The Italians at Cleat's Corner Store (21 page)

‘There is a good reason.' He seemed sheepish. ‘I need you to help me.'

‘But what with?'

‘With the police.'

‘The
police
?' She sat forward, panic setting in. She couldn't imagine how he'd become involved with the police, but she could imagine the endless recriminations this would provide Aunty Bea, the material it would give Agnes or Mrs Livesey if it got out.

He took hold of her wrist. ‘It's not like that, Connie. I don't tell you because I'm scared maybe you don't come.'

‘Well, you were right.' She tugged her arm away.

‘Wait. Concetta.'

‘Don't … don't treat me like that.'

‘Like what?'

‘Like I'm Agnes or someone.' She began to put on her coat as if she had the option of getting off the bus. ‘Oh, but hang on. I get it now. I'm here because she said no, aren't I?'

‘No, Connie. No. Listen. I don't even ask Agnes. I ask you because I know you understand. You're smart.' He tapped his temple with his finger. ‘We have to go to the police station every month — me or Lucio or my father. We sign the police book for the foreign workers. You see?' She wasn't sure she did. ‘They want to know where we are all the time. Like … like prisoners.' His mouth turned down at the word.

‘So why do you need me to help you?'

He leaned back towards her, hopeful that she might be coming round. ‘The constable there, he explains the rules to me. You help me understand, OK?'

‘What rules?'

‘The rules to leave.' He nodded as she began to realise what he meant. ‘The rules to leave Repton's.'

At the Huntingdon police station, the constable on duty reached under the counter and brought up a flimsy registry with the letters
RA
inked on it in red: she guessed it stood for
Resident Aliens
. He set it on the counter without greeting Vittorio, as if he already knew why he was there and deemed it a routine unworthy of any further attention. Connie's presence, however, seemed to pique his interest.

‘Can I help you, miss?' When she shook her head, he angled his chin towards Vittorio. ‘Are you with him?'

‘Yes, we're together.' The constable raised an eyebrow and glanced at his colleague. The duty sergeant, sitting at a desk behind him, stopped scratching in his notebook and looked up with grubby interest. ‘That is to say …' she began weakly.

Vittorio, oblivious to the innuendo, signed the register. He slid it back towards the constable and directed his attention to the sergeant beyond, calling out, ‘Please, you tell my friend again about the rules — for the foreign workers?'

The sergeant got up from his desk and stepped towards the counter. ‘Steel harpin' on that, are we? He's a heedstrong one, I'll hand et t'eem, the young Wog laddie.' His Scottish brogue was so thick that Connie had to concentrate to be sure of catching every word, only having heard a Scots accent once or twice on the radio during a New Year's Eve broadcast. She understood now why Vittorio needed her help. ‘I've explained et al' t'eem the last month no' gone, but … well, hes English is no' so strong, es et?'

Connie fidgeted at the desk and fought a violent urge to laugh. ‘My friend wants to know whether he's allowed to leave his job and get a different one somewhere better. He's been there nearly a year now.'

‘Well, a whool year, es et? And already wantin' better?'

The constable, who was making tea at the back of the station, sniggered. Connie pressed her hand on the counter. She was beginning to see that the obstruction was not simply a matter of accents.

‘Look, we'd just like to know his rights. His sponsor said he has to stay with him for seven years at least. Surely that can't be true?'

The officer cleared his throat. ‘I've toold the young fella, as long as he has a letter from a sponsor and we only see hes face in here t'sign the register, we dunna care how he keeps heself ootta trouble.'

‘So he doesn't have to wait seven years to change employers, then?'

The constable sighed and spoke slowly, as if Connie herself was the foreigner. ‘Seven years is t'apply fer residency. He can change sponsors if he can get another. O' course, he could gae hoome … p'rhaps there's better back in
Italya
?'

They left the station and stopped at Cromwells for tea and a bun. Vittorio still hadn't understood what the sergeant had said, but before she would explain, she wanted to hear his reasons for leaving Repton's. He was reluctant at first, but when she pushed him, she was taken aback at the sudden emotion of his confession.

‘He can pull out his hair and eat ashes, my father,' he muttered, shaking his head. ‘
England is the future
, he told us.
Machines for the harvest, machines to do the work of ten men. We can be something there.
But what are we?' He paused, like she might offer him a different answer. ‘Slaves for Repton, that's all.' His mouth had become hard in his face, making him seem years older. She stayed quiet, not knowing what to say.

‘In our village my father was better than podestà — do you understand? Like the mayor. Men came to him to stop arguments, to find answers; they respected him. We had electricity in our house, clean water. Now we live in a
stalla
— this animal shed, with a hole in the ground to shit. We work until dark, we sleep, and then we start again. And this Repton, we have to pay him for this! We have to pay him for bringing us to … questo cesso, Inghilterra. And he says we must stay for seven years with him, like this tractor or this truck, this machinery he owns. Maledetto bugiardo, figlio di puttana.' He pushed away his teacup, which rattled indignantly in its saucer.

The loud flourish of Italian words made a nurse at the next table cough and stir her tea. The waitress blushed, her mouth open. Connie put one hand to her forehead, blocking them both from her view, and with the other she put a finger to her lips.

Vittorio glowered, petulant and unapologetic as he turned his back to the room and studied the view through the window. In the reflection she saw him wipe his mouth against his forearm, as if to press back the words that threatened to keep coming. Connie's heart tightened with the injustice of it, with anger at the way he'd been misled, but she didn't know how to make things better, feeling culpable on Repton's behalf — on England's behalf. Finally, she leaned towards him. ‘I can teach you if you like?'

‘What?' he said sharply.

And she whispered, ‘All the swear words you need.'

On their way home, a few villages out of Huntingdon, Vittorio became preoccupied, scanning the scenery as they approached Spalewick. Ahead was Edwards Garage, with its two fuel pumps beside the open road.

‘There, see?' He pointed at the filling station as the bus pulled into the stop a short way off. ‘I take the Hillman there to change the oil. Mr Edwards, he likes me. He says,
Vic, you a smart boy. You work hard.
He asks if I want to be apprentice to him — mechanic.' The word sounded complex and important in his mouth. He tapped his chest with a thumb. ‘Mr Edwards pays me four times more than Repton gives my father. Four times! Now you understand this Repton?'

She couldn't quite believe how low their wages were, even by Mr Repton's standards. She nodded.

‘Tomorrow, I tell Mr Edwards yes,' he said, as if she had given her approval.

‘It's already lined up, then, the job? And you'll leave?' She tried to disguise the flatness in her voice by studying the view across the open fields. At thirty miles from Leyton, Spalewick was too far to travel by bus or bike on a daily basis. He would need to move, and how could she be indifferent to that? She had started to look forward to his visits, which punctuated the monotony of her day at Cleat's, and to finding him straddling her bike in the evenings after work.

‘Mr Edwards has a room for me to live behind his workshop,' Vittorio said.

‘But your father'll be angry, won't he? About you breaking with Mr Repton?'

He jammed his hands under his armpits. ‘They live their life. I live mine.' He thought for a moment. ‘First thing I do is pay Repton the cost of our passage — for all of us.' He scoffed. ‘Buy back our freedom.'

His certainty made her envious. People in the villages were never that confident: they were practical, unambitious, stubbornly compliant because, she suspected, like her they thought little of themselves. He, on the other hand, had such self-belief, such a conviction of his worth despite the complete absence of privilege. How had he got it, this attitude that the world was his, and all he had to do was crack it open? Being around him, she felt pulled along in his wake, buoyant with possibility.

He noticed her examining him. ‘What?'

She shook her head and felt the engine changing gears, the spring in the seat, his knee knocking hers again. And when he took her hand in his, she let him.

As they reached the Leyton turn-off, Connie looked back at the main road, feeling his fingers touch her hair, the strange inevitability of his hands at her face. She turned to him and, though she found herself answering, she wasn't thinking about the kiss, his tongue on hers. Instead she imagined staying on the bus, travelling on and on, far away into the drawing night, until dawn broke over the misty city inside her mind, peopled with older, more sophisticated versions of herself. It was a daydream she had often become lost in, but somehow, today, he'd made it seem unnervingly possible. She pulled away from him and gazed out at the dull cluster of buildings that was Leyton.

When the brakes of the bus hissed and the doors opened, she was ready behind them, preparing to jump off, anticipating the familiar handles of her bike, the effort of the cycle up Bythorn Rise. For she couldn't deny the tug she felt in the pit of her stomach, not from his kiss but from something else. Something forgotten, holding her back. And as she stepped onto the high street, she found she was relieved for once to hear the bus grumbling away, back towards the open road.

Montelupini
1943

His mother was calling him. She was on a ladder against the peach tree in the Vigna Alba, handing Lucio a basket loaded with fruit. He had been gazing at the soldiers on the back balcony of the town hall, smoking in the heady afternoon sun.

‘Lucio, are you listening to me? I want to get these up to the padre as quickly as we can.' She shook the basket at him irritably. Since he'd finished school the previous month, he'd been able to join her in the fields and vineyards, sharing her workload. But Padre Ruggiero only seemed to expect more from them. ‘He's heard from La Mula that they've been ripe for days. As if I wouldn't know a tender peach when I see one. I should have picked them hard off the tree to spite him.'

Lucio took the basket and passed her another, lined with fig leaves. She layered the leaves between the fruit to protect them. Despite her words, she did all the right things, everything she could to appease the priest. Her brown cheeks shone from the work, her skirts tucked up into her belt behind her. The stitching was coming loose at the side of her shoe and he made a note to fix it.

She was irritated more with Vittorio than with Padre Ruggiero, he knew. This was a chore she had set his brother, but they had argued again that morning, the same argument they'd had ever since Lucio had graduated: Vittorio wanted to leave school too, before his final year, but his mother refused. What good were books and reciting poems and useless dates, Vittorio demanded, if they were all going to starve to death? With the three of them they might turn over some of the meadow near the stable, increase their yield, and he would have more time to trade and hunt. But their mother was adamant. In retaliation, Vittorio did what he always did and swung to the other extreme. He refused all his chores after school and, when questioned, said Lucio should do them so that he could concentrate on the education that was clearly so precious. Lucio couldn't help seeing some truth in the argument and, wanting to keep the peace, had taken on his brother's work, which made their mother even angrier.

‘I don't know what Padre Ruggiero thinks I do with my days,' she muttered to the branches. ‘Sunbathing, maybe? Or swimming in the lake at Montemezzo?'

‘Sounds like something worth doing on an afternoon like this.' It was a man's voice, close behind them. Otto Hirsch stood with his arms folded, gazing up into the tree. He must have spotted them from the balcony of the mess and come down through the orchards. Lucio saw his mother's face peer out between the branches. There was a leaf curled in her hair. When she saw the German, she jerked back behind a bough and busied herself picking more fruit.

‘I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you, signora. I was only wondering if you and Lucio needed another pair of hands?' She didn't answer, but she shook out her skirt and brushed a hand over her hair before climbing down the ladder.

‘I'd be grateful for something to do — a reason to escape the mess,' Otto added.

‘This is Signor Otto, Mamma,' Lucio explained as he tried to take the basket from his mother. But she held on to the handle and waited, indicating she expected more from him. ‘I … We met at Collelungo. He saved Iana from a snake.'