La Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (IP)

My knuckles, skin the colour of bone, grip the column much more tightly than my feet do the wet marble. A hysterical smile has been hurled onto my face by a savage gust. In the background terracotta roofs spatter the vista with delicate antiquity and beauty.

My laces suddenly serpentine, encircling my shoes and malevolently daring me to step towards the edge. I cling to the cupola and make my way round, a vision of my elder years, shaking, afraid, guided by your hand.

You, skipping around me, laughing at my terror, my torrent of words, of jokes, of descriptions of my fear, my coping with this height - the height that you embrace for the sights and memories it gifts you.

The other brave souls at the top of the world with me look round. Those who speak English laugh along with you, one of them says something I don't hear that makes you laugh so brightly that a gap in the clouds opens up to let it return home. I never found out what they said, you had forgotten by dinner, so all I have left is the echo of your song.

You, taking my camera so that 'you can look at it properly later, given you aren't now' and snapping from the precipice, staring into the jaws of gravity and singing 'cheese!' You, holding my hand again, chilled by the lack of blood (which seems to all be in my head of a sudden, can't think why...) as my legs manically shake. 'I am safe, I am happy, I am safe, I am happy', my mantra still fails me.

And you landing a kiss on my cheek as you point the camera at us both without looking and I try to look at anything other than my fragile mortality and the treacherous rain.

The picture is with us forever now, my fear, your joy, the rooftops of Florence. On later inspection they are a delight, I have to admit. But all I remember is your voice and the marble, the warmth and the chill that both were in my heart.