Stella waved an arm. ‘It’s quite a mess: old farming equipment, wooden poles and olive nets.’
‘And a bed!’
‘Fernanda moved some old furniture in here that she couldn’t bear to get rid of,’ Stella said, her cheeks strangely flushed.
‘So, my grandpa couldn’t have slept on that.’
‘No, the chest and the bed and the other bits wouldn’t have been here then. Lance would have had to make do with some sacking on the floor. But it would have been dry and better than sleeping in the open air.’
‘Do you really think he was here?’ Amy said.
Stella ran her finger through a trail of dust on the windowsill. ‘We can never know for sure but it would make sense. And when he realised something had happened to Violetta and she wasn’t coming back, he probably made his way up through the woods and into the hills. I wonder how long he stayed here and how often they met. Gino and I used to come here to escape our families, it was our special place. We carved our initials on a pillar, I’ll show you.’ Stella paused, the nostalgic look in her eyes vanished; a huge smile split her face. ‘I’ve just had a thought. Some other kids left their marks here too but maybe they weren’t the only ones.’
‘Do you think…?’ Amy’s heart beat a little faster.
‘Oh, I hope so,’ Stella said. ‘It’s that pillar over there.’
Amy crouched down beside her.
‘There,’ Stella pointed. ‘G +Ssempre– that means “always”.’
‘How romantic,’ Amy said but she wasn’t looking at the graffiti Gino had left. Her finger was tracing a tiny heart scratched into the woodgrain, so faint she’d almost missed it. ‘Stella, look!’
‘I wish I’d brought my reading glasses,’ Stella tutted, sitting down cross-legged on the floor.
‘Here.’ Amy moved Stella’s hand.
Stella’s fingers traced the faint indentations. ‘L + V. I think we’ve found the last piece of the puzzle.’
Amy sat down beside her, not caring how filthy her shorts would get. ‘You really think it was them?’
‘Why? Don’t you?’
‘Yes, yes, I do.’ She could already picture them here: him tired, hungry, unshaven, too thin; her with a pretty smile and a parcel of smuggled food, willing to risk everything.
‘I wish he was here.’ Amy sighed. ‘If only I could speak to him one more time.’
‘What would you say?’ Stella said softly, absentmindedly drawing a letter G in the dirt.
‘I’d ask him if he still thought of Violetta every day, or whether she was just a fond memory. He always seemed so happy with Grandma but now I feel bad for her.’
‘Violetta was a beautiful young woman killed before she and Lance could meet again,’ Stella said. ‘And she almost certainly saved his life. But my guess is that after the war he blocked out those old memories and tidied them away with the postcards he left you and that broken heart necklace. A stiff upper lip you might call it, but that was the way so many people dealt with losing their loved ones in the war. But loving someone once doesn’t mean you can’t love again. I’m sure that nothing that happened between your grandpa and Violetta diminished the love your grandparents had for each other.’
‘You’re so wise, Stella.’
‘Not me.’ Stella laughed. ‘It’s taken me more than half a lifetime to realise my future is back in this village.’
Amy got up, swiping the dirt from her shorts. She didn’t want to think about the future. She’d rather think about Grandpa and Violetta and what happened in the past.
Stella clambered to her feet too, making a huffing sound. ‘Let’s go and find Gino. Then we’ll drive back.’
‘Sure.’ Amy shot one last glance at the wartime lovers’ initials – proof of Grandpa’s Italian adventure, eighty years before. She couldn’t wait to tell her family what she’d found. That up in the Ligurian hills, a little of Grandpa Lance lived on.
47
Domenico linked his fingers together. He shifted in Fernanda’s upright kitchen chair.
‘So, now you know everything,’ he said.
