Serva me. Servabo te.
My heart began beating wildly, too strong for my fragile body to hold. I had waited all this time for a sign and I knew it would come sooner or later. But the wait had exhausted me. I got up and looked at myself in the mirror. I was corpse, a skeleton with transparent skin and blue veins on my forehead and hands.
A spectre.
A dying swan.
In the end I had managed to embody Odile after all.
The emptiness inside me had eaten me alive for weeks like a malignant tumour. And slowly I was consumed like a candle. The moment had arrived.
‘Pat, please.’ I said aloud, ‘Pat, please come to me and take me away.’
I touched my reflection and began to sob, a liberating cry, desperate, heart-breaking, slowly sliding onto my knees.
‘Please come and get me. I can’t stand it anymore without you, take me away with you, wherever you are …’
I curled up on the floor and wept uncontrollably, my weak body shaken by convulsive sobs.
I would wait and sooner or later death would come and take me to Pat.
I just had to wait, it was only a matter of time. I just stay where I was until I disappeared: easy and painless.
And I would stop suffering.
You save me. I’ll save you.
All it took was time.
Or maybe…
Maybe I could speed things up.
25
I caught the bus to Skegness. It was raining, but I didn’t feel cold, or weak, or the irregular heartbeat that had given me no rest recently.
Adrenaline was helping me one last time.
The driver looked at me in confusion and asked if I needed help, as if I were a sick woman who had escaped from the hospital, and she was right. I was sick, but I would be all better soon.
It was just a matter of a couple of hours.
I felt light and happy, like I hadn’t felt since that cursed day back in February.
And the closer the bus got, the more I felt radiating from within me an irrepressible joy, drawn by something, by someone who was calling me. I knew that Pat was there, waiting for me.
I smiled for the first time in months.
I smiled at the sea that was about to bring me back to him.
I smiled at the wheeling seagulls.
I smiled at the pain that had become a faithful friend.
I got out and breathed deeply. The sun was setting, it was cold, and the sea was rough, but I felt calm and serene. There was nothing to be afraid of.
The wind made me lose my balance as I advanced eagerly towards the beach. I saw the shop where we had bought fish and chips, the inn where we were supposed to sleep, the pier, the overturned boat that we had laid down next to. As if in a dream I saw the two of us laughing together, stealing each other’s chips, and playing with York. We kissed and we held one another, imagining our future together.
I felt tired, as if I had walked for hundreds of miles without ever stopping.
The time had finally come to rest.
The vast, churning void was waiting for me with arms wide open, inviting, welcoming, safe. I looked forward to letting myself be swept away by it’s wide embrace and abandoning myself to the silence and peace of its secret depths.
I would float downwards, gently, where light filters with difficulty, where everything is slow and peaceful and where time does not exist.
Down there somewhere Pat was waiting for me.
26
‘She’s in a coma doctor. We don’t know how long she’s been without oxygen... she might have suffered irreversible damage.’
‘Vital signs?’
‘Stable. We’re trying to contact the family, but she had no documents with her, only a broken phone and a bracelet with an inscription. in Latin or Spanish.’
‘How did she get to shore?’
‘It’s a mystery. The current was so strong there that not even the fishermen would risk it. They found her lying on the beach.’
‘She must have a guardian angel.’
‘There! Did you see that? It looked like she was smiling…’
‘Must be a trick of the light.’
‘Mia. Mia. It’s Patrick, can you hear me?’
‘Yes.’
Acknowledgements
My warmest thanks to my publisher and friend Raffaello Avanzini and everyone at Newton Compton for all their help and support.
My agent (better known as my older sister) Maria Paola Romeo.
My mother for taking me to see the Louis Falco ballet when I was five and teaching me a love for the arts, my brother Daniel, the light of my life, and Attilio, the best life partner you could ever want.
Maria Falcao and Jim Fletcher of the Royal Ballet School of London for their help and valuable advice, Alessandro di Marco for technical advice, Rosie Williams and Dallas Kidman for putting me up in their delightful house (complete with bay window!), and Marika Pasut for the unforgettable London adventure.
And last but not least, my family, friends, the people around me, the guys from the blog, yoga, dance, London, everyone and everything I love. To them and to you, thank you.
About the Author
Federica Bosco is a writer and screenwriter. Her books have been translated into 11 languages. Read more about her on her blog: www.federicabosco.com.
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9781789543087 If I Can't Have You Page 32