Page 57 of The Island of Lost Girls

‘Lipstick,’ says Donatella, and tips her chin in defiant self-congratulation.

Larissa begs St James to spare her from the solteronas. ‘Well, wipe it off! The whole town is staring!’

Donatella looks around. The fishing boats went out at dawn and everyone else is indoors, in the shade, as any sane person would be in this heat. ‘There’s nobody here!’

‘Don’t answer back,’ says Larissa. ‘Get inside, for Jesus’s sake. You look like a puta. I just thank God your father’s still sleeping.’

Donatella’s face drops and she goes inside.

Matthew Meade wobbles down the gangplank of the Princess Tatiana and walks towards the Re del Pesce. Mercedes, sorting receipts, sees him come and blushes. He is so … big. On an island where constant work and limited diet have rendered the population wiry and short, he looks like Goliath striding through the Israelites.

He reaches the edge of the terasa. The brief walk has made sweat spring from his brow and he pauses to wipe it off with a handkerchief. He wears a formal shirt the size of a two-man tent, damp patches from pit to navel. He looks around the tables, spots Mercedes and gives her a little finger-waggle. Mercedes glances around to see if her parents are watching and quickly waves back. Then she bends her head to her task again, cheeks burning.

Donatella hasn’t missed it, of course. ‘I see your boyfriend’s here,’ she says. Mercedes kicks her ankle.

He ducks his head beneath the canopy and comes in.

Sergio’s head snaps up. Meade has been in a few times, of course. But the fact that he is alone suggests that something is afoot beyond griddled halibut and a bucket of fried potatoes. Sergio throws a tea towel over his shoulder – a sure sign that he feels uncertain, that he needs to assert his authority in his own premises – and goes to greet him with his big host’s smile.

Matthew Meade offers her father a hand to shake. A new development. They talk in low voices, and the visitor gestures in her direction with his hand. Sergio shakes his head. Meade nods his. Sergio shakes again. Looks over at his daughter and frowns. Donatella develops a sudden interest in a nearby table.

Oh, God, I’m in trouble, Mercedes thinks. What have I done?

Meade says something more, and Sergio throws his hands out in incomprehension. ‘No inglis, sinjor,’ he says. ‘No understand.’

Meade’s voice is louder, now. Those commanding tones that carry, just like his daughter’s. ‘Spanish? Italiano? Français?’

Sergio shrugs again. She sees Meade mutter a Chrissake. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I’ll be back,’ and he turns back to his boat exactly the way his daughter did earlier. Our business is done for now, you do not matter to me.

Sergio watches him go, then comes over to where Mercedes sits. ‘Well!’ he says.

‘What?’ she asks, nervously, but he seems in a cheerful enough mood.

‘Well, he clearly likes you.’

Is that good, or bad? ‘What did he say?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t really get what he was on about. If it wasn’t crazy, I’d say he’d offered to buy you.’

He sees the astonishment on her face and laughs. Pinches her cheek like the priest does to the good girls on St James’s Day. ‘Don’t worry!’ he says. ‘I’ll hold out for a good price!’

He goes indoors and Donatella comes over, perches on her table, long legs swinging, mischief in her grin. ‘He really does, you know,’ she says.

‘Does what?’

‘He wants to buy you for his daughter. Like a doll. Or a puppy.’

‘What—?’ she begins, but is interrupted by a louder, angrier ‘What?’ from behind them. Larissa strides over, face purple. ‘He said what?’

‘My English isn’t that good,’ says Donatella, hastily. ‘Maybe he was saying something else?’

Larissa’s not having any of it. ‘And what did your father say?’

‘He asked how much,’ says Donatella, po-faced. She can never resist an opportunity to wind the adults up.

Larissa gasps. Throws her cloth down and marches indoors. Oh, God, thinks Mercedes, there’s going to be a fight, and eventually it’ll be my fault and I won’t be allowed out with Tatiana ever. She wishes, sometimes, that her mother were more docile, more Kastellani. But then, if her mother were more docile, their father’s whims would rule them all.

Larissa’s voice, raised.