‘I don’t like the way you’re always accusing me.’ Rosa’s eyes glittered. ‘I skulk around the house, terrified of doing something wrong or saying something wrong. Terrified my children might offend you or cause you pain or worse, blow out the candle you have burning all the time. It’s three years, Cosima.’
Cosima stared at her cousin. ‘Three years?’ she said slowly. ‘You think three years is long enough? You think I shouldn’t feel pain after so long? Well, let me tell you that every day is an effort to live through. Every second is torture. Every moment of my pitiful life I feel his loss as if I am without my limbs. I wish I could end it and join him wherever he is. But I’m afraid. Because I don’t know if anything comes after.’
‘Oh, Cosima,’ Alba sighed, pulling her head against her stomach. ‘Francesco is with God.’
‘I’ve had enough!’ Rosa snapped. ‘I’m fed up of being accused. We’ll move out and find a house of our own. It’s too ridiculous all living together. We’re like a tin of sardines.’
‘Rosa, don’t be silly,’ Alba began, but Rosa stomped off into the kitchen.
‘I’m sorry, Alba,’ Cosima sniffed. ‘But she doesn’t understand.’
‘She’s young, my love. She hasn’t experienced death like you and I have. We all go in the end and I promise you we go to a better place. Your Francesco lives on in another dimension.’
Cosima wrapped her arms around Alba’s waist and sobbed. ‘I wish I had the courage to end it all.’
‘It takes far more courage to live.’
Luca and the professor remained on the terrace until late afternoon. The restaurant began to get busy. Rosa appeared, looking strained. She seemed not to want to discuss the palazzo any more. Luca smiled sympathetically as she brought them the bill and he made sure he gave a generous tip. She nodded at him gratefully before returning to her other customers. After a while Cosima emerged. Her face was red and blotchy from crying, her skin pale against the hard black of her dress. If she saw Luca she ignored him. ‘There goes your beautiful widow,’ said Caradoc. ‘Grief for a while is blind, and so was mine. I wish no living thing to suffer pain. That, my boy, is Percy Bysshe Shelly.’
As they got up to leave Luca noticed the little boy standing in the doorway of the trattoria, staring with eyes as round as saucers. Luca helped Caradoc with his stick and waited a moment while he shook out his legs. When he looked up, the little boy pulled his hand slowly out of his pocket and opened his fingers to reveal, sitting in his palm, a beautiful blue butterfly. It extended its wings and quivered with pleasure as the sun shone directly on to them. Luca smiled at the sight. This startled the little boy who seemed to want a reaction but was surprised when he got one. Luca wanted to talk to him, but the child slunk around the corner into shadow, making way for Rosa who emerged with a tray of steaming dishes.
There was something strange about the boy. He seemed very much alone; or lonely. Luca found that he occupied his thoughts all the way back to the palazzo.
‘So what have you discovered, professor?’ asked Ma, putting down her needlepoint and looking at him over her sunglasses. ‘Or should we call you Holmes?’
The professor took a chair at the table that was already laid for dinner. The terrace was deserted, except for Porci the pig who trotted over the stones in search of a cool spot to lie on. ‘Nothing that surprised me.’
‘How dull,’ said Ma. ‘I much prefer surprises.’
Caradoc grinned like a schoolboy. ‘Only a couple of murders, an illicit love affair and a ghost.’
‘Not so dull. Go on.’ The professor told her what they had found out. Ma listened, enraptured. When he finished she gave a little sniff. ‘I don’t think you should tell Romina. She’s already over-excited at having discovered someone’s been sleeping in her folly. She accused Bill, but he’s protesting his innocence. If she thinks there’s a ghost up here she’ll expire.’
Caradoc chuckled. ‘Well, that would be most inconvenient considering I’m just beginning to feel at home here.’
‘Me too,’ Ma agreed, shuffling on her sun-lounger, her sparkly blue kaftan spilling on to the stones like water. ‘But remember, she’s Italian and, although she claims to think nothing of the primitive superstitions of the natives, it’ll be in her blood. By the way, she tells me there’s the famous Festa di Santa Benedetta next week. Some sort of religious festival in the church. The marble statue of Christ apparently used to weep blood to ensure a profitable harvest. It hasn’t done so for fifty-seven years, not that it seems to have affected the olives or lemons. They are flourishing as far as I can tell. I’m going to go just to see what it’s all about. You might like to be my date, Caradoc, if only out of curiosity.’