Alora Winston

Alora Winston

August 1966

Cagliari

E DDIE IS HOLDING

a map and turning it and his head at a ninety-degree angle. From her spot at the café table, she can’t hide her smile. He peers closer at the map and then turns it upside-down, confounded. He has reached a crossroads. The road straight ahead of him would take him to the harbour, to boats bobbing, to the morning sun dancing on the water. The road to the right would take him towards the town – the market, the bright fruits, the noise. The road behind him would take him back whence he came. And the road to the left would take him to Bridie.

Come this way

, she wills. This way

. If he gets a little closer, she can call out his name. To do it now, she would have to bellow, and the other café patrons would turn, would look at her, would hear the excitement in her voice. They would be embarrassed for her, just as she is embarrassed for herself at how happy she is to see him.

Eddie takes a step towards the souvenir shop on the corner of the crossroads and the seller comes out and says

something, but Bridie is too far away to hear. Eddie shows him the map, and the man turns it to what must be the correct way up and Bridie is certain that Eddie is laughing. She holds her breath as the shopkeeper studies the map, then he places a hand on Eddie’s shoulder and points to exactly where she is sitting. As though he knows.

And though, at first, Eddie is looking down the narrow alleyway, perhaps thinking of his destination, it is not long before he sees her. And he illuminates. Shaking the shopkeeper’s hand, he picks a postcard from the closest rack and purchases it by way of thanks.

Then he takes off his hat and makes his way toward Bridie. She places her book back inside her bag.

Under the generous parasol above the table, the sun relents, and Eddie sits down opposite Bridie and sighs with relief. Bridie takes off her sunglasses and wipes away the sweat that has gathered on the bridge of her nose, hoping Eddie doesn’t see.

‘I ought to be in a paper on metonymy and synecdoche,’ Eddie says, glancing at his watch, ‘but I got lost.’ A man walks a bounding dog along the little side street where they sit, and Eddie beams at it, ‘This is turning out to be much more fun, though.’

The waitress – tall, tanned and beautiful – comes and hands Eddie a menu. ‘ Grazie

,’ he says.

‘Ah, English?’ she asks. Even her voice is sweet.

‘Guilty as charged,’ Eddie replies, raising up his hands as though the waitress is holding a gun.

‘Then you must want tea?’ she says, smiling, shielding the sun from her eyes. The black apron tied around her

waist shows just how tiny she is. Bridie feels like a barge beside her.

‘Far too hot for tea,’ Eddie says. He asks for an orange juice, and Bridie orders another lemonade. When the waitress returns, she places their drinks and a small bowl of crisps between them. As she bends down, her name badge falls off and clatters across the patio. Eddie is out of his seat in an instant and picks it up.

‘Alora,’ Eddie reads in quiet wonder under his breath as he passes it back to her.

Once she is gone – disappearing inside the shady doorway of the café, he says it again: ‘Alora.’

Bridie watches Eddie staring into the middle distance. ‘Eddie?’ she asks.

‘I’ve never heard a prettier name,’ he says. ‘Alora. If I have a daughter, that is what I shall call her.’

‘Alora Winston,’ Bridie says, and she smiles. She can picture the name written in large, messy pencil on the front of an exercise book, she can hear it called on Prize Day at school, hear it ringing out across a ballet class. And she can picture, too, the little girl holding the hand of Eddie and the young woman who wins Eddie’s heart. Alora’s mother. She’ll have long red hair. Pretty eyes. They’ll live in a sweet house with ivy on the outside, a middle name for their first and only daughter. Alora Ivy. They’ll have knitted throws on their mismatched sofas, books all yellowing on shelves in every corner. They’ll retire to the sea, and Eddie and his red-haired bride will look out on the water with their ageing eyes, but they’ll always see each other as they did when they first met.

And perhaps Eddie will remember Bridie, who by then

will be just a lost acquaintance, and feel gratitude that she let him be free to find this love, to have the adventure of a lifetime. And Bridie will look the Father in the eye when he reads her her last rites and takes her final confession, because she was true to her word, honest to the promise made all shaky on a grey afternoon in 1954. She will have done what’s right. That’s all that she could have done. And Eddie will be happy. And Bridie will have been good.

God grant her the strength to release him.