Lorenza joined me, took my cigarette from me, put it out and passed me a joint she’d just rolled. For several minutes we shared the pot and the wine in silence.

“When I was a little girl I sometimes stopped and listened to my heart and thought the beating was the footsteps of the Lord of Time.”

“The Lord of Time? Was that something you’d read about or seen in a cartoon?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I’d listen to his footsteps – in other words, the beating of my heart – and expect they would stop at any moment and the Lord of Time would appear and say that I had to make three wishes. I absolutely had to be ready to make them immediately, because otherwise terrible things would happen – none of the wishes would ever come true, the Lord of Time would stop walking, I wouldn’t 200hear his footsteps any more, and time and the world would disappear.”

“Disappear?”

“Yes. The salvation of time and the world depended on my ability to make three wishes as quickly as possible. It seems strange, but it’s not at all easy. You always have the impression they’re the wrong ones. Either too big and impersonal, or too small and wretched.”

“What wishes did you think of?”

“I wavered between all sorts of things. I want to always be with Elisabetta – my best friend at the time. I want Mum and Dad to stop always quarrelling and for Dad not to walk out – something that happened a lot when I was thirteen. I want to become a famous children’s writer, with a big villa by the sea, right on the beach. I think that came from an American film I’d seen where there was a woman writer with a villa on the beach.”

“Up until what age did you think about the Lord of Time?”

“I had a dream. He was there even though I couldn’t see him. I felt his presence. I knew he was coming, and I knew he was something halfway between the Scarecrow and the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, the first book I remember reading. I had to make the three wishes.”

“Did you succeed?”

“No.”

“And what happened?”

“I woke up. Feeling very sad. Since then I haven’t heard the footsteps of the Lord of Time. Less than a month later I became a young lady, as my grandmother put it.”

She stopped speaking and gave me a kiss, with a tenderness that wasn’t like her.201

“Who knows how we’ll end up?” she said. She let a few seconds go by, then continued without waiting for me to answer. “Anyway, all this” – she made a vague gesture that took in the sea, the night, but also the wine, the pot, the two of us, everything – “nobody will ever take it from us. It’s ours for ever.”