Knackered to the bone – of course she was. But happy, nonetheless. No, happy wouldn’t do – a notch above happy. Exultant. Knackered, but exultant. Elated? Elated.

 

Most of Europe is undeniably drab and dreary, rarely disposed to the glee of an overt sunshine wrapped up in a shroud of plain, gleaming sky. But they don’t seem to suffer from that malaise here. The plane glides through a profusion of the yellow-blue stuff and pierces absent-mindedly through a string of stray clouds.

 

Nearly there. She sifts through her thoughts to try and bring some degree of coherent order into them. For the crest of the pile she quickly picks up adulthood. True, the passport boasts her uninspiring age quite liberally, but she looks older anyway, doesn’t she? And if adulthood isn’t flying for nine hours on her own after waving goodbye for good to the forlorn shanty where bad luck had her confined since birth, what is? One has to call that grown-up material, for certain.

 

The stop in Milan still lingered as a nagging nightmare. She’d hated every single minute of it, let alone the realisation of how rapidly all those weeks of studying Italian had come to nothing. Surely in Sassari people would speak clearer and quieter and nicer. But most of all she was far from impressed at being pulled and dragged for no obvious reason through the entrails of the airport, led from Herod to Pilate for hours in a row. In the end the passport did all right, just. She cried when the plane took off for Sardinia. Adults do cry.

 

It was placid now, the flight. Not so earlier, before Milan, when a wave of turbulence determined to haunt the aircraft for an endless spell. There was this serene old lady sat by her who was quick to notice the panic flushing in gushes from her skin and mercifully took her hand into hers in a tight and soothing grip. Better now, child? Storms like these can be awfully frightening sometimes, but it’s fine now. She seemed to know of storms, and of Europe, and of Italy. Once or twice a year, one daughter in Stresa (no, she’d never been, no), beautiful place, Stresa, by the lake (not as lovely as Sassari, though). A photo from the daughter’s wedding (white-clad sugar-castle builders, not into the marriage thing, but she concedes something that could pass for a smile). A you-look-very-young-child remark threatened to veer the conversation off track. She quoted from her two-hundred-dollars-per-extra-year passport. Not that young. Gone is the storm and she’s again engrossed in whatever floats by the window, though she doesn’t mind the old lady’s hand still caressing hers. With storms of sorts hanging around it could still be handy.

 

The metallic voice of the captain informs the crew of the imminent landing. She checks her watch and mentally calculates the time zone difference. She’s exhausted, utterly, yet also aware of the fact that from the airport it won’t be one hour. Less perhaps, she was told. All she really wants is to be allowed to sleep for a bit after getting there, though at this stage she’s not totally convinced that would be possible. Not that this is troubling her. A dazzling new outlook looms ahead, bounteous and prodigal as only a place like Sassari can offer. She’s seen pictures – definitely underrated. Sod the photos. It’d better be the coolest city in the world.