‘Look, Clotilde, straight ahead, towards Arcanu. If you continue towards the sea in a straight line you reach the rocks of Petra Coda. Thirty metres, the highest of them. When I was your age, all the young Corsicans, the ones who in your view are afraid of the water, used to dive into the sea there. And, I must admit, your grandfather was the most daring of them all. My record was twenty-four metres. As the years passed, I began to jump from lower and lower heights. Fifteen metres … ten metres … But I still swim as often as I can, from Petra Coda to the Cave of the Sea-Calves, sometimes as far as Punta Rossa. Giving up the sea is giving up on one’s youth, nothing less.’

‘Then say yes, Papé, say yes for the dolphins, say yes for my youth, say yes just for me.’

He smiles.

‘You never let go, do you, my dear girl? You would make a good lawyer. I’ll think about it, I promise. Just give me some time.’ He laughs. ‘Everything is going too quickly. Women are changing, and doing the talking.’ He laughs again. ‘Dolphins are changing, and talking to fishermen. I don’t want my Corsica to change as quickly as that …’

‘Then it’s yes?’

‘Not yet. There’s one more question, a question that you haven’t mentioned, my darling.’

The shadow of the cross stretches over us.

‘I don’t know if this Natale Angeli is trustworthy.’

*

*     *

He murmured between gritted teeth.

You had it, Papé.

You had your answer.

And it wasn’t the one you expected.

44

21 August 2016, midday

‘You missed the sunrise, Clo. You were more of an early riser when you were fifteen.’

Cassanu sat leaning against the wooden cross, in the shadow of the seven-metre monument pitched at the top of Capu di a Veta. He looked like a pilgrim who had carried his cross to the roof of the world in order to plant it there, dig his hole in front of it and bury himself.

Clotilde didn’t rise to her grandfather’s comment. She had just climbed for four hours and was getting her breath back, startled that this old man, at almost ninety years of age, had been able to climb all this way, while she was completely exhausted.