Lucia had called to say the first ceramics course would be in June next summer and she’d put a reserve on Villino Il Pino for Zia and Ursula and was hoping they’d come. The idea filled Zia with mixed longing and dread.

She and Ursula had been to Chichester to pick up Harry and they’d all driven down to Sandy Bay in Devon to throw rose petals into the sea for Vicky and Tori. All three of them had cried – Zia and Harry for Vicky and Tori and Ursula because everything set her off. The process of finding her single identity after being part of a joint one for so long was emotional. Afterwards they’d gone into Exmouth and met Karen, Harry’s sister and Vicky’s old friend. She’d been able to track down three more of Tori’s school friends, including one who’d been with her in Italy. Harry’s kids, Mandy and Leon, had completed the party gathered to remember Tori and, together, they’d helped Zia with her sense of who Tori had been.

One friend, Steffi, had even managed to find an old video on YouTube of her eighteenth birthday party. ‘I borrowed my parents video camera for my birthday, just before we took off for Europe,’ she explained. ‘My parents tried to show us a dance from their day called “the bump” and Tori laughed till she cried.’ She’d passed the link to Zia who’d pored over the fuzzy old footage, watching her rosy, freckle-faced mother cough and hiccup, tears of mirth destroying her mascara. She’d watched it over and over, laughing and crying along with Tori Chalmers. She’d rarely been more grateful for anything than that YouTube link.

It was with a happy and sad yet more settled heart she returned to her flat in New Steine.

It was a Sunday morning halfway into grey October when Ursula answered the apartment doorbell and Zia heard her say, ‘Wow! Surprise.’ Her tone was so wary that Zia presumed that it must be bloody Stephan until Ursula raised her voice. ‘Zia? Visitor.’

Zia emerged from the lounge to see Piero standing in the doorway, huddled in his coat, his hair on end from Brighton’s horizontal winds. His dark eyes flew to her and blazed.

All she could do was stare back. ‘Piero?’ In England?

Ursula looked from one to the other and reached for her coat with a mischievous, ‘Just remembered somewhere I have to be,’ but Zia barely registered her tactful exit.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked him stupidly.

A tiny smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. ‘You left without taking your wine. I’ve brought you three bottles each of Orvieto Classico and Sangiovese.’ He pulled a capacious backpack from his shoulders. It clinked as it reached the floor.

‘You came to England to bring me wine from Tenuta Domenicali?’