‘He seems so strong, George. But he relies on her for everything, he trusts only Marina to guide him. To keep him steady. I do not know what he will do without her, because she is the strong one. So, you will help him, even though it is difficult, because you are very young and loss has not yet been a part of your life. It is something you will learn. But today, let us be happy like Marina is happy, for all the hopes she can see in you. This is very precious.’

‘Sometimes things look different from the outside,’ Camilla said, nettled by Claudia’s sermonising, so wide of the mark. Her analysis simply confirmed George’s ability to deceive, and Marina’s willingness to play to perfection the role of the sympathetic diplomat’s wife, to draw a veil of illusion over reality. ‘Sometimes they are not what they seem and you only find that out when you get close to them.’

‘No, my dear. I think it is more often those inside that cannot see, because they are too young or too old, or too close to the picture, and because they have suffered. I think that is what happens more often. I hope you will forgive me for my words, but she is my friend and I love her. Ah – here she comes, and she is beautiful, no?’

The Santini house was on a lake, half an hour from the city centre. The countryside basked in the special gold light that Camilla always thought of as pure Italian. The sky looked startlingly blue through the framework of bare branches that opened out on to the landscape, revealing ancient fields and imposing estates, usually hidden by summer leaves. They swept up a driveway of cypress trees to a house of perfect proportions set in a sweep of formal gardens with a flight of stone steps to the main entrance. Inside, Camilla’s heels tapped a rhythm on the marble floors as she followed her mother and Claudia through several large reception rooms that seemed more like museum exhibits than a family home.

‘Impossible, this place of Franco’s family,’ Claudia said, flinging out an arm in a gesture of love and exasperation. ‘It is a struggle every day, the preservation of these old walls and the ceilings, and the battle with damp and peeling plaster and window frames and stones. Sometimes I shout at Franco, I tell him to let it all rot so that we can live in a modern apartment in the city, and I can spend my days shopping in the Via Veneto or playing bridge and having coffee with my friends. But then I walk in the garden and I am in love again.’