He went off and came back a few seconds later with a glass in one hand, a thimble-sized goblet, filled to the brim with pink liquid.

A liqueur or medicine?

Clotilde knew Natale must be just over fifty now, but she still thought he was handsome. Even more handsome than he had been at twenty-five. But disillusioned. Melancholy. Almost cynical. She left the terrace to join him in the villa. A photograph of Aurélia hung above a sideboard with a sliding glass door that revealed a collection of egg-cups, rolled-up napkins and tea caddies. Clotilde stared at the photograph. Aurélia was smiling. A designer dress. Tanned skin. Plucked eyebrows.

‘I’m not disappointed, Natale, it’s just I would never have believed it.’

‘Neither would I.’

He turned round. His thimble was already empty, and full again. Clotilde had spotted the bottle this time, and it wasn’t on the shelf of the medicine cabinet.

Myrtle liqueur, 40º, Damiani Cellars.

Clotilde couldn’t leave it there. Not after all these years.

‘Natale …’

Too late to retreat. She looked away from the picture of Aurélia.

‘Natale, I can tell you now, it’s all in the past, as they say. But you know, all those years, even if we never wrote, phoned, or contacted one another, you were still always there with me. I’m not talking about the summer of ’89 when I was fifteen, our boat trips, Revellata Bay. I’m talking about afterwards. My life afterwards. You were the proof that everything is possible, Natale. A kind of compass, with a fifth cardinal point, somewhere among the stars.’

His answer cut through the air.

‘You shouldn’t have thought that, Clotilde. I didn’t deserve it. That’s what life is about, seeing your teenage idols ageing in front of your eyes. Seeing them disappoint you. Seeing them die in front of you.’

At the point I’m at, Clotilde thought, I might as well empty the old toy-box right down to the bottom.

‘It doesn’t matter, I was still in love with you.’

Another thimble emptied.

‘I know … but you were fifteen years old.’

‘Yes. And I collected skulls. I dressed like a zombie. I loved ghosts.’

Natale merely nodded, so Clotilde went on.

‘You were in love with my mother. It drove me mad. If only because of my father.’

Natale walked over to Clotilde. He seemed to hesitate before resting a hand on her shoulder.

‘You hated your mother too much. And you loved your father too much. Logically, it should have been the other way around, but at fifteen you didn’t understand.’

Clotilde recoiled. The implication behind Natale’s words had taken her by surprise.

You didn’t understand.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing, Clotilde. Nothing. There’s no point shedding light on old shadows. Let your parents rest in peace.’

Natale turned his eyes away from the Mediterranean to look towards the mountains, losing himself in Capu di a Veta.