‘I asked Gerardo to talk to Tori, face the situation,’ Lucia continued. ‘He agreed so she left you with me while she and Gerardo talked alone. Durante was working. They went into the countryside but she returned alone after maybe one hour and drove off without the baby.’ She spread her arms, her quivering lips transmitting the long-ago shock. ‘What to do? I waited. No Tori. Durante came home. We waited for several days. We tried to get the phone number of the address we’d been writing to in England but we could not. If there was one, it was not in Tori’s name.’

Durante said sombrely, ‘Lucky, we help look after babies in our family so we can take care of you.’ He gazed at Zia as if gazing down the years. ‘Gerardo asks we do not tell his parents. We do not want to tell the police because it will expose Gerardo and make trouble for our family. Thirty years ago, we do not have these.’ He brandished his phone. ‘We send a telegram to Tori’s address.’

Lucia grabbed the narrative once more. ‘Then on day number five, Tori’s mother Vicky came to tell us Tori had arrived home again. “I’m Zia-Lucia’s grandmother,” she said. “Tori is mentally ill and I have to take her baby home.” Tori had given your passport to her but I did not know what to do.’ Lucia assumed a bewildered expression. ‘What if the things Vicky told me were not true? You had been left with me. I asked her to phone Tori so I could get permission. Vicky said Tori wasn’t capable of understanding and she took you – right from my arms! Just, grab, like that!’ She thrust out her arms and then hugged them to her. ‘She took the buggy from the hall and left in her hire car.’

‘Wow,’ Zia breathed, trying to picture her smiling, gentle mother – no, grandmother – snatching her like that. ‘Did you call the police?’

Lucia sank back in her seat. ‘Gerardo did not want it. He said it was good. The baby should be with its family.’ Lucia shook her head. ‘Maybe I should have told Roberto and Fiorella but we had kept Gerardo’s secrets for so long.’ Her gaze dropped to the row of birth and death certificates still lying on the table.

‘And what good?’ Durante contorted his shoulders in an enormous shrug, spreading his arms. ‘Roberto and Fiorella are not sympathetic. Maybe they say the baby is not Gerardo’s.’

Zia flinched. Every time Lucia or Durante indicated how unwanted she’d been she felt pierced by a new pain. It was weird to know that though she’d grown up loved, first she’d been abandoned.