Page 38 of An Italian Wedding Adventure

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‘A mountaintop wedding is the stupidest idea I have ever heard!’

‘You don’t mean that,’ came the crooning response from several feet above her.

‘Don’t tell me what I mean!’ Sophie snapped. Her fingers ached and sweat dripped from her forehead. ‘You know Reshma is advertising this as a special package? “Adventure weddings”?’

‘I think you mentioned that.’

Sophie leaned her helmet on the thick cable bolted into the stone and closed her eyes, but she could still see the sharp drop on the inside of her eyelids, even though she knew better than to look down. ‘What will the next couple want? A bungee ceremony? Jet skis?’ The rock was jagged under her bare fingertips – good for grip, she remembered Andreas telling her years ago. But that didn’t help her find her missing courage. ‘Did you know a couple got married underwater? They were keen divers. Get your PADI licence at the same time as your marriage licence. Reshma could advertise that! Can you dive?’

‘Mmhmm.’ She knew that patient tone from Andreas, but she hated to think what opinion he had of her, freezing up on a basic via ferrata.

‘Why would someone want to climb up here to getmarried?’ she continued, venting her frustration.

‘We’re not up there yet.’

‘Oh God, do you think I don’t know that?’ Her voice sounded shrill even to her own ears. ‘Why are you so calm?’

‘I’ve taken a lot of people on vie ferrate before, Fini. Only a handful of times we haven’t made it, and usually that was because of the weather.’ His voice was smooth and slow.

Whether he was purposefully mirroring her words about weddings from a few days ago, she wasn’t sure, but it felt easier to get married than to find footing on the rock.

But then she’d already failed at marriage once and despite her panicked words, she didn’t want to give up on this via ferrata. It annoyed her that Andreas knew that.

The rainy weather had given way to bright sunshine that day. Andreas had insisted on setting off early and they’d walked nearly an hour, clambering over rocks, to reach the bottom of the route. For all Andreas’s insistence that this was a popular climb, it had felt as though they were the only people for miles in the scrubby forest, the red-and-white way markers their only company, although the galleries and hides from World War I hinted at the darker history of the mountain.

Then they’d reached the bottom of the via ferrata. Sophie had managed to scramble up the first part that was little more than a steep walking trail, but as soon as they’d reached the initial vertical section – where she now clung to the cable – she’d lost her nerve.

The lake was so far below her, the cliff so steep, she could have been flying – or weightless. But she was acutely conscious of her mass, of the vortex of gravity that seemed to suck her in when she looked down. She was clipped into the safety cable. Andreas had taught her painstakingly – both back when they were together and again that morning – to unclip one carabiner at a time at each bolt to ensure she always had at least one strap tethering her to the steel.

All she had to do was grip the brackets and climb, but she was frozen with fear.

‘Remember Cristallo di Mezzo?’ Andreas called down cheerfully. He was waiting for her, casually hanging off the rock, unconcerned that her knees were shaking and her hands clutched the cable so tightly, they hurt.

‘I remember the ladders,’ she said, her voice weak. Ladders over nothing, suspended from rocky outcrops.

‘I was thinking about when you got to the top.’ She could hear the smile in his voice. ‘You yelled like an Amazon at the top.’

‘A battle cry,’ she snorted, searching for a foothold in the jagged rock and finding nothing. ‘Andreas, I was a lot younger then,’ she said with a sigh.

‘And you’re even tougher now.’

She looked up and narrowed her eyes at him. She was tougher than he realised – inside. She’d lost a lot more than just a dodgy husband and a slippery mountaineer boyfriend and she was still here to fight to enjoy another day. But her body…

‘My muscles aren’t.’

‘I know,’ he said, still smiling. He was so damn tranquil up a mountain. ‘But this is an easier route than the Marino Bianchi. You’ve got the muscle for it.’

‘I can’t believe this is an easy route,’ she grumbled.

‘Allora,’ he said expectantly.

‘Well what?’ she prompted him peevishly. ‘Don’t you mean, “Avanti, hopp hopp”?’

‘I’m trying to be gentle with you for now.’

That ‘for now’ was ominous, but she slung her leg to a higher notch this time and hauled herself up. Her safety straps were level with her waist, so she unclipped one and hooked it into the cable above the next bolt, repeating the process with the second.

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