Then she tucked him in as if he was a little child, wrapping the parachute around him. “Rest now.” She stood up. “See. I leave you water to drink, and the rest of the soup, if you can try to eat it. I think you should try.” She wagged a finger at him, making him smile.

“Very well. I will try.”

As she walked away, he wondered if it would be the last time he would see her.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

JOANNA

June 1973

Paola had clearly been waiting for me. She looked relieved when she opened the front door. “Oh, Signorina Langley, mia cara. There you are. I was worried that something had happened to you. I said to Angelina that you surely would not want to be out alone in the dark. What would you be doing?”

“I am so sorry, Signora,” I said. “I talked to the men who sit in the piazza, and they insisted that I join them for a glass of wine. Then they ordered bruschetta and it would have been rude to refuse. I told them I was eating dinner at your house, but they said you would not eat until very late.”

Paola laughed. “It is no problem, my little one. I was merely concerned for your safety. Not that I think you run the risk of being unsafe in this village, but there are dark alleyways where you can trip and hurt yourself. Now come, sit. The dinner awaits us.”

I followed her down the hall and was ushered into a dining room, this time with a table elegantly set with candles on it. Angelina was already there. The baby slept in its cradle at her feet.

“You see, Mamma, I told you she would be safe,” Angelina said. “She is a girl from London, from a big city. She knows how to take care of herself and watch out for danger.”

I laughed. “I did have to say no when the man called Gianni offered to take me home,” I said. “I thought he was a little too friendly.”

Paola shrugged. “He is all talk, that one. No real harm in him, at least not to the ladies. If you had become amorous, he would have run a mile.”

Angelina laughed, too. “But in his business dealings, well, sometimes he does like to play with fire,” she said.

“We don’t know that,” Paola said. “It is only rumours.”

“It is what they say in the village,” Angelina replied. “They say he is friendly with those who might be Mafiosi. They say he might trade in stolen goods. And then there is the olive press . . .”

“Olive press?” I asked.

Angelina nodded. “The only olive press for the whole community is owned by Cosimo. Did you meet Cosimo?”

“I did. He looked rather . . .” I didn’t have the Italian word for “imposing.”

“He is powerful,” Paola said. “Rich and powerful. A dangerous man to cross. He owns the only olive press, and he lets those he likes or to whom he owes favours get the best times to press their olives. If he does not like you—if you refuse to sell your trees to him, like me—then you find that your time to press olives is at two o’clock in the morning.”

“Does the press run day and night?”

“It does. In the picking season, the sooner the olives are pressed, the better. So each person wants time at Cosimo’s press.”

“So what was Gianni doing that might anger Cosimo?” I asked.

“He still has olive trees, over beyond the old monastery. Cosimo has never liked him, and he always gives Gianni the worst times. Sometimes he makes him wait for days. So Gianni was trying to get together with some of the local farmers to set up a co-op and build their own olive press. I don’t know how far he has come with this idea, but of course Cosimo would be angry if anyone tried to go against him.”

“Gianni is a fool,” Angelina said. “He likes to talk big. But if it came to a showdown with Cosimo, he would run away with his tail between his legs.”

While we talked Paola carried in dishes and placed them in front of us. “Asparagus from the garden,” she said. “It is asparagus season. Such a short time that we make the most of it and eat asparagus at almost every meal.”

She placed a dish of white stalks in front of me, then drizzled them with olive oil and grated Parmesan cheese over them from a big block. I had eaten asparagus before—certainly not often, as it was a delicacy in England—but it had tasted nothing like this. Each mouthful was heavenly, the sharpness of the cheese contrasting with the sweetness of the vegetable.

After we had finished this course, Angelina cleared away the plates and returned carrying a big tureen. When Paola took off the lid, the herby aroma filled the room. She served me a generous portion, much bigger than I would have liked, but it would have been rude to refuse. “Here we are—the pici you and I made this afternoon and the rabbit ragu. Enjoy.”

And I did enjoy. Somehow I seemed to find room to clear my plate. There was just enough of the rabbit in the sauce to flavour it, but it was the herbs and tomatoes that made it so delicious. I resolved to learn about herbs from Paola before I departed, and if ever I had a garden, I’d grow them myself.

After the main course had been cleared, biscotti were put on the table along with small glasses of a rich amber liquid. “This is the Vin Santo I told you about,” Paola said. “The holy wine.”

I looked surprised. “This is really holy wine from the church?”