2008 - Recipes for Cherubs (33 page)

She closed the box and grinned. She imagined the look on Arthur Campbell’s face if Alice had handed him the teeth! He would have been mortified if she had presented this old box to him as her dowry. What would he have wanted with a boxful of childish things, fragments of weathered glass, shells and four disgusting teeth? She giggled, thinking of how his mouth turned down at the corners whenever he saw something disagreeable, the way he wiped his hands on his waistcoat if he came into contact with something unpleasant. Whatever it was that he had wanted from Alice, it certainly wouldn’t have been this box of old flotsam and jetsam.

Catrin wandered across to the window and looked out into Cockle Lane.

She could hear Tony singing as he worked over in the Café Romana and outside the Proprietary Library, sitting in a pool of sunlight, was Pedro the cat.

She stared at the cat without really seeing it.
Think, Catrin Grieve. Think hard
. With a whoop of glee she rushed over to the wardrobe, yanked out her school blazer and felt in the pocket for the card Sister Matilde had given her at Paddington.

At first she’d thought it was a holy picture, then that it was one of Sister Matilde’s little jokes, but looking at it now it was clear that this was the same cat as the one in the picture in
Recipes for Cherubs
. The only difference was that this one was much bigger, and whoever had painted it wasn’t as good an artist as Piero.

It was a large fat, white cat sitting beneath a pomegranate tree. Its mouth was open as if in a snarl and most of its teeth were missing. She chewed her lips with excitement. Could the teeth in the ring box have belonged to this poor old animal? And what in God’s name was Sister Matilde doing with this picture of the cat?

She knew from Tony that when the
Flino
went down, a cat had been saved, a ship’s cat. Dan Gwartney had said that Pedro was from a long line of feline Casanovas and that his bloodline would never die out. It was a long shot, but maybe Pedro was descended from the
Flino’s
cat. Maybe Pedro’s ancestors had spent their days in sunny Santa Rosa, basking beneath the pomegranate tree, or looking down from the branches of a tree on to a snowy piazza.

She turned the picture over; someone had written faintly in pencil
Kilvenny Castle
.

She put her hand to her head and sucked in her breath; her brain was beginning to ache from too much thinking. Things were unravelling fast and she was learning more about the past and about what had happened to the people in the book, but there were still so many unanswered questions. There was one person she must talk to now and she had to be quick.

Dan Gwartney dropped his feather duster and spun round as Catrin burst into the library, red-faced and panting.

“Dear God! Is someone chasing you?” he asked.

“No, but may I use your telephone?”

“Of course. It’s in the sitting room across the corridor –  I’ll show you.”

He led her into a small, bare room which reminded her of the visitors’ parlour at school: white walls punctuated only by a large crucifix, the smell of beeswax polish strong in the air.

“Help yourself,” Dan Gwartney said with a smile, and closed the door behind him.

She dialled the number and waited while the phone rang and rang. She was about to give up when a breathless voice said, “Saint Agnes’s Convent School.”

“Christ, Mary Donahue, is that you?”

“It is. Who’s that?”

“It’s Catrin. What are you doing at school?”

“Sod all! I’m cooped up with that pair of gargoyles the Palfrey twins and I’m bored to buggery.”

“But I thought you were going home?”

“I did, but there was a bit of trouble between my dad and the law, and the law won. Oh, it’s a long story and I had to come back. How are you, anyhow?”

“I’m having a good time, actually. It’s dead exciting here.”

“Lucky old you. This place is like a morgue, especially with Sister Matilde gone.”

“Gone?” Catrin gasped.

Mary lowered her voice to a whisper. “Gone all right. There’s been all hell up. She went over the wall in the middle of the night and legged it!”

“You’re joking!”

“Cross my heart and hope to die and stick a needle up my arse. The nuns haven’t told us anything, but I overheard Sister Lucy talking to Mother Michael in the kitchen garden, and apparently she’s pinched the money from the charity box and the convent car to boot.”

Catrin clutched the telephone to her ear, hardly able to take in what Mary was saying.

“Are you still there?” Mary asked.

“Y-yes.”

“Can you believe it? Maybe she’s not really a nun but a bank robber.”

“I doubt it. The convent car wouldn’t be much use as a getaway car – it only does about ten miles an hour.”

“Are you coming back to school? Is that why you’re ringing?”

“No. I just wanted to talk to Sister Matilde about something.”

“That’s funny, because she was talking about you the day before she escaped.”

“She was?”

“Yes, she said she hoped you’d fatten yourself up a bit while you were in Wales. She said she’d stayed at that hotel and the food was lovely. Is it?”

“Yes, it’s fine.”

“It’s still shit here. And are you any fatter? You looked dreadful when you left.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

“You’re welcome. You know me, I don’t beat about the bush.”

“Well, I am eating more, if you must know. Listen, Mary, has anyone at school ever said anything about me not having a father?”

“Are you a mind-reader, Catrin Grieve?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the Palfrey sisters were making some snide comments about you, saying that you had your mother’s name and stuff, and Sister Matilde gave them a right ear-bashing.”

“What did she say?”

“She said they should look a bit closer at their own family tree, and one of them said sniffily that they were descended from a duke and a wealthy American family, and Sister Matilde said that if they looked back far enough down the family tree they’d probably find they had murderers there, too.”

“I bet they didn’t like that!”

“You should have seen their faces; it was great.”

“I have to go now, but if you hear any more about Sister Matilde, ring me. It’s Kilvenny 299. Will you do that?”

“I will.”

“An old man will probably answer, but he’ll come over to the castle and fetch me.”

“Castle? I thought it was a hotel. You lucky devil!”

“Take care, Mary.”

“Cheerio.”

Her mind racing, Catrin put down the telephone. As she turned to leave the room, she saw Meredith Evans looking at her through the open window, and she was sure that the nosy devil had been listening to her conversation. He moved quickly away and Catrin wandered back into the reading room, where Dan Gwartney was dusting the shelves of books.

“Did you get through all right?” he asked.

“Yes, thanks.”

“You don’t look too happy.”

“Well, the person I really wanted to talk to wasn’t there.”

“You’re welcome to try again later,” he said with a warm smile, and then, as an afterthought, “Did you find anything of interest in Meredith’s shop?”

Catrin blushed, and without explanation she hurried out of the library and back to the castle.

C
atrin hid the dowry box in the back of the wardrobe and lay down on the bed thinking about what Mary had said. Had Sister Matilde really stayed at Shrimp’s? It was odd that she hadn’t mentioned it when Catrin told her that Kilvenny was where she’d be spending the summer. Unless there was something fishy about Sister’s visit…? And why had she suddenly taken off from the convent? It couldn’t be to meet a man, because she was far too old for romance and stuff like that. Even more curious was the picture of the cat that Sister had given her.

Damn and bugger. She’d give anything to ask the old nun what it was all about, but she’d probably never see her again now, and school would be unbearable without having her lessons to look forward to.

Sister Matilde always said that if they had a problem they should sleep on it, let it rest and bubble away beneath the surface, and hey presto! the mind would work its wonders and out of the blue a solution would be found.

She was hard at work trying not to think when there was a tap at the door and Aunt Ella put her head round.

“There you are. Tony’s just popped over and he said to tell you that he’s made
spaghetti carbonara
and he wants us to join him and Nonna for supper.”

She was about to feign tiredness and refuse, but maybe being in company would give her a chance not to think and let her brain work away.

Norma was sitting at a window table when Ella and Catrin went into the café. The table had been covered with a pink gingham cloth, and red candles burnt brightly in round-bellied wine bottles, making the wine glasses gleam in the flickering light.

“Tony, it looks just like a real restaurant!”

Tony grinned, bowed theatrically, pulled out a seat like a proper waiter, whipped up a napkin with a flourish and set it in Catrin’s lap. He did the same for Ella and then poured red wine into their glasses.

“As a first course tonight we have some
bruschetta
, to be followed by a
carbonara
, a simple but tasty and nourishing dish as made by lowly Italian shepherds and as taught to me by my grandfather.”

Nonna’s face was wreathed in smiles, her skin as brown and wrinkled as a pickled walnut.

Tony scurried hither and thither, reminding Catrin of the noisy Italian waiters in a restaurant near her house in London, small, dapper men in black and white scurrying between the tables, their laughter loud in the evening air.

Despite her intention to do no more than pick at the food, she was soon carried away by the conversation and laughter, and the wine made her head swim and filled her with a peculiar warmth. She picked at a piece of
bruschetta
, wiped a sliver of tomato from her chin with the back of her hand.

“That wine has put some colour in your cheeks and given you an appetite.”

“Nonna, if you can’t see, how do you know if I’m pale or not?” Catrin asked with a hiccup.

“I have a new kind of sight. I feels things in here,” she said, patting her heart.

“They say that sometimes when one sense is taken away, the other senses develop more,” Ella said. “I remember my grandfather used to talk about an old man who lived along the coast and he could tell colours just by feeling them.”

Catrin looked askance at her. “And you believe that?” she scoffed, her mouth full of a second piece of
bruschetta
.

“Well, it was before my time – and before my grandfather’s, come to that – but the man was a legend around here. He was blind and yet he could feel colour through his fingertips, describe the colour of things around him.”

Catrin took another swig of wine.

“You going to do any more of your cooking?” Norma asked.

“Yes, I’m going to make
strangolapreti
next, whatever that is.”

“How you know about
strangolapreti
, eh? I don’t hear that word in long time.”

“What does it mean?”

“In English it means ‘priest-stranglers’.”

“What?”

“Is a dish of dumplings with spinach. Very tasty, too. My mother always make
strangolapreti
in the winter.” She made a smacking sound with her almost toothless mouth, and Catrin giggled.

“Slow down with that wine,” Ella warned. “I don’t want to have to carry you home.”

“But why is it called priest-stranglers?”

“Because often in Italy the priest come to your house to eat and you must feed him. For the peasants it hard to feed they own children, never mind a hungry priest. There was legend say that one priest eat so many of the dumplings he chokes. Others say that you feed the priest with these and he so full that he can’t eat no more.”

“So they wouldn’t actually try and choke or strangle the priests?”

“Maybe they do. Not all the priests is good men, you know. Some is very greedy and loves money and women more than they loves God. In our village we have very good priest who kind to the poor people.”

Tony arrived at the table, balancing four plates on his arm, and put one in front of each of them with a flourish. “
Spaghetti alia carbonara! Buon appetito
.”

“I was going to tell Catrin the story about the bad priest,” Norma explained.

“Oh, that used to be my favourite story when I was little,” Tony chuckled, sitting down next to Catrin.

“Once upon a time in little village in Italia they have bad priest who do very wicked things. Many peoples like to strangle him, I think.”

“What sort of things did he do?”

“He very greedy for money and want to make name for himself. I don’t know him, because he dead long before I was born, but he very famous in those parts for his wicked ways. I glad to say that he come to no good.”

“What happened?”

“Many of the poor people in the village have enough of him and they gets together and makes a plan. One night, when is dark and the clouds hiding the moon, they creep to his house, climb in and take him from his bed.”

“They didn’t kill him, did they?” Catrin said in alarm.

“No, they don’t kill him, they just teach him a lesson.”

“What did they do?”

“They blindfold him and take him up into the church tower and they tie him with rope to the big bell.”

“And they left him there?”

“
Si
. All night long he is there. In the morning the bell begins to ring and the people come out for early mass and then they see him.”

“Tied to the bell?”

“
Si
, tied to the bell. The bell is ringing and there is their priest naked as the day he was born.”

Catrin gasped. “Is that a true story, Norma, or did you make it up?”

“Is true. My husband, Luigi, tell me, and his great-greatgrandfather tell him that he seen this thing happen with his own eyes. He was on his way to mass and he look up and there is the priest tied to the bell. At first he can’t believe his eyes and he think he been drinking too much wine the night before.”