Chapter Six
Giles
“Do we have to do it here? With all these people?” Marcello says as he looks around him. We’re standing at the Marble Arch entrance to Hyde Park and it is, admittedly, very busy. But it won’t stay this way.
“We’ll be running away from the crowds,” I point out and hold up my right arm so I can get my watch ready to track our run. We’ve completed a short stretching routine and I can tell from the frown on Marcello’s face that if we don’t do this soon, there’s a good chance he’ll chicken out completely.
“And we’re not doing your nine-kilometre route?”
“Nope. We’ll go for six kilometres today.”
“Six?!” Marcello splutters.
I raise a hand to his shoulder and pat him reassuringly. “You’ll be fine,” I say. “And if you’re not, we’ll just walk what we can’t run.”
“And we’re not stopping for coffee and cake on the way?” Marcello's smile and tone are teasing.
I drop my hand and wag a finger at him. “That can be your reward at the end,” I say. “Are you ready?”
“I wouldn’t say that but—”
“Then let’s go!” I push the button on my GPS tracking watch and stride off. If Marcello thinks it’s odd that I’m wearing two watches – a vintage silver Rolex on my left and my sports watch on my right – he hasn’t said anything, and I’m not about to bring attention to it.
“Wait! What the fuck!” Marcello exclaims and I hear the gravel on the path beneath our feet crunch as he sprints to catch up with me.
It’s a bright sunny day but it rained overnight so the air is still cool at this time of the morning.
Had it been up to me, we would have met earlier to take advantage of lower temperatures and fewer crowds but Marcello looked positively crestfallen when I had suggested we meet at eight this morning so I compromised and agreed to make it ten o’clock.
Besides, that gave me enough time to do my usual Saturday morning cleaning ritual.
Just as I told Marcello, the crowds have thinned out as we jog further into the park.
I’m moving at a slightly slower pace than I usually run at but I’m very conscious that this run is not for me, but for Marcello.
Not that I’m not benefitting from it. Having some company for my run and doing it in the relatively flat Hyde Park rather than around hilly Hampstead Heath, which is closer to my flat in Belsize, is going to mean I will likely have enough energy in my legs to go to the gym this evening.
It’s not like I have anything better to do.
“Any chance we’ve already done a kilometre?” Marcello asks, noticeably already out of breath.
I glance at my watch. “Not exactly.”
“Go on, depress me. How far have we run?”
“Just under three hundred metres.”
He curses loudly in Italian.
“I don’t know what that means but I’m guessing it’s not ‘I’m having the time of my life’.” I chuckle and slow my pace a little.
“Oh, no. No you don’t. Don’t slow down.” Marcello pushes past me. “I know you’re already going a lot slower than you usually do so please don’t humiliate me further.”
“I’m not trying to humiliate you. I’m trying to make sure we go at a pace that’s comfortable for you.”
“A pace that’s comfortable for me would be lying prone in my bed watching Great British Bake-Off replays on my phone all while hooked up to an IV of espresso.”
“Oh, you’re a GBBO fan? Me too!”
“After the way I’ve seen you devour our chocolate croissants that doesn’t surprise me in the least,” Marcello says and I catch a faint smile on his lips when I turn my head his way. Well, that feels like progress.
“What can I say? Delicious baked goods and fine British innuendo about soggy bottoms and tight dough balls is a winning combination.”
“And as an Italian café manager, I feel it’s my duty to point out that dough balls should never be tight!” Marcello scoffs and I can’t tell if it’s because he’s breathless or making a point. I choose to believe the latter.
“I’ll take your word for it.” I laugh again and then find myself smiling as we continue to jog on in silence.
We pass other runners, a few in pairs like us but most of them on their own, and we navigate our way around young families pushing buggies or wrangling toddlers away from picking the flowers that occasionally line the path we’re running down.
I find myself full of questions I want to ask Marcello. About his Italian heritage. About the café, his business. About whether he downloaded a dating app or not. About what he meant the other day when he said living alone didn’t work out well for him.
But I fear this would be overbearing. Furthermore, Marcello is visibly and audibly short of breath and it wouldn’t be fair to make him talk at length about anything.
Besides, these things are none of my business.
And it would do me well to stop thinking about Marcello more than what he is.
A training buddy. A running partner. A sort of pseudo-friend who I’m connected to thanks to Chloe and Radia, and because of the proximity of our respective workplaces.
Marcello hasn’t come here today to answer twenty questions.
He barely wants to be here, full stop. It’s not going to help if…
And just like that, I’m overthinking things like I always do. I sigh on one of my exhales and am relieved when my GPS watch beeps and vibrates. I look down at it.
“One kilometre down,” I say and wait for Marcello’s relief or surprise or gratitude.
“Is that fucking it?” He pants. “Porco dio!”
“Am I going to have to learn Italian to find out what exactly you’re calling me when you swear like that.”
“I am not calling you anything. But very perceptive because I am absolutely swearing.”
“But one kilometre down is good,” I reassure him. “And I can see we’re nearly at The Serpentine which will bring a change of scenery.”
“Oooh, a change of scenery. That’s exactly the same as a cappuccino the size of my head and a door-stopper-sized slice of red velvet cake.”
“We’ll get to that,” I say. “After.”
“After I’ve died. Because then it will taste really good,” he huffs.
“I didn’t have you down as the sarcastic type.”
“I’m not normally. But I’m also not normally getting dragged around on a run I really don’t want to do.”
“You do know you’re going to have to run further than this in the triathlon,” I say and regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. I doubt they’re going to help.
My fear is justified when a low, gravelly groan tumbles out of his mouth. It’s followed by more Italian words I don’t understand.
“That’s it. Signing up to Duolingo as soon as this run is done.”
That changes Marcello’s tune and he huffs out a quick laugh. “If you do start to learn, I can guarantee you’ll be better than me within a few months. I only know curse words and chat-up lines.”
“Chat-up lines? I won’t learn those on Duolingo. Teach me some. I’ve always liked Italian men.”
Silence falls between us. And I mean silence, which should be impossible in this part of central London. It’s like the birds stop singing. The pedestrians around us stop talking, and the traffic that has been consistently rumbling along Bayswater Road has come to a sudden standstill.
“I mean, some Italian men,” I add and make it even more awkward.
A few more seconds of tense silence stretch out between us and I’m not brave enough to look at Marcello to see if he’s cringing at me, or worse, looking suddenly afraid to be running at my side again.
Here we go again, on the direct train to Station Overthinking, no stops on the way.
“Marcello,” I venture and I wince at myself when my voice cracks a little. “I didn’t mean—”
Suddenly a boom of deep laughter ends the silence. “Are you saying I don’t do it for you?”
“I’m not saying that,” I splutter. Shit. That’s not the right thing to say. “Fuck. I mean, I used to have this crush…”
I’m silenced by a big slap on my back that propels me slightly forward. “I know what you mean, man. The whole Italian Stallion thing. I get it. I hear it all the time. I mean, I used to. But I know I’m more of a geriatric Italian donkey right now so…”
Marcello drifts off and so does the sound of laughter and ease in his voice.
“New rule,” I say, and I too find my inhales and exhales a little trickier. “No self-deprecating allowed. I happen to believe a positive mindset is essential for training and seeing gains so I’ll be keeping an eye on that as well as your split times.”
“Split times?”
“How fast you run each of these kilometres,” I explain.
“Bugger. For a second I was hoping it was related to banana splits.”
“Banana splits! Whatever happened to them! Do you think kids even eat them these days?”
“Probably not. Too busy on their phones.”
“True story. You know, I’m so happy I grew up without social media and smartphones.”
“I’ve never really thought about it, but I guess you’re right. How old are you, by the way?”
“Forty-five,” I say and I don’t miss how it feels like the words have barbs as they leave my mouth. I’m not ashamed of my age – I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished at work, and how I look at this stage in my life – but I’m not at complete peace with being this old.
“I’m forty-two.” Marcello inhales sharply. “But honestly, I feel like I’m still nineteen most days. Well, most days when I’m not being forced to run around Hyde Park that is.”
I can’t help my shudder. “You couldn’t pay me to go back to nineteen.”
“Why not? All that youth! Endless energy for well, everything. Hangovers that you could shake off with a couple of paracetamol and a bottle of Lucozade. Erections that pointed to the ceiling, even when you’re standing up? What’s not to like?”
“My dad died when I was nineteen,” I say and I’m not surprised when Marcello falters next to me. We’re approaching the end of The Serpentine and I indicate with my hand for us to take the path that keeps the water on our right.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” Marcello eventually says.
“No, I’m sorry. That wasn’t a very cool thing to do, to just drop it into conversation like that.”
“I doubt there’s ever a cool way to say that your dad is dead,” Marcello adds.
“Well, it gets even less cool when I tell you that my mum is also dead.” My tongue lies heavy in my mouth after throwing that into the mix. I don’t know what’s come over me.
“Jesus, Giles, I’m so—”
“No, it’s okay,” I cut him off. His voice is too soft. And I daren’t look at him to see what I always fear I’ll see when I share this revelation: pity. I don’t want anybody feeling sorry for me.
“What… What happened?” he asks and I’m a little taken aback. People don’t normally ask that so quickly after learning this about me. We briefly separate to jog opposite sides around a multi-generation family in front of us. When we reconvene I start to talk.
“My mum died when I was four. An ectopic pregnancy, so I guess I also lost a sibling at the same time.” I huff out a bitter laugh as I always do when I tell this story, although it has been a while since I felt so low sharing it, almost as if a new fresh wave of old, old grief has washed over me.
“So it was just me and my dad until he died from a heart attack. It happened out of nowhere. He never smoked. Ran marathons. Was fitter than I’ll ever hope to be. ”
“My God, Giles. That’s not fair,” Marcello says and the words are so short and simple and yet they nearly bowl me over. Because they’re exactly the words I used to scream into my pillow in the days after Dad was gone. Because it wasn’t fair. Dad was all I had. Why did he have to go too?
“And to have that happen when you were so young.” Marcello whistles through his teeth. “That must have been awful.”
“It wasn’t a walk in the park.” I bark out another quick laugh, this one more amused. “Or a run in the park!”
“Oh, no, don’t do that! Don’t you use your trauma to make me feel better about this torture you’re putting me through.”
I extend my elbow and nudge him, grateful for our conversation’s change in direction. “It’s not torture. Admit it. And you’ve just done your second kilometre.”
“Wonderful. Just double what I’ve already done to go.” Marcello groans.
“You know there is one way we can make it go quicker,” I say realising that this is exactly what I need. To chase that wave of grief away, to get my head back on straight, and to maybe stop Marcello’s moaning once and for all.
“What’s that?”
“We can go faster!” I say and then increase my speed, leaving Marcello behind me
“Oh fuck you, Giles!” Marcello shouts but when I turn to give him a shit-eating grin, I see him pumping his arms and legs trying to catch up with me.