Travel focuses the mind
Wherever they went, people stared. They were such a contrasting couple. Helga was pale, with soft, Icelandic features that just missed being pretty. But men liked her. Carlo was unmistakably Italian, very dark and thin as a whippet. Like many Italians, he looked vain, though in fact he wasn't.
They met in Tamanrasset, in the middle of the Sahara Desert. She had stopped there southward bound, as people crossing the Sahara do, to revitalise herself and her car – a battered 2CV, pastel blue with one mustard-coloured front wing.
He was on his way back to Europe, ferrying someone else's Land Rover. After a few beers, he offered to turn round and accompany her across the southern Sahara. He made her laugh and she liked his teeth, so she accepted the offer.
After the Sahara, they went on to Thailand and then Australia. They never fell out seriously, perhaps because it had been implicitly understood from the outset that the relationship was not possessive. Their sexual interactions were, like the other things they did together, companionable rather than passionate.
In Fremantle, Carlo met and fell for a leggy Swedish blonde. So without a hint of rancour on either side, he went off to Tasmania while Helga boarded a cargo ship for Europe.
They might never have met again, had it not been for the photograph. As soon as Helga saw it in the travel agent's window in Ilford, she was overwhelmed with the desire to go there. She didn't know where it was or what the funny pointy things in the picture were, simply that it called to her. Leaving her job was not a problem, because that's all it was: a job. So she sublet her little flat to a work-mate, bought the tickets, and took off.
What a disappointment it turned out to be. The giant anthills (or were they ancient Inca burial grounds?) that had looked so enchanting in the photo turned out to be smelly. And the wild, desolate place turned out to be full of overweight Americans called Elmer with camcorders and wives called Charlene. It was hot, sticky, fly-ridden, and she hated it. Suddenly, Ilford seemed desirable.
And that's when she saw Carlo, sitting outside a cafe, drinking beer. The sight of him brought a flood of relief that exploded into joy. Within the hour, they were in bed.
Afterwards, Helga learned that the leggy Swede had been escaping a disastrous early marriage and had soon become tedious. And – which surprised her – that Carlo had soon begun to miss Helga's cool Icelandic nature.
She asked him how he came to be there. He became uncharacteristically evasive, muttered something about being at a loose end, wondering where to go, looking for somewhere new. Said a friend in England, a travel agent, had suggested this place.
Then Helga remembered how much she'd told him, when they were freewheeling round the world together, about her adopted home town in England. Now, challenged, Carlo admitted that he'd traced her and followed her.
Dependency was the last thing she wanted, so she kissed him and left while he slept. He would never know why, but it did reinforce his belief that women are incomprehensible.
The ancient Inca burial grounds (or were they giant anthills?) were unmoved. They'd seen it all before.