Zia stepped towards the driver’s seat. ‘We weren’t both making the same decision but that’s not your fault and I don’t suppose it matters.’ She opened the car door and got in, throwing behind her, ‘Sorry again that you listened to my advice and it went wrong.’

As she turned the car and drove over the gravel, she was conscious of Piero, still unmoving, still watching.

‘So how did that go?’ Ursula asked tentatively.

Zia swallowed hard. ‘He just came to say goodbye.’

Ursula said, ‘Yeah, really?’ but didn’t argue. Best friends knew when you didn’t want to talk.

Chapter Fourteen

You let Piero distract you from the reasons you’re in Italy but now the dalliance is over, Zia lectured herself sternly as, two days later, she surveyed the interior of the cute apartment on the side of Lucia and Durante’s house.

Her things stood in the middle of a floor that needed sweeping. Lucia had planned to ask Fiorella to clean the apartment but Zia had protested it as inappropriate. As neither Lucia nor Durante would hear of charging rent, she’d insisted on refreshing the apartment in lieu and had also declared her intention of making herself useful at Bella Vista. With that in mind, she left the apartment as it was for now and returned to Villino Il Pino to help Lucia and Fiorella change the bedding and clean.

Lucia looked shocked to see Zia and her gaze flickered in the direction of Fiorella, who’d said only, ‘Buongiorno,’ and carried on wiping kitchen surfaces.

Zia murmured in English, ‘I’d like to help but is my being here … is it a problem?’ She was asking whether her proximity to Fiorella would make Lucia edgy.

Lucia considered for several moments. Then she shook her head. ‘It’s OK.’ This time the glance that flickered towards Fiorella was more calculating, as if it was dawning on Lucia that Zia couldn’t let slip the opportunity to make some kind of connection with her grandmother.

Once she realised Zia spoke passable Italian, Fiorella chatted as they shared the chores.

Zia ventured to smile and say, ‘You speak quickly. I have trouble with the translation sometimes,’ and Fiorella obligingly slowed her delivery. It enabled Zia to tune into the strength of Fiorella’s accent and keep up her end in a conversation about Zia liking Montelibertà and not having a job at the moment. In return, she heard about the Montelibertà Festival, which would begin in less than two weeks on the tenth of July.

‘First we have music in Piazza Roma,’ said Fiorella, shaking pillows into their cases. She paused impressively, before adding, ‘Free! We take our own chairs and food.’