Chapter Seven
‘THANK YOU SO much for coming today, Signore, Signora. Everyone is very excited for your visit.’
Giulia Rossi, the manager of the residential care home, beamed at Dulcie and Ettore. ‘And on behalf of all the staff and residents at St Maria, may I offer our congratulations? Auguri! Che la gioia abitarvi ogni giorno e l’amore accompagnarvi per tutta la vita.’
‘Thank you.’ Ettore smiled, and Dulcie felt his hand press lightly around her waist. ‘Signora Rossi is wishing us joy, and love in our life for ever.’
Dulcie smiled. ‘Thank you. That’s very kind of you.’
And optimistic on so many levels, she thought, watching Ettore shake hands with the assembled staff.
Joy and love were not part of their marriage.
And neither was sex.
A wave of humiliation skittered across her skin as her brain unhelpfully replayed the moment when Ettore had reared away from her as if he were a vampire and she were holding out a bunch of garlic.
It was so embarrassing. All of it. Her physical response to his body, the fact that it had gone so far, and, worst of all, that he had been the one to put a stop to it.
And yet she could understand why it had happened. Could almost forgive herself.
Surely it was the most likely outcome if you put two former lovers in close proximity and said ‘pretend to be married’.
Sex with an ex was a thing. And seeing him every day had churned everything up.
Made it harder to know what was real and what was pretend.
And yes, she had allowed the past to overlap the present and blur into something that felt real and current and mutual.
And it was mutual, briefly, she thought as she remembered the urgency of Ettore’s hands and mouth.
But even if there was a connection that went beyond this marriage of convenience, clearly it was not one that Ettore wanted to acknowledge. He might have struck the match with her, but he had swiftly extinguished the flame.
Now, though, was not the time to be thinking about any of this. Some people had real problems that were not of their own making.
The day had not got off to the most promising start. In fact, she had spent most of the morning alone. Which would have been a blessing only a few days earlier, but that was before she had made an idiot of herself with Ettore.
He had joined her for breakfast momentarily but as soon as he could, he had made his excuses and left. His excuses had been vague enough that she knew he simply wanted to avoid her. And even though she had spent the last few days trying to avoid him, it didn’t feel like an equal trade.
She had still been sitting at the breakfast table some twenty minutes later, trying not to remember the look on his face when she asked him not to leave last night, when he had suddenly reappeared.
‘I have an appointment this morning at St Maria’s. It’s been in the diary for months.’ He pushed a folder across the table. ‘If you’d rather stay here and just relax by the pool, I quite understand But if you’d like to come with me, I’d like that.’
Was he ill? She felt swamped with panic but when she opened the folder, she realised that it wasn’t a hospital, as she’d assumed from the name, but a children’s home.
It was a coincidence. Obviously, but it still made her fingers bite into her thighs beneath the table.
Oscar’s time in care was a permanent reminder of her betrayal. It was because of her. She had failed to protect him. She had abandoned him, knowing that her mother couldn’t cope. But this was a chance to see for herself what Oscar had experienced.
Now, as Signora Rossi led them into what looked like an oversized family home, Dulcie said slowly, ‘I imagine that joy and love are very important to your work here.’
She nodded. ‘They are. We have children who have experienced great suffering in their lives. Children who have lost one or both parents. Children with parents in prison or who are struggling with addiction and poverty.’
Pushing back against the unwieldy mass of guilt and regret and recrimination and shame that she carried with her at all times, Dulcie nodded.
Was this the kind of place where Oscar might have stayed?
She had no real idea, she realised with a distant jolt.
Her brother didn’t so much refuse to talk about his time in care as shrug it off.
But she knew that at least half his childhood had been spent in children’s homes with the occasional, unsuccessful stay with foster parents.
‘Is this a typical casa-famiglia, Signora Rossi?’ she asked as they walked into a large, bright kitchen. Turning, she screwed up her face apologetically. ‘Sorry, am I saying that right?’
‘Perfectly. And please, call me Giulia. How long have you been learning Italian?’
‘I started about two years ago, but then I stopped and now I’m trying again, but I do find some of the combinations of letters difficult to pronounce and my vocabulary is currently limited to ordering food and complaining about it before I ask for the bill.’
She felt Ettore’s gaze seek her out and she fixed her eyeline on the large pine table in the centre of the room.
Signora Rossi laughed. ‘I remember it well. When I was learning English, I thought I would be forever ordering fish and chips and a pot of tea.’
‘Your English is perfect.’
‘My husband is English, and we lived in Oxford for ten years so it should be perfect, but I still speak with an accent.’ She lowered her voice.
‘One of the best ways to learn a language is to watch TV. Just watch your favourite shows with Italian subtitles or Italian shows with English subtitles. Talking to children is also a good way to learn.’
‘It is? Why’s that?’
‘Children are less self-conscious.’
Dulcie blinked. It was Ettore who had answered, not Giulia. Looking up, she found his gaze resting intently on her face.
‘They’re more forgiving of grammatical errors and imperfect pronunciation. They won’t try to correct you, they’ll just talk, which helps you learn the rhythm and flow of a language.’
‘Exactly that.’ Giulia nodded. ‘Your husband knows what he is talking about. Now, to answer your question, St Maria is quite typical, although we are lucky to have extra financial support from the Marchesi family, so we’ve been able to create a games room and an outdoor play area.’
‘This is lovely,’ Dulcie said as they reached the living room. ‘It feels just like a family home.’ Or what a family home should feel like. There were sofas and shelves with books and a TV.
Giulia nodded. ‘Traditionally, in the past, these kinds of homes used to be more institutionalised. But as a country, we moved away from larger residential buildings to something smaller scale with a more family-oriented atmosphere. Which reminds me, we were hoping that you might stay and have lunch with us.’
The children, supervised by some of the staff, made pasta from scratch and a tomato sauce.
‘Ricchie e macurroni. It’s a local dish. Every family in every village has their own version and they are kept secret and handed down from generation to generation. And they all swear theirs is the best. But I think this is the best one.’
Dulcie took a mouthful. It tasted familiar. ‘It’s delicious.’
After lunch, Dulcie did some colouring with the younger children and Ettore went off to play football before being dragged into the gaming room.
Signora Rossi smiled. ‘He is very good with the children, especially the older boys. They look forward to his visits.’
‘So, he comes here often?’
She had sensed that the staff and children recognised Ettore but as the older woman nodded, she realised that what she had taken for politeness was in fact genuine affection.
‘The Marchesi family has been generous.’
The older woman paused as if she was assembling her words with care.
‘It was your husband’s idea to set up a mentorship scheme with local businesses, including Castiglione Fiana.
They offer work experience and apprenticeships to children from St Maria when they leave the home.
But that’s not why the children like him. ’
Dulcie felt her gaze pull towards the teenage boy who had watched the tour from the sidelines, tugging at the zip of his hoodie.
When they had arrived, he had been at the edges of the room, his shoulders hunched, hands clenched in his trouser pockets.
His body language was completely different now.
He seemed looser, more relaxed, largely, she suspected, because of the man sitting next to him, a game console in his hand, his muscular body dwarfing the beanbag he was sitting on.
She felt an inappropriate kick of heat that almost knocked her off her feet. There weren’t many men who could pull off that look. But Ettore looked as if he were posing for the cover photo of a men’s magazine.
After yesterday’s fiasco in the garden, she’d honestly thought that weird undercurrent of heat, of attraction, would be extinguished. But it was still here, simmering away beneath the surface. For her, anyway.
‘Why do they like him?’ she asked. She couldn’t help herself, but she had an excuse because she was in character.
Giulia smiled.
‘They like that he keeps his promises. He turns up when he says he will and that’s important for these children. He listens to them and, most importantly, he treats them like he would treat anyone. They don’t get that very often. And he doesn’t try to be cool. But apparently, he’s “cracked”.’
Dulcie frowned. ‘Is that good?’
Giulia’s mouth twitched. ‘I believe so.’
Dulcie was sorry to leave St Maria’s. The children came out to wave them off and she kept thinking about Oscar and his experience of being taken into care.
He was five years old the first time it happened.
Who had dropped him off? Had he cried? What had it felt like being looked after by strangers?
To be left behind? To be alone with his fear and his pain?