‘Now that we have so many Southerners up here,’ Alessio said to a friend, ‘there will be a big demand for dresses to fit squat ladies. That is the shape they are, these women from Naples and Sicily. Look at them.’

His friend thought about this. He was probably right; people from the south of Italy tended to be shorter than those from the north, but that was due to diet, was it not? Once they moved to the north, to take up jobs in prosperous towns like Reggio or Modena, their children would grow to be much taller. A good diet could make all the difference. It was diet, not genes.

Alessio did not believe this. He had a deep prejudice against people from the south, whom he believed to be responsible for all of Italy’s woes.

‘Look at Naples,’ he said. ‘Look at the proportion of the population down there who are involved in criminal activities. Do you know what it is? I’ll tell you: thirty per cent.’

‘Surely not?’ said his friend. ‘Surely not one in three people.’

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ said Alessio. ‘Just think of it. Every third person in Naples makes his living from crime.’

Whatever his prejudices against Southerners might have been, Alessio got on well with the customers who came into his clothes shop. The squat ladies who came to buy outfits for weddings and christenings were also cheerful and polite, and he even found himself enjoying the company of the Southern assistants whom he had taken on. These girls were all involved with young men, whom they spoke about endlessly. The young men had names like Salvatore or Pasquale – ‘Typical names from Naples,’ muttered Alessio. ‘Look at the names in the newspaper reports of the trials in the criminal courts. Salvatore this, Salvatore that. They’re the ones who commit all the crimes in this country. Typical!’

Fabrizia was used to these views from her father. She had heard them all her life – but did not agree with them. She rather liked Southerners; she liked the way they talked, and she liked Southern cuisine. She had heard about corruption and the Mafia and the ongoing economic problems of the Mezzogiorno, as Italians called the south, but these did not interest her very much. ‘Nobody’s perfect,’ she said to her father. ‘There’s been corruption even in the Vatican, hasn’t there? No, don’t shake your head like that. What about your precious Christian Democrats? When they were in power what did you have? Honesty? Hah!’ 40

Alessio did not mind hearing these views expressed by his daughter. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t care what your political views turn out to be, just as long as you don’t marry one of those people. That’s all. Don’t end up marrying a man from Naples, a Neapolitan. I couldn’t bear that. I really couldn’t.’

At the age of twenty-three, when Fabrizia had finished her course at the University of Parma, she came home to help Alessio with his shops. She proved to have a good head for business, and within two years they had acquired a further three shops. These shops also sold clothes: one specialised in teenage clothing, and played loud music at its entrance; one stocked children’s outfits and the third sold clothing for work – waiters’ outfits, maids’ skirts and the like. All of these businesses thrived, and Alessio and Fabrizia became more and more wealthy.