‘Cousin?’ he echoed.
She went closer and his eyes gave her a shock. They seemed to look at her and through her at the same time. Joanne shivered as she realized that he was seeing something that wasn’t there, and shivered again as she guessed what it was.
‘We met, years ago,’ she reminded him. ‘I’m sorry to come on you suddenly—’ She took a step towards him.
‘Stop there,’ he said sharply. ‘Come no closer.’
She stood still, listening to the thunder of her own heartbeat. At last a long sigh escaped him and he said wearily, ‘I’m sorry. You are Joanne, I can see that now.’
‘I shouldn’t have just walked in like this. Shall I leave?’
‘Of course not.’ He seemed to pull himself together with an effort. ‘Forgive my bad manners.’
‘Nico, don’t you remember me?’ Joanne asked, reaching out her arms to the little boy. A light had died in his face, and she could see that he did now recall their first meeting.
He advanced and gave her a tentative smile. ‘I thought you were my mother,’ he said. ‘But you’re not, are you?’
‘No, I’m afraid I’m not,’ she said, taking his hand.
‘You look so like her,’ the little boy said wistfully.
‘Yes,’ Franco said in a strained voice. ‘You do. When my people came running to me crying that my wife had returned from the dead, I thought they were superstitious fools. But now I can’t blame them. You’ve grown more like her with the years.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘No, how should you? You never troubled to visit us, as a cousin should. But now—’ he gazed at her, frowning ‘—after all this time, you return.’
‘Perhaps I should have stayed away.’
‘You are here now.’ He checked his watch. ‘It grows late. We’ll go home and eat.’ He gave her a bleak look. ‘You are welcome.’
Franco’s workers gathered to watch them as they walked. She knew now why she aroused such interest, but still it gave her a strange feeling to hear the murmurs, ‘La padrona viva.’ The mistress lives. Out of the corner of her eye she saw some of them cross themselves.
‘They are superstitious people,’ Franco said. ‘They believe in ghosts.’
They’d reached the stream now and Nico bounded ahead, jumping from stone to stone, his blond hair shining gold in the late afternoon sun. It was the same colour that Rosemary’s had been, as Joanne’s was.
A man called to Franco and he turned aside to talk to him. Nico jumped up and down impatiently. ‘Come on,’ he called to Joanne, holding out a hand for her.
She reached out her own hand and felt his childish fingers grip her. ‘Hey, keep still,’ she protested, laughing, for he was still bounding about.
‘Come on, come on, come on!’ he carolled.
‘Careful!’ Joanne cried as she felt her foot slip. The next moment they were both in the stream.
It was only a couple of feet deep. Nico was up first, holding out his hands to help her up. ‘Perdona me,’ he pleaded.
Her soft white sweater had become transparent, and was clinging to her in a way that was revealing. Men and women gathered on the bank, chuckling. She joined in, sitting there in the water and laughing up into the sun. For a moment the light blinded her, and when she could see properly she caught a glimpse of Franco’s face, and its stunned look shocked her. She reached out a hand for him to help her up, but it seemed that he couldn’t move.
‘Will anyone help me?’ she called, and some of the men crowded forward.
‘Basta!’ The one word from Franco cut across them. The men backed off, alarmed by something they heard in his voice.
He took Joanne’s hand and pulled her up out of the water and onto the bank. As she’d feared, her fawn trousers also clung to her in a revealing fashion. To her relief the men had turned their heads away. After Franco’s explosion not one was brave enough to look at her semi-nakedness.
‘I’m sorry, Papa,’ Nico said.
‘Don’t be angry with him,’ Joanne said.
Franco gave her a look. ‘I am never angry with Nico,’ he said simply. ‘Now let us go home so that you can dry off.’
‘I went to the house first,’ Joanne said, hurrying to match her steps to Franco’s long strides, ‘and the old woman there told me where you were.’
‘That’s Celia, she’s my housekeeper.’
Celia emerged from the house as they approached and stood waiting, her eyes fixed on Joanne. She exclaimed over her sodden state.
‘Celia will take you upstairs to change your clothes,’ Franco said.
‘But I don’t have anything to change into,’ she said in dismay.
‘Didn’t you bring anything for overnight?’
‘I’m not staying overnight. I mean—I didn’t want to impose.’
‘How could you impose? You are family.’ Franco spoke with a coolness that robbed the words of any hint of welcome. ‘But I was forgetting. You don’t think of yourself as family. Very well, Celia will find you something of her own to wear while your clothes dry off.’
Celia spoke, not in Italian but in the robust Piedmontese dialect that Joanne had never quite mastered. She seemed to be asking a question, to which Franco responded with a curt ‘No!’
‘Your clothes will soon dry,’ he told Joanne. ‘In the meantime Celia will lend you something. She will show you to the guest room. Nico, go and get dry.’
It was the child who showed her upstairs, taking her hand and pulling her up after him. Celia provided her with a huge white bath towel and some clothes. She bore Joanne’s garments away, promising to have them dry in no time.
An unsettling playback had begun in Joanne’s head. This was the very room she’d shared with Renata when she’d first come here. There were still the same two large beds, and a roomful of old-fashioned furniture. As with the rest of the house the floor was terrazzo, the cheap substitute for marble that Italians used to keep buildings cool.
The floor-length windows were still shielded from the sun by the green wooden shutters. Celia drew one of these back, and opened the window so that a breeze caused the long curtains to billow softly into the room. Joanne went to stand there, looking out over the land bathed in the setting sun. It was as heartbreakingly
