The Villa

by Rosanna Ley

Genres: Family Life; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

When Tess Angel receives a solicitor's letter inviting her to claim her inheritance - the Villa Sirena, perched on a clifftop in Sicily - she is stunned. Her only link to the island is through her mother, Flavia, who left Sicily during World War II and cut all contact with her family. Flavia realises that secrets she's kept hidden are about to be revealed and decides to try to explain her past. ‘The Villa will stay with you long after you've devoured this tale of family feuds, secrets and passion, Sicilian-style ... Romantic, escapist and mouthwatering' VERONICA HENRY

Release date: May 31, 2012

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 560

Sample

Tess didn’t open the letter until later, when she was sitting on the beach.

In a hurry to get to work that morning, she’d barely glanced at the envelope, just grabbing it from the mat before kissing her daughter Ginny goodbye.

Now, Tess plucked the letter from her bag. Read her name… Ms Teresa Angel, and her address in bold confident typescript. Franked and postmarked London.

Ginny had left for college – an unruly streak of long legs, jeans, red shirt, dark hair and eyes – while Tess had set off for the water company, where she worked in customer information. A euphemism for Complaints, since who really needed information about water? (Turn on the tap, out it comes; better still drink the bottled variety.)

This was her lunch break and she’d come – as she often did – to Pride Bay, five minutes away by car, to eat her sandwiches by the sea. It was an early spring day, and breezy, so she too was sandwiched – between a row of pastel-painted beach huts and the high mound of tiny ginger pebbles of west Dorset’s Chesil Beach. This gave Tess some shelter and she could still just see the waves. She didn’t have to be back in the office till half two. She stretched out her legs. Flexitime. What a wonderful invention.

Tess eased her thumb under the seal of the envelope and tore it open, sliding out a single sheet of white paper. It was so thick and creamy she almost felt she could eat it.

Dear Ms Angel, she read. We are writing to inform you … her eyes scanned over the text … following the sad passing of Edward Westerman. Edward Westerman? Tess frowned as she tried to make sense of it. Did she know an Edward Westerman? She was pretty sure she didn’t. Did she even know anyone who had just died? Again, no. Could they have got the wrong Teresa Angel …? Unlikely. She read on. Concerning the bequest … Bequest? On the condition that … Tess’s mind raced … Hang on a minute. Sicily …?

Tess finished reading the letter, then immediately read it again. She felt a kind of nervous fluttering like moths’ wings, followed by a rush – of pure adrenalin … It couldn’t be true. Could it …? She stared out at the sea. The breeze had picked up and was ruffling the waves into olive-grey rollers.

She must be dreaming, she thought. She picked up the letter and read it through once more as she finished her sandwich.

Well. What on earth would her mother say …? Tess shook her head. There was no point thinking about it. It was a mistake. Surely it had to be a mistake.

It was clouding over now and Tess felt chilly despite the woollen wrap she had slung over her work jacket when she left the car by the harbour. She checked her watch, she should go. But if it were true … If this wasn’t some sort of joke, then … Sicily …

Tess tucked the letter back into her bag and began to put the jigsaw pieces together in her mind. Her fierce and diminutive mother Flavia was Sicilian – though she had left her home and her family when she was in her early twenties. Tess just wished she knew why. She had tried often enough to find out the full story. But Muma had never wanted to talk of her life in Sicily. Tess smiled as she got to her feet and picked up her bag. She loved her dearly, but Muma was stubborn and Sicily was out of bounds.

Tess thought back to the few details she’d managed to glean over the years. Her mother’s family had lived in a small cottage, she’d once said, in the grounds of a place called the Grand Villa. That had been owned by an Englishman, hadn’t it? Could that be the Edward Westerman mentioned in her letter? She did the sums. Edward Westerman – if he was that man – had lived to a ripe old age.

But why would he …? She paused to empty her shoes of tiny pebbles; it wasn’t easy to negotiate Chesil Beach in heels, even though Tess was used to it. She headed back to the harbour, past the bright, tacky kiosks selling fish ‘n’ chips, candy floss and ice cream, and past the fishing boats with their nets hanging out to dry, the scent of the gutted fish ripe and heady in the air. Pride Bay, despite its name, had little to show off about. But it was part of her childhood, and it was home. Best of all for Tess, it was by the sea. And the sea was in her blood – she was addicted to it.

She mentally replayed the contents of the letter on the way back to the car, and as soon as she was sitting in the driver’s seat of her Fiat 500, she retrieved it, smoothed it open and reached for her mobile. One way to find out.

‘This is Teresa Angel,’ she said to the woman who answered. ‘You wrote to me.’

Tess drove back to work on autopilot, the still-fresh phone conversation running through her mind. This was the kind of thing that could change your life, wasn’t it? But … She paused. She was thirty-nine years old; she wasn’t sure she even wanted change. Change could be scary. Her daughter’s life was changing fast and she found that hard enough to handle – after all, what if Ginny went to university hundreds of miles away and then emigrated to Kathmandu?

But on the other hand … What would happen if her life stayed the same? What if her lover Robin never left his cold and fragile wife Helen, as he kept promising to? What if she had to work for the rest of her life dealing with complaints at the water company. It was inconceivable.

Tess drove past Jackaroo Square – decorated with pots of red and white spring geraniums – and the deco Arts Centre. The town centre was a little shabby, but it came to life every other Saturday with the farmers’ market and the Morris dancing. The town used to be a rope-making centre, but now most of the old factories had been converted into flats, offices and antique warehouses.

Sicily … She shook her head in disbelief as she took a right and parked behind the water company building. She walked round to the front entrance. The person she should call first was her mother. Hmm. Tess pulled out her mobile, selected Robin. Telling her mother must be done face to face. But she had to tell someone.

‘Hello, you … ’

Tess loved the intimate way he spoke to her. As if he were about to take off every item of her clothing one by one. She shivered. ‘You’ll never guess what.’

‘What?’ He laughed.

‘I got a letter this morning. From a solicitor in London.’

‘Oh, yes? Good news or bad news?’

Tess smiled. She was due to see Robin after work because on Thursdays Ginny stayed late at college. Twice a week was the average, three times was good, four unprecedented. All their time together was snatched. If she wasn’t on flexitime, Tess sometimes thought, she and Robin would never be able to see each other, never have late Monday lunches (making love) or early Thursday evenings (ditto). What would they do then? But she wouldn’t dwell on that now. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I think.’

‘I like good news,’ he said, a smile in his voice. ‘What is it?’ She could imagine him doodling on today’s diary page, maybe drawing a fish face with bubbles. He’d started doing that when she signed up for her first diving course. It told her that actually he was a bit jealous. Which she quite liked.

‘I’ve been left a house,’ she said. She could say it out loud now. She went to sit on the wall by the hydrangea bushes. There was a sharp edge to the breeze that she liked – a sort of hey, it’s spring, wake-up call. Something’s got to change …

‘What?’ he said.

‘I’ve been left a house,’ she said again. ‘In Sicily.’ Yes, it was really true.

‘Sicily?’ he echoed.

She couldn’t blame him for being surprised. She was still trying to get to grips with the thing herself. Why would Edward Westerman have left her his house? She didn’t even know him. And what would she do with a villa in Sicily? It wouldn’t exactly fit into her lifestyle. Her life was in Dorset – wasn’t it? With Ginny. With Muma and Dad, who lived only a few streets away from her Victorian townhouse in Pridehaven. And with Robin – at least, when possible.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A villa in Sicily.’ The Grand Villa … Just how grand was grand …?

‘You’re joking, Tess.’

‘I’m not,’ she replied, the truth finally sinking in now. ‘I know it’s weird. But someone’s left it to me in his will.’

‘Who on earth …?’ he asked. ‘Some ancient admirer?’ Robin was ten years older than she. Was he an ancient admirer too? Ginny would think so. If she knew.

‘A man I’ve never met. Edward Westerman.’ His name was rather romantic. She explained some of the background to Robin – at least the little she knew so far.

‘Bloody hell, sweetie,’ he said.

‘And that’s not all.’ Tess shifted her position on the wall. Thought reluctantly of her in tray. ‘There’s a condition.’ It was, she’d been told by the solicitor, a stipulation of the bequest. Always in life there was a catch. Have a child with a man you trust and he will leave you and emigrate to Australia. Meet someone gorgeous, sexy and funny and fall in love with him, and he’ll be married – to someone else.

‘What’s that?’ Robin still sounded as shell-shocked as Tess felt.

‘I have to go there.’

‘To Sicily?’

‘Yes. I have to visit the property. Before I can … ’ She hesitated. Dispose of it, was the way the solicitor had put it. ‘Sell it,’ she said. How much would it fetch anyway? Enough to pay off her mortgage? Enough for a holiday or two? Enough to change her life …?

Sicily … It almost seemed to be calling to her. That might not seem surprising in itself, to be drawn to a warm and sunny landscape, but Tess had been brought up by Muma, whose eyes darkened in pain or anger, or both, if you asked her about her home country, her childhood, her parents, her life there. Until finally you accepted the fact. Sicily was off-limits. The thing was though … what Tess realised now, was that she had never really accepted the fact. And already a thought, a hope, an idea, was winging through her brain. She felt the surge of nervousness return, that moth-wing excitement, that thrill.

‘Wow,’ said Robin.

Tess watched a bee heading purposefully for the yellow cowslips grouped in front of the hydrangea bushes. It dived in head first. She understood how it felt. ‘I know.’ It was mind-boggling. And then there was the mysterious undercurrent. The stipulation. She had to go and see the villa – before it was truly hers. But – why?

‘So you’ll be off to Sicily then?’

‘Mmm.’ There was nothing to stop her going – apart from what Muma might say, of course. She was owed holiday from work, and Ginny … Well, Ginny would probably be glad to have the house to herself for a week. For a moment she thought of Ginny’s music on full volume, Ginny’s friends invading the house and Ginny going out when she liked and for as long as she liked – when she was supposed to be revising. Her friend Lisa next door would keep an eye on her though. With Lisa and her parents close by, nothing too dramatic could happen, could it?

‘Soon?’ Robin sounded different, as if he were suddenly taking her more seriously.

She wondered what he was thinking. ‘I suppose.’ A couple of smokers had emerged from the entrance of the building. They lit up.

Tess glanced at her watch. She was unwilling to go back to her desk and the complaints. And she was also tempted by that new seriousness in Robin’s tone. ‘Is there any way …? ’ She let the words hang. If your lover is married, he can’t go away with you – not without copious amounts of planning and lies. She knew that. If your lover is married you can’t share your life with him. He shares his life already – with someone else. He’s never yours – not even in those brief, exciting moments when you think he is. And if you think otherwise, you’re fooling yourself. Aren’t you?

‘Maybe there is,’ Robin said. ‘Maybe I can come with you.’

Tess’s heart jumped. ‘It would be perfect,’ she said. She couldn’t keep the thrill out of her voice, and one of the smokers glanced at her curiously. She turned away, facing the hydrangea bushes. ‘Just perfect. A villa in Sicily, Robin. Imagine. To see it with you would be so special.’ Careful, Tess, you’re gushing. Mistresses must remain cool at all times. That was the deal. Still …

‘It would be fabulous, sweetie.’ Robin’s voice was low again. ‘There’s nothing I’d like more.’

Tess waited for the but. It didn’t come. ‘So could you?’ She held her breath.

She hadn’t meant to fall in love with him. They’d first met in the cafe in the square where the coffee was strong and the pastries to die for. She’d registered him because he was attractive – if dressed a touch conservatively for her taste – and because his voice, when he spoke to the waitress, was low and sexy. But she wasn’t in the market for a relationship. She was an independent woman with a daughter to care for and Ginny was her number one priority; she always had been. Tess was the only parent she had. Tess had seen friends try to introduce a new man into their equation of single mother and children and witnessed how impossible it was to juggle everyone’s demands. When Ginny left home … Well, perhaps. But until then, Tess had dates and she had male friends. But serious relationships …? No thanks.

Even so, twice a week she went to the cafe in the square for lunch and it seemed that he did too. She always had a book, he a newspaper. Twice she caught him looking at her when he was supposed to be reading, once he smiled.

One day there were no spare tables and he appeared at hers with a cappuccino, a panini and an apologetic grin. ‘Would you mind? I shan’t disturb you.’

He had though. Pretty soon they were swapping work stories – he worked in the finance company two buildings away – and discussing whatever was in the news. He didn’t mention his wife – not then. But he did suggest another lunchtime meeting in the pub further down the street on the following Friday. Why not? Tess thought. She had enjoyed his company. And it was only lunch.

After that, he’d suggested a drink one night after work and after the drink he’d kissed her. Sometime later, after she’d cooked him a meal – chicken with pistachios, she wasn’t her mother’s daughter for nothing – and he’d seduced her on the couch (Ginny was staying with a friend), he’d told her he was married.

By then, she was already half in love with him. He had kind of crept up on her. And it was an old cliché, but she couldn’t turn back even if she wanted to.

Tess watched the smokers throw down their cigarette butts and grind them underfoot. Still chatting, they disappeared through the glass swing doors. Tess brushed some water from a budding hydrangea with her fingertip. Earlier, it had rained, a sudden burst, a mad shower over almost before it had begun; a rinse of the sky, it seemed like. She checked her watch again. She should go in. But something told her this moment could be the one she’d been waiting for.

‘Why not? Why shouldn’t I come to Sicily with you?’ he said again.

Tess caught her breath.

She was grinning like an idiot as she blasted her way into the building and leapt into the lift. It was really going to happen. She had been left a villa in Sicily. And she was going there. With Robin. Her smile faded as the lift went ping and the door started to slide open. Now she just had to break the news to Muma …

‘I don’t understand.’ Flavia sat down heavily. She had always had so much energy, but these days it sometimes swept away from under her without warning and she was scared by how weak she felt. She was getting old, of course. She was, in fact eighty-two, which was quite ridiculous. Because she didn’t feel old. She didn’t want to have to struggle to remember things. She wanted everything to be clear.

She tried to order her thoughts, but with Tess looking at her in that probing way she had, it wasn’t easy. She steadied her breathing. So, Edward Westerman was dead. That in itself was not surprising. He must have been well into his nineties. He was the last. First Mama, then Papa, and then Maria, two years ago. She had lost touch with Santina; had no choice but to let her go. And now. Her last link with Sicily gone. She put her hand to her head. There were beads of sweat on her brow. The last link. She felt a wave of panic.

‘Are you all right, Muma?’ Suddenly Tess was all concern. She came over to where Flavia was sitting in the old wooden kitchen chair by the table, and bent forwards, a gentle hand on Flavia’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would upset you so much. Were the two of you close?’

Flavia shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not really.’ He had been an Englishman – her employer. She was a young Sicilian girl. And it was so long ago. Though there had been a bond … Edward had been the first man to speak to her in English and he had made it possible for her to come to this country when she was twenty-three. Like her, Edward had felt an outsider in his homeland and so he’d gone to live in Sicily – though it was years before she understood why. Puzzles were like that – you could have all the pieces in front of you and yet still not see the overall picture.

‘What then?’ Tess said.

Flavia smoothed her apron with the palm of her hand. Iron out all the creases and all will be well … She couldn’t exactly say what had floored her. The mention of Edward perhaps, the memories, the fact of his death.

Then she realised with a jolt what it was. ‘Why did they contact you about his death?’ she demanded. ‘I don’t understand. What does it have to do with you?’

Tess stood next to her, all long legs and blonde-brown unruly hair, looking like the child she once was. ‘He’s left me his house, Muma.’

Flavia blinked, frowned. ‘What?’ She struggled to get her bearings. ‘Why would he do such a thing? He, of all people … ’ He’d understood how it was for Flavia. He himself had broken with England, hadn’t he? Well, hadn’t he …?

‘I don’t have the faintest idea,’ Tess said. She hooked her thumb into the belt loop of her blue jeans. ‘But I thought you might.’

Flavia rose slowly to her feet. There was supper to cook – a distraction. She was not too old to cook – never too old for that, though these days she stuck to the one course and the occasional dolce. She and Lenny now lived in a modern house on an English estate of identical houses, and it was very different from Sicily. But la cucina was still the most important room. Her kitchen, her food … That could always make everything safe again.

‘Well, now,’ she said. Every time in her life that she’d imagined herself free of Sicily, something from that place snapped at her heels. Now it was Edward and Villa Sirena, house of her childhood. Not that Flavia’s family had lived in the Grand Villa itself, of course, but … What could she say? ‘He had no children,’ Flavia began. ‘Perhaps he felt …’ What had he felt? Responsible? Had he left her daughter the villa to make up for some imagined wrongdoing? She shrugged, aware that this wouldn’t satisfy Tess. Tess had been born curious; she never let things go. Now this. It was as if Edward had known how Tess would be.

Sure enough … ‘But he must have had relatives, Muma.’ That innocent blue-eyed gaze …

‘Maybe not.’ His sister Bea had died some years ago and she too had been childless. Thanks to Bea, Flavia and Lenny had run the Azzurro restaurant in Pridehaven; run it until they retired just over ten years ago. She missed the place – but everyone had to slow down sometime.

‘Or friends?’

‘Who knows?’ Flavia began to slice the aubergines, the knife cutting smoothly through the slick greasy skins and pulpy flesh. They needed time to de-gorge otherwise they would be bitter.

Edward had – of course – had friends. Arty friends, but more especially, men friends. Sometime later she’d understood why, as a girl, she had felt at ease with Edward, even when alone with him. It was significant too, she realised, that she had been allowed to be alone with him. These days, naturally, his homosexuality would not mean so much, but then … In England, the activities he indulged in would have been illegal, but in Sicily, in a small village in a grand villa, it was easy to hide and be safe. Easy to have lots of house guests, lots of parties. English eccentricity was accepted, even while it was not understood. And Edward had inspired great loyalty in his staff by giving them a living and treating them well.

‘Perhaps he became a recluse,’ she said. Perhaps he had been lonely. She could imagine that. ‘It happens. Especially to artists and poets.’

Tess – on her way to fill the kettle – shot her a disbelieving glance and flicked a tangled curl from her face. ‘What about the people who cared for him at the end?’ she said. ‘What about whoever took over from Aunt Maria?’

Maria … The knife hovered above the purple skin. Her sister’s death had been sudden and shocking for Flavia. They had not been close and this made the loss even sadder. It was too late now. Maria had come to England only once in her lifetime when Tess was just eighteen, and the visit had not been easy. Their lives had been so different, she supposed; they had travelled in such opposite directions. Flavia had become anglicised long ago; she even thought in English now.

Maria was timid – dark and vigilant as a rat. She was shocked at the way Flavia was bringing up her daughter … You allow her to go out alone? Dancing? She was distrustful of the relationship Flavia had with Lenny – their casual teasing, the way Flavia cheerfully left him to get on with the washing up after supper. And she found it hard to accept that Flavia had become a businesswoman – running her own small restaurant, managing her own accounts, her own staff.

‘England is different from Sicily,’ she said to Maria – over and over, it felt like. ‘If you stayed for longer you would find out. There is a freedom here that you have never dreamt of.’

‘Perhaps so, perhaps so.’ And poor Maria would sigh and frown and wring her hands. ‘But Signor Westerman is alone. He needs me.’ And Flavia suspected that, truth be told, Maria wouldn’t want such freedom. Her sister had not been blessed with children and she had lost her husband many years ago in a traffic accident in Monreale one night. ‘What was he doing there?’ she’d moaned to Flavia on more than one occasion during her visit to England. ‘I shall never know.’

Perhaps, Flavia thought, it was better not to know. They were talking about Sicily, after all.

‘Our family looked after Edward for many years,’ Flavia said now, throwing the rounds of sliced aubergine into a colander for salting and keeping her voice level. First Mama, Papa and Flavia, then Maria and Leonardo. ‘This must be his way of showing appreciation.’ Was that how it was? Or had Edward Westerman known how it would tear at her? She suspected that he would.

Tess dropped teabags into two cups, looking enquiringly at Flavia as she did so. ‘Muma?’

‘Please.’ Tea was an English taste that had taken Flavia twenty years to acquire. It would never get you going like an espresso, but it had its uses.

‘But why not leave the house to you?’ Tess persevered. ‘You knew him, at least. I’ve never met him.’

‘Pshaw.’ Flavia dismissed this notion. ‘I am an old lady. No doubt he thought I was dead.’

‘Muma!’

Flavia shook her head. She didn’t want to be having this conversation. She had tried to put Sicily behind her. Since leaving for England she’d never gone back there. At first, because to go back would mean too much pain, too much compromise. And then … because she’d wanted to punish them, of course – her father whom she had never forgiven, her mother who in her eyes had betrayed her almost to the same degree and even poor Maria – because she was just like them, because she could never understand that the only way to make things different was to fight …

‘Muma?’ Tess’s arms were around her. Flavia could smell her daughter’s honeyed perfume and the faint orange-blossom scent of her hair. ‘You’re crying.’

‘It is the onions.’ Flavia wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘You know they always get me that way.’

‘It’s not just the onions.’

Such intensity she had, this daughter of hers. Flavia closed her eyes for a moment, the better to drink her in. Wild, beautiful Tess, who – like Flavia – had also been let down badly in matters of love. Who loved with too much passion, who always expected too much … And who had an irrepressible young daughter of her own. But not a man to share her life with. Flavia discounted Robin. She didn’t even want to think about him. When she thought about Robin she wanted to crush the life out of him with her bare hands.

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It is not just the onions.’ It was the past, always the past. Sicily was a dark country. And when it was in your blood it never quite let you go.

‘Did you like Edward Westerman?’ Tess moved away, long-limbed and elegant even in jeans, to pour boiling water on the tea.

Flavia went on chopping onions, garlic and chilli. She was making a tomato sauce for melanzane alla parmigiana, one of her granddaughter’s favourites. ‘Yes.’ She had liked him, yes, because he embraced the unconventional. And because he had shown her what was possible.

‘Only, you’ve never talked about him much.’ Tess’s sly look from behind a wisp of hair suggested that Flavia hadn’t talked much about any of them.

This was also true. She had not told Tess why she had left Sicily in 1950, nor why she would never go back. She had not allowed the memories of her upbringing to surface and seep into her English life. She had been unable to forgive. Flavia held on to the counter top, just for a second, to rest.

‘Let me help you, Muma.’ Once again, Tess was at her side.

‘I am not yet totally decrepit,’ Flavia said, feeling her breathing get back to normal. She sprinkled oil into the pan. ‘There is still life in the old wolf, you know.’

‘Dog,’ murmured Tess, putting the mugs of tea on the table.

‘Dog, wolf, whatever,’ muttered Flavia, adding the garlic, onions and chilli. Her daughter was pedantic – it was the Englishness in her. Now she poured oil for the melanzane. She had her own methods, her own way of working. And there were – of course – some matters in which Sicily would always be triumphant. Olive oil, for example. In Sicily the best oil was pale and golden; here it was green and more refined. Here, people thought you odd if you used it to moisten bread or toast – they preferred to use animal fat. In this respect, Flavia had not adopted English traditions.

Tess was watching her. She seemed restless, long fingers fidgeting first with the buttons on her shirt then with her teaspoon. ‘Can’t you tell me anything else about him?’ she complained. ‘This benefactor of mine?’

Flavia clicked her tongue. The oil had reached the correct temperature and she lowered in the aubergines. Into the other pan she tossed the tomatoes she’d prepared earlier. What you did not know could not cause you harm. ‘Grate me some parmigiano, hmm?’ she said over her shoulder to Tess.

‘Muma?’

Flavia sighed. But her daughter deserved to know something, she supposed. ‘He used to read to me,’ she said. ‘Poetry.’

‘His own poetry?’ Tess’s eagerness as she turned to face her was a reproach. Once again, Flavia felt the weariness engulf her.

‘And other poets. He liked Byron and D.H. Lawrence.’ She smiled. Edward Westerman had told her about these writers and the young Flavia had listened with wonder. Edward clearly approved of Byron’s lifestyle. Ah yes, he had introduced Flavia to a world that was a million miles away from her life in Sicily. She paused, about to throw some sweet-scented basil into the pan, hearing again Edward Westerman’s melodic voice, quite low, intoning the words, half of which she hadn’t been able to understand. But the music of the words – that, she had understood.

‘He sounds interesting.’ Tess had retrieved the cheese from Flavia’s larder – fridges were too cold for certain foods, something some English people never seemed to understand – and was grating it into a small white dish. ‘Enough?’

‘Enough.’

Tess wrapped the Parmesan up again in its waxy paper and Flavia took the dish from her. She noted the dreamy look on her daughter’s face. ‘Well?’

Tess sat down and cradled the mug of tea in her hands. ‘I can just see you as a girl, that’s all.’ She didn’t add – for the first time. But she put out a hand and Flavia felt her daughter’s soft touch on her arm. ‘It’s nice.’

Yes, yes. She knew and Lenny was always telling her: It’s unfair not to talk to her about what happened. It’s your story, she’s your daughter. It’s all long past. Can’t you tell the story and let it go? But Flavia wasn’t sure that she ever could tell the story. And how could she let it go?

Things became more complicated as you grew old. What was black and white acquired many shades of grey. She took a deep breath. ‘Edward helped me come to England,’ she said. ‘That may be why he has left you the house.’

Tess frowned at the contradiction. ‘To encourage me to leave England?’

Something inside Flavia dipped in panic as she took in the possibility. ‘You wouldn’t, would you