‘She was pretty and plump and motherly. You’d probably call her old-fashioned because all she wanted was to look after us. My mother was dead by then, so it was really nice having her.’

‘Is that why he married her?’ Alex asked, scandalised. ‘To have a woman about the place?’

Gino grinned.

‘Oh no! He was crazy about her. It was Poppa and me who needed motherly attention. I was ten years old. Maria was a great cook, and that’s really all a ten-year-old boy cares about. She and Rinaldo seemed very happy. I used to see him come up behind her, put his arms about her and nuzzle her neck. He was a changed man. He laughed.’

‘What happened?’

‘They were going to have a baby, but it was born at seven months and both mother and child died.’

‘Oh, heavens!’ Alex whispered in horror. ‘How long ago was that?’

‘Fifteen years. They’d been married for less than two years.’

‘How awful for him. To be so young and watch his wife die-’

‘It was worse than that. He wasn’t there. Nobody expected the baby to come so soon, and he was away buying machinery. Poppa called him as soon as things started to happen and he rushed back, but he was too late.

‘I was there in the hospital when he arrived, and I’ll never forget the sight of him. He’d driven all night, and he looked like a madman, with wild eyes. When the doctor told him Maria was dead he wouldn’t believe it. He rushed into her room and seized her up in his arms.

‘I’d never seen him cry before. I didn’t think it was possible, but he was off his head.

‘At that stage the baby was still alive, but not expected to live. They baptised him quickly. He wanted to hold him, but he couldn’t because he had to stay in the incubator. It was no use though. He died half an hour later.

‘By that time he’d calmed down but it was almost worse than when he was raving. He was in a trance, just staring and not seeing anything. He got through the funeral like that-just one funeral, with them both in the same coffin. It was almost as though he didn’t know what was happening.