She laughed. “This is what we call it. No, it doesn’t come from the church now. There are many stories about the name. Some say it was the style of wine from dried grapes favoured for Mass. But others say there was a holy friar who used the leftover wine from the Eucharist to go around and cure the sick. These days it just tastes good for dessert. This is how you eat the biscotti. You dip and then you eat.”

Angelina got up. “I’m going to bed, Mamma. I am tired. The little one kept me up most of last night. Please God she sleeps for a while now.”

Paola gave her a big hug and kisses on both cheeks. Angelina shook my hand, giving me a shy smile. “Tomorrow you must tell me about life in London,” she said, “about the fashions and the music and the movie stars. I want to know everything.”

“All right.” I returned her smile.

She picked up the little cradle and carried it from the room. After she had gone Paola leaned closer to me. “It is good to see her animated again,” she said. “For a while after the baby she showed no interest in anything. She was very ill, you know. They had to take the baby early, or she would have died. I thought I would lose her, my only child. But now, thank God and the Blessed Virgin, she is on the road to recovery.”

She put a hand on my shoulder. “You lost your poor mamma, so you know what it feels like to lose someone you love. After my dear man it would have been more than I could have borne. It’s the very worst thing in the world for a mother to lose her child.”

I felt tears welling up in my eyes and tried to swallow back a sob. The wine had worn at my defences. I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell somebody and have her arms around me, telling me softly that she understood. But I stopped myself at the last moment. I couldn’t tell even this sweet and kind woman how it felt to have lost my baby.

“Don’t look so sad,” she said, touching my cheek. “All is well. We are tested and we survive, and life will be good again.”

With those comforting words I bid her goodnight and went to bed.

It was only when I was curled up in bed feeling the cool touch of those soft sheets against my cheek that I allowed the tears to come. I might have held them back until now, but I couldn’t any longer. I relived every moment. I remembered my surprise when the doctor told me that I was pregnant. My initial fear was replaced with reassurance. The pregnancy was not planned, and had come sooner than we’d hoped, but Adrian would do the right thing and marry me. I’d put my clerkship with the solicitor on hold, that’s all. But that wasn’t what happened. Adrian had looked scared, then annoyed. “Are you sure? It couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time, could it? We’re both so close to taking our bar exams. Certainly in no position to settle down and start a family.” He paused, a frown spoiling that smoothly handsome face. Then he relaxed again, and gave me a little smile. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It will be all right. I know someone who can take care of it.”

It took me a while to realise that he wanted me to have an abortion. Shock, horror, revulsion.

“An abortion? Is that what you are suggesting?”

Adrian remained so calm. “He’s a good chap. Knows what he’s doing.”

“Adrian, it’s our baby. How can you be like that?”

“Oh, come on, Joanna. It’s the nineteen seventies. Women have abortions all the time. It’s no big thing anymore.”

“It is for the baby,” I said. “And it would be for me. My father would never forgive me if he found out.”

“Your father has hardly been the most supportive man in the universe, has he?” Adrian demanded. “And hopelessly old-fashioned. He can’t even accept our living together, for God’s sake.”

“All right,” I said, taking a deep breath, “I could never forgive myself. There. I’ve said it. And if you care so little about me . . .”

“Of course I care about you,” Adrian said. “It’s just that I’m not prepared to wreck two lives for the sake of a baby neither of us wants.” He put a hand on my shoulder then. “You’re still in shock. Think about it and I’m sure you’ll come to see that my way is best.”

I did think about it. I told myself that in truth there was no other solution. Adrian would keep pressuring me if I stayed with him. He certainly wouldn’t want to share his flat with an unwanted baby that might ruin his precious reputation. And if I moved out? I had no guarantee my father would take me in, and apart from him I had no one. I think the biggest shock was realising that Adrian, my Adrian, who I had thought was my soulmate, my lover, my best friend, was none of the above. He was someone I could no longer rely on. I told myself he was right. We were in no position to start a family. It was only a bit of tissue at this stage, not a baby. But I simply couldn’t do it.

Strangely enough, it was liberal free spirit Scarlet who was on my side. “Don’t do it if you don’t feel it’s right,” she said. “And don’t stay with that creep Adrian if that’s the way he treats you. You’ve got me. I’ll help you get through it. And I bet your dad will, too, once he gets used to it. Go and see him and tell him. He’ll rant and rave a bit, but then he’ll come around.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You know what a fuss he made when I moved in with Adrian.”