in the sun.
Not that Laura set much store by looks. Jack, too, had been handsome, with a broad, good-natured smile and an air of loving the world—until the day he walked out on his wife and daughter without a backward glance.
Nikki was still playing with her junior football, which she bounced hopefully, looking around her.
‘I don’t see anyone that we know, darling,’ Laura said. ‘Let’s just play together.’
‘You mean they wouldn’t want to play with me?’ Nikki asked.
Laura’s heart lurched, and her eyes reacted before she could stop herself. Nikki watched and understood.
‘It’s all right, Mummy.’ The little girl rubbed her face. ‘People don’t understand about this.’
‘No, they don’t understand,’ Laura said gently.
‘Was that why you didn’t want us to come here?’
Dear God! Laura thought. She’s only eight years old. She knows far too much.
She nodded. ‘Yes, because of people who don’t understand, being unkind to you.’
‘They’re not unkind exactly,’ Nikki said, speaking like a wise little old woman, ‘it’s just that they don’t like to look at me. Never mind.’
She ran a little distance ahead and began dribbling the ball, while Laura stood still for a moment, suppressing the instinct to commit murder.
But murder who? The malign fate that had caused her child to be different to others? The stupid world that made everything worse for her with its cruel, imbecilic ignorance? The unthinking idiots who couldn’t see past that damaged face to the sweet loving soul beneath.
‘Come on, Mummy,’ Nikki called.
They kicked the football around for a while, until Nikki gave an unexpectedly powerful lunge and the ball went sailing high in the air.
For a moment it seemed to hover before plunging like a stone to land right on the stomach of the young man on the bench. He awoke with a yell, clutching his middle.
Nikki had run forward until she pulled up short in front of him and stood looking at him steadily.
He looked back at her. He was holding the ball.
‘This is yours?’ he asked. He had a foreign accent.
‘Yes. Sorry.’ Nikki moved closer, positioning herself just in front of him, so that he couldn’t help but see her clearly. Her eyes were fixed on his face, watching, waiting for the moment when his glance faltered.
Where does she get the courage to do that? Laura wondered.
‘I hope you really are sorry,’ he said, regarding her steadily and speaking in a tone of grievance. ‘I was enjoying a beautiful dream when Poof! There is a dead weight on my stomach.’
He hadn’t reacted to her face. Nikki moved again, placing herself squarely before him, grimly determined, daring her good luck not to last.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ she said.
‘Of course not.’
‘I do apologise,’ Laura said, catching up with them. ‘I hope you’re not hurt.’
He gave them both a brilliant grin that seemed to light up the whole world. Laura had never seen a grin like it. It was life enhancing.
‘I guess I’ll survive,’ he said.
‘And it’s left a dirty patch in your shirt.’
He studied the shirt which was already the worse for wear. ‘How can you tell?’ he asked plaintively.
Nikki giggled. He directed his grin at her.
Laura watched him carefully, wondering if this was really happening. Other people flinched at the sight of Nikki, or became elaborately kind, which was almost worse. This man seemed not to have noticed anything different about her.
‘I’m Laura Gray,’ she said, ‘and this is my daughter, Nikki.’
‘I’m Gino Farnese.’ He engulfed her hand in his. It was a big hand with a powerful, muscular look that suggested some kind of hard manual work. Even through the gentle handshake she could feel the strength.
Then he grasped Nikki’s hand, giving her the same courtesy as her mother, and saying solemnly, ‘Buon giorno, signorina. Sono Gino.’
‘What does that mean?’ the child asked.
‘It means, “Hello, young lady. I am Gino.”’
Nikki frowned. ‘You’re foreign,’ she declared bluntly. ‘You talk funny.’
‘Nikki!’ Laura exclaimed. ‘Manners!’
‘It’s true. I’m Italian,’ he said, not seeming to be offended.
‘Are you any good kicking a football?’ Nikki demanded, keeping him to important matters.
‘Nikki!’
‘I reckon I’m pretty useful,’ he said, adding warily, ‘as long as my opponent doesn’t get too rough.’
She bounded away, calling to him, ‘Come on, come on!’
‘I apologise,’ Laura said helplessly.
He gave his life-enhancing grin again. ‘Don’t worry. I’m on my guard against further assaults from your ferocious offspring.’
‘That wasn’t what I—’
But he was gone, dancing around the ball. He really was skilled, Laura thought. Not every man could have kicked it here and there, never too hard, just far enough to make her work for it. And it all looked natural.
Smiling, Laura took his place on the bench, almost tripping over a suitcase that stood beside it.
It was shabby, like the rest of him. His clothes looked as though he’d spent several nights sleeping in them, and the suitcase had a hole in the corner.
Like a tortoise, she thought, carrying everything on its back. Not that there was anything tortoise-like about the deft way he was darting back and forth.
At last he contrived to lose the ball to Nikki so cleverly that she could think she’d won it. She promptly gave it another of her mighty kicks straight at him. Gino Farnese lunged like a goalkeeper, just contriving to miss.
‘Goal!’ he yelled triumphantly, sitting on the ground, and bawling so loudly that several people stared at him and moved hastily away.
‘That always happens,’ he said. ‘People run away from me because they think I’m crazy.’
‘Are you crazy?’ Nikki wanted to know.
He
