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‘Mix?’ his mother offered.
He nodded. ‘I don’t mix in easily.’
‘I thought you had lots of friends, Danjel,’ Maria said, chewing on a pastizz.
‘I have a few. They’re from my team. It’s one of the reasons I took up football,’ he admitted.
Valentina looked at him, blinking in surprise. She hadn’t known this.
‘I figured if others could rely on me to do my bit in the team… and then if I did it well, then they’d like me.’ He shrugged again, looking down.
Valentina reached out to squeeze his arm. ‘But you’re one of its star players.’
He smiled. ‘I didn’t set out to be. That just happened. I didn’t know I’d be good at football.’
It was Peter who replied. ‘I get it, Danjel.’
‘Do you?’ he asked, sounding dubious.
‘I do. I’m not suggesting you are, but I was seriously awkward at school. I was small, for starters, as I told you. I also struggled to fit in. I was too studious. I thought too deeply about things. I really liked being alone in the library. And I loved to read, loved to learn. But unlike you, I was hopeless at sport. A tremendous disappointment to my classmates, and to my father, who expected me to play in the school’s first eleven… Er, that’s cricket,’ he explained at Danjel’s puzzled expression.
‘I can’t believe this. You! The dashing pilot?’ Maria said.
Peter shrugged. ‘Well, you don’t necessarily need physical prowess in the cockpit. There you need someone who can be calm under enormous stress – nerves of steel, I’ve heard people call it. Someone who can think fast, who has extremely fast reactions and you also need excellent spatial awareness… that means knowing where you are all the time. Are you upside down, facing north or south? You need to understand your environment at each moment, and to remain disciplined and calm.’ He stopped. ‘Sorry, I’m banging on.’
‘No, it’s interesting,’ Danjel said, his eyes shining.
‘And you need emotional… um, detachment, I think. Is this the right word?’ Valentina added.
Peter nodded. ‘Well, yes. You need to entirely switch off your emotions. You can’t be fearful, or too aggressive, you can’t get angry or worse, go meek. You have to be in the moment.’
‘Making cool, calm decisions instead of in the heat of passion?’ she asked, pointedly.
Peter blinked, and she knew he understood they were having a different conversation underneath the surface one.
‘Making decisions that are in the best interests of everyone. That don’t endanger those you care about,’ he replied, glancing at her son.
‘The thing is, Danjel,’ she said, turning to him, ‘you’re too young to be worrying about exploring the world. There’s plenty of time for that.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Leni. I seem to remember a young teen who dreamed of seeing the world,’ Maria offered.
‘That’s unhelpful,’ Valentina said, but she laughed.
Danjel put down his bread and cheese, got up and started kicking a ball around.
Maria wasn’t finished. ‘You were desperate to escape your small life. Let the boy dream big, Leni.’ She tapped her temple.
Peter suddenly let out a loud burp, much to everyone’s amusement, and then apologised. And then Danjel, given his favourite person had just got away with it, followed suit with a belch of his own. All four of them laughed as Peter laid the blame on Maria’s delicious lemonade.
‘The ferry’s leaving again,’ Danjel called over his shoulder. ‘Right on time.’
No one paid much notice to his announcement. But they all turned at the sound of an all-too-familiar voice when it said, ‘My brother told me you’d be here, Valentina.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
Valentina’s world stilled.
The laughter died in an instant. The sound of the football against the stone wall stopped, the ball rolling away from her son, who had turned in shock. In that moment she imagined they looked like a still-life painting; a second of joy captured forever, heads turned to the sky, Peter’s fingers gently touching her bare arm. The bright sunshine and the shadows behind them. Her son lacking all tension in his body, and even herself, unguarded and spontaneous.
