Lucia looked torn for several seconds. But then she nodded and carried on. ‘Gerardo found it easier to let his parents think he was no longer seeing Tori. It was not true.’ She sighed. ‘Durante and me, we decided not to have children. We had many nieces and nephews to love and I was a businesswoman with no yearning to be a mother. But we had sympathy for Gerardo and Tori. It was wrong to go against my brother but …’ She shrugged again. ‘We let them meet in our garden, even when we were not at home, after his work ended and before hers began. We lived in town then.’ She gestured vaguely in the appropriate direction and wiped a tear that teetered at the corner of her eye. ‘After some months, they came to me. Tori was pregnant. Gerardo was scared. Tori wanted that they should go to England together. In England they would be OK but in Italy Roberto and Fiorella would be very angry. Gerardo had lied to them about Tori and gone against the teachings of the church. They were strong in their beliefs in those days.’

Zia nodded. ‘My grandparents – or great-grandparents – weren’t religious but they had traditional views. Unfortunate,’ she reflected with a small smile, ‘as first their daughter Vicky and then their granddaughter Tori had babies when they were single.’

Durante put in. ‘Gerardo, he does not want to live in England. Tori in love, yes. Gerardo …’ He paused.

‘Wasn’t,’ Zia finished for him.

Nodding, Lucia pushed back her loose curls. She fidgeted, apparently finding it hard to meet Zia’s eyes. ‘He knew abortions were OK in England and saw it as the answer to the problem. He didn’t want to give up his life in Italy or break with his parents. Tori was desolate.’

Zia’s heart gave a great thud as if Tori’s pain toppled Zia into a horrible, sickening realisation. ‘So, my father didn’t want me to live at all, not even in another country?’

Lucia stumbled over explanations, evidently unwilling to be too hard on the nephew she loved. ‘He was young. Young not just in years but in behaviour.’

Zia wasn’t so willing to let him off the hook. ‘Immature and scared of his parents.’

Durante gave a ‘maybe’ waggle of his head. ‘Scared of the upset, the argument, the change to his life, maybe. Not a bad boy. Just young.’

So, both Lucia and Durante were prepared to be understanding of Gerardo. Zia couldn’t really blame them for their love for a favoured nephew, no matter how hard it was for her to hear the bald truth about him being more ‘scared of the upset’ than caring for his daughter. She herself hadn’t wanted to upset Gran and Pap with questions after Vicky’s death … but being sensitive to someone’s sorrow and aborting a baby weren’t on the same page.