“I just don’t understand how a working-class bloke from Manchester ended up here, in the hills of Tuscany,” Theo presses on. “Do you have any idea?”
“I’m sorry, we don’t,” says Luisa. “Wilf was a very private man. He always refused my requests to do a dig at the castle, saying he didn’t want strangers coming and going. And he didn’t like it if we asked personal questions. So eventually, we stopped.”
“There are a few photos around the house,” I say cautiously, “and they’ve all got another man in them. I don’t suppose you know who he is?”
I spot Callum and Mabel looking up from their plates.
Luisa puts her glass down. “I think in the past Wilf lived here with a friend—a special friend.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Do you mean a boyfriend?”
“Yes, I think so.”
So hewasgay!
“You don’t happen to know this man’s name?” I ask, my heart rate soaring.
“I’m afraid not. When we arrived here, he’d already died and Wilf was on his own. But people in the village mentioned him. I know he was Italian.”
Arnaldo!That’s him!
Suddenly, I’m desperate to know more.
I remember the letters hidden in Wilf’s old bedroom. There’s no way I’m going to be able to stop myself reading them now.
But what if they contain something shocking? Or something I wouldn’t want to know? I’ll just have to wait for the right moment, when no one else is around.
Inside the house, the timer on the oven gives a ping.
I get up to take out my lasagna.
Chapter 11
“Surprise!” Theo bellows.
I’m not sure how to respond. I know how I’d like to respond but I’m not sure I should. How did I end up here?
The kids have been awful all day, almost as if having to behave themselves for Luisa and Stefano used up their stock of goodness—and they only had badness left. Callum and Mabel have done nothing but snap and snarl at me and all three of them have fought like rats in a sack. Theo suggested they needed a runaround to expend some energy and I was so tense and overwrought I thought I’d benefit from the same. But he wouldn’t tell us where we were going—he insisted on keeping it a surprise. And he’s just parked up outside a football pitch.
“What do you think, gang?”
I hate football: that’s what I think. It reminds me of how I didn’t fit in at school, of how the other boys mocked me, of how I disappointed my dad. And it makes me feel like a failure. But I’ve never dared tell Theo as he loves football. Whenever he’s asked, I’ve just said it isn’t my thing. I don’t want to disappoint him, too.
Now isn’t the time to spell out my feelings: the boys are that excited they’ve already bounded out of the car and are flinging open the gate and running onto the pitch.
“Woo-woo!” squeals Archie.
“This slaps!” gushes Callum. I don’t understand what that means but can tell it’s positive.
Mabel, however, looks less positive. “Dad, it’s a football pitch,” she states, flatly.
“Yeah, I thought we could all have a game,” Theo says, turning off the engine.
Shit, how do I get out of this?
Mabel angles her head as she thinks it over.
“Youlikeplaying football,” Theo coaxes. “Or at least that’s what you always say. You love it when we watch the Lionesses.”
