‘It was quite pretty. Gold, studded with red stones in the shape of a heart. Probably worth a bob or two.’

My skin started to prickle, sick dread chiselling another slither of ballast from my already fragile universe. The insidious voices of suspicion I’d smothered over the years were clamouring to be heard.

‘So what did happen to it?’

She hesitated. I could see that, unlike me, lies weren’t the oil that smoothed her path through life. They were the things that tripped her up, stopped her in her tracks because of the infrequent need to tell them. Her answer when it came was thin and high.

‘I’m not sure. We can’t find it anywhere, so I think I might have thrown it out – accidentally, obviously – when I was clearing out some other stuff.’ She tried to make a joke. ‘It was a funny old thing, played some sort of opera when you opened it up, right old racket.’

‘Opera?’

‘Yeah. Apparently Caitlin loved all that stuff, though I don’t think Nico is very keen. Or if he is, he’s not telling me. Probably doesn’t want to make me feel a thicko.’

Red stones in the shape of a heart. Opera music when you opened it. The box I found tucked at the back of the drawer under some of Massimo’s jumpers.

The present I waited for him to give me on Christmas Day five years ago.

22

MAGGIE

After we’d finished sorting out the workshop, Lara couldn’t escape me quickly enough, coming up with the excuse that she ‘needed to walk Lupo’. Maybe she’d lost her nerve about driving, but all of a sudden, the dog she hated became a much greater pull than learning the difference between a clutch and an accelerator.

Once, I was a person that everyone liked. Customers at the shop used to chat to me long after they’d spelt out their requirements for hems, zips and necklines. I’d get thank you cards for saving the day from women who needed a dress letting out for a special event, flowers from men who’d split their one decent suit.

And now, everyone I knew ran from me as though an extra fifteen minutes in my company would bring them out in purple boils.

Nico had phoned me a couple of times to check I was okay, begging me to forgive Francesca, telling me ‘if we could just get through this rough patch, we’ll laugh about it in a few years’ time.’ Right now, it seemed highly unlikely I’d be ha-ha hee-heeing about having to spend a whole afternoon repairing a seam on a dress that Francesca had wrenched apart in her frenzy.

I wanted to find a way back to how we were before the jewellery box saga, when she sometimes laughed at my jokes, or even took my side against Nico when he teased me about my untidiness. When I no longer had to steel myself to go into a room she was sitting in. And I needed to do it before I didn’t care any more, before that little bit of self-preservation kicked in and guillotined off the ‘giving a shit about trying to make someone who hates me like me’ gene. Of courses she was still a child. Maybe I was immature myself. And poor Nico was caught in the middle. But my conversations with him ended with me feeling slightly more irritated than before.

I went to school to meet Sam, just to get out of the house, even though he preferred walking home on his own. As I stood waiting at the school gate, one of the mothers came up to me, the sort that wore 1950s-style dresses with ballerina pumps and little cardigans. ‘You’re Francesca’s stepmum, aren’t you?’

I managed a suspicious-sounding yes, as though I’d just picked up the phone and the other person had said ‘Are you the homeowner?’

‘I just wanted to say what an incredible swimmer she is. I saw her in the trials at the weekend. Amazing butterfly. And such a lovely girl, so polite whenever I see her.’

I made my brain override the ‘You are actually kidding, aren’t you?’ that was sitting so far forward on the tip of my tongue that I must have looked like a snake trying to make sense of my surroundings.

‘Thank you’ wheezed out of me. Obviously, I didn’t sound interested enough, as a whisper of offence passed over the woman’s face. I got a grip and said, ‘Yes, I’m really looking forward to seeing her swim.’

‘She’s qualified for the regionals, so perhaps we’ll see you there,’ the woman said, before giving me a little wave goodbye as Sam scuffed up and thrust a huge rucksack at me. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if the next generation turned out to be shorter than their parents, the sheer weight of books on their back stunting their growth. But I knew better than to mention the word ‘locker’ and send laughter reverberating around the playground.

We walked home with Sam nattering on about Massimo and how cool he was. ‘Did you know he did the accounts for one of the big football clubs in the north? He can’t say which one, but he knows all the players. Anyway… can we go round tonight and sort out my birthday party with him?’

‘For God’s sake! Stop banging on about your party. There’s so much going on at the moment, and I’m sorry to say, your birthday isn’t the flaming priority.’

Sam marched off ahead of me, hurt and disappointment in the slump of his shoulders.

I ran after him, guilt surging through me. ‘Sam! Sam!’ But he stomped off.

When I finally caught him up, he was brushing tears off his face with the sleeve of his blazer. ‘Sam, I’m sorry. I’ve had a horrible day and I’ve taken it out on you. Of course we can sort out your party. I’ll talk to Nico about it tonight.’

Sam gave me a look that ripped deep into my heart. ‘It’s the first time we’ve ever had a garden for a party. I’ve been telling everyone. I’ve invited the whole class. You said it was okay this morning.’

A perfect example of everyone in the house hearing what they wanted to hear. ‘The whole class? How many’s that?’

‘About thirty-five?’

I didn’t say anything in case I started shouting again.

‘That’s okay, isn’t it? I can’t not invite them. No one believes I’ve got a nice house now. Matt Reynolds said I was lying, that I still lived on the estate with all the druggies. And then he started pretending to inject himself with heroin and falling on the floor.’

I didn’t know who Matt Reynolds was, but if he ever came to my house, I was going to rub his hamburger bun around the rim of the toilet before serving it to him with a smile.

‘You leave it with me, love. I’ll see what I can do.’

In between Googling soft footballs that don’t smash the heads off plants, I spent the few hours before Nico got home debating how to broach the subject of thirty-plus kids taking over his garden in two weeks’ time. Just when Nico’s beloved echinaceas would be at their best. Could we risk peony and lupin apocalypse, after all the hours Nico spent out there digging in mushroom compost and scattering his grim concoctions of fish, bone and blood? Maybe we could put screens up. Perhaps we could invite a load of parents to stand like sentinels in front of the hollyhocks.

I was wandering round the garden, trying to work out whether there was any way at all that a whole army of kids could have two hours of football games without causing floral heartbreak to Nico, when Massimo appeared at the French windows, followed by Sam wearing a satisfied ‘I’ve brought in the big guns’ expression.

Massimo sauntered over, one hand in the pocket of his suit trousers.

‘You should be very proud of your son. He’s going to go far in life. He’s already learnt that very important lesson of how to get what he wants.’ He ruffled Sam’s hair and leaned forward to kiss me on both cheeks, Italian-style. That was one area where I would get an A* for improvement. With a bit of concentration, it had been a while since I’d got in a tangle, swooping in for the wrong cheek and looking like a right old pleb who’d never been out of England.

I looked at Sam. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been bothering Massimo about the party.’

Sam didn’t look the slightest bit abashed.

With a theatrical wave of his hand, Massimo said, ‘Let’s just say he is a man with a plan and he knows how to execute it.’

I was hoping Massimo was going to help me let Sam down gently but instead he seemed to be fanning his hopes.

‘We can’t have Sam here disappointed, especially not after those vile creatures that masquerade as his classmates dared to poke fun at him. Little toerags. So what we are going to do is put on the party to end all parties and show them what the Farinelli family is capable of.’

Sam was hopping up and down with excitement. I was eyeing Nico’s roses and imagining the fat pink heads plunging to their deaths, scattering their petals into a scented carpet.

‘I’m a bit worried about how much damage there’ll be in the garden.’

Massimo patted my shoulder. ‘That, my darling Maggie, is where you will be truly grateful to have married into the Farinelli family. We cannot have my dear brother shortening his life because a hydrangea has taken a hit. So, we invite you to hold your party next door, where child and dog have already taken their toll.’