Cherry nodded. ‘That was the reason I didn’t introduce Liam to them until I was sure about him.’ She shrugged again. ‘But it was clearly a mistake.’
‘I think not, Cherry.’ Sophia leaned forward, her hair rippling like a black curtain. ‘This Liam—he was not for you. A man who can behave in such a way—’ she flicked her hand, Latin-style, expressing her disgust ‘—he is weak, no good. Without the backbone, you know? You deserve better.’
‘I came to that conclusion a little while ago.’ Cherry smiled at Vittorio’s sister. ‘It took some time, but one day at work I looked at him and didn’t like what I saw. I decided I wanted a change—a real change. So I gave in my notice forthwith, told my landlady I was moving out, and took out all my savings and decided to travel for a bit. Italy is my first port of call, but I intend to see all the Mediterranean and then who knows?’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘My mother said I was having a tantrum when I rang to tell her what I was doing. She called me ridiculous and impetuous and told me not to ring her if I got into any trouble—not that I would have, of course.’
Sophia shook her head slowly. ‘They do not sound nice people, your sister and your mother.’
‘No, they’re not,’ Cherry said candidly, ‘but my father was a love. At least I always had an ally in him when I was growing up. He was more than a dad. He was my best friend too.’
‘A divided home.’ Sophia’s voice was soft. ‘This is not good. It must have been painful for you.’
Cherry stared at the Italian girl. Vittorio had said his sister had the mind of a sixteen-year-old and had intimated a young sixteen-year-old at that. She didn’t agree with him. Sophia was very mature for her years, and very sweet.
The other girl’s genuine sympathy and kindness brought sudden tears to her eyes, but Cherry blinked them away determinedly. ‘It wasn’t the happiest of childhoods,’ she admitted quietly, ‘but better than some. Some children have no one, do they?’
Sophia nodded. ‘I have only a vague memory of my father and mother, but we have the—how you say?—the films. Camera films? Of us as a family before the accident.’
‘Home movies.’
‘Si, home movies. Vittorio, he was born a year after my parents married, but then there were no more bambini. My madre—scusi, my mother—was very sad and they saw many doctors. Then when all hope was gone I was born—on Vittorio’s twenty-first birthday. Vittorio said the party went on for days, and everyone was very happy.’ She beamed at Cherry. ‘Vittorio, he says he has never had another present to equal me.’
Cherry smiled. ‘I can understand that.’
‘But then the accident—a car accident when I was six years old, just before Vittorio was going to be married.’ She shrugged. ‘Caterina, his fiancée, would not come here to live and so…’ She shrugged again. ‘Vittorio gave her the house he had bought for them in Matera and after a while Caterina married someone else. I do not like her,’ she added, somewhat venomously.
Fascinated by the story, Cherry couldn’t resist asking, ‘Do you still see Caterina, then?’
‘Si. She married one of Vittorio’s friends. Lorenzo is a nice man. He does not deserve to have such a wife.’
Sophia was certainly a girl who said what she thought. Hiding a smile, Cherry said, ‘Didn’t Vittorio mind her marrying a friend of his?’
‘I do not know. I know they quarrelled because Vittorio would not hand me over to be brought up by our grandmother. He knew my parents would have wanted me to continue to live here under my brother’s protection.’
And so he’d sacrificed his own happiness for Sophia. This revelation didn’t fit in with her summing up of Vittorio. It was disturbing. Wriggling into a more secure position on the hammock, Cherry said, ‘He must love you very much.’
‘Si. And I love Vittorio. Although he is the most…’
A string of Italian words spoken at great speed followed. Cherry didn’t understand one, but she didn’t have to to get their meaning.
Eventually Sophia stopped, shaking her head. ‘He makes me mad,’ she said, an unnecessary statement after what had preceded it. ‘He thinks I am still a bambino, a child, but I am not. I know what I want and it is not to go to the finishing school he has arranged.’
Cherry thought she probably knew the answer to her next question, but she asked it anyway. ‘What do you want?’
Sophia flicked her hair over her brown shoulders, her full rounded breasts straining at the thin material holding them as she did so. ‘I want to be with Santo. I want to be his wife. But—’ she sighed heavily ‘—Santo is poor. At least compared to us and the families of the girls at school. His family have a small vineyard at the edge of our property and a pretty little farmhouse—trulli farmhouse, you understand? They produce the Uva di Troia grape and it is very good. It gives the fine red wine, si? But Vittorio has forbidden us to meet.’
‘Perhaps he thinks you are too young to think of settling down yet?’ She actually agreed with Vittorio on that score, at least. Sophia was sixteen years old; she had years and years in front of her before marriage and all it entailed.
Sophia tossed her head. ‘I have known Santo all my life and there will be no one else for either of us. And he is not a young boy. He is nineteen years old this summer.’ This was said with an air of proving Santo was as old as Methuselah. ‘He is a man. And he is kind, good.’ The slightly defiant tone vanished in the next instant. Tears in her eyes, Sophia whispered, ‘I would run away and get married, but Santo will not hear of this. If I go to the finishing school I shall not see Santo for a long time and I cannot bear it. I would rather kill myself,’ she finished tragically.
‘Oh, Sophia.’ Cherry slid off the hammock and knelt down beside Vittorio’s sister, taking one of her hands. ‘If you love each other as much as you say, it will work out in time. I know that’s not much comfort now, but you are still young, you know.’
‘I do not feel young.’ Eyes as green as grass held hers. ‘I do not think I have ever truly felt young as my friends are. I have always felt different. And I know what I want, Cherry. I want to marry Santo and have his babies. That is all I have ever wanted. Everything else does not count for me.’
Oh, dear. Somewhat at a loss, Cherry squeezed the slim fingers in hers. ‘Then it will happen,’ she said simply. ‘When it’s right. He’ll wait for you, if he is the one.’
They talked a little more. Cherry told Vittorio’s sister about her job in marketing, and what it had entailed, adding that she was glad she had left when she had and that she was considering a change of career when she returned to England eventually. ‘Perhaps local government—something like that. My degree is in English and Business Studies, but I think I’d find social services more interesting. I’m not sure. Time will tell. For now I’m looking on the next few months as the gap year I never had before university.’
Sophia nodded, but clearly had no interest in a career herself, only becoming animated when she told Cherry about Santo and how wonderful he was. ‘He has never looked at another girl. I know this,’ she said passionately, ‘and I could never love anyone else. It is foolish to make us wait. I tell Vittorio this but he will not listen. He has the heart of ice, not of fire.’
After a while both girls settled down for a siesta in the shade of the trees, the chirruping of birds and the lazy hum of bees in the surrounding vegetation the only sound disturbing the warm scented air. Cherry could hardly believe she’d told a virtual stranger about Liam and Angela, but then maybe it was because Sophia was a stranger that it had proved so easy. That and these incredibly beautiful and surreal surroundings.
This whole interlude felt like a step out of time, she thought drowsily in the moments before sleep overcame her. It was as though she had