She held up a silver belt with a diamante buckle.

“It needs another hole in it.”

The old Italian shoemaker continued to hammer.

“Si”, he said. “Piu grande – o piu piccolo?”

“Sorry?”

“More beeg?” He looked up, widening his bright eyes, stretching his index finger away from his thumb.

“Or – leetle”. He squinted through crinkled eyelids, drawing finger and thumb into a pinch.

She glanced down to where her dress stretched tight across an obvious bulge.

“Oh, more big, I’m afraid. It’s this cruise, you see. The big ships, the grande - ” She gestured towards the port beyond the tangle of medieval alleys.

“Grande crociera. I understand,” he said.

“I was seasick to start with. Now I can’t seem to stop eating. Perhaps it’s the heat.”

He looked at her kindly.

“Perhaps.”

“We’re on shore today, in a coach, seeing the campaniles?“

“Ah, il Campanile dell’Annunciata. The Virgin’s baby tower.”

“Yeah, that. Then I saw your sign, from the square.”

She pointed to the large wooden clog hanging over the door.

He took the belt, folded it in half, then held it across her rounded belly. Then he took a tiny pencil from behind his ear and made a dot.

“But you’re too young for the crociera, no?” he said.

“Perhaps,” she replied. “I wasn’t expecting to be here on my own either; but that’s how it’s turned out.”.

A shaft of sun illuminated them together, in a tableau.

“I hadn’t known the man for very long. He’d appeared at my work one day – a salesman, just some blow-in really. Handsome, charming. Italian, like you.”

The old man breathed a wistful sigh, his head tilted as if weighing the matter.

“I booked the holiday as a surprise. You know. Italy, romance, maybe more - who knows? Stupid really. There aren’t any miracles left at my age, are there? I should’ve known.”

The cobbler knocked the tip of a sharp awl into the leather, then held the belt up to the light before giving it to her.

“What do I owe you?”

“Niente. Is a gift.”

“But I must give you something!”

“Pay me one day, in the future.”

“How can I?” she replied.

“Toccare ferro”, he said. With one weathered hand he held hers against the heavy iron last, as he pointed with the other towards the sky. “You’re not grassa, donna benedetta. You are incinta! When the baby comes, name him for me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I can’t be. I’m too old - ”

“Si,si.” He shrugged. “You are – God’s favourite.”

“I can’t possibly be”, she replied. “I’m - on a cruise.”

She looked down again, at a body that now seemed different: transfigured.

“Though maybe”, she whispered. “Maybe. Maybe.”

The blast of a horn, far away in the town square, was sudden and urgent.

“That’s the coach”, she said. “I must go. Thank you. For the belt.”

She paused.

“Is that your name, on the sign above the door?”

“Si”, he said. “Gabriele D’Angelo”.