Once everyone’s showered and dressed, Alice calls a meeting. She tells me, Leonie, Elyse and Mum to go out for the day.
‘There must be something we can do,’ Mum says.
‘You don’t understand, Carrie,’ Stefano says. ‘Alice has organised it all like the military. Every moment is accounted for. If you are standing in the wrong place at the wrong time someone may thread flowers into you –’
‘Or turn you into a hog roast,’ Toby says, grinning.
Alice playfully swats at them both. ‘Seriously,’ she says. ‘You need to go and relax. Have a lovely day. In a couple of days there’ll be relatives to entertain and you’ll be on the go all the time. This is meant to be a holiday for you all. Go sightseeing. Or just go and sunbathe somewhere. Just go.’
‘Will you three be okay?’ Mum says, putting a bottle of water in her bag. ‘You’ll stick together?’
‘Or you could come with us,’ I say. ‘Or maybe we could go with you for a bit?’
‘I do not need to see another Caravaggio,’ Leonie says, rolling her eyes at me. ‘When are we going to Dad’s hotel?’
I look at Elyse and find Elyse is looking at Mum, who is looking at Leonie.
‘I don’t …’ Mum starts. ‘I didn’t think that we …’
I hadn’t thought that we would either. I can’t even bear to think about going without Dad.
‘We have to!’ Leonie says, looking from Mum to Elyse to me. ‘It’s a tradition. We can’t not!’
‘It was a tradition with Dad,’ Elyse says.
Not even that. It was Dad’s tradition first. It just became our tradition too as we got older. Whenever we came to Rome, we’d go back to the hotel Dad had worked at and have a drink in the bar. When Mum and Dad first came, most of the people Dad worked with were still there, but over the years, almost everyone has left. Last time we went – last year – there were only two people still there and one of them was about to leave.
‘What do you think, Milly?’ Mum asks me and for a second I feel like I can’t breathe. She hasn’t asked me anything. For ages. And now she’s asking me this? I shake my head.
‘I don’t think …’ I say quietly. ‘It won’t be the same.’
‘Of course it won’t be the same,’ Leonie says. She sounds upset and I shield my eyes to look at her again. She’s looking at Mum. ‘It’s never going to be the same again! We know that. But we shouldn’t just … stop. We have to … We’re still here. We’re here, in Rome. And we’re still a family and –’
‘Okay,’ Mum says. ‘Okay.’ She stands up and walks back inside.
I hear Leonie gulping to catch her breath. My hands are shaking.
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ Elyse says, after a couple of minutes.
‘I did,’ Leonie says. ‘I know it’s going to be hard. I’m not stupid. But it’s bad enough being here without him. If we didn’t go … it’d be like we’d forgotten him.’
I shake my head without looking up. ‘It’s not,’ I say. ‘But it’s too hard. Maybe next year.’
‘But what if we don’t come back next year?’ Leonie says. ‘This could be the last time.’
‘It’s not going to be the last time,’ I tell her. ‘I wish you’d stop saying that!’
‘But it could be, Mil,’ she says gently. ‘You should probably accept it.’
I shake my head. I won’t accept that. I don’t want to accept that.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Elyse says. ‘Don’t worry.’
We’re all quiet for a moment then because we know all too well that no matter how much you worry, something terrible can still happen completely out of the blue.
Elyse, Leonie and I don’t really have an idea of what we want to do and so at first we just wander around the flower market. I post some photos to Instagram and we cross the square, sniffing at some sprigs of lavender one of the stallholders gave us.
‘Is there anywhere you really want to go?’ Leonie asks me, snapping most of the stem off her lavender and tucking the flower behind her ear. I thread mine through the strap of my top. Elyse just drops hers in her bag.
‘I was thinking the Trevi Fountain, maybe?’ I say.
We walk to the end of the side road and stop on the corner of the main road, in front of a bridal shop.
‘God, that’s beautiful, look,’ Elyse says, pointing at a short, clingy dress with a flowing cape attached.
‘Are you seriously looking at wedding dresses?’ I ask.
Elyse pulls a face at me. ‘For fashion reasons.’
‘Better be,’ I say.
She puts her hand on her heart. ‘I can promise you now I’m not planning to marry Robbie.’
‘No,’ Leonie says, stepping to the edge of the kerb to look for a taxi. ‘Just move in with him.’
‘Yes,’ Elyse says. ‘What’s wrong with that? It makes sense, doesn’t it?’
‘It makes more sense to stay at home,’ I say.
‘It makes more financial sense to stay at home,’ Elyse says, tugging Leonie back from the edge of the kerb as a bus rumbles past. ‘But I’m twenty. I can’t stay at home for ever. I want to live somewhere I can have friends round, have parties, not have my little sisters texting me in panic if I’m not home by midnight …’
‘That happened once,’ I say, my skin prickling with remembered embarrassment.
Elyse drops her arm around me and squeezes me against her. ‘I know. And I get it, I do. I just … I want a bit more freedom.’
Leonie waves madly and a taxi heading in the other direction does a U-turn and stops directly in front of us.
The driver can’t get us all the way to the fountain because the streets are too busy with cars, so he drops us and says, ‘Down there,’ pointing ahead. But when we get to the end of the street, we don’t know where we are.
Elyse pulls her phone out to check on the map, but Leonie yanks it out of her hand.
‘We’re obviously not far away,’ she says. ‘I’m sure we can find it ourselves.’
‘But what’s the point, when I can just look it up?’ Elyse says, reaching for her phone just as Leonie shoves it into her bra.
‘If you think I won’t go into your bra for it –’
‘Come on,’ I say, as a moped swerves around us. ‘Let’s just walk.’
We’ve only taken a few steps when Leonie says, ‘Trevi Fountain?’ to an Italian woman standing outside a shop.
The woman points the way we’re heading and then pinches Leonie’s cheek and says, ‘Bella.’
We keep walking. Leonie flitting from shop to shop, looking at posters of the movie Roman Holiday, tiny metal Coloseums, decorations made of brightly coloured glass balls.
‘Just give it me back for a minute,’ Elyse says, as we reach the end of the street and we’re still not at the fountain. ‘I just need to send one text and then you can keep it for the rest of the day.’
‘Like I’m going to fall for that,’ Leonie says.
‘Cross my heart,’ Elyse says, drawing an X on her chest with her index finger.
‘One. Text,’ Leonie says, pulling Elyse’s phone out of her bra and handing it over.
‘Ew. Warm,’ Elyse says, looking around and then walking a few steps away to sit on a bollard outside a shop.
‘Do you think they really will move in together?’ I ask Leonie, as we turn a postcard carousel outside a shop a few doors down.
Leonie pinches my cheek. ‘You are so naive, it’s adorable.’
‘Oh, shut up. I won’t be patronised by my baby sister. I just … I can’t imagine them living together. It just seems so …’
‘I really don’t think you need to worry about it,’ Leonie says. ‘You know what she’s like. She’s never been with one boy for longer than five minutes until now. And whenever we came here with Mum and Dad she practically pulled in the airport.
‘Okay, done,’ Elyse says, joining us. ‘No more texting today. Fuck him.’
‘Oh, to be in love!’ Leonie jokes, grinning. ‘See!’ she mouths at me.
‘Shut it,’ Elyse says.
‘Phone,’ Leonie says, holding her hand out.
Elyse holds the phone out as if she’s going to give it to her, but then shoves it into her own bra.
‘Oh, hell no,’ Leonie says and pounces on Elyse, trying to get her hand into her bra.
Tourists tut as they walk past us, my sisters grappling and laughing, but then Leonie manages to get the phone and sticks it back in her own bra.
‘You crossed your heart, Elyse,’ she says. ‘You don’t fuck with that, you monster.’
Elyse laughs, shoving her so hard she staggers and almost bumps into some people walking past.
‘Sorry! Sorry!’ Leonie says.
At the next crossroads, Leonie gestures at a newsstand on the corner. She buys some chewing gum and asks the man the way to Trevi Fountain. He rattles off directions in fast Italian and Leonie beams at him and thanks him.
‘Did you understand any of that?’ I ask her, as we wait to cross the road.
‘This way,’ she says and grins at me.
‘Ever get the feeling that taxi driver was taking the piss?’ Elyse says.
‘You’ve changed,’ I tell Leonie, ignoring Elyse.
‘Me?’ Leonie says. ‘How?’
‘You’re so much more confident.’
‘Because she was such a wallflower before,’ Elyse says, sarcastically.
‘No, she wasn’t,’ I say. ‘But she’s different now.’
‘I love it when you talk about me like I’m not here,’ Leonie says.
We cross the road and stop for a moment to look up at an amazing pink and white building – it’s like a turret without a castle.
‘I do feel more confident,’ Leonie continues. ‘It’s really weird. I just feel like I can be myself more.’
‘Because Dad died, though?’
‘I don’t know. That’s weird, right?’ She stops and looks at me for a second and then we keep walking. ‘I know I could be myself with Dad, I never worried about that at all, honestly. Actually, I think I was probably more concerned about what Mum would think. But then after Dad … I just feel more grown up. Is that stupid?’
‘No, it’s not stupid at all,’ I say. ‘But it’s the opposite of how I feel.’
‘I know,’ Leonie says. ‘We worry about you a lot.’
‘I know you do. It’ll be okay, I think. I hope. I just feel … I sort of feel lost without him, you know?’
My eyes fill up and when I look at Leonie I see hers have too. Elyse drops her arm around my shoulder.
‘I miss him so much,’ Elyse says. ‘But I think I just want to be better for him. I want him to be so proud of me.’
‘I want to make him proud too,’ I say.
‘I know,’ Leonie says. She squeezes my arm. ‘You will. Just wait till you get to Liverpool.’
The Trevi Fountain is unsurprisingly busy, it being a Sunday. The wall around the fountain and the steps are all crammed with people, taking photographs and trailing their hands in the water. We squeeze through – past a couple kissing dramatically in front of the fountain, and a toddler, wearing reins and eating a gelato while sobbing loudly – and get down the steps to the fountain itself. We sit on the edge and Leonie holds up her phone and says, ‘Selfie!’
‘Oh, so it’s fine for you to have your phone?’ Elyse says.
‘I’m not as addicted as you,’ Leonie says. ‘And I’m not wasting my time in Rome sending photos of shit flats to my boyfriend.’
Leonie takes her selfie. Elyse starts laughing.
‘What?’ I ask her.
‘Remember when Dad’s sunglasses fell off?’ she says.
I start to laugh too. ‘God, yeah. I’d forgotten about that.’
‘I think I’ve still got a photo on my phone,’ Leonie says, scrolling at her screen.
I turn around as Leonie scrolls through her photos. The water looks turquoise, but it’s clean and clear and I can see hundreds of coins glinting on the bottom.
‘Here!’ Leonie says.
The photo shows Dad leaning over the little wall we’re sitting on, his arm in the water, fingers stretched out for his sunglasses that are just beyond his reach, other arm braced against the wall. He’s laughing so much his eyes are almost closed, mouth open. It’s so perfectly Dad that I laugh out loud just looking at it and then immediately start to cry.
‘How can he be gone?’ I say. ‘I know I keep saying this, but … how?’
‘I know,’ Elyse says, cuddling me against her again.
‘Sorry,’ Leonie says from my other side. ‘I didn’t mean to make you cry.’ She kisses my shoulder.
‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s good. It’s a good photo. And I’d forgotten.’
I look up, wiping my face with my hands, and see rows of people in front of me, some laughing, others taking pictures, the people at the top eating gelato. One woman gives me a sad smile and I smile wetly back at her.
‘I was going to sprinkle Dad’s ashes here,’ I say.
Leonie says, ‘Really? Like … now?’
I nod. ‘They’re in my bag. I’ve had this image in my head of me sitting on the edge and trailing the pot through the water. Stupidly didn’t even think about how many people would be here.’
‘You can still do it, can’t you?’ Elyse says. ‘Who’s going to stop you? There’s no sign saying “no sprinkling ashes”.’
‘“No bombing, no heavy petting, no dead fathers”,’ Leonie adds.
I pull a face. ‘You two are sick in the head.’ I lean against Elyse.
‘Dad wouldn’t have minded,’ Leonie says, leaning against my other side. ‘He would have thought it was funny too. The three of us with our little pots, not knowing what to do with him.’
‘You don’t know what to do with yours either?’ I ask her. Leonie’s had her pot on her bedside table at home and I just assumed she found it comforting. I thought I was the only one who had conflicted feelings about it.
‘Do you know where Mum’s is?’ I ask.
Elyse shakes her head. ‘Mine’s in my bedside drawer, so maybe hers is too?’
‘I’ve never seen it,’ Leonie says.
‘I know dipping my finger in it is weird,’ Elyse says.
Leonie snorts.
‘I just … I opened it because I wanted to see what it looked like. And then I just sort of thought “that’s Dad”. That’s all I’ve got of him. So I know it’s kind of gross and creepy, but … it’s still Dad. Does that make sense?’ Elyse says. ‘Or are you squicked out?’
‘I mean, I don’t think I would want to do it,’ Leonie says. ‘But if it makes you feel better, I think it’s fine.’
‘If I think of it as him I feel better, but then I think, well, it’s a little pot of ashes … because he’s dead. Then I feel worse,’ Elyse says. ‘And I wonder if I’d feel better if I didn’t have it. And I could think of him as he was and not as he is now. Or isn’t now, I suppose.’
‘That’s how I feel,’ I say. ‘I’ve been feeling guilty – shouldn’t I want to hold on to this last bit of him?’
‘Or maybe you just want to let him go?’ Elyse says. ‘And move on?’
‘I don’t want to let go of memories or anything, but I do think I could let go of the … pot,’ I say.
‘I like the idea of him swimming around in the Trevi Fountain,’ Leonie grins. ‘Not that he would be, but … you know.’
‘I know. That’s what I was thinking,’ I say. ‘That he’d like a bit of him to be in Rome.’
‘We should sprinkle a bit in all his favourite places,’ Elyse suggests.
‘Foyles. The history department,’ I say.
‘The cheese counter in Morrisons,’ Leonie says.
‘The Draper’s,’ Elyse says. ‘On karaoke night.’
‘The Apple Store,’ Leonie says, punching the air as if that’s Dad’s ultimate resting place.
I burst out laughing. ‘Oh, we should throw the whole lot in there.’
‘I don’t know,’ Elyse says. ‘I think if you thought of the Trevi Fountain, that’s where you should do it.’
I nod. ‘I was thinking that too. And I really don’t want to get a lifetime ban from the Apple Store.’
‘Isn’t it going to make a mess?’ I ask Leonie.
She’s still standing and looking up at the fountain. ‘I’d forgotten how noisy it is,’ she says.
I look up at the rushing water too then. She’s right, it’s not quiet.
‘I think you’re right,’ Elyse says. ‘It’ll make like a big grey cloud, won’t it?’
‘And everyone will see. And I’ll probably get arrested.’
‘Not to overdramatise or anything,’ she says, smiling.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It just seems wrong.’ I dangle my fingers in the cool, clear water. ‘It’s not like it was in my head. I don’t think I can do it.’
‘No,’ Leonie says. She rummages in her bag and then hands me two Euros, passing another two to Elyse. ‘We could still throw coins in though, eh?’
‘Absolutely,’ I say, smiling.
Elyse just drops hers in, looking down into the water. I turn my back on the fountain and throw one coin over each shoulder.
‘Two for a new romance!’ says Leonie.