The Italians at Cleat's Corner Store (20 page)

Padre Ruggiero fingered his crucifix. ‘Northerners, were they not — Fagiolo's family?' he asked the mayor.

‘Mm,' Professore Centini replied. ‘I've heard it said.'

‘But he
is
a party member?'

‘Of course, Padre,' the mayor lowered his voice, ‘although not until he had to be.'

Padre Ruggiero sighed. ‘These northerners — there's always something brooding about them, something …
pessimistic
, don't you find? I suppose that's what makes them susceptible to the Red Menace.'

Professore Centini fidgeted in his chair. The accusation of communism was a serious one in Montelupini, especially towards the man who served them drinks every night. Lucio had witnessed fistfights in the piazzetta for less. Despite his career in local council, Professore Centini never seemed to show any interest in politics, and always blushed when the topic was broached, as if a man's political views were like his bowel movements — a question of personal habit, somewhat beyond his own control and certainly not a matter for public discussion. ‘I think it's more the sciatica in his leg, Padre,' he suggested, handing the priest a Mokri. ‘It plays up in this weather.'

The padre grunted. ‘Perhaps you're right, Centini,' he mused, exhaling blue smoke up through the beams of the pergola. ‘There's no pleasing some people.'

Does this feel right to you?
Fagiolo's words lingered in Lucio's mind as he climbed to the stable to feed the hens. Did it feel right when he met the German in the meadow at Collelungo or found him walking down the track from Montemezzo?
He hadn't considered this before, or perhaps he hadn't allowed himself to. All he knew was that he felt happy whenever he saw Otto Hirsch, whenever he found him in the long grasses at dusk, watching the mountains. His blonde hair would catch the last light, and even on the hottest day there was something cool and pristine about him, Lucio thought, something delicate and secretive that shimmered, like a fish underwater.

Otto had told him he was a translator, serving both Captain Schlosser and some of the other officers stationed in villages this side of Monteferro. And yet, despite the job he'd been assigned, he rarely went to the osteria with the other soldiers in the evenings. He said he wasn't good around so many men, so much talk. After a day dealing with words, he liked to clear his head of them. There was no one who understood this as well as Lucio. They wandered among the trees behind the meadow, or sat on Rocca Re while Lucio drew in his notebook, Otto's hand on Viviana's back as she panted. Lucio had never considered whether it was right because it always felt so.

And yet he didn't tell Vittorio. His brother didn't go with him to feed the animals at Collelungo anymore. Since the Germans had decamped to the town hall, they had lost their exotic lustre for Vittorio. Instead he made a point first of showing no interest in the visitors and then of actively setting himself against them. The Germans became a focus for his impatience, his discontent, an outlet for his frustrations. Influenced by the talk of traders on their last trip to Cori, he took delight in griping about their increased numbers throughout the hill towns.

‘Every time you look over your shoulder in Cori or Carpeto there's more crucchi,' he grumbled to their mother over his minestra one night.

She eyed him warily over the steaming bowls. ‘Be careful what you call them, Vittor. There are plenty of people with food on the table because of the Germans.'

‘And what about when their supplies run out? What will we all eat then? That's what I want to know.'

That was why Lucio didn't speak about Otto. Instead he took him to Prugni and, under the budding tree, he told him the legend of the plague settlement, and eventually of his grandfather and the lost method of Raimondi Gold. Otto whittled on the switch of a snare he was making, listening all the while without comment or judgement. And Lucio felt, perhaps for the first time, the sweet ease of unburdening himself.

One duskfall on their way down the Montemezzo track, Viviana started up the baying that meant only one thing. As Lucio stood unmoving on the chalk path, Otto asked, ‘Don't you want to find out what she's caught?' But Lucio was rigid with the fear of it, the shame of revealing this truth, this failing, to his friend.

Otto inclined his head in the direction of the noise. When he stepped forward, Lucio felt bound to follow him, pacing through the ferns and the newly sprouting undergrowth until they were beside Viviana. She had the prey under her paws, pinning it down, her muzzle at its throat. It was a spring leveret, still lean, bleeding from the neck where she had bitten it. But its orange eye, glossy in the dim light, was fixed upon Lucio, as expectant as the dog's growls.

He tried to free the words that were lodged in his throat. But he had become his eleven-year-old self, standing before the bleeding boar, his father's breath upon him once more. Viviana growled again as if to hurry him, but Otto caught her tail in his fist and reached down to snatch the hare up by the hind legs. It twitched and quivered before him. Lucio felt Otto reach across for his hand, cupping it in his own, running his palm slowly upwards so that he could feel the nap of the hare's skin, its sprung bones adjusting underneath, until he could sense its lengthening body and lax weight, a kind of forgiveness. Everything seemed distilled, concentrated in their hands. All Lucio could hear was his own breath behind his teeth; all he could feel was the pulse of blood in his fingers. When it came, the crack of bone against his hand was nothing more than a tiny part of night descending in the woods, the trees creaking as the wind pitched in the canopy.

He felt a gentle pressure on his shoulder. When he turned around, Otto had already gutted the hare and Viviana was licking at the bloody leaf litter.

On the way back to the village, the chalk path seemed to rise up to meet them, pale in the moonlight, pale as Otto's hair, as they descended side by side.

And Lucio wondered how it could not feel right.

Leyton
1949

‘Black Jacks today, barley twists last week. Did they never have sweets at all in Italy, then?' Mrs Cleat cocked an eyebrow at Vittorio, who gave her a small smile.

‘No, signora,' he said, lowering his gaze. Connie thought he would blush if he could master that reaction at will. With a breathy titter Mrs Cleat let some extra Black Jacks fall from the scoop into the paper bag, and Connie rolled her eyes at Vittorio.

Through the autumn he had become a regular in the shop, and Mrs Cleat liked to tease him about his sweet tooth. She had begun to call him Vic, and last week she'd made Mrs Livesey wait in the queue while she told him about the Benford Operatic Society's new production of
Merrie England.
‘I've been meaning to ask you, Vic, do you sing at all? No? That's a shame. Don't you think he'd make a perfect Sir Walter Raleigh, Connie?'

Sometimes, as the days got shorter and his work finished earlier, Connie found him straddled across her bike in the alley by the shop.

‘Who you hanging about for, then? Signorina Cleat?' She mimicked his bashful smile and fluttered her eyelashes as she wrapped her scarf about her neck.

‘Signor-a,' he corrected her.

‘I thought you didn't want to speak Italian anymore.'

‘Sometimes … it's useful.' He offered her a Black Jack.

She arranged her things in the basket of her bike and shook the handlebar, indicating he should get off. ‘Well, if you're buying as many stamps as you are sweets these days, you'll never save up for that bike.'

He frowned at her, then slowly began to grin. The sight of it changing the shape of his eyes, his even white teeth against his brown skin, was so pleasurable that she forced herself to bite the inside of her cheek and look away.

‘So, the pettegole tell you?'

She got on her bike, ignoring him.

‘That I walk Agnes home?'

She set her foot against the pedal. ‘I've got no idea what a pette-majig is.'

‘Pettegole.' He opened and closed his hand in a beak shape and nodded towards Cleat's.

‘You should know by now that everyone in this village knows your business,' she said, trying to push off even though he was still holding the handlebar.

‘Agnes asked me. What can I do?' He sighed. ‘There was no Connie to walk home.' He refused to let go of the handlebars, and she got down from the saddle and stood on the other side of the bike.

‘Agnes is a beautiful girl,' he said. She raised her eyebrows, wanting to appear unaffected by such a frank comment, but this was the best she could do. ‘But am I waiting at the post office for one hour to walk Agnes home?'

She folded her arms and tried her best not to smile. As she let him push her bike, she thought of Agnes and her patent shoes making their singular click down the pavement.

Along the high street, the light from the windows of the terraces fell across their path. The smell of woodsmoke was set into relief by the crisp winter air in the open fields. As they reached the start of the bridle path, the shortcut to Repton's, he dug into the pocket of his jacket and drew out a package wrapped in newspaper. He opened it partially and she glimpsed two hen's eggs, which he wrapped back up and placed inside her mac, folded in the basket.

‘Are you sure?' she said. ‘I don't want you … I don't want anyone to get into trouble.' She was thinking of Lucio. She hadn't seen him for more than two months, not properly — only the outline of him cutting sugar beet on the ridge, or what she imagined was his silhouette passing the lit window of the gamekeeper's cottage. He no longer appeared on the gatepost, and his absence made her feel guilty, but for what she didn't know. She thought of the night of the harvest fair, the face in the darkened scrub. She still had Mrs Repton's shoes wrapped in a paper bag at the back of her wardrobe. She knew she should return them, but when she took them out, she always had the urge to bury them instead, just as Lucio had Mrs Repton's cat, as if there was something sad and regretful about them.

She had to ask Vittorio: ‘How is your brother?'

He rubbed the heel of his hand. ‘Lucio.' It was practically a groan. ‘I don't know. I don't know where he goes anymore.' He seemed torn between the release of talking about him and the intrusion of it. Eventually he said, ‘He fights. With my father. Always fighting. I think one day they kill each other.' He laughed, trying to make light of it.

‘But why? Why do they fight?' She heard her voice straining. ‘Is it about the cat?'

‘What?'

She waved her hand vaguely and took hold of her bike again, wishing she hadn't blurted it out. ‘Why do they fight?' she asked once more.

‘Many reasons. Things from before. Even I don't understand.' He was dismissive, like it wasn't worth explaining. ‘He stays away now, Lucio. He gets up with the sun and comes back with the stars. Sometimes he stays away all night.'

‘But I see him on the farm,' she said.

He shrugged. ‘He has to eat, he has to work. But at night …'

‘Where? Where does he go?'

Vittorio cast his gaze over the hedgerows and spinneys. He seemed restless, impatient to move on from the tiring puzzle of his brother. He fingered her mac in the basket, where he had placed the eggs.

‘Will you do something for me, Connie?' His face was animated again, his eyes glittering.

‘Oh, I get it. The eggs are a bribe, then. What? What do you want me to do?'

‘You are free tomorrow, Saturday afternoon, yes?'

She nodded.

‘You come with me?'

‘Where to?'

‘To Huntingdon. You help me.'

‘With what?'

‘You help me,' he repeated, insistent as a child. ‘I tell you on the bus tomorrow.'

She hesitated. She had no clue how he might need someone like her to help him, but before she could ask more he hurried on. ‘Per favore, Connie?' He took her hand like he depended on her. She found herself nodding.

His mood lifted instantly. ‘Brava. Brava la mia Concetta,' he said, and she wondered whether she was no more sophisticated than Mrs Cleat, to be played with a pretty foreign name, a romantic accent.

He walked up the bridle path, buoyant, still fixing her in his sights, and then he grinned again. She wished he wouldn't. She had to pull up her scarf to cover her nose, not to keep out the cold but to hide the heat of her delight from him.

On the bus, the squat houses of Leyton fell away behind them, as the road opened up between the ploughed fields. It was an afternoon of fragile blue sky, the leafless trees clean as paper cuts against it. Everything seemed laid bare. Everything but him.

‘You still haven't explained why it is I'm swanning off with you to Huntingdon,' Connie said, shifting her leg to avoid the press of his on the shuddering seat.

‘Swanning?'

She laughed. ‘Yes, you know, like the bird … flying off … for no good reason.'

‘I'm not a good reason?'

‘Vic,' she warned.