The Tuscan Child(65)

Suddenly I felt that I had to get away. I excused myself on the pretext of finding a lavatory. As I stepped into the shade at the edge of the piazza, I saw someone coming up behind me. I stepped aside to let him pass, but instead he stopped and faced me. It was Renzo. He took my wrist again, held up my hand, and compared it to his own, now wearing a ring.

“Yes, they are identical,” he said. “Incredible.” We stared at the rings, comparing them. He was still frowning, as if he couldn’t believe what he saw.

“And there are letters inside mine,” he went on. “I only noticed them yesterday. ‘HRL.’ Do you know what they mean?”

“Yes, I do. Hugo Roderick Langley. My father’s initials,” I said.

He shook his head. “So I have to agree that this ring came from your father. It’s hard to believe that he was here and he knew my mother, but now we have proof that what you say must be true. I must apologise for my rude treatment earlier.”

“There is no need to apologise. I’m just glad that somebody now believes me.”

Renzo looked at me and I nodded. He gave a little laugh. “To think we had no idea. When my father finds out, he will be so surprised.”

“Don’t tell him,” I said quickly.

He gave me a questioning look. “Why? Why should he not know?”

“Because . . .” I hesitated. “Because we don’t know what really happened, and until we do, I’d like to keep this to ourselves.”

I was still unsure what to do and whether I could trust Renzo. I had learned the hard way that not all men are trustworthy. Then I realised I had no way of finding out any more about my father and Sofia if I did not share some of what I knew.

“I’d like to show you something,” I said. I held up my wrist. “This medal on a ribbon was among my father’s things. I am sure that your mother gave it to him. He was not religious and would never have chosen to wear something like this.”

Renzo took my wrist again, holding it up to look at it. I was horribly aware of his touch, but he seemed not to notice that he was so close to me. “Interesting,” he said. “I’m not sure which saint this is.”

“Paola said it was Saint Rita,” I said.

He shrugged. “I’m not exactly a student of saints. The older generation believes there is a saint for every problem. Frankly I haven’t found them to be very effective in solving mine.”

“You have had problems?” I asked.

Renzo shrugged. “I have had my share. Only small setbacks compared to the sufferings of the world, I suppose. Mainly problems of love.” He stopped, frowning again. “I should not bore you with this, Signorina Langley.”

“No, please. Go on. And do call me Joanna.”

“Very well, Joanna.” He shrugged. “There was a girl here when I was eighteen. I was sent to Florence to school, you know, and when I came home I told my father I wished to be a chef. He thought it was a stupid idea. I was going to inherit all this land, the prosperous vineyards. He wanted me to study agriculture, so I had to agree, and did a course on viniculture at the university. Then I came home and fell in love. I thought Cosimo would be happy, but he didn’t like her. She wanted to be a fashion designer, and miraculously she got a place at the fashion institute in Milan. Off she went and of course she never came back. I hear she’s quite famous now.”

He broke off and looked at me. “I don’t know why I’m telling you my life story.”

“Maybe because you sense that I’ve been through similar experiences.”

“You have?”

“Yes. The man I thought I was going to marry dumped me for someone who could advance his career.”

“I was always told that English men were cold and proper,” he said. Then he corrected himself. “But not all English people, I have to admit. I met an English girl once when I was working over there. She was very nice—funny and warm and not at all stuffy as the English are supposed to be. I thought I might stay in London and marry her. But then Cosimo had his stroke and I had to leave her and come rushing home. I feel that any time I fall in love, it is doomed.”

“There is still plenty of time,” I said.

“For you, maybe. I have already turned thirty. In our culture this is a hopeless case. An old bachelor, like my father.”

We had been walking in the shade up the narrow street, and I saw that the little park was up ahead of us. “There is something else I’d like you to see,” I said. “Can we sit in the park and I will show you? Maybe you can help me figure it out.”

We left the houses behind. Renzo followed me along the sandy path to the bench in the shade of the sycamore tree where the old couple had been sitting. He sat beside me and I opened my purse. I took out the cigarette packet on which my father had sketched the woman.

He gasped as I handed it to him. “Yes, this is her. My mother. Exactly as she was. That smile. Did your father draw this?”

“He must have.”

“He has captured her so well.”

There was no sound apart from the cooing of a pigeon in the tree above us and the chirping of sparrows as they pecked in the dust. It felt as if we were alone at the edge of the universe.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Your father gave my mother his ring, which must have been a prized possession. He took the trouble to draw a picture of her. So it is clear that he had feelings for her. And she gave him a medal. That must have meant that she had feelings for him, too. So what happened? What went wrong? Did he leave her and go back to England, so she chose the security of a German instead?”