‘You’re talking yourself out of it. I can see the cogs whirring. “I won’t be able to do my three-point turn.” “Dad always told me I didn’t need to learn to drive.” “Massimo might be cross we’ve done it behind his back.” Come on! Do this for you, for Sandro, for your dad. It will be so good for you to have a bit of freedom. You don’t want to be that person depending on other people – you’re smart, you’re educated, you don’t have to be that little woman at home. God, if I had your brains, I’d be running for Prime Minister.’

I nodded, wiping my hands on my trousers. She pulled me into a big hug. I still had to instruct myself to relax into her exuberance. I envied the way she scooped up everyone into an embrace, throwing herself on Sam, gathering up Beryl, giving Nico a cuddle when he came in from work. Just a casual ‘glad you’re back’ greeting. Not the full-on kiss Massimo favoured, with its implied message of sex at its heart.

I got out of the car. ‘I’ll give it my best shot.’ I clung onto my determination, forcing myself to muffle the negative voices crowding in as I stood at the desk, giving my name.

When I drove back into the test centre, Maggie was sitting on the wall smoking, which I had only seen her do once before when she’d had too much wine. She leapt up. I tried not to look at her before I’d parked and put the handbrake on. She wanted me to pass so badly, I wouldn’t have put it past her to bang on the examiner’s window and press her face on the glass to see what he was writing. I leant back in my seat while the examiner finished ticking a few boxes on his clipboard, my mind switching between potential mistakes – pulling away from a junction too slowly, not looking in the rear-view mirror enough, getting too close to a cyclist. And then he said, ‘I’m delighted to tell you, Mrs Farinelli, that you have passed.’

If I’d been Maggie, I’d have hugged him. As it was, I put out my hand and said, ‘Thank you. Thank you! You’ve made my day!’ Which for me was quite gushy.

I bounded out of the car, waving my test certificate.

Maggie chucked her cigarette on the ground, grabbed my hands and twirled me round and round in a circle like two little girls in a playground. ‘Get you! Bloody brilliant!’

I felt as though a door was cranking open inside me, filling a corner with pride where doubt used to reside.

‘Right. First thing tomorrow morning we’re going to fetch your dad and you’re going to drive him back to yours so he can see Sandro.’

I stopped. ‘We can’t just turn up there and get him. They’ll want some notice.’

Maggie shrugged. ‘I rang them last week so they could prepare all his medication. I knew you’d pass.’

‘I thought they weren’t allowed to discuss him with anyone other than family?’

Maggie laughed. ‘I didn’t let that worry me. I just pretended to be Lara Farinelli and told them we wanted to take him out for a day,’ she said in a voice that was a pretty good imitation of me.

What a different life I’d have led if I’d have had half of her gall. ‘What if I hadn’t passed?’

‘I’d have fetched him for you. I’ve got Mum on standby to help – she’ll pop round and stay as long as you need her to make sure all his meds are as they should be.’

‘Do you think he’ll need anything special?’

‘I’m quite sure seeing his grandson will be special enough.’

I loved her enthusiasm, which swept me along. Massimo was away until tomorrow afternoon. I’d be able to get through the worst of settling in Dad before Massimo had to face him. By the time he got back, he’d only have to put up with Dad for a few hours.

The next morning we got up at the crack of dawn so we could fetch Dad straight after breakfast at eight o’clock before he got settled into the daily routine of the nursing home. I forgot all about Massimo when I saw Dad in the reception area, eyes bright with excitement. ‘Am I going home? Where’s Shirley?’

I’d trained myself to block out the pain of hearing him say my mother’s name with hope, with optimistic longing. Like a microscopic shard of glass lodged deep under a fingernail I’d become so used to it I hardly registered the twinge. ‘We’re not going to your home, but we’re going to see Sandro.’ I said his name slowly to see if that would register.

Dad frowned and started fiddling with the cuff on his jacket.

Talking to him was like trying all the switches to see which one turned the lamp on.

I tried again. ‘My son?’

‘You have a son!’

And his old face lit up, making me indulge in a little fantasy of him sitting drawing with Sandro.

Then he noticed Maggie and we did the usual introductions, which Maggie, bless her heart, performed with aplomb as though it was the first, not the twenty-first time, she was doing them.

Maggie took hold of his arm. ‘You’ll come with me to the car, Robert, won’t you? While Lara just has a chat to the nurse?’

Dad never ceased to surprise me. ‘It would be my pleasure.’ He did a little bow.

I didn’t know how Dad would react to me getting in the driving seat, but Maggie was brilliant. She sat in the back with him and started chatting about the flowers lining the driveway to the nursing home. So different to Anna. She’d last seen Dad when he was starting to get muddled, way before he didn’t know who people were. Whenever he said something a little odd, she’d wave her hand and say, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Robert,’ and my poor old dad would stand there, digging around for the right words to describe what he meant, then lapsing into silence, muttering about becoming a little forgetful these days. Yet Maggie, who’d never had the luxury of knowing my dad when he was well, instinctively knew how to steer him onto a topic of conversation he could manage.

In between reminding myself to keep my eyes on the road rather than watching them in the rear-view mirror, I listened to Dad. ‘At my house, I’ve got rudbeckias like that. But best – Shirley loves them – are my hollyhocks, so dark they’re almost black.’ So cruel he could remember the colours of flowers from my childhood but not that I had a son.

I hoped this wouldn’t turn out to be a terrible mistake. Despite Maggie’s bluster about how Massimo should be grateful he didn’t have to put up with Dad every day of the year, my husband had never been big on surprises that weren’t his own.

Maggie winked at me in the mirror as Dad started singing ‘Tiptoe Through The Tulips’ without getting a single word wrong. Seeing him so animated, so joyful, whittled away my concerns about Massimo’s reaction to Dad.

I really needed to become more like Maggie and follow her ‘Worry about worries when you need to worry’ philosophy.

If nothing else, I’d see whether Massimo really had changed his spots.

41

MAGGIE

There were so few moments in life when I thought, ‘I played that right’. Mainly I looked back and thought, What a bloody numpty. What was I thinking of? Usually when tequila or vodka had been doing the thinking for me. Yet when Lara did a perfect bit of parallel parking and Sandro dashed over from Anna’s house, skipping with pleasure at seeing Robert, I could have danced for joy.

I left Lara to settle Robert and went off to fetch Mum. By the time I got back, Sandro was teaching Lupo to give a paw to Robert, who seemed to like the feel of Lupo’s coat and kept stroking him. There was a reason old people with dogs lived longer. I was delighted to see Sandro taking charge of Lupo, so far removed from that little boy who’d been cowering in the treehouse. Lara was taking a video, her whole face lit with cheery anticipation as though she’d walked onto a sunny beach on the first day of a fortnight’s holiday.

Mum was thrilled to be involved, fussing around Robert, singing little tunes she knew from the sixties and encouraging him to join in. I could see his mind working like a jukebox, spinning round, often failing to grab the right disc, but sometimes coming up with the goods. The atmosphere reminded me of a street party, with Mum swaying her hips and Robert croaking out ‘Hello, Dolly!’ A bit of Union Jack bunting and some Victoria sponge and we’d be good to go.

I was just getting into the swing of it, when Nico came round, his face taut with tension.

‘They’ve discovered a break-in at one of the storage facilities for the garden centre. I need to talk to the police and give them a rundown on what’s missing.’

‘What about Francesca’s regional finals?’

‘She’ll be devastated if she misses them, but I’m not going to be finished with the police in time. Such a bugger that Massimo’s away.’

‘Do you want me to take her?’

His face shifted between relief and that little giveaway flick of ‘How am I going to sell this to Francesca?’ I was a bit tired of the do-si-do ‘three steps to the right!’ dances we were still having to do just to keep Francesca on an even keel.

I wasn’t busting to spend my Saturday driving to Portsmouth with someone pouting away next to me, so I said, ‘She’s got two choices. Either she goes with me or she’ll have to miss them.’

Nico nodded. ‘I’ll go and tell her.’ He kissed me. ‘Thank you.’

I said goodbye, resentfully readjusting my expectation of a fun day with everyone else in favour of dusting down my dutiful stepmother/chauffeur cap.

Nico had obviously read the riot act because Francesca did have the good grace to thank me when I got home. It was pathetic how little watering I needed. ‘Shall I make you some eggs to give you a bit of energy?’