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‘She was as bright as a button, but she couldn’t read or write. Who knows what she could have been if she’d had access to all the things that are available now? Prime Minister, probably. She was very sharp.’
‘She could read, surely?’ He frowned, sure the nun was mixing the children up. ‘We used to go to the cemetery and look at the graves—or am I confusing her with someone else?’ He kept his query light. ‘Are you sure you mean Alicia?’
‘Oh, she hid it very well,’ Reverend Mother told him.
‘She had a twin,’ Dante said, and turned and looked when the Reverend Mother flushed a little, her head down. ‘Beatrice?’
‘They weren’t actually twins. That was just another story that Alicia made up. Still, as is the case with real twins, one always took up the slack—Beatrice. She didn’t even know she was doing it.’
‘I don’t understand...’
‘Beatrice would read to Alicia, who would memorise things.’
‘That’s clever.’
‘Indeed she was—and kind. You know...’ She hesitated.
Dante turned to her and smiled deliberately. For when he smiled a certain way he knew that rocks could be moved. Yes, it could be used for bad, but not in this case—for he had to know. And so he smiled his navy-eyed smile and then looked ahead, safe in the knowledge that he had charmed even Reverend Mother.
‘Alicia cared for your brother in his first months of life,’ she confided to her new friend.
Whoa!
‘Did she?’ he said, and he hoped she couldn’t hear the cursing in his head, because even he could see that must have hurt her.
‘Yes, she worked in the nursery. So you can rest assured that he was always well looked after and loved.’
Dante closed his eyes as he walked.
‘In fact...’ Reverend Mother was the soul of indiscretion now ‘...the other couple I was telling you about...’
‘The couple you hoped would adopt Roberto?’
‘Yes. One of them was Alicia. She was engaged to marry and there were plans that she would adopt Roberto.’
He didn’t know what to say.
‘She always took special care of him when she worked in the nursery. Still, it was not to be. No. It would seem motherhood and settling down were not for her. Poor thing.’
God, what a mess.
They had come full circle and were nearing the convent again, and now it was Reverend Mother who had a question.
‘Have you made peace with the memory of your mother?’
‘I’ve had enough trouble acknowledging my father,’ Dante admitted. ‘I think peace is a long way off.’
‘It doesn’t have to be so. Remember one nice thing.’
‘There are some good bits,’ he said. ‘She cooked good eggs.’
‘Come on, Dante, you can do better than that.’
‘She actually did.’ He was not being facetious. ‘We had nice suppers sometimes, and she was good to a friend of mine.’ He was not going to be counselled by Reverend Mother. ‘I’ll get there.’
Next century, perhaps, but for Alicia’s sake he asked one more thing.
‘Alicia’s twin,’ he said, as if the memory had just been stirred. ‘She got a scholarship, didn’t she?’
