side table. Livia placed the letter on top of the paper and sat down expectantly. Meanwhile, her mother was quietly sewing, a glass of Amaretto by her side. As the sun set across the garden, Giacomo, wearing a crumpled linen suit that had seen better days, wandered onto the terrace. He ran his hands through his thinning silver hair and poured himself a glass of white wine.
As he sat down, he noticed the letter. ‘This isn’t for me,’ he said to Livia, ‘it’s addressed to you.’
‘I know,’ she said, blushing slightly. ‘I’ve already read it. I wanted you to see it.’
He ran his eye over the contents. ‘Well done, Livia.’ He looked up at her with tears in his eyes. ‘This is exactly what I had hoped for. English Literature and History of Art – an excellent combination.’
She rushed over to him, and crouched down next to his chair and kissed him. ‘Thank you, Papa.’
‘Well, I’m not so sure it’s a good idea,’ her mother interjected from the other side of the terrace, ‘what with the war and everything. Surely it would be better if she stayed at home with me.’
‘Tied to your apron strings?’ Her husband smiled indulgently. ‘The girl has a fine mind – what on earth would she learn at home?’
‘How to cook, how to be a good wife.’
‘She’s barely eighteen. She needs an education, and she’s a clever girl – an intellectual. Plenty of time to learn how to be a wife.’
‘But is getting “an education” so important? I didn’t get one.’
Giacomo looked up from his newspaper. ‘You use the word “education”, Luisa, as if it’s something to be ashamed of. If not an education, I’d like to know what your definition of “important” is. What, for example, is so important about learning to cook?’
‘Well, you’d be in a fine state if you didn’t have me and Angela to cook for you.’
‘I’d eat in a restaurant,’ he replied loftily. ‘I certainly wouldn’t starve.’
‘Oh, Giacomo!’ Luisa stood up irritably. ‘You’re impossible! The point is – I’m worried about her. How will she get to university each day, for example? We live nearly forty kilometres away. It’s not like when she was at boarding school. She’ll have to take the train or a tram each day, or even drive.’
‘If that’s what you’re worried about, let’s move to the apartment,’ her husband suggested.
‘To your apartment in Florence? How on earth could we all live there? It’s far too small,’ Luisa complained. ‘It’s fine for you to spend the odd night there when you’re working on a case, but not for the whole family day in, day out. Livia won’t even have her own bedroom; where will she sleep?’
‘In my study, of course; I only use it in the evenings when I’m working on a long case. I can work at the dining table instead.’
‘But I don’t like the city,’ Luisa persisted. ‘It’s so crowded. And what about bombs? The government say we should be leaving the cities and moving to the countryside if we can – not moving back into them.’
‘That’s up in the north,’ Giacomo reassured her. ‘Turin, Milan, Genoa. Not here.’
‘The Anglo-Americans bombed Naples the other day,’ she interjected. ‘I heard about it on the radio. Who’s to say they won’t bomb Florence too?’
‘The day may come, of course, when they do bomb Florence, but it has no real strategic importance. The Allies’ chief targets are our troops fighting in Russia and North Africa, plus our industrial heartlands in the north.’
‘How can you be so calm?’ Luisa snapped.
‘What is the point of becoming exercised?’ Giacomo said, glancing at her over the top of his newspaper. ‘Our government is intent on a mad strategy which is doomed to failure. I sincerely hope the whole fiasco will be over soon – before too many young men are sacrificed on the altar of Mussolini’s ego.’
Luisa slumped back down into her cane chair, her dark brown eyes filling with tears. Giacomo patiently folded his newspaper, laid it on the side table, and crossed over to her. He knelt down at Luisa’s side and took her hands in his.
‘Look, my darling. If things do get bad in Florence we can always move back here to the villa. But, in the meantime, let the girl continue her education.’
Luisa, who was not to be so easily placated, changed tack. ‘And another thing – who will look after Alberto if we go away? You know how helpless your father is.’