‘That’s what I say,’ agreed Porredda. ‘It may be a fine place, but everything there has to be paid for in hard cash. I’ve heard all about it. They don’t keep food in the house the way we do, and, as everyone knows, when there’s no food in the larder no one gets enough to eat.’

Bachisia nodded. She knew only too well what a house without food was like.

‘Is it true or isn’t it, Dr Littlefoot?’

‘It’s true,’ he said, eating and laughing and waving his white hands with their over-long nails.

‘Maybe that’s why he’s become such a leech. A vampire,’ Efes Maria remarked, turning to his guests. ‘He won’t leave a drop of blood in my veins. By God, how they eat up money in Rome!’

‘If you only knew,’ sighed Paolo. ‘Everything is so expensive. A peach costs twenty pence. There, now I feel better.’

‘Twenty pence!’ they all echoed.

‘Well, Bachisia,’ Paolo said. ‘What happened after Costantino came back?’

‘As I said, he was away for three years.’

‘So he was working in the mines. Then he came back and made peace with his uncle.’

‘And then he met my Giovanna here and they fell in love. His uncle was against it because we were poor. So uncle and nephew started to hate each other again. Costantino worked for the Vulture but was never paid a penny. One day Costantino came to me and said, ‘I’m poor. I haven’t enough money to buy a wedding-ring or food for guests, and you’re poor too, so this is what we’ll do. For the time being we’ll just have a civil wedding. We’ll all work hard and save up enough money to have guests and then Giovanna and I will marry in church. Nowadays lots of people do this. We’ve decided we will too.’ So, the civil wedding took place quietly and afterwards we all lived together. The Vulture went into a rage. He took to shouting and swearing right outside our own front door, and he provoked Costantino everywhere he went. But we kept on working. After the grape harvest last year, while we were baking cakes for the wedding, the uncle was found murdered in his own house. Costantino had been seen going in to the house the evening before. He had gone to tell his uncle about the wedding and to try to make peace with him. Poor boy! I advised him to run away but he didn’t even try.’

‘Because he was innocent, heaven help him,’ Giovanna broke in.