‘That explains how these got here.’ Stella stooped to examine a pair of vases sitting on a wooden ledge. She reached inside one and plucked out a pack of playing cards, the edges splayed and curled. She blew off a coating of dust. ‘Now, these I do recognise. We played for hours.’
‘It took my mind off what I really wanted to do with you.’ He smiled.
She stepped towards him. ‘I was scared back then but now there’s nothing stopping us.’
His eyes strayed to the dilapidated bedstead. ‘Do you think there’s a chance that old thing will hold up?’
‘I guess there’s only one way to find out.’
‘I’m game if you are.’ He slipped his arms around her.
* * *
Stella’s head rested against the crook of Gino’s neck, his arm lay across her shoulders. How wonderful it was to lie here luxuriating in the feeling of being held by her first true love. The bedhead had rocked alarmingly, the dust had made them sneeze and the mattress’s springs had creaked in protest but none of that mattered. And judging by the look in Gino’s eyes, the pitting of her thighs and the stomach that remained stubbornly round since Lauren’s birth hadn’t bothered him a bit.
‘I dreamt of this,’ he said, snuggling against her.
‘Same here. I could stay here all day but I suppose we need to get up and go and check on the olive trees.’
‘Yes. I believe that is what I came here to do before you distracted me.’ He laughed.
‘Cheeky!’
‘Come on, then, we’d best get up.’ He dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder.
Reluctantly, she sat up, running her hand through her mussed-up hair. He stretched his arms over his head and gave a deep sigh. Stella swung a leg out of the bed; a minute later she was lacing up her trainers as Gino fastened the last button on his shirt.
He let her step out the door first and locked it behind them. She followed him down the short path past the water butt. The olive grove was beautiful, full of carefully spaced-out trees, their silvery trunks twisted this way and that. She’d never bothered to look at the trees properly before, never noticed the wild lilies growing around their trunks under the shade of their leafy branches. Her teenage head had been filled with nothing but Gino.
‘The trees have been well looked after for decades,’ Gino said. ‘They didn’t deserve to be neglected this last year, though it doesn’t seem to have harmed them.’
She squeezed a dark bud between her forefinger and thumb. ‘They seem to be growing okay.’
‘We should have a decent harvest this year, even with a rookie like me overseeing it.’
‘You’re doing it yourself? I thought you’d be looking to rent the place out again.’
‘It is a trial run to see if I have what it takes. Do you remember when we talked about going to Sanremo when school was finished, living by the sea?’
Stella laughed. ‘I had visions of days on the beach, nights spent playing blackjack at the casino. It sounded so exciting. How we were going to make a living never crossed my mind.’
‘I was as clueless as you, but back then Sanremo spelt freedom, the opposite of home. The people who lived there didn’t care whose saint’s day it was, let alone who dated who. But whenever we sneaked away here I couldn’t help thinking what it would be like to work the land, for you and me to have a little house in the village, tend the olives, maybe keep a few goats.’
‘You never said.’
‘I thought you’d think me dull or that I’d never break free of my mamma’s influence if we didn’t go away.’
‘But you moved to Alassio.’
‘Yes and even when I began a relationship with Gaia I didn’t want to move back to Leto; the village had too many memories. But working for a boss, even one as reasonable as mine, isn’t how I wanted to live my life. Ever since Mamma said the old tenants were moving on, I’ve been toying with taking over this place myself. It was what I wanted deep down all along.’
‘I wish my papà had known that. He viewed you as some wild tearaway who’d take me away to some corrupt urban existence. Maybe he would have welcomed you if he knew.’
‘It’s a nice thought but your papà’s distress was never about my prospects or where we might live. I was Fernanda’s son, that’s why he would never accept me.’
‘I never understood why it riled him so much. I know Fernanda and her sister were fascists, but Fernanda was a young child. Of course, her sister didn’t have that excuse but she wasn’t the only one around here to keep the faith with Il Duce. They say the butcher had Mussolini’s portrait on the wall until the bitter end. Why should Papà single out your family and still harbour such resentment for something that happened decades ago?’
‘Oh, Stella,’ Gino said. ‘Do you really not know?’
