work to do. Meetings and so on – I must stay here. But I’ll try to come at weekends, if I can get hold of enough petrol.’
‘At least it will be cooler in the country,’ said Livia, flapping her blouse up and down, trying to create a breeze.
‘Yes… and your mother says you have been invited to spend a week with the Luccheses.’
‘Have we? I knew she was planning something. We haven’t seen them for years. I wonder why she wants to visit them now.’
‘I would have thought it was obvious,’ Giacomo said, smiling. ‘They’re old friends, they have a beautiful villa, they live near the sea and they are rich. Seriously though, Livia, your mother needs a rest, and so do you. You should go.’
That weekend, Giacomo loaded their belongings into the car and drove the family up into the hills to their villa. Driving through the olive groves, a cool wind blowing through her hair, it seemed to Livia that the war was far away. The horror of the Eastern Front being endured by poor Cosimo was unimaginable up here in the hills, surrounded by the scent of rosemary and the pale grey-green of the olive trees.
The villa was approached down a long drive and Livia’s spirits always rose when it came into view. Its familiarity was comforting. The house felt cool, shaded by the heavy shutters, as they carried their belongings inside.
While Giacomo unlocked his study, Luisa went into the sitting room, looking for her father-in-law. Throwing open the shutters, she wiped her fingers judgementally through the dust on the side tables. ‘I don’t think Angela does a stroke of work when I’m not here,’ she tutted, ‘and where’s Alberto?’
They found him outside on the terrace at the back of the house, dozing in the shade of a Russian vine that scrambled over the metal pergola. He looked thin but peaceful, with a battered straw Panama hat covering his face.
‘Nonno?’ Livia knelt at his side and touched his arm gently.
Alberto awoke startled, his hat falling to the ground. ‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s Livia.’
‘Livia?’ He opened his eyes and stared uncertainly at her. ‘Oh yes, Livia,’ he said more warmly. He offered his cheek, and she kissed him. ‘Is it really you?’
‘We’ve come home for the summer,’ Luisa explained. ‘Have they been feeding you properly?’
Alberto shrugged. ‘It’s hard for everyone to get enough to eat,’ he replied stoically.
Livia and her mother found Angela and Gino sitting round the table in the kitchen, stripping the leaves off wild greens they had picked from the hedgerows.
Gino stood up. ‘Signora, signorina – we weren’t expecting you.’
‘I can see that,’ said Luisa irritably. ‘What is that you’re doing? Are we eating grass now?’
Angela shook her head ruefully. ‘There’s nothing else. We’ve already had our ration of flour for the week. I cannot make pasta. And there’s no bread in the shops – unless you’re prepared to pay. So we picked these wild greens from the hedgerows. We used to do it as children.’
‘This is intolerable,’ Luisa retorted. ‘I’m going to ring Contessa Lucchese and see if we can visit them a week early.’
The following day, Giacomo packed the whole family, including Alberto, into the car and drove them all the way to the Luccheses’ villa on the Ligurian coast.
The villa was set amongst the pine forests that surrounded the ancient town of Forte dei Marmi. This elegant resort had been the summer playground of the rich and successful since the nineteenth century. Industrialists such as the Agnellis, the owners of Fiat, kept a villa there, as did the Siemen and Marconi families. Here, they rubbed shoulders with famous writers, artists and sculptors, along with a sprinkling of Italian aristocracy.
As Giacomo drove his old black Lancia up the Luccheses’ long drive, Livia peered excitedly around. Through the lush gardens, she glimpsed the dark-red clay of a tennis court. As a child, no older than nine or ten, she had played there with the Luccheses’ children. A decade older than her, the two boys, Vicenzo and Raffaele, had indulged her, throwing balls to her on the tennis court, or taking her down to the beach and overseeing her attempts at swimming. Vicenzo had been very kind, she remembered – holding her gently beneath her stomach, encouraging her to take her first few strokes in the water. The boys’ elder sister, Luciana, had resented Livia’s presence and cut her dead most of the time. She had an unhealthy obsession with Vicenzo, or so it had seemed to