There were tools to understand, muscles to strengthen, maps to read, rules to follow, and endless small decisions that had to be made before anything could happen.
By late summer, their equipment occupied half the hallway.
Two bicycles stood against the wall. Panniers were arranged in pairs. There were waterproof jackets, lightweight clothes, first-aid supplies, repair tools, chargers, water bottles, and carefully organised documents.
Claire inspected everything.
“You’ve packed three pairs of socks,” she told Oliver.
“That’s enough.”
“For three days.”
“We can wash them.”
“Suppose it rains.”
“Then they’ll get wet.”
“Excellent reasoning.”
She added three more pairs.
The night before departure, Oliver found his mother sitting on the edge of his bed, folding a sweatshirt.
She had already folded it twice.
“Are you scared?” he asked.
Claire looked up.
“Yes.”
He sat beside her.
“Of what?”
“Quite a few things.”
“Like cars?”
“Cars. Bad weather. Illness. Getting lost.”
“Dad has the maps.”
“Your father once got lost driving to a supermarket he’d visited for ten years.”
Oliver smiled.
“That was because the road was closed.”
“So he says.”
She placed the sweatshirt inside his bag.
“I’m also frightened of missing you.”
He looked at his hands.
“I’ll call.”
“I know.”
“Every day.”
“Probably not every day. Some days you’ll be tired or have no signal.”
“I can still try.”
Claire brushed a loose thread from his sleeve.
“I don’t need you to make impossible promises.”
He leaned against her shoulder, something he did less often now.
For a while they sat without speaking.
Then he asked, “Do you think Nonna will still remember me?”
Claire turned toward him.
“Oliver, why would you ask that?”
“Because she forgets things.”
His mother took a moment before answering.
“Your grandmother sometimes forgets small things. That doesn’t mean she’s forgotten the people she loves.”
“But what if she does?”
Claire understood then that the question had been troubling him for longer than he had admitted.
“People can change as they grow older,” she said. “Their memories can become less reliable. But your grandmother knows you. She asks about you every time we speak.”
Oliver nodded.
Claire placed an arm around him.
“And even if she did forget something important one day, it wouldn’t make all the years she’s loved you disappear.”
He considered that.
“She still calls me her little mouse.”
“Does she?”
“In Italian.”
“Well, you’ve never exactly been a large mouse.”
He laughed and leaned against her again.
Later, after Claire had gone downstairs, Oliver took a photograph from his desk drawer.
It had been taken six years earlier, when he was five.
He and his grandmother sat on the kitchen floor in Palermo, surrounded by flour. Teresa was teaching him how to make pasta, although the photograph suggested that he had contributed little beyond creating an extraordinary mess.
She was laughing.
Her face was turned toward him, and both her hands were covered in flour.
Oliver slipped the photograph into the small waterproof pocket of his bag.
He did not tell anyone.
They left London on a grey morning with low clouds hanging above the rooftops.
The street was still wet from overnight rain.
Claire stood at the garden gate while Daniel checked the panniers for the third time. Their neighbour, Mr Harris, had come outside in slippers to see what all the fuss was about.
“So you’re really doing it,” he said.
Oliver nodded.
“All the way to Italy?”
“Yes.”
MMrHarris looked at Daniel.
“Rather you than me.”
Daniel adjusted his helmet.
“That’s becoming a common response.”
Claire hugged Oliver.
He was aware of the neighbour watching, but this time he did not pull away.
“Listen to your father,” she said.
“I will.”
“And tell him if something hurts.”
“I know.”
“And don’t pretend you’re fine when you’re not.”
Oliver rolled his eyes.
“Mum.”
She kissed his forehead.
“All right.”
Then she hugged him again.
Daniel waited beside his bicycle, looking deliberately in the opposite direction.
When Claire finally released their son, she turned to her husband.
“Bring him home.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“I will.”
She held his gaze.
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
He kissed her.
MrMrarris cleared his throat and announced that he had better get back inside before his slippers dissolved.
Oliver laughed.
A few minutes later, the two bicycles rolled away from the house.
At the end of the street, Oliver looked back.
His mother was still standing by the gate.
He raised one hand.
She waved.
For a brief moment, he remembered Teresa standing outside her apartment in Palermo the previous Christmas.
Then a van approached from behind, and Daniel called for him to keep to the left.
Oliver returned both hands to the handlebars.
The journey had begun.
The first day’s riding was less romantic than Oliver had expected.
They encountered roadworks, traffic lights, narrow cycle lanes, and long stretches through suburbs that appeared much alike. Daniel was constantly consulting navigation instructions, and Oliver discovered that a loaded bicycle handled differently from the one he used around home.
By midmorning his shoulders ached.
At lunch they stopped in a small park.
Oliver sat on a bench eating a cheese sandwich while Daniel checked the route.
“How far have we gone?”
“Twenty-six kilometres.”
Oliver swallowed.
“Only?”
“Only?”
“It feels like a hundred.”
“That’s why we train.”
Oliver looked at the road ahead.
“How far to Palermo?”
Daniel showed him the estimated distance remaining.
Oliver stared at the number.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You’re the one who suggested it.”
“I know.”
“Still want to continue?”
Oliver finished his sandwich.
“Yes.”
They reached their accommodation that evening with sore legs and damp clothes.
Oliver ate an enormous dinner and fell asleep before nine.
Daniel called Claire from the hallway.
“How is he?” she asked.
“Exhausted.”
“Any problems?”
“Nothing serious. He’s already asleep.”
“And you?”
Daniel looked down at the grease mark on his trousers and the reddened skin around his wrists.
“I may have underestimated how much weight we packed.”
Claire laughed.
“You’re not going to tell him that, are you?”
“Certainly not.”
Before ending the call, she asked whether he was happy.
Daniel looked toward the bedroom.
Through the partly open door, he could see Oliver asleep with one arm outside the blanket. His son had left the little notebook on the bedside table.
“Ask me again tomorrow,” he said.
England gradually gave way to the Channel, and the first phase of their journey became an exercise in patience.
They followed quieter roads where possible, altered routes when traffic or weather made cycling unsafe, and learned that a reasonable daily distance on paper was often impossible in practice.
A heavy shower soaked them on the third day.
Oliver’s waterproof jacket kept his chest dry but allowed water to run down his neck. By the time they found shelter, his socks were wet, and his mood had deteriorated.
“This is miserable.”
Daniel leaned the bicycle against a wall.
“Yes.”
“I hate rain.”
“Fair enough.”
“Why didn’t we leave yesterday?”
“It rained yesterday.”
“Then last week.”
“It also rained last week.”
Oliver gave him a look of exhausted contempt.
His father handed him a chocolate bar.
They waited beneath the roof of a closed café while rain streamed from the gutter.
After several minutes, Oliver unwrapped the chocolate.
“Do you think Nonna has rain?”
“Probably.”
“She always says Sicily is sunny.”
“She’s advertising.”
Oliver laughed.
By the time the weather improved, they were both cold.
They rode slowly to their accommodation, changed clothes, and spent the evening drying their shoes with towels and newspaper.
Daniel recorded the day’s distance in the notebook.
Oliver examined the figure.
“That’s less than yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“Then we’re behind.”
“Behind what?”
“The schedule.”
Daniel closed the notebook.
“We’re not racing anybody.”
“But we said we’d do more.”
“We also said we’d stop when conditions made riding unsafe.”
Oliver frowned.
“What if we never get there?”
“Then we’ll decide what to do.”
“Nonna’s waiting.”
Daniel pulled out the chair opposite him.
“Oliver, listen carefully. Your grandmother wants to see you. But she doesn’t want you injured or frightened because you’re trying to reach her as quickly as possible.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Oliver looked down.
Daniel waited.
Eventually his son said, “I just don’t want to take too long.”
“Neither do I.”
Outside, a car passed through standing water, its tyres making a soft rushing sound.
Daniel opened the notebook again.
“We’ll record what we actually do, not what we wish we’d done. Some days will be good. Some won’t.”
Oliver considered this.
“Can tomorrow be a good one?”
“We’ll give it a fair chance.”
It was an agreement they would return to many times.
The crossing into France required another set of calculations, documents, and changing transport arrangements. Daniel checked the relevant requirements before travelling, and they allowed extra time for delays rather than assuming that having reached the coast entitled them to continue.
Oliver disliked the waiting.
He sat beside their luggage, watching travellers move past.
“Why can’t they just let everybody go?”
“Because people are trying to limit the spread of the virus.”
“But we aren’t sick.”
“We have no reason to think we are. That doesn’t mean the rules don’t apply to us.”
“Nonna’s in Italy.”
“I know.”
Oliver looked away.
Daniel did not try to persuade him that the situation was fair. It was not fair in any way that would satisfy an eleven-year-old, or most adults. Families had been separated, businesses closed, and people were losing far more than holidays.
He had decided not to use other people’s suffering to silence his son’s ordinary frustration.
Instead, he bought two bottles of water and found a place where they could sit.
When they finally reached France, Oliver looked at the unfamiliar road signs with renewed excitement.
“We’re really in another country.”
“Yes.”
“Say something in French.”
Daniel thought for a moment.
“Bonjour.”
“That’s all?”
“Would you prefer I recite the national anthem?”
“Can you?”
“No.”
Oliver laughed so loudly that a man standing nearby turned to look.
Their first French accommodation was a modest room above a small family-run establishment. The owner spoke limited English, and Daniel’s French was rusty enough to cause occasional confusion.
