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“My great-grandmother had family in Italy, but Mum doesn’t know anything about them.”
    “Maybe you can find out.”
    “I don’t think my great-grandmother is going to come to me in a dream like your ancestors did.”
    “But you’ve got her diary which is even better. It’s something real, not like my dreams, which were more like nightmares. Are you taking care of yourself down there?”
    “Yes, I went for a walk today in the sunshine and I watched the kids playing in the children’s playground.”
    “We’ll soon have a kid like that, playing in the park.”
    I didn’t tell him that, hard as I tried, I couldn’t imagine myself as one of the mums waiting on the fringes, one eye always on their precious child as they ran and screamed and explored the playground. The baby had kicked inside me as I’d sat there on a bench, and I’d thought maybe it could hear the children and wanted to play too. It was a weird feeling.
    “I love you,” Bevan said as he ended the call.
    I hit the “end” button without replying.

A Prisoner of War
    25 December
    Monsignor had no wafers for the Nativity communion today. He blessed the crucible in the hope that the Virgin would affect a miracle and, like the day when God increased the loaves and fishes, would provide for the congregation, but the crucible remained empty. Instead the baker brought in a loaf of bread which was split into tiny portions and blessed. The piece of bread caught in my throat and I didn’t know whether to swallow or spit it out. I think to spit it out would have been a sin, so I waited until I was able to drink from the well outside and that moved the bread from my throat. Somehow I cannot get rid of the feeling that choking on the bread was a bad sign.
    24 January
    The British and Americans have landed at Anzio. Some say the war will be over by spring. Planes fly overhead, but I don’t know whose they are. We are scared to travel out of the valley.
    We are sheltering an escaped prisoner of war in our barn, in the stall that used to house Rosetta. His name is Harry, but we call him Aroldo. He speaks English but says he’s from a country called New Zealand, on the other side of the world. He was in a prison camp on the outskirts of Parma, but escaped when the armistice was announced. Well, not so much escaped – he just walked out when the wardens fled, leaving the gates open. Some of the prisoners decided to go north and some south, but there were more Germans in the south on the line of defence, so Aroldo chose to go north.
    He became separated from the other prisoners after they came under fire from a German patrol, and he didn’t know where they were or even if they were still alive. He hid with another family near Modena, but moved on when the Germans started searching the houses. Since then he has been travelling from village to village, taking refuge where he can and helping the farmers in the fields for his keep. He has learnt a bit of Italian, but at times it is hard to understand him. He is teaching me English.
    But he cannot go any further. His clothes are thin, as is he, and he coughs all the time. I fear that he will die here, then what will we do? He puts our family in danger because the Germans have made it clear what they will do to people who harbour the prisoners of war, but we cannot hand him over to them – they will kill him for sure.
    28 January
    Papa caught me in the barn with Aroldo and chased me back into the house. He says that I am spending too much time with the soldier. It’s no use arguing with him, but I will still find time to talk to Aroldo. I want to learn to speak English so that I can go to America. I’ve seen it in the movies and it’s so much better than where we live. In America they have flushing toilets and indoor plumbing and paved roads with lots of motorcars. There are ice cream bars in every village and they have machines to do all the work on the farm.
    Aroldo says that he hasn’t been to America,