We were planning most of the day for our holiday in Italy. We were going to go to Milan at first, but then we read guides from people who lived there and someone said how much they hated it and how you could do the whole city in a few days. After we decided on Florence, I watched a few videos on the galleries there and bought a book online about the renaissance.

The day before we had cycled down to waterbeach together and had a coffee in a small café where all the young people seemed to congregate. On route, Sarah complained about the length of the cycle, but other than that we were mostly silent. Partially because the path was narrow and it would have been tricky to cycle two a breast. But then, maybe we were also a little caffeine deficient which I find makes me introspective.

We had planned to work in the cafe, but after we got there, I realised I hadn’t brought a pen and Sarah’s laptop was out of battery. Instead, we talked for a while, about art and then Winnicott. Sarah mentioned her embarrassment forgetting his name in an interview she had for a teaching job.

After, we went looking for food as Sarah hadn’t had breakfast. She ended up buying some pancakes that were on offer and I got one of those tacky energy drinks marketed at teenagers. Then we sat for a while on a bench in a small park. We were talking vaguely about the future, about parenting. I said how, if I had children, I would encourage them to study. Sarah said she was worried she’d be the strict one, but then said, perhaps contradictorily, that she wanted to be very close to her children, in a way she wasn’t with her parents. She wanted to hug them and wanted them to confide in her.

At some point, a group of men walked past, wearing tracksuits, and I thought how out of place them seemed in this small, green village.

I didn’t know Sarah’s dad particularly well. He was shy and religious. Sarah told me he found my presence difficult – she was the oldest and I was the first boyfriend in the family. I remember my first meal there, which Sarah later told me was excruciating. I had assumed that was how it always was. Once, waiting in a car, before he was to drop us off, and while Sarah was still inside, we had a brief conversation about the church – perhaps our only real conversation.  

After it happened, she had to leave abruptly, and I got a text from her asking if I could drop round the things she had left at mine. She said wait ten minutes before you set off because the undertaker had just arrived. Arriving by bike, it was starting to get dark and I saw her white face in the front window. I went to move my bike round the side and she came out and unlocked the gate for me, taking the bag of her things I’d brought. Then she burst into tears and I held her for a while – she wasn’t wearing shoes and I was wearing doc martens with big heels so her head fit comfortably beneath my chin. I kissed the top of her head a few times and didn’t say anything.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” she said.

I had expected to get emotional. Cycling down, I almost had tears in my eyes anticipating the scene, but here outside, I just held her hands and looked tentatively into her eyes which were swollen and somehow grey. Everything enunciated then felt cliche, except the barest sentences. I remembered on Facebook, how someone I used to know’s partner had died. Their posts mourning them had been written with emogees and exclamation marks, and I had thought, despite myself, how inadequate that seemed.

“I put the mac in the bag,” I said, “although you’ll have to charge it up.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you want me to come in?”

“If you want, it’s just my family in there.”

“What would you prefer? Would it be easier if I came another time?”

“Yes, probably,” she said.

“OK.”

She looked up and we kissed on the lips and said we loved eachother, and then I cycled back home, feeling much lighter without the bags weighing me down.