‘It hasn’t been wasted time,’ I said. ‘We can still sell the villa; maybe we can ask a bit more for it now the gardens have been cleared. I don’t particularly want Signora Romano to have it, but if she wants it so badly…’ I tailed off. ‘It’s two steps forward and one step back, Joe. All the hours I’ve spent cleaning and washing and now I’ll have to start again and everything’s in a worse state than it was before. And it’s not just that… every time we leave the villa, we don’t know what we’re going to find when we come back. I’m worried about the kittens, I’m worried about everything. It’s too much. I’m tired. It’s not how I want to live.’ I paused again. ‘I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to the kittens, Joe, and something will happen if we stay.’ Another pause. A gulp of breath. ‘I don’t want anything awful to happen to you either.’

Joe could have argued. He could have pointed out that I was the one who’d persuaded him to give it a go, to keep the villa. He could have reminded me of all my grand ideas but he didn’t do any of those things.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘I understand,’ Joe said. He sighed. We both stared at the ground. ‘Well, that’s it then,’ he said. ‘It’s over.’

Ten minutes later, a motorbike drew up outside the villa. It was followed by a convoy of cars and vans, a truck stacked with scaffolding poles. The vehicles arranged themselves in the parking area, around the Alfa Romeo and Fiat Two and people got out.

Joe opened the gates. There was Fredi and a woman I didn’t recognise, a couple of teenagers in apprentices’ overalls, Liuni, and his sister, the electrician, a cashier from Eurospin and other people, people who knew Joe, who had known him – his childhood friends, friends of the family. Here was an older man in paint-spattered jeans and an old shirt; only when he came to kiss my cheeks did I recognise Avvocato Recupero, the lawyer.

Dozens of people were here, at our villa, all of them smiling and explaining in slow, meticulous Italian who they were, how they knew Joe and how they were going to help us. Word of the fire had got out and the Sicilian community had been called to action. They had come to help us fix the villa.

They were doing this for Joe. They said it was for us, but it was Joe they loved. I was so proud of him. I only wished Daniel was with us, to be part of this, to see how respected his father was, how people liked him and cared for him.

I wished our son had had the chance to see his father in this light.