blunt,” I add, with an edge to my voice. “But that’s just how it is.”
Matt’s eyes move slowly around the hall, over his ravaged art, and back to me.
“Well,” he answers tonelessly. “If I read, ‘I’ll smash up your art with a golf club,’ that would be a deal-breaker for me. I’d click on to someone else like that.”
He snaps his fingers, and the sound is so dismissive, my heart spasms. But I manage to keep my face steady.
“OK.” Somehow I find a shrug. “Well, I guess we know the truth now. We didn’t fit all along.”
“I guess we do.”
I want to cry. My throat is so tight, it’s painful. But I would die rather than dissolve into sobs. Carefully, I place the putter on the leather footstool.
“Sorry about the art,” I say, my voice barely a husk.
“No problem,” says Matt, almost formally.
“I’ll get my stuff.” I stare at the floor. “And I’ll clean up this mess, obviously.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“No. I insist.”
There’s a short silence and I survey the scuffed toes of my shoes in a weird, surreal daze. My life just shattered, but somehow I’m still standing upright. So. Silver lining.
“So, what, are we breaking up?” says Matt, a harsh heaviness to his voice. “Or ‘having some space’? Or what?”
“You’re planning to go to Japan, Matt,” I say, feeling suddenly bone-weary. “You’re planning to live on the other side of the world for a year. What difference does it make what we call it?”
Matt draws breath to make some response but seems to change his mind. At that moment his phone rings, and he glances at it in irritation—then his face jolts.
“Hi,” he answers, looking confused. “Matt here.” He listens for a minute or so, then winces. “Shit. Shit. That’s…OK. She’s here.” He offers the phone to me, looking grave. “They couldn’t get through to your phone. It’s Maud. Nell’s been taken to hospital with chest pains. They think you should go. Right now.”
“Oh God. Oh God…” My heart thumping in panic, I make to grab the phone, but Matt puts a hand on my arm.
“Let me take you,” he says. “Please. I’ll go with you. Even if we’re not together…” He stops. “I can still…”
His face is so grave, so honest, so exactly the face I wanted to love, that I can’t bear it. I can’t be near him. I can’t even look at him. It’s too painful. I have to leave. Now.
“Please don’t bother yourself, Matt,” I say, swiveling away, each word like a needle in my throat. “It’s not your problem anymore.” As I reach the door, I shoot him one last glance, feeling my heart implode with sadness. “It’s not your life.”
Twenty-Four
Seven months later
A shaft of afternoon sunlight is falling on my table as I type my final words. The days are getting longer, the air warmer, and spring flowers are everywhere in the olive groves. Spring in Puglia is enchanting. Scratch that—every season is enchanting.
Winter had a few bone-chillingly cold days, to be fair. And some wet spells. Rain clattered down outside while I wrapped myself in blankets and lived in my sheepskin boots and huddled by the fire every night. But it was still magical. And it was worth it. It’s all been worth it for this moment.
The End, I type carefully, and feel a knot of tension unravel deep within me. I rub my eyes and lean back in my chair, feeling almost numb. Eighty-four thousand words. Six months. Many, many hours. But I’ve done it. I’ve finished a first draft. A rough, scrappy, patchy first draft…but still.
“Finished, Harold!” I say, and he gives a celebratory bark.
I look around the room—the monk’s cell, to be literal—that’s been home ever since I arrived here, back in October. Farida was waiting at the monastery door to welcome me with a tight hug and encouraging words. Since then, she’s kept me constantly nourished with food and warmth and inspiration, not to mention a few bracing pep talks whenever I’ve lost motivation.
I’m not the only participant to have come back for what Farida calls an “extended self-guided writing retreat.” There was a guy here before Christmas, working on an updated edition of his anthropology textbook, in a room across the courtyard. But we didn’t chat. Or eat together. Or even communicate, really. We both just got on with it.
I’ve never felt so immersed in anything in my life. I’ve spent seven days a week thinking, writing, walking, and just staring up at