‘You are doctor?’ His expression is serious, not a hint of mockery.
‘Perhaps one day. But now we are here. So I am a nurse. Sometimes.’
‘And your sister is ill,’ he says. ‘And your roof is bad.’
He doesn’t ask again why we are on this isolated island, doesn’t question me about why we haven’t gone to the hospital, and I’m filled with gratitude for the way he simply places the chicken coop next to the wall and begins to climb.
It wobbles. I grab the wood and try to hold it steady. He flashes a quick grin at me, then pulls himself up onto the roof, lying flat along the solid section and working his upper body up to the broken part.
‘Careful,’ I call.
He nods, then eases himself further up. I watch him inspecting the hole, using his arms to measure the gap. He cranes his neck and looks into the bothy.
He will be able to see Con in the single room below, lying in the double bed pushed into the corner. He will be able to see the small stove, the battered table, how the damp has stained the walls and swollen the wooden floorboards so that they bow and buckle.
I shift my weight from foot to foot, wanting to call that he should come away, that he shouldn’t look at other people’s things, at our things.
He pushes himself back down to the edge of the roof. His expression is grave. ‘She is sleeping,’ he whispers.
‘Yes.’
‘She is thin.’
‘Yes.’ Again, that pain in my throat.
‘You can lift the wood for me? Is heavy.’
I nod, hoist each piece of wood upright and pass it towards him. My arms shake a little but I hold each piece steady while he reaches for it. He moves around the roof easily and seems to feel no fear, while I constantly imagine him falling, the smash of his body hitting the earth.
He uses the wood to hold down the piece of sailcloth that has flapped uselessly in the wind throughout the winter. I watch him lay each piece gently, as quietly as he can. Sometimes he cranes his neck to look down at Con, then glances at me and nods. She must still be sleeping.
He is just laying the last piece of wood when I hear him give a cry, as if something has startled him.
From inside the bothy, screaming.
On the roof, Cesare scrambles to get down. I watch, as his boot slips, as his hands slide off the slates. I watch as he rolls towards the edge of the roof, his body gathering momentum. His hand clutches for a slate, misses.
For a moment, he is suspended in the air.
Then his body falls from the roof.
He lands at my feet with a sickening thud.Cesare
The shock of the impact travels through his body, jolting his organs. For a moment he feels no pain. Then, when he tries to straighten, there is a searing bolt of agony in his skull.
Dorotea is there immediately, her hands on his arm as she helps him sit up.
‘Can you hear me? Where does it hurt?’
He nods, puts his hand to his forehead. Wet. And his hand is covered with blood.
From somewhere, there is screaming and, for a moment, his mind lurches, because a woman with red hair is standing in the doorway of the bothy, hands clapped over her mouth. And he cannot understand how Dorotea can be holding his arm and also watching him, crying out in terror. He worries that the blow to his head must have dislodged something inside his skull, and now he is seeing double.
‘Enough, Con!’ Dorotea snaps, and the other woman stops screaming.
And then he remembers. Of course: her sister, ill in bed.
She is still staring at him with dread, and he holds up his hands, palms outwards, to show that he means her no harm, but she jerks away and he is aware of the blood on his palm and, mio Dio, there is a whooshing inside his skull, as if someone is blowing a bellows somewhere in his brain.
‘Scusi,’ he says, because he cannot summon the English word. ‘Scusi.’
‘Can you stand?’ Dorotea asks, and he manages to nod, to follow her into the little bothy, which is barely warmer than it is outside, despite the small fire burning in the grate.
He tries to protest, tries to tell them both that he is well, really, that he doesn’t want to cause any trouble, that he will go back to the camp.
But Dorotea gets a cloth and a jug of water and sponges his forehead.
He grits his teeth so he won’t wince and Dorotea dabs carefully with the cloth. Her face is fixed in total concentration, her focus absolute. With her face so close to his, he can see the delicate skin of her eyelids, which makes him think of white rose petals in water. He can feel the stir of her breath on his cheek. The smell of her is sweet. He thinks of the pear trees outside his house in Moena.
He swallows.
‘Grazie,’ he murmurs, then finds the English words. ‘Thank you.’
‘What is he doing here?’ asks Con. ‘He was staring at me through the roof.’
‘He was mending the roof,’ Dorotea says, without looking at her sister. To Cesare, she says, ‘It is not as bad as I thought. Forehead wounds often bleed a great deal. Here, hold this cloth against it. Are you hurt anywhere else? You can move your fingers, your toes?’
She is brisk, her movements certain but gentle. Under her instruction, he wiggles his fingers and toes, bends his arms and legs, stands and stretches – this sends a shooting pain through his side.
He groans, puts his hand to his ribs.
Dorotea says, ‘May I look?’
He nods.
She reaches out and slowly lifts his
