He parked so that the terrace shielded them from anyone looking out from the house but before she could take a breath to say she understood his anger Durante popped out of the olive grove. Cheerfully, he rapped on the window. ‘Piero, save me. The women are painting flower on everything.’ He roared with laughter and Zia and Piero had little choice but to quit the car and follow him up the terrace steps where Lucia and Ursula sat surrounded by ceramic tiles painted with a proliferation of rosebuds, grapes, sunflowers and strawberries.

Ursula’s blonde forelock was pinned out of her eyes, the way she wore it when tattooing, and her eyes were alight. ‘Zia, isn’t this grand? Lucia’s been showing me traditional designs. The techniques are simple but the product looks amazing. Look, if you take a square brush and dip one corner in the sienna and one in yellow, then press … twist … and flick, you get these awesome streaky sunflower petals. So textured! You know, we could sell tiles like these in The Lanes back in Brighton.’ And she burbled on about angled brushes, square brushes, round brushes and liner brushes and cheapo tiles that cost around four pence.

From the corner of her eye, Zia watched Piero murmur to Lucia and Durante and the three slipped off indoors.

Smothering a sigh, she made admiring noises while Ursula demonstrated how to create a bunch of grapes with a wine cork dipped in purple paint but most of her attention was on the low hum of voices drifting out through the salon doors. After ten minutes, she touched Ursula’s arm. ‘Piero brought Lucia and Durante news about the people trying to buy this place. Maybe we ought to clear up and clear out?’

Ursula glanced around, apparently surprised to find that they were alone. ‘Oh, right. I’ll wash the brushes but leave the tiles because they’ll take days to dry. Will you bring mine to the UK with you when you drive home?’ She began swishing brushes and wiping them on rags. ‘You don’t fancy going down to Montelibertà for a late lunch, do you? I want to look at the ceramics shops again and get ideas.’

‘Sure,’ Zia agreed. ‘A lot of the shops close at one so we can fit in lunch before they reopen at three-thirty.’ Piero showed no sign of reappearing. A dragging weight of unhappiness settled on her to think of him giving up the kitchen he’d made, the tiled stairs, his peaceful workshop amongst the trees … the bedroom with the broad terrace beneath the stars. It was all so Piero.

‘Shall we get off now, then? I’ve left Lucia a thank you note.’ Ursula proudly displayed a tile ornamented with Grazie mille, Lucia in swirling writing and a rosebud in the corner.

Jolted back to earth, Zia managed a smile. ‘OK, Arty Pants. Let’s go.’