The Last Concerto. Sara Alexander

in the breaths filling the space between them. She could hear his muffled tears in the dark. Her arms wound around her best friend.

      ‘I love you, Ra’.’

      ‘I want to help you. I’d be a shit if I didn’t. And the thought of you hating me for not doing it is worse than being abandoned by my best friend.’

      Alba held his hand.

      ‘Who will I talk to about Claudio?’ he asked.

      ‘You’ll write. Long letters. Gory details.’

      Raffaele’s smile was wan; the streetlamp caught its fade.

      ‘When do you need the money by?’

      ‘Late August.’

      He looked towards the darkened end of the street where it reached the piazza. ‘Do I look like a magician?’

      They joined the others in the piazza, eating gelato, watching the visiting clowns warble through a half-rehearsed comedy routine, which delighted the younger children of out-of-towners and left Alba longing for solitude. She slipped away from the crowd. Her body needed to move. She didn’t notice the houses fall away in her periphery, the darkened woods didn’t fill her with fear. The dunes rose before her after a while and at last the moonlit water. She sat down, feeling the sand peel away beneath her, tipping downhill. The waves lapped in rhythm like a sleeper’s breath.

      ‘You should be careful running about alone like that in a strange place, Alba.’

      Mario’s voice startled her. She twisted round to him. He was seated, far enough away to not have noticed him, cradling his knees, watching the water.

      ‘You should be careful scaring young women who need to be alone for a change,’ she called out.

      ‘Sarcasm is a killer. Probably the only fact in this world, I’d say,’ he replied.

      Alba watched his chin raise into a smug grin. His humour was more disarming than his aggression.

      She sat in defiant silence. So did he.

      ‘What’s all that stuff about music college they were on about?’ he asked after a while.

      Alba shook her head.

      ‘Alba, we’re alone now, no one has to know that we’re actually able to talk without a fight. You don’t have to let anyone see the fact that you can answer a real question with a real answer.’

      ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

      He retreated into her imposed silence.

      ‘I never forgot about that time, you know.’

      His tone dipped burned ochre. She turned to face him.

      ‘When I heard you play at Elias’s.’

      They looked at each other for a breath.

      ‘You going to pretend to forget?’ he prodded.

      She turned to face the water. They watched the curling laps disappear into the dark.

      ‘Never heard anything like it in my life.’

      He stood up. Alba waited for a further snide gibe to follow his unexpected admission. The water rushed up to the sand fighting the pull, then acquiescing. Her breaths followed their rhythm, an incessant seesaw of advance and retreat. Whose battle was to be won?

      She turned back.

      He’d gone.