She was on the verge of protesting; Joe had spent more than enough money on her and she really didn’t need any more clothes but the shopping street was a safe place. Within the air-conditioned branches of Marella and Luisa Spagnoli she could pretend she was in Florence or Milan. Anywhere but here.
‘Yes, that would be lovely… thank you. It’s so kind of you. I really am lucky.’
‘It’s only what you deserve,’ Joe said.
She bit down on her lip. It wasn’t true. She didn’t deserve to be happy after what she’d done.
* * *
Amy started packing the uneaten sandwiches into a Tupperware box. Jack wasn’t much help, hovering around picking things up and putting them down again with one newly tattooed hand, the other still clutching the poem he’d read. He’d shot up in the nine months he’d been away, the hems on his grey suit trousers now hovering around his ankle bones. The little brother who’d once followed her around like a puppy was all grown up. In a few months, he’d be starting university. Grandpa would have been so proud to wave him off but now he’d never see the man Jack would become. He’d never see Jack graduate or what Amy did with her life. All their family celebrations, their milestones, their triumphs and their tears would take place without him. Grandpa would never meet his great-grandchildren; he wouldn’t be sitting in the front pew when Amy’s dad walked her down the aisle.
Dad closed the last of the church hall’s blinds. ‘That was a good turnout, considering.’
‘I’m glad they’ve all gone. I couldn’t listen to another person making excuses for not coming to see him when he was still alive,’ Mum said. She cast a last look around to make sure nothing was left behind.
‘Grandpa said it didn’t matter that I missed his birthday, we were going to celebrate later on.’ Jack’s voice cracked. ‘But that was just talk. I should have come back.’
‘I didn’t mean you, love. He was proud of you, saving up and going on your adventures,’ Mum said, holding the door open for Dad, who was laden down with the leftovers.
‘You all heard the vicar. When Grandpa was about my age he was fighting in the desert. He was captured in Libya, made a prisoner of war. What’ve I been doing? Backpacking on the gap-year trail with a load of trust-fund kids. I’m supposed to be flying back out on Monday, but it all seems so pointless.’
Amy thought of the wallchart, the half-used box of red drawing pins. ‘You’ve got to finish your trip; Grandpa would want you to.’
‘I don’t know…’
‘Amy’s right,’ Mum said.
‘He left you his Africa Star medal,’ Dad said, as if that somehow settled the matter. He locked up the hall, posted the keys back through the letterbox.
‘Maybe Amy should take my place. How about flying off to Costa Rica? You could go rafting down the Tarcoles River dodging crocodiles.’ Jack grinned.
Amy tried to laugh. She didn’t want to think about what she was going to do next. She kicked at a small stone on the church path. It landed on the verge amidst a scattering of damp confetti. Christenings, weddings, funerals: life would go on but it didn’t feel right.
‘Amy hasn’t decided what to do yet,’ Mum said.
‘I’ll be signing up at the temp agency, I suppose.’ She touched the coin necklace nestled beneath her dress.
‘Why not just go to Italy?’ Jack said. ‘Grandpa can’t tell you stories about where he grew up but that doesn’t stop you going there.’
‘By myself?’
‘The Italian riviera is very safe. Alassio is a seaside resort,’ Mum said.
‘It could still be dangerous.’ Jack smirked. ‘Amy might get blinded by a spray of sand in her eyes or choke on a giant ice-cream.’
She gave him a punch on the arm. ‘Very funny!’
‘So, what about it, Amy?’ Dad said, putting down a cool box and pointing his key fob at the car door. ‘Your brother’s idea isn’t so bad. You can take a few weeks out before you come back and look for a job. I know Lance will have left you a little sum of money and Mum and I can sub you the airfare until probate’s settled, can’t we, Eileen?’
‘Of course we will. It will do you good, love. I don’t like to think of you stuck in a call centre or some such all day when you’re already feeling down.’
‘I dunno,’ Amy said. She climbed in the back seat. They drove the short route home in silence. Amy studied the Order of Service even though she knew the hymns and readings off by heart. Mum had chosen a beautiful picture of Grandma and Grandpa’s wedding for the back page, Grandpa with a tie pin and a carnation in his buttonhole, Grandma in a homemade two-piece. On the front, a smiling Grandpa sat in a striped deckchair on last year’s daytrip to Brighton Beach. Grandpa had bought them all ice-creams; Amy had tried paddleboarding and waved at him from the sea. Photographs and memories – that was all she had left of him.
Mum unlocked the front door. Amy left Dad and Jack unpacking the boot. She walked into the open-plan living-dining room. Beyond the glass sliding doors, the little robin Grandpa loved to talk to sat expectantly on the branch of the apple tree. The shed stood empty. She and Grandpa would never sit there working on his memoirs. But Jack was right. Amy didn’t just have memories and photographs. She still had the story Grandpa had planned to tell. A story that started in Italy.
7
The piazza was surrounded by bars and restaurants, the table where Stella and Joe sat shaded by a great palm tree. To one side stood a fine dove-grey building, its façade enlivened by trompe l’oeil shutters and balconies. Behind Joe’s head, swifts circled the old cathedral’s campanile. They’d been shopping all morning but now, having dropped their bags at the hotel, Stella was glad to stop for lunch. She breathed in the scent from the pot of basil that helped weigh down the cheerful red and white tablecloth.
