The Italians at Cleat's Corner Store (35 page)

And then he thought he saw her, his mother, passing the vestiary door at the rear of the church, the glimpse of her shadow against the cobbles, the briefest hesitation as she glanced back in the direction of the fountain. But she dissolved into the darkness as quickly as she had appeared, leaving him wondering whether he really had seen her at all.

The news of the theft of Santa Lucia's crown whistled through the village like the winter winds that blasted up Via del Soccorso. It swept all manner of debris with it — ancient superstitions, old vendettas, wild speculation — and collected, as all news did, in fierce eddies of exchange at the osteria, where it was honed into its most potent form.

When Lucio passed the tavern late the next afternoon, Fagiolo called to him. He was clearing snow from the cobbles, and through the open door behind him, Lucio could see clusters of heads drawn together at the bar and about the tables, not all of them belonging to men. He had only ever seen women at the osteria on a handful of occasions: the day King Vittorio Emanuele III became the Emperor of Abyssinia, Italy's victory in the World Cup, the declaration of war. He knew then just how grave matters were.

‘Did you see anything, Gufo? At the church last night?' Fagiolo asked.

Lucio shook his head.

‘And Padre Ruggiero still hasn't found anything else missing? Only the crown?'

‘Nothing else,' he answered.

Fagiolo eyed him painfully, as if regretting what he was about to say. He leaned his spade against the wall and took Lucio by the arm, pulling him away from the osteria door. ‘I think you should go home and warn your mother.' His voice had lost its gruffness and seemed to waver. ‘You know they're blaming her, don't you?'

Lucio shrugged. He knew, but he wouldn't nod, as though the action would somehow acknowledge his mother's guilt.

Fagiolo shook his head, tiredly. ‘I'm sorry, Guf. I tried to tell them it's most likely to have been the crucchi. They've taken everything else from us, after all.'

Lucio thought back on the previous night. He desperately wanted to believe it wasn't his mother. Captain Schlosser had been busy talking to the priest on the church steps, hadn't he? He might have ordered any one of his men to slip into the church and take the crown. And he had seen Fabrizia hurrying across the piazza; even Fagiolo himself had left the church at around the same time. Either one could have been the thief too: everyone was desperate enough for food, for something to trade. And yet his mother was the first suspect. She always was.

‘You know the Montelupinese as well as I do,' Fagiolo continued. ‘They can't punish the Germans, can they? And they want a scapegoat, someone they can whip for all their other frustrations.'

‘Whip?' Lucio repeated. The word seemed so extreme, so physical.

‘Look, Gufo, La Mula's not going to let this drop. I've heard her carrying on.' Fagiolo raised his chin towards the bar. ‘She's been telling the Fascist loyalists that Letia stole the crown for Vittorio's gruppo; and she's stirring up the partisan supporters to think your mother took it for the Germans. Even those who don't care about politics believe the stupid woman when she tells them Letia's brought down the evil eye on the village by offending the saint herself. She's got an argument to cover all bases.'

Lucio imagined the unrelenting signora listing her points for the prosecution, thrusting her chin towards the men at the bar with each accusation, like a hen pecking its way further and further up the dung heap with the cocks.
Who could bring themselves to steal from the saint on her very own name day? Barilotto's daughter, that's who! There was never any love lost between the Raimondi and the Church. She wasn't even in Mass last night.
Why do you think she bribed the captain to let us have the procession in the first place? So the saint would be unlocked from the grotto, of course. Even Fagiolo said as much. Why wouldn't she sacrifice two measly bottles of her father's Gold if she could get her hands on that crown?
Her mulish voice became his own inside his head, his doubts heaping one on top of the other as he remembered his mother's shadow at the vestiary door. Had he been mistaken all along about her reasons for giving the villagers their festival?

‘Do you think she did it?' he asked Fagiolo.

As if from nowhere, he felt the cuff of a hand burning across his ear. ‘Don't ever let me hear you say that again,' Fagiolo whispered. ‘I know she didn't. And so do you.'

Lucio pulled away, but the innkeeper stepped towards him, regretful now. ‘Gufo, don't you see? It doesn't matter who took it. Any one of us is hungry enough to do a lot worse. And the gold sitting on that statue's head is about as useful for filling our stomachs as the communion wafer. It was just a matter of time before it disappeared. And your mother was always going to be the culprit.'

Lucio pushed back his hair with his wrist and eyed the innkeeper. He knew Fagiolo was right. It didn't matter now. His cheeks seared from the slap and his own shame. ‘What should I do?' he asked.

‘Get her away.'

At that moment, the door of the osteria clattered and Professore Centini stood on the threshold, bending and straightening his knee, his face pained, grey as old snow. He winced at them and Lucio knew it wasn't from his sciatica. He thought again of the mayor's platitude before the procession. It was true: nothing was black and white anymore.

When he got home, Lucio found his mother making gnocchi. Fabrizia was at the table, her face flushed and focused, her mouth set hard, like she had been kneading the dough herself. His mother didn't greet him as he entered, still preoccupied with the conversation he had evidently interrupted.

‘So, which am I, a Nazi colluder or a freedom fighter? Can't they decide?' His mother gave an empty laugh and rubbed her nose irritably in the crook of her arm. Fabrizia's gaze hovered on Lucio, who had begun re-tying the bag of flour propped against the cellar door. ‘My God, Fabri, don't tell me you actually believe them?'

The butcher's wife looked away. ‘What do you expect me to believe?' she lashed out. ‘You start feeding half of Vicolo Giotto, you stop coming to Mass, you act as guilty as a fox among the chickens —'

‘Does it really matter where the food comes from, as long as we can eat?'

‘
I
don't care where it comes from, but they do. And soon they're going to see behind that apron. We're all starving, Leti, but you're the only one whose stomach's not getting any smaller!'

His mother stopped kneading and they fell silent. She put the heel of her hand to her temple, her fingers lacing her hair with flour so it seemed she had gone grey in the matter of a moment. Lucio came to stand behind her. Fabrizia reached across the table for her hand, as if to show them whose side she was on.

‘They need someone to blame, Leti. You've always been good for that, but especially now … now they suspect …'

‘They suspect what?'

Fabrizia adjusted her stance. He had never seen her struggle for words. ‘Well, if they suspect you're already …
lost
.'

‘Lost?' His mother pushed herself from the table and began to pace about the confines of the kitchen in sudden bursts, like a bird trapped. ‘
Lost
.' She repeated the word to the window, where a shaft of pale sun hit the glass. ‘I was lost to them years ago, wasn't I? Before I was even old enough to do anything wrong?'

Fabrizia didn't say anything more, but the tears that she wiped away made his mother stop. She went around the table and put her arms about her friend's shoulders. ‘Come on, Fabri. I'll weather it. Don't I always?'

The butcher's wife shook her head. ‘Not this time. This time it's different. I heard La Mula threatening this morning that she was going to the captain. I think she's going to name you as one of the Cori gruppo's links.'

His mother's arms dropped to her sides. ‘What? Why would she do such a thing?'

‘Because of Primo.' Fabrizia pulled down the corners of her mouth as if she had tasted something sour. ‘And because the gruppo raided her brother's barn near Carpeto. She's still fuming because half the stores they found hidden there were hers. She was storming all round the village saying the gruppi are no better than bandits and it's time someone stood up to them.'

‘So? How will she prove the connection? She's got no proof Vittorio's even with the gruppo.'

Fabrizia touched her fingers to the flour dusted across the table. His mother put her hand on the dough as if she might continue to knead, but went to a chair and sat down instead, losing the will. They all understood. ‘And what if I tell the captain my supplies didn't come from the Cori gruppo but from one of his own soldiers? From money he gave me?'

‘That might be even worse,' Fabrizia said. ‘Don't you see, Leti? If the Allies push through, that could be an even surer noose about your neck. Fagiolo thinks —'

‘You spoke to Fagiolo about this?'

‘I didn't need to. He came to me. He's not an idiot. He doesn't quite know how serious things are,' she nodded to his mother's stomach, ‘but he still thinks you'd be safer to leave.'

‘Leave the village?' Lucio had already begun to suspect this was Fabrizia's mission as well as his own, but his mother's voice was incredulous. ‘No! They won't force me to leave. Anyway, where would I go? There's Lucio to think of.'

Fabrizia raised her head to him. Her gaze roved over his hair, his shoulders, before settling on his face. She was about to speak, but he stopped her.

‘They say the Nazis are rounding up boys younger than me,' he said. ‘Sending them off to the front or to factories in Germany.'

‘Who says that? Who? Pettegola?' his mother barked at him, desperately. ‘In Rome, it might be true, but not here, not in the mountains.'

‘Fagiolo says it's happening even in Valmontone,' Fabrizia cut in. ‘Boys as young as thirteen. It won't be long before they come to the villages.'

His mother stood up and rocked on her feet. She pressed her lips between her teeth, and her eyes flashed their accusations at Fabrizia, but she said no more.

Outside in the alley, the butcher's wife grabbed him by the arm. ‘He was right,' she whispered. ‘He said she wouldn't leave unless it was for you. Fagiolo knows her too well. And so do you.' Her eyelashes shone, and the dew under her nose glistened in the grey alleyway. ‘Take care of her, Gufo,' she said. ‘Make sure you take care of the both of them.' And she darted away across the cobbles that winked with melted snow.

Leyton
1950

Connie didn't go back to St Margaret's that summer. She wouldn't let herself. Rather, she focused on Vittorio, seeing him off for Luton in late September. She set a condition on her joining him: he had to be settled and established there before they announced their plans. She didn't exactly swear him to secrecy, but she knew he had told no one, for she was not eyed or baited any more than usual when they gossiped about him at Cleat's, and Agnes went back to overlooking her with genuine indifference. Other girls might have been angry at Vittorio's willingness to comply with these demands, suspicious even, but she was grateful that it bought her extra time, although for what she didn't know.

She continued to go to the Roxy on Saturday nights, enduring Tommy and the other boys on the bus, just to listen to Bobby's band play the interval, just to escape the morbid evenings of perky radio in her aunt and uncle's sitting room. But had she been honest with herself, she would have admitted it was the cycle home from the bus stop that she anticipated the most, allowing her to see the lit-up church, to feel the thrill of finding the candle still burning in the south window. Sometimes she'd even pedal across the commons as far as the lychgate, and sit on the bench, listening to the creaking of the cypresses, the sigh of beech leaves across the gravestones. But she wouldn't let herself scratch again at the oak door. Instead she waited for Vittorio to telephone her at the shop on Tuesday afternoons when Mrs Cleat was out, trying to conjure, in the tinny distance of his voice, the line of the road leading south.

She continued to freewheel down the rise on her way to Cleat's, but it no longer gave her the same pleasure. She noticed she applied the brakes more now, as if it was the future racing towards her that she was trying to slow. One morning she stopped at Lucio's gate and let her bike fall into the verge. She had been back to Leyton House once since returning Mrs Repton's shoes, but only to call Aunty Bea's message through the kitchen window to Mrs Cartwright. Now her aunt was out of sorts again, and she'd come to let the cook know.

She took the shortcut through the fields and across the back courtyard of the house. As she negotiated the mud in her wellies, her shoes in her satchel, she thought of Mrs Repton's white heels and the disappointments of that meeting. She hoped she would find Mrs Cartwright in the kitchen and be gone as quickly as she could. The Big House held little for her now. With Luton ahead of her, it seemed a relic of the past, a place of childish hopes and fantasies, and she couldn't help a certain scorn tempering the sadness she felt for it.