‘What I really enjoy is the chance to be creative, to add decoration,’ Leo continued. ‘Some people ask for scrolls, flourishes, fruit, flowers. Of course, I sketch a design for them to approve before I start carving.’
‘That sounds fun. I do a bit of pottery. Well, I did when my grandpa was alive, he had a potter’s wheel and a little studio in my mum’s garden shed.’
‘And do you not make things now?’
‘It doesn’t seem the same since he’s gone. I can’t get motivated somehow. Not just the pottery, everything seems so much harder. He only died a few weeks ago. Sorry, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.’
‘Sorry? The English say this word a lot, usually when there is nothing to be sorry for. You miss your grandpa, that is natural. Maybe that is the reason you are here in Italy.’
She nodded and took a sip of her coffee.
Leo leant forward, one hand resting on his chin. ‘He had a connection to this village?’
‘Perhaps. He spent his childhood in Italy, at the seaside, in Alassio. The family returned to England in the late 1930s. I don’t know what connection he had to this place, but there was a postcard of Leto in the memory box he left me.’
‘Then it must have meant a lot to him. Did he come back to Italy after the war?’
‘No, I don’t think so, but he went off on all sorts of adventures; he found it hard to settle after being demobbed. He even drove tanks for the British Army in Yemen for a time. He settled down in England eventually after meeting my grandma and finally had a child when he was in his fifties.’
‘That was your dad?’
‘No, Grandpa was my mum’s dad. My dad’s parents were quiet and conventional: holidays on a canal boat, gardening, knitting, playing dominoes.’
‘I never knew my other grandparents, only Nonna Fernanda. I spent hours in her little house during the summer holidays. Anyway, that is enough about me.’ He popped the last piece of tart in his mouth.
Amy hastily downed the dregs of her coffee. ‘I should let you get to work.’
‘Yes, I must. I have a deadline for something important.’
She reached for her purse.
‘No, I will go in and pay. We will call it compensation for scaring you this morning.’ His eyes sparkled.
A vision of him half-naked came unbidden. Her cheeks burned. ‘Thanks, that’s kind of you. I think I will stay here for a few minutes more, take a look at the map your nonna gave me and make a plan for the day.’
He stood up. ‘See you, Amy,ciao!’
She sat and watched him walk down the street, the sun brightening his mid-brown hair. Once he was out of sight she unfolded the map, tracing a route with her finger. There were plenty of streets and paths to wander down, a couple of churches to explore. But she was pretty sure there was nothing she would find in Leto that would provide a link to her grandfather’s past. The small village would probably turn out to be another dead end, like Alassio. But there was something about this place. She didn’t know why, but she was in no hurry to leave.
16
Stella’s daughter’s face filled the phone screen, her mouth now open but no words spilling out. Lauren, who’d happily give a speech to a room of five hundred advertising executives, had been shocked into silence.
‘I killed him, Lauren,’ Stella repeated. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘Yes, yes, of course I did. But I don’t understand what you’re saying. If you’d killed your papà, you would have been sent to prison. You wouldn’t have gone swanning off to England.’
‘Swanning off?’ Slunk off more like, unable to live with the mother who blamed her for her husband’s death, unable to comfort her grieving brother and sister, unable to face the curious stares.
‘Mum…’ Lauren prompted. ‘You can’t just drop a bombshell like this and not tell me what you’re going on about.’
The shop’s doorbell jangled.
‘I can’t talk right now,’ Stella said. ‘We’ll speak tonight, after you’ve finished work, after I’ve tidied up here.’
‘Make sure you ring me.’ Lauren snapped back to her usual brusque self. ‘I don’t like the thought of you stuck in that village by yourself, brooding over whatever you think you did or didn’t do in the past.’
‘I promise I’ll call you.’ Stella switched her phone to silent. Even though she longed for Joe to ring and tell her he’d acted in haste and was on his way back, his call – if he made one – would have to go to voicemail. She couldn’t cope with Lauren interrupting her day with more questions. Stella already had another customer to deal with.
