The Ghost Variations by Damian Lanigan

Author:Damian Lanigan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Weatherglass Books

7

I’m not awake till ten. Elise isn’t there, so I open up my iPad, looking for Esther again.

May 12th 2014

Dearest E

Helsinki in May: nippy. I love the people up here, although they mention Sibelius a lot. I actually took the trouble to learn a piece of his this morning, and will play it as an encore: I anticipate that the ladies will be exceedingly excited by this and that my performance will be met with a great festooning of fisherman sweaters and undergarments made from various bits of reindeer.

This is, of course, unfair: Finnish culture has much more to it than Sibelius, knitwear and antlers. For instance… I’ll get back to you.

What a contrast with Bolzano! Where, as we know, the weather is never too warm nor too cold, and the precipitation is sufficient to surround the city with plains of protuberant fertility, and the culture is not only ‘vibrant’ but that perfect marriage of tradition and modernity, whereby the old ways are refreshed and invigorated by the new, extending the deep connection with the past far into the future, and the salads taste like pizza, and the pizzas are as healthy as salad and the wine doesn’t give you hangovers, and coffee and buns are totally free by mayoral decree.

Which brings me to mottos… how about:

‘Oh, fair city!’

I guess in Italian that would be ‘O bella citta!’, which I like for its simplicity and which puts me in mind of an anthem of some sort:

Oh fair city, in which we reside

You are unmatched in qualities

Graceful and free

Your turrets so lovely

And trams so on time

Your piazzas so sunlit

Your parking so ample

And your toilet facilities so clean

Maintained, as they are, by Marco

Who is cheerful in his work

And not depressed at all

Despite the fact he cleans the toilets

For a living.

Your tourism is manageable

And brings wealth, not congestion

And people bake you a torta

At the faintest suggestion

Look, it’s a first draft.

I can’t believe that The Schedule has granted me ten whole days off when I get back from the US. It feels like an impossible luxury. I was thinking of one place I’d like to take you: Langdale, in the Lake District. I know you’ve never been up there, and we must. It’s pure nostalgia for me, and I’ll be very proud to show you the places I know. I used to go twice a year when I was small – once with school, once with my Uncle Joe, who was a primary school teacher up there and a real Man of the Fells. My parents used to put me on the train every July and he’d meet me at the other end and greet me with some incomprehensible shepherd phrases, feed me on bread and cheese and take me tramping around the Lakes. Listen: Dungeon Ghyll, Pike o’ Stickle, Thorn Crag, Eagle Crag, The Lion and the Lamb, Great Gable, Glaramara, Blencathra.

You sort of met him. He came to the wedding but left before the reception. He was taciturn, as is apt, and

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