‘First love.’ Mum sighed.
An odd look passed over Dad’s face. He screwed up his eyes to study the coin more closely. ‘What year did your dad’s family come back to England, Eileen?’
‘Sometime before the war. A lot of English families moved back here in the thirties. Must have been 1937. No, I remember, now, he told me it was 1938, he would have been around sixteen. These keepsakes must have been of some girl he’d left behind.’
‘I don’t think they can be. This coin wasn’t minted until 1941. At least two or three years after they left Italy.’
He handed Amy the necklace back; the metal was warm. ‘I suppose he could have found that old lira coin in a flea market over here and made this anytime.’
Mum chewed the edge of her finger. ‘That doesn’t explain that old postcard of the village or why he kept these things for you. But I can tell you one thing: I never saw your grandma wear that coin around her neck.’
6
The train was pulling into an underground station. The sign on the platform spelt out Sanremo, all in one word, the Italian way, but Stella didn’t recognise it at all. She remembered the train tracks running along the coast, a station painted pink, a view of the sea.
Joe helped bump her suitcase down onto the platform. They followed a crowd of travellers to the start of a moving walkway.
‘This is so strange; it looks so different.’
‘They moved the station inland years ago. Didn’t you realise?’
‘I had no idea.’ There was no reason why she’d keep up with the news from Liguria. She hadn’t set foot in the place for more than forty years. She hadn’t even gone back for Mamma’s funeral. She’d only been twenty-one when she’d heard the news. And she knew she wouldn’t be welcome. Why would the mother who hadn’t wanted to see her in this world want her hanging around like a spectre as she made her way to the next? And Stella could not face the stares and whispers, the judgement of the villagers. She couldn’t bear the accusing looks on her brother and sister’s faces and to hear them spell out loud what a terrible thing she had done.
‘Watch your feet!’ Joe grabbed both suitcases. The travelator was coming to the end and there was another ahead of them. At last, they stepped into the ticket hall. Outside, a line of taxis stood waiting.
‘I’d like to walk,’ Stella said. She needed the fresh air, the chance to focus on her surroundings, not the thoughts in her head.
‘If you’re sure… It’s not far to the hotel but you seemed a bit tired on the journey.’
‘I’m fine. I think I recognise this street.’
‘I guess you must have been here a hundred times.’
‘Hardly ever.’
‘But your family lived just a few miles away. You can’t have spent all your time in your village when you were a teenager. There wouldn’t have been much to do.’
‘I don’t know about that. There was always something going on: a visiting theatre company, a dance in the village square. And every village around has its own food festival. The snail festival was one of the best.’
‘You’re not serious!’
‘Deadly. Food is almost a religion here. And of course we had the saints’ days, the parades and the village band. Anyway, my parents didn’t like me and my brother and sister to get the bus down to the coast. I guess they felt there were too many temptations.’
‘Makes it sound like you grew up in the 1950s, not the eighties!’
‘That’s the way it was.’ Sanremo with its nightlife, its tourists and its fancy shops had only been a bus ride away but for her family it was as foreign as Madrid or Berlin. Or the moon. But she knew it would sound ridiculous if she tried to explain.
‘No wonder you upped and left. You must have been longing to stretch your wings.’
‘Isn’t that the Tourist Office over there?’ Stella said quickly. ‘We could do with a proper map.’
They picked up a few leaflets and a city plan with all the sights numbered and colour coded. She hadn’t wanted or needed to soak up any culture when she and Gino had roared into town. They hadn’t needed to visit this or that or eat fancy meals. They had been happy just to be together, to escape their families for a while.
Joe wheeled both cases past the great church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, palest green decorated with white stucco trim like icing on a wedding cake. The colour and style were typical of the big churches in this part of Liguria but the wide tree-lined street that led to the hotel felt more like Paris. Couples strolled past hand in hand; waiters attended tables and chairs arranged under glass canopies. Snatches of conversation reached her: English, Italian, German, none of the Ligurian dialect of home. She could breathe more easily.
They entered another wide street, this one pedestrianised, lined with upmarket clothing stores.
‘We’ll come shopping tomorrow morning. I’ll treat you to a couple of outfits,’ Joe said.
