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Alicia couldn’t ignore it, though, because Dante was not appeasing, he was almost confrontational, when this dinner was supposed to be about stepping back quietly.
‘So, whereabouts in Sicily are you from?’ Vincenzo asked her.
‘The south,’ Alicia said, trying to be suitably vague.
‘Trebordi,’ said Dante, clearly regretting telling her to white out the past.
Giustina addressed her for the first time. ‘Where Dante was born?’
‘Yes.’ Alicia nodded, seeing now just how awkward it might make things and regretting their row and her impetuous self even more.
‘We grew up in the same village,’ Dante said as he took her hand and gave it a squeeze.
‘Did you go to the same school?’ Rosa actually asked a question.
‘No,’ Dante answered. ‘Alicia went to the convent school.’
‘Your family...?’ Giustina gestured for her wine glass to be filled again. ‘Are they still in the village?’ She said it with a slight sniff.
Oh, yes, there was definitely a north-south divide with her; Dante was right. Alicia saw better now why he had suggested they say they’d met in Milan. It was easier to move them a few decades on, because the past was something she’d never been able to face before—though she was surprised to find it was easier now.
‘I was raised by nuns...’ Alicia said it out loud for the first time. ‘I was left at the baby door of a convent.’
‘Goodness,’ Giustina said. ‘Do you know who your parents are? I mean, do you have any idea...?’
Dante again answered. ‘Actually, we just found out that we’re not a legal couple. We’re half-brother and sister—but don’t tell anyone.’
‘Dante!’ Alicia laughed, and was grateful that he’d lightened the mood even with his own dark self. ‘He’s being ridiculous,’ Alicia said. ‘Yes, I have an idea who my parents are, but they don’t want to meet me. They were young and it was before they were married.’
‘So they’ve since married each other?’
‘Giustina,’ Dante cut in.
They made it to the main course without further incident, but Alicia was very aware of Giustina’s shrewd eyes, and it soon became clear that she had a fascination with her husband’s long-ago lover. For when her beautiful main course was almost entirely eaten Giustina again addressed Alicia.
‘You must have known Dante’s mother?’
The table fell very silent, and she felt Dante tense at the thought that his mother’s name might be dragged through the mud again. God knew it had been done enough already in his life.
‘A little,’ Alicia said. ‘She was very beautiful... I’ve always remembered that. And it was not just her looks—she was kind, too. She used to send me a parcel each month.’
‘Did she work?’ Giustina asked.
‘I really can’t remember...’ Alicia frowned as if scouring her mind. ‘Actually, now I think of it, we used to sell her produce in the convent shop. She kept bees, I think.’
She felt the squeeze of Dante’s hand and saw the relief in Vincenzo.
But Giustina did not leave things there.
She really was not a gentle person.
‘So how come you met up again after all these years?’ Giustina asked. ‘Did you get in touch because you read how well Dante was doing?’
It was just a little too close to the bone, for Alicia had done exactly that, and for the first time tonight she was lost for words.
‘Thank God she did,’ Dante said. ‘I’d been looking for her for a very long time... We were friends as children.’
He put an arm around her shoulders and she wanted to lean her head on it. She wanted this to be real. She wanted this Dante to be real—or at least the one she carried now in her dreams.
