Helena Frith Powell - Ciao Bella: In Search of New Relatives and Dante in Italy

M y first memory is of walking across Piazza di Spagna with my parents. I am almost three years old. They are arguing. I try to make things better by putting their hands together. My father seems keen on the idea. My mother less so. She rejects the gesture and instead crosses her arms. A month later my mother and I leave Rome to start a new life in England with a different man.

As soon as we leave Italy, my memory of Rome and my real father fades. I start to believe my father is an English artist. He brings me up in the British autocratic tradition. This involves being punished regularly and having to sit in my bedroom with the same meal (usually fish, which I hate) for days on end until I finish it. But he has many good sides. He is imaginative and spends hours entertaining me. In his studio, which smells of oil paint and smoke, he has three tiny magic wooden birds whose job it is to find me hidden presents on my birthday.

But neither my mother nor I are happy. My stepfather is demanding and spoilt. When he wants coffee in the morning, he bangs on the floor from his bedroom. My mother and I both dread taking it up to him. Any encounter with him can lead to an argument which you will have to concede before youre allowed to leave the room.

One day soon after my ninth birthday my stepfather travels to Morocco, apparently to find himself. Hopefully hell lose himself, jokes my mother.

I dread him coming back. The house is so peaceful without him. One night I go to sleep clutching my magic wishing troll.

Please make mummy and daddy get divorced, I whisper in its ear.

Two days later a car lands in our garden. Inside the car is a drunken driver. But it wouldnt have mattered to my mother if there had been an alien inside it. Whatever landed on her doorstep was good enough to get her out of the relationship with my stepfather.

Inside the car is not an alien but something worse: a man with a red beard called Barry. He is short and wears flares with platform shoes. Not a great look. But, to begin with, he is funny and a light relief after the intensity of my stepfather.

My mother begins an affair with the red-haired man almost immediately. The first I know of anything is when we move in with him. My stepfather comes back from Morocco with a bag full of dirty washing and is furious to find no one at home.

Over the next few years we move house several times with Barry as he is careless about paying the rent. I nickname him Psycho because of his violent temper. The last place we live is a farmers cottage. To escape the tension inside the house I have made myself a den in a barn. I hide in the middle of four walls made up of several bales of hay, reading or playing with an imaginary friend. One wet April morning I am hidden behind the bales. It has rained so much the smell of the hay is damp and strong. I find it a comforting smell. From above the bales I can see the farm buildings and our cottage, but no one can see me. My mother comes out to find me. She alone knows my hiding place; Psycho is not allowed anywhere near it.

Your real father has asked if he can write to you, she says. Hes called Benedetto Benedetti.

My whole world changes. As an only child I have spent a lot of time wondering if I am in fact a princess who has been kidnapped into this miserable existence of constant fighting and poverty. This is surely proof? I feel special and wanted. I have a real father and there is a chance he may actually be relatively normal. Even if he has a silly-sounding name.

My Italian father writes to me. He sends me photographs of himself, his house and his horses. He is good-looking, the house impressive, but the thing that makes me happiest is the horses. I am in my early teens, that age before girls discover boys and when they find horses fascinating. I write back to him. He is a good pen pal. We decide it is now too late for him to be called Daddy, so he signs his letters Biologico. He always starts them with Ciao bella, which makes me feel exotic and special.

A year or so on from our first correspondence, life with Barry has become unbearable. My mother decides it is time to leave England before he kills us both. I am now fourteen years old. Our only problem is lack of money. So my mother writes to my father asking for help. He promises to send us enough to get us to Italy.

The weeks before the escape are tense. We cant risk telling anyone, or even packing anything. I am told to choose three things I want to take. I pick my Girl Guide diary, a little fur dog I have had since I was a baby and my copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe . These three items sit on the table in my room ready to leave.

I am getting ready for school one Tuesday morning when my mother tells me today is the day. I cycle to school as normal and lock my bike. I tell my friends I am leaving. I give my bike key to my best friend Estelle. I also tell my English teacher about the plan. She thinks its another one of my stories.