Theo turns to Stefano and the hairs on his forearms catch the golden light. “Adam tells me you’re a farmer,” he says.
“Yes. I have a vineyard that is small but more big than this one. I also grow tomatoes. But mostly olives.” Stefano isn’t confident with his English and it comes out falteringly. He’s a short, stocky man, with black hair and weather-beaten skin.
“When is the olive harvest?” I ask.
“The end of October,” says Stefano. His expression hardens. “But this year will not be so good.”
“Oh no. Why?”
Stefano gives Luisa a long explanation in Italian. She turns to us and translates: “There’s a type of fly that punctures the olive and lays an egg inside. When the egg hatches, it eats the olive from within.”
I pull a face. “That sounds a bit grim.”
“We have a plague of these flies,” Luisa continues. “There’s a spray to kill them but we only used to have to spray twice a year—now we must spray four times a year. So it’s expensive. Also, it only works up to thirty degrees and climate change is making our summer much hotter. And olives need rain and it hasn’t rained much this year.”
“OK, so we won’t expect many olives,” I joke.
“Yes, but you’ll discover that Stefano is always pessimistic,” Luisa quips. “A typical farmer!”
We laugh and I offer around the Parmesan. “Have you two always lived in Montemagno?”
“No,” Luisa answers. “We’re from other villages in Versilia.”
“What’s Versilia?” asks Archie. I notice that his glasses are smudged with fingerprints and take them off to clean them on my shirt.
“This area of Tuscany,” says Stefano, his chunky arm leaning on the table. He has earth under his fingernails and scratches on his hands. “It is very special because it has both the sea and mountains.”
“We moved to Montemagno fifteen years ago when I got a job—a promotion—at the high school in Camaiore,” expands Luisa.
I position Archie’s glasses carefully back on his nose.
“How did that work for Stefano?” asks Theo. “I would have thought it’s difficult for farmers to move.”
“He wasn’t always a farmer,” says Luisa. “He used to work in logistics, for a marble distribution company.” She pops a cube of Parmesan in her mouth.
“Marble is very typical of this region,” explains Stefano. “Carrara marble is famous but there are lots of mountains in Versilia that are made of marble.”
Luisa swallows her Parmesan. “You’ll see it as you drive around. Some of the mountains have white tops, with chunks of marble sliced out of them like a cake.”
“Superb!” Theo looks at the kids. “Gang, are you taking this in?”
Callum kicks at the patio but says nothing.
“I’m not into marble,” comments Mabel, with the faintest suggestion of an eye roll.
“What’s marble?” burbles Archie.
Theo explains. “So why did you give it up?” he asks Stefano.
Stefano pauses. An emotion zips across his face but it’s too fast for me to read it. He looks to Luisa.
“He was not happy,” she answers. “He had a little depression. So we decided to make some changes to his life. And he’d always enjoyed working on the land.”
“My father was a farmer,” Stefano adds, rolling up a slice of prosciutto and driving it into his mouth.
“So we bought several hectares of land off Wilf,” Luisa goes on. “He needed the money and was selling some of his estate. That was twelve years ago.”
“And are you happier now?” I ask.
