‘You don’t have to eat it,’ she said, ‘but I have the mother gene in me. It’s a terrible habit of wanting to fill people up.’
For a brief second Trinity’s beautiful Celtic eyes welled up and Lou was afraid she’d struck a painful nerve.
‘I’m sorry, lovie,’ she said. ‘Did I say the wrong thing?’
‘No. No,’ said Trinity. ‘No. Thank you. It’s nice being mothered. I miss it.’
Lou felt the ache of wanting to look after her. She had been very careful not to probe too much but she wondered was this the right time to find out why Trinity was running away and what she was running away from?
‘Is everything all right with your mum and dad? Do they know you’re here?’
Trinity hesitated. ‘I’ve told people that I’ve come away for a few days, but they think I’m still with my ex,’ said Trinity. ‘Pete.’
‘Do they like Pete?’ said Lou carefully.
This Pete could be a total nightmare. Not that they’d heard anything about him, but what else could make a girl suddenly run like that, and want to leave the country?
‘Is he ...’ Lou paused. She wasn’t quite sure how to put this. ‘Is he looking for you?’
The Catastrophe Creator in her head was already setting the scene with an enraged hulking boyfriend looking for Trinity. This happened often enough, she knew. Outraged exes were getting more and more dangerous.
‘Doubt it,’ said Trinity, nibbling the toast. ‘I left him a note. That’ll be enough. He’ll be fine.’
‘He won’t come looking for you though?’ Lou probed carefully.
‘Oh no,’ said Trinity. ‘He won’t. It’s over. He’ll understand.’
‘OK,’ said Lou doubtfully.
She was pleased the girl was eating breakfast, at least. Trinity was too skinny.
Stop, Lou told herself firmly. Trinity was not her personal project to fix. It was enough that they were there together.
‘Would you like to take a little walk around the island? It apparently only takes fifteen minutes, but there are so many historical sites and cafes that nobody ever manages to do it that quickly.’
‘I’d love to,’ said Trinity.
Outside, it was still cool, but the sun was creeping up the sky and the internet weather app was forecasting a day far hotter than usual for the time of year. Even at nine, the streets of the old city, as the island was called, were busy with people walking quickly, tourists heading off for a spot of sightseeing, local people in work clothes, children too small to be in school scampering along. There was a sense of busyness about the place; women hurried along with bags full of groceries and fruit, while old men stood in arched doorways enjoying a coffee and a cigarette with their neighbours, setting the world to rights. Lou found herself looking at the faces of the people she passed who seemed like locals – looking for someone she resembled.
Now that she was here, she felt an awareness that her real father was here on the island. Could he be walking around nearby?
Would she see him and instinctively know him?
She both wanted to see him and yet was anxious about it, something she couldn’t explain to Toni.
‘We should bottle this air and sell it back home,’ said Trinity breathing deeply.
‘Yes,’ agreed Lou automatically.
She consulted the map she’d found in the apartment with details of both Syracuse and Ortigia’s sites. ‘I’m not great with maps, but I think if we go round this corner and take that street, there are some ruins.’
They trailed around in the growing heat, until Trinity said she needed a gelato. Under her sunhat, she was pale despite the sun.
‘You sit and I’ll get you one,’ said Lou, and Trinity perched on the edge of a tiny fountain with a pretty fish flashing its stone tail at her, scales beautifully delineated by the sculptor, while Lou joined the queue.
If Trinity had been one of Emily’s friends, Lou would have been careful about getting too involved because young people did not necessarily want older people, or their parents’ friends, trying to ‘fix’ them. It was insulting, the implication being that the young people did not know how to handle their own lives.
Lou looked back at herself at twenty-three. She’d long since given up on college and for a moment, she felt a frisson of loss at not having gone. Lillian had needed her but was that the right thing to have done? To have given up her dreams of a third-level education because her mother had needed her. Wasn’t it also a little selfish of her mother to have asked Lou to do so...?
