somewhere not too far away to start off with, like . . . like Italy, for example.’ Harri felt her heart give a little leap and her face must have betrayed this as Alex’s smile broadened. ‘Ah, good, Italy it is, then. How about Rome?’
‘Maybe . . .’
‘Florence?’
‘I’d like to see Rome before Florence.’
Alex clapped his hands, clearly enjoying this new game. ‘OK, good. Now we’re getting somewhere. Er – Milan?’
Harri thought. ‘I’d like to see Rome and Florence before Milan.’
‘Excellent.’ He drummed his fingers on the table. ‘So, we need to find a destination to usurp Rome from the top spot.’ He screwed his eyes up, then opened them wide, snapping his fingers. ‘Aha! Got it! Venice!’
Harri recoiled. ‘No. Not Venice.’
Surprised, Alex leaned back in his chair. ‘Oh? Why not?’ She really didn’t want to be drawn on this, especially as Alex didn’t know about her secret longing to visit the city. ‘Just not, that’s all.’
‘But it’s meant to be beautiful, H.’
‘I know, but . . .’
His eyes narrowed. ‘What’s Venice ever done to you, eh?’
She wriggled uncomfortably in her seat. ‘Nothing. This is getting daft now. Can we change the subject, please?’
But her protestations were in vain. Alex had sensed the story beneath and wasn’t going to let go without a fight. ‘Nah. I want to know why not Venice. Let me guess: you don’t like canals?’
‘No.’
‘You think it’s too touristy?’
‘Of course not.’
‘You have an irrational fear of gondoliers?’
Harri had to laugh at that one. ‘You’re impossible.’
Alex smiled cheekily and took a mouthful of goulash. ‘So tell me, why not Venice?’
There was no point arguing with him when he was in a mood like this. Taking a deep breath, Harri told him the truth. ‘Because I don’t want to go there on my own.’
‘So get Rob to take you.’
She dismissed it. ‘He wouldn’t enjoy it, Al, you know that.’
He leaned closer. ‘So, you do want to go to Venice?’
‘Of course I do! I have so many books on the city that I could probably write a guidebook myself without ever having set foot there.’
He leaned closer. ‘Really? So where’s the first place you’d go when you arrived?’
Feeling her heart skip, Harri closed her eyes and she was there in the city she loved so dearly. ‘Santa Maria della Salute church and the Dorsoduro, where the maskmakers have their shops,’ she breathed. ‘Or anywhere. I’d just step off the vaporetto onto the fondamenta and head off in a random direction, so I could get lost – then have fun finding my way back.’
‘Blimey, you’ve really planned this, haven’t you? So I still don’t get it: if you love a place so much, why not head there first?’
Harri sighed. ‘It’s just that if I’m heading anywhere, like you say, leaving all my responsibilities behind, then that means I’m travelling alone, right?’
His expression clouded over. ‘Er, yes, but . . .’
She stared at him. ‘So why would I want to go to one of the most romantic cities on earth on my own? Venice should be somewhere you are taken to, by someone who loves you.’
‘I see. And if the person you love doesn’t want to take you there?’
Her heart sinking, she shrugged. ‘Now can we change the subject, please?’
Alex agreed, but sadness filled his eyes as he watched her eating.
Two years since their first Wednesday evening – and countless whirlwind romances, acrimonious break-ups and midnight heart-to-hearts later – Harri was well versed in the Alex Brannan Rollercoaster of Life.
A week after his mother’s Big Idea, Harri found herself rudely awakened by what sounded like a herd of frantic buffalo charging her front door. Struggling to focus, she grabbed her alarm clock and juggled it up to her eyes until its bouncing red numbers calmed down enough to make sense: 2.47 a.m.
Muttering
