THE PAST IS A POWERFUL COUNTRY



Donnafugata Castle, Ragusa, Sicily


I reach out a hand to a computer image and I stroke the hair of the man in the picture, just as, long ago, I did in real life.  

This man hurt me a lot some years before I left for Sicily and not a word had passed between us since that time. He was not, it is important to say, the reason for my departure, nor did he hasten it.  But the void where his warmth used to be made me sadder when I left.



Caerphilly Castle, Wales

Of course I have thought of him during the ensuing years but I forbade myself the melancholy indulgence of looking at the photos and resisted the temptation to google him, thus saving myself further pain. And I worked at building a life here, a task which is never easy in another country, however much you love it.

I must admit that I did think he would contact me one day and, reader, I prepared the speech.  You'll know the one if you have ever been disappointed in love:  it kind of begins, "We have both moved on now" and ends, "It is better that way."  But as my sixtieth birthday came and went and I celebrated my fifth year in Sicily, I decided that I had been wrong and that my little old heart was safe.

And then, two weeks ago...... the contact.  The speech I made, reader, was not the one I had planned, for I searched my little old heart and was surprised by what I found there.  This speech was rather Italian in its directness and was much more succinct than the prepared one.  It went like this:

"Get on the bloody plane and come and love me!"

I fear I am lost, reader.  Watch this space!