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the fattoria , the farm, just outside the town, and your grandfather was the fattore . He supervised the granaries and cellars, the oil presses and the dairy. We had our own vineyard and grew the Sangiovese grape.’
    Like the horn of plenty, the stories never appeared to be finished and Fiertino became synonymous for me with drowsiness and sleep. I heard about hot sun and the harvesting of olives, of the huge family house, the fattoria , which echoed to the shrieks and exchanges of a large, extended, uninhibited family. I knew that the town had suffered badly in the war. I heard the story of the three-legged goat, the miraculous olive tree, the runaway Battista bride, and of the young wife who was murdered by her much older husband for taking a lover.
    ‘You see, there is the code,’ my father said. He spoke in the present tense.
    He was clever, my father. He knew how to plant a footprint in a child’s mind. Images crept into mine and put down long, tough, fibrous roots – just like the vine.
    ‘It’s time I went back to Fiertino,’ said my father. ‘We have left it too long.’
    Curiously, we had not been there together. In fact, my father had returned only once, as a young man. We travelled everywhere else in the world and we did business in thenorth of Italy but my father had never cared to go south to Fiertino. Partly, I suspect, this was because of Benedetta, who had wanted to marry him. But that was another story.
    ‘How many times have you said that?’
    He looked a little sheepish. ‘I mean it this time.’
    I rose to leave. ‘How about September when Chloë is in Australia? Then I’ll be free.’ I corrected myself. ‘Or I can negotiate with Will and Mannochie. I’m due time off.’
    My father brightened in a way that caught at my heart. ‘If you think it is possible, there is nothing I would like more.’
    I tried a bit of role reversal. ‘On one condition. That you go and see a doctor for a check-up. I’ll make the appointment. Then, I promise, we’ll go to Fiertino.’
    My father looked guilty. ‘I’ve already been. Just a shade of concern about the heart. He’s given me pills. Everything is fine, except anno domini.’
    Driving home, I turned on the radio and music filled the car.
    ‘Quick, Francesca, before Benedetta orders you to bed. Tell me which are the grapes grown in Tuscany?’
    I pressed my cupped hand to his ear. ‘Sangiovese,’ I whispered.
    ‘Good girl. Now, which are the big reds of Piedmont?’
    ‘Dolcetto, Barbera, Nebbiolo…’
    Wonderful Benedetta. She scolded my father so many times for heating up my poor little brain. ‘ Santa Patata , Alfredo, you are a cruel man.’ Santa Patata was the nearest the devout Benedetta would allow herself to swearing. ‘The child is too young.’ She need not have worried. My poor little brain was quite capable of sniffing out anopportunity to draw attention to me. Anyway, I was quick to see that I was being invited on to my father’s territory. What the French call the terroir .
    I know that terroir really means topsoil, drainage and climate. But, to me, it suggests something more profound and interesting – the territory of the heart.
    Back at the Stanwinton house, I parked the car in the drive beside the laurel hedge and let myself in at the front door. It clicked shut behind me.
    ‘Mum,’ Chloë greeted me in the kitchen, ‘I’m hungry’
    I opened the fridge door and got out a fish stew.
    ‘Not fish, ’ she said.
    ‘Good for the brain. It’s fish from now on.’
    Chloë bit her lip. ‘I wish I didn’t have to do these exams.’
    ‘Just one last effort, darling, and then you’re free. You’ll be off to Australia and fretting about something different.’ I put the stew on to warm. ‘Do you think Sacha would like some?’
    ‘Probably. He’s been helping me revise.’ Chloë extracted knives and forks from the drawer. ‘I do love him, you know, Mum.’
    ‘Of course,’ I said swiftly. ‘He’s your