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‘You look tired,’ Lily said frankly, her gaze not stopping at her eyes as she took in her day-old tank top and faded jeans and clearly found them wanting as she accepted a cup of tea from Carmela. ‘You might want to freshen up and find something nicer to wear before we go out.’
Tina frowned. ‘Go out?’ What she really wanted was a shower and twelve hours sleep. But if her mother had lined up an appointment with her bank, then maybe it was worth making a head start on her problems. ‘What did you have in mind?’
‘I thought we could go shopping. There’s some lovely new boutiques down on the Calle Larga 22 Marzo. I thought it would be fun to take my grown-up daughter out shopping.’
‘Shopping?’ Tina regarded her mother with disbelief. ‘You really want to go shopping?’
‘Is there a problem with that?’
‘What are you planning on spending? Air?’
Her mother laughed. ‘Oh, don’t be like that, Valentina. Can’t we celebrate you being back in Venice with a new outfit or two?’
‘I’m serious, Lily. You asked me to come—no, scrub that, you demanded I come—because you said you are about to be thrown out of this place, and the minute I get here you expect to go shopping. I don’t get it.’
‘Valentina—’
‘No! I left Dad up to his neck in problems so I could come and sort yours out, like you asked me to.’
Lily looked to Carmela for support but the housekeeper had found a spot on her stove top that required serious cleaning. She turned back to her daughter, her voice held together with a thin steel thread.
‘Well, in that case—’
‘In that case, maybe we should get started.’ And then, because her mother looked stunned, and because she knew she was tired and jet-lagged and less tolerant than usual of her mother’s excesses, she sighed. ‘Look, Lily, maybe once we get everything sorted out—maybe then there’ll be time for shopping. I tell you what, why don’t you get all the paperwork ready, and I’ll come and have a look as soon as I’ve showered and changed? Maybe it’s nowhere near as bad as you think.’
* * *
An hour later, Tina buried her head in her hands and wished herself back on the family farm working sixteen-hour days. Wished herself anywhere that wasn’t here, facing up to the nightmare that was her mother’s accounts.
For a moment she considered going through the documents again, just one more time, just to check she wasn’t wrong, that she hadn’t miscalculated and overestimated the extent of her mother’s debt, but she’d been through everything twice already now. Been through endless bank and credit card statements. Pored over loan document after loan document, all the time struggling with a dictionary alongside to make sense of the complex legal terms written in a language not her first.
She had made no mistake.
She rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed. From the very start, when she’d seen the mass of paperwork her mother kept hidden away in an ancient ship’s chest—almost as if she’d convinced herself that out of sight really was out of mind—the signs had been ominous, but she’d kept hope alive as she’d worked to organise and sort the mess into some kind of order—hope that somewhere amidst it all would be the key to rescuing her mother from financial ruin.
She was no accountant, it was true, but doing the farm’s meagre accounts had meant she’d had to learn the hard way about balancing books, and as she’d slowly pieced the puzzle together, it was clear that there was no key, just as there would be no rescue.
Her mother’s outgoings were ten times what was being earned on the small estate Eduardo had left her, and Luca Barbarigo was apparently happily funding the difference.
But where was Lily spending all the money when she was no longer paying salaries? She’d sorted through and found a handful of accounts from the local grocer, another batch from a clutch of boutiques and while her mother hadn’t stinted on her own wardrobe, there was nowhere near enough to put her this deep into financial trouble. Unless...
She looked around the room, the space so cluttered with ornaments that they seemed to suck up the very oxygen. Next to her desk a lamp burned, but not just any lamp. This was a tree, with a gnarled twisted trunk that sprouted two dozen pink flowers and topped with a dozen curved branches fringed with green leaves that ended in more pink flowers but this time boasting light globes, and the entire thing made of glass.
It was hideous.
