After a moment he managed to say, ‘On second thoughts, I can bear, with fortitude, the sight of Sandro risking his neck.’

She chuckled, understanding perfectly.

‘Never mind about Sandro,’ she said.

‘I don’t. I don’t think about him from one hour to the next.’ Then he added thoughtlessly, ‘Mind you, I might wish he were less good-looking.’

‘Is he good-looking?’ she demanded with suspicious eagerness. ‘Oh, do tell me, because I’ve always wondered. Is he really, really handsome?’

Francesco ground his teeth. ‘I walked right into that, didn’t I?’ he asked.

‘Well, you were a little incautious,’ she teased. ‘Go on, tell me.’

‘No way. You know exactly what he looks like, because you got someone to tell you with the first meeting.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘Yes, I do, because it’s what you did with me.’

There was a slight pause before she said, ‘What I did with you, and what I do with other people-well, they’re not the same thing at all.’

‘Are you going to tell me what that means?’ he asked cautiously.

‘With you, it mattered. Is it far to this place?’

‘Not long now,’ he said, accepting her change of subject. He needed time to think. Things were moving with dizzying speed.

After an hour’s drive they reached the little airfield, already busy with several private planes. At the offices they were met by a small crowd. Amid the introductions Francesco gained an impression of a local journalist, a businessman considering becoming a backer and several charities who stood to gain from sponsorship.

‘Did you fix all this?’ Francesco asked.

‘Of course. This is my side of things.’

‘I’m impressed. But I always knew you were efficient.’

He concealed his relief that she had no thoughts of flying, and even allowed himself a moment of complacency at his own tact.

The pilot appeared with Sandro, already dressed up and strapped into his parachute. Behind him came another man, similarly dressed. This was Sandro’s skydiving partner.

‘We take off,’ Sandro said, ‘climb to about thirteen thousand feet and circle the airport twice before jumping.’

‘How far do you fall before opening the parachute?’ Celia wanted to know.

‘Down to about two and a half thousand feet,’ Sandro replied.

‘As low as that?’ Francesco queried in surprise.

‘Well, the whole point is to freefall as far as possible,’ the pilot said. ‘The parachute is just to break the fall at the last minute.’

‘Otherwise you’d be killed,’ Sandro observed cheerfully.

‘Which would seriously spoil your enjoyment of the next jump,’ Celia supplied, and they punched the air together.

The journalists thoroughly enjoyed this exchange, Francesco noted sourly.

‘Will you look after my dog for me?’ Sandro asked Celia.

‘Sure.’ She took the harness, but then found herself rather encumbered with two animals and her bag.

‘Give Jacko to me,’ Francesco said.

‘Good idea. You and he seem to be on each other’s wavelength.’

‘Now you’re just being fanciful,’ he said, half fondly, half in exasperation.

‘No, I’m not. He heard what you said about having his security snatched away, and he knows you understand him.’

Outwardly he dismissed her words. And yet it seemed to him that Jacko moved towards him willingly and sat close to his leg, as though contented.

I’m getting over-imaginative, he thought.

‘What’s happening now?’ Celia asked.

‘They’re walking away towards the aircraft. It’s just a tiny one, barely enough for the three of them-nearly there-someone’s taking a last look at the parachutes-the pilot’s climbing aboard and reaching back to help Sandro.’

Then he heard something that froze his blood. It was the softest possible sound, but it raised ghastly spectres, howling death and despair at him.

It was a sigh of envy.

He gave a sharp glance at Celia, hoping he’d imagined it, but there was no mistaking the way her head was thrown back, as though she could see up into the sky, or the look of ecstasy on her face.

Envy. Delight. Determination. All the things that would make a rational man bang his head against the nearest brick wall. And when he’d done that he would shoot himself, or jump off a cliff, whichever seemed most likely to promote health, happiness and sanity.

What he would not do was involve himself with this woman a second time. He would never again put it in her power to break his heart with her outrageous, wilful, insane, dotty-headed enthusiasms. That was out, finished, done with.

‘Are you all right?’ Celia asked, reaching for him in alarm.

‘Of course I am,’ he snapped. ‘Why?’

‘You’re trembling.’

‘No, just a bit chilly.’

‘It’s windy. They should have a good flight. What are they doing now?’

‘They’ve just closed the plane door-now they’re starting to move-gathering speed.’

‘I can hear the engine. They’ve left the ground, haven’t they?’

‘Yes, the plane is climbing-climbing-almost out of sight-’

‘But it’s coming back soon?’ she asked anxiously, almost like a child fearful of being denied a treat.

‘It’s coming back now, circling the airfield-it’s almost out of sight-lucky it’s a clear day-I can just make it out…’

His voice trailed off. When she could bear the silence no longer Celia squealed, ‘Well?’

‘I think Sandro and his partner are jumping now-yes, there they go!’

Way above him in the blue he could just make out the two men, leaving the aircraft together and going into freefall.

‘What are they doing?’ she cried, in the anguish of unbearable tension. ‘Have they opened their parachutes yet?’

‘No, they’re still holding on to each other-coming lower-lower-I can see them clearly now-they’re going to have to open up any minute-aren’t they?’

The hair-raising possibility of a last-minute disaster was there in his voice, and in the gasps from the crowd that turned to cheers as the men released each other and two parachutes opened, letting them glide gracefully earthwards.

‘They’ve landed,’ Francesco said. ‘They’re both safe.’

‘Wonderful!’ Celia rejoiced. ‘Now we’ve really got something spectacular to offer.’

Francesco pulled himself together. There would be time for his misgivings later. Just now he would concentrate on saying and doing the right things to get the business over with quickly. So he assumed a bright smile and prepared to say something suitable. But before he could do so Celia was surrounded by journalists, all hurling questions at her. She replied eagerly, leaving Francesco and Jacko to retire discreetly into the background.

‘That’s put us in our place,’ he commiserated with the dog. ‘We’re definitely not needed just now.’ He scratched the silky head. ‘I guess we both know how that feels.’

A soft grunt was his answer.

‘I wonder what your folks were like,’ he mused. ‘I guess you loved them, and then they said, “Get out!” And that was that. You’re coping somehow but-’

He stopped himself in alarm.

‘Listen to me, talking to you as if you understood. But maybe you do. She thinks so. I expect she talks to you, doesn’t she? She used to talk to Wicksy a lot. I wonder what she says about me.’

But he was only trying to distract his own attention from what had happened inside his head. As often before, the words, Get out! had acted like a malign spell, causing the universe to spin with terrifying speed before settling down into a bleak place.

‘What the devil’s the matter with me?’ he muttered. ‘Why does it happen? Why?’

They weren’t the only words Celia had hurled at him, nor the cruelest. So why? He asked himself that again and again, but there was no answer. If he could have discovered one, he felt he might have begun to find his way out of the maze.

‘Francesco?’ It was Celia’s voice, calling him back from a trance, and her hand shaking his shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, of course. Where shall I take you now? Are you having dinner with your new contacts? With Sandro?’

‘No, we’ve set up meetings for next week. Let’s go home.’

There was a shout. Sandro was approaching, hailing them.

‘What a day! So many new opportunities. Not just jumping from planes, but from balloons.’

‘That’ll really be something to try!’ Celia exclaimed. ‘Just wait until we get talking next week.’

‘Fine, I’ll see you then,’ Sandro said, using the word see in the casual fashion that always startled Francesco. ‘Goodbye, cara.’

He put an arm around Celia’s shoulder, drew her close and gave her a hearty kiss. She kissed him back. To Francesco it seemed an age before they could get away, and even then she had to dash back to Sandro to say something she’d forgotten. But at last they were in the car on the way home.

‘Let’s do some shopping and I’ll cook you supper.’

The next hour was pure pleasure. This was how they’d been at their happiest-planning meals, shopping together. She would let him choose the vegetables, and sometimes the meat, although she really preferred her own judgement for meat.

‘You were always a good cook,’ he recalled as they worked out the menu, walking around the grocer’s. ‘You made a list of all my favourite dishes and practised until you could do them perfectly.’

‘But some of the Italian ones I’d never heard of,’ she remembered.

‘And you wanted me to show you how to make them. As though I knew a potato from a bean! My expertise stopped at eating them.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘Do you remember how shocked you were?’

‘Yes, I thought all Italian men were great cooks.’

‘I’m part English,’ he reminded her defensively. ‘That’s the part of me that’s useless. And you actually went out and took a course in Italian cookery-’