Warmth

He’d been awfully agitated at first, but not anymore. A terrible dread had taken hold from the moment he’d started auguring that a muggy and chilly coat of humidity was about to settle in. He was wrong though, if anything it was in fact getting warmer as the day was getting ready to close shop and depart to other continents.

Beyond the garden walls, mossy-tinted downtown Cagliari unfurls to be contemplated. The clutter of roofs, the array of church towers and domes and the multi-strata of discordant buildings stretching into the marsh-like cruise docking zone. A spread of city slithering downhill to melt into the ocean. Had she not been in such a rush, the amplitude his sight could cover might be aimed at a more palatable section of the landscape available. As it is, all he can watch are a few planes preparing to land from time to time and the odd seagull. But he’ll be fine. Blanket mindfully tucked in around his legs and reassuring layers of warm clothing to keep any touch of cold well at arm’s length. No need to get agitated.

Even before it happened he’d proven to be hopelessly unfit for dealing with the mere suggestion of falling temperatures. Six generations before his, a travesty of fate had dislocated the long-winded line of his ancestors from nowhere in Scotland to somewhere right in the middle of the Canadian wasteland. Six generations of hard, glacial, biting winters had left no visible imprint on his genes and added nothing to the inglorious process of moulding him into the sturdy and austere frame that thrived in those habitats. As irony has it, the afternoon he collapsed on the kitchen floor, no trace of clouds had been reported for weeks and the thermometer hadn’t left the forties in three days. Before he’d been given the chance to reach his thirties it was as if the natural selection sickle had caught up with him. It was explained in detail and in a sober tone that the extension of the damage done to the basilar artery was anything but a trivial matter, and several doomsday scenarios were painted with graphic colours. It didn’t take long and all of them came to be. The wife’s devoutness endured uncurbed, and she pragmatically and simply unearthed additional forms of manifesting it. There was the girl, though - only a toddler then, but time would arrive for school to unmask the others’ fathers as conspicuously conventional. Time’s a healer anyway, and he acquiesced to it after pacing through the whole denial-to-acceptance pathway. It took years, but eventually he learnt to put up with the idiosyncratic galaxy he was confined to. As long as they ensured he wouldn’t be cold, that is.

They were rich. Then they weren’t. When they went down to the kiosk the following morning to confirm the value of the prize, the amount was substantially more modest than what they had been celebrating all night long. Still, a cheque did arrive in the post. She demanded Rome.

It had always been Rome. From gladiators and temple vestals that popped in and out of the tales of her girlhood to the Fellinian ecclesiastical catwalks to the half-witted soaked Ekberg in the Trevi Fountain - Rome. Ever-obsessive Rome. It was the lady from the agency who first came up with the suggestion of a cruise as an alternative, undeniably better than wasting a complete week in one single place, instead they would be able to spend time in several other cities, all in one go. Wasn’t it great? It so wasn’t, but confronted with the fact that he had already paid for the surprise she didn’t feel she had the energy to make a big fuss. In any case, there was a scheduled stop to go and see the place, and it would have to do.

Her mother wouldn’t have eschewed the chance to get off that cemetery of castrated aspirations, if but for a few days. Neither would she. Only her mother’s heart failed her too soon, and the very weekend after her wedding she was again standing in the same chapel where the aroma of the fresh flowers mixed with the one from her own burial of Sunday past. Woken up pregnant, got married, lost the child and couldn’t for that frustrating life of her see the point of it all. Was she fond of him? Yes, most days, but she was also fond of so many other things to which she had no intention of getting married.

Since mother’s passing the house had turned hollow. Him with his unemployment career, her with the children the impaired womb wouldn’t yield, and in his corner the numb grandfather, extinct in the wheelchair. She tried hard, she really did, but had never been endowed with the art of tenderness, buoyance and light-heartedness that had defined the way in which her mother had dealt with it. Besides, she couldn’t shun the belief that there were two generations between her and the duty of caring for him. Nor could the Social Services that had popped up with an odd interest in the use given to decades of welfare support.

Right now, though, all she wants is to be left alone as she immerses herself in the postcard-like picture of the city rising up the hill. The ship’s definitely moving now. She’s already missing his omnipresence sorely. She knew she would. They had merely parked the wheelchair and walked a few yards away to take some mandatory pictures. When they started back to pick him up she just stopped and grabbed his arm. He’d protested and wanted to go and get the wheelchair. He’ll be so much happier in this place, winters are so miserable back home. Someone will look after him, people always do, just don’t fret about it. The next time he protested they were about to get into the ship. It’s not like they’ll trace him back to the ship, is it? Let alone all the way to godforsaken Saskatchewan. She hoped she could locate the exact spot where they’d left him amongst the compact maze of buildings but the light had almost gone. Besides, topographically speaking, she couldn’t be more useless. She knows he’ll be fine, and that’s what matters.

In the end, Cagliari had turned out to be a bit of a letdown, by far not as impressive as she had envisaged it to be. There is now this tenuous scent of weightlessness in the air as the city eventually starts to wane in the night. And anticipation. Tomorrow’s the big day. Rome.