Page 25 of Escape to Tuscany

‘Did Granny leave any papers?’ I’m being abrupt, I know, but it feels urgent. ‘Diaries or letters, or whatever?’

‘Oh.’ Charlie sounds let down, somehow. ‘I don’t know. Mummy’s in charge of the house, and obviously I haven’t had time to go down and help. You’d have to ask her, I’m afraid.’

‘Fuck,’ I say, and a group of American tourists shake their heads and cross to the other side of the street. ‘I fucking knew it.’

‘What’s this about, anyway?’

‘Nothing, really. I mean, it’s a book thing. For the book.’

‘But I thought your book was about the Highlands,’ Charlie says. ‘Oh, Tori, don’t tell me that’s off, too.’

‘It’s notoff.’ I’m aware of sounding ridiculously defensive. God, Charlie always does put me on the back foot. ‘But obviously it has to be changed now, and Richenda wants me to write about Florence.’

‘So Richenda knows about all this, then.’

‘Of course she does. I had to tell her.’

There’s a brief silence, and I just know that Charlie’s holding back some snippy remark. ‘Right,’ she says at last. ‘I mean, I get it. It makes sense you’d write about Florence. It was always your special thing, yours and Granny’s.’

She sounds hurt. I want to say:But you could have come with us.I want to say:Look, it’s not my fault you filled your holidays with tennis competitions and rowing and cross-country and cleaning up riverbanks.But I don’t, because she’s right – it was our special thing. I was close to Granny in a way Charlie never quite got to be.

‘Yes,’ I say inadequately.

‘You should really deal with this yourself,’ Charlie says. ‘This is the outcome of your decision, you know. I shouldn’t have to deal with Mummy for you – I mean, more than I already am.’ Her voice is already softer, though. I can tell she’s relenting.

‘I know. I know, and I’m so grateful for everything you’re doing. I really am.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ She sighs. ‘I have to talk to Mummy tomorrow anyway. I suppose I can ask her then. I’ll tell her the twins are doing a family history project at school.’

‘They’re only four, though. Don’t you think she’ll realise?’

‘Oh, please.’

‘Fair point,’ I say. Mummy never was the most involved parent, and she was clearly never going to step up as a grandmother. ‘Thanks so much, Charlie. You can’t imagine how much I appreciate this.’

‘It’s okay,’ Charlie says. ‘But honestly, Tori, I don’t know how you’d manage without me. You’re going to have to learn to run your own life one of these days. Oh God, the kasha’s boiling over. Ben!Ben!’ And she’s gone.

10

Stella

When I lived with my parents, I never got to lie in bed in the morning. In term time I had to go to school six days a week, and there was Mass on Sunday. And when I didn’t have school, I had to make breakfast for everyone else and then work through a long list of household chores. I was only allowed to sleep late if I was ill, and I was as strong as an ox back then. I remember being ill only once in the whole of 1944, and it was really providential that I was.

I’d come home from school one day in late March with that horrible dizzy feeling you get when you’re about to come down with something. Mamma had sent me to bed straight away, and I hadn’t argued. By the morning I had a fever and a cough, and she took one look at me and told me not to move; she would tell my father I was to stay at home today. I wasn’t even cogent enough to be grateful to her. I just sank back into sleep, and woke again soon after to the sound of raised voices downstairs: Mamma, Papà and Achille.

At first I lay there and tried not to listen. I assumed it was just one of their fights, and I resented them for disturbing me. And then I heard the wordrastrellamento, and I was wide awake.Rastrellamentois what we called the kind of sweep the Nazis did periodically, descending on a town and searching every house. Sometimes they’d simply round up all the men of serviceable age, even as young as fourteen or fifteen, and deport them all to Germany for forced labour.

Suddenly my mind was quite clear. I got up, dressed hastily and went down to the kitchen, where I found the dispute in full flow. Papà was the first to see me. He held up a hand to silence my mother and Achille. ‘Stella, you silly girl, what are you doing? Go back to bed.’

I shook my head, making it hurt. ‘I want to know what’s happening.’

‘The SS are at San Damiano,’ Achille said before my father could interrupt. ‘Apparently they’ve been working their way along the valley.’

‘Then we’re next,’ I said, and my mother crossed herself.

Achille nodded. ‘I’m just getting a few things together, then I’ll go up to Santa Marta.’

‘Why would you do that?’ my mother burst out. ‘Why would you put yourself in more danger? You should go to Mercatale with your father.’ My aunt Giovanna, my father’s sister, had a small farm near Mercatale, a little way away in the Val di Pesa.

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