2006 - Wildcat Moon (31 page)

“Today is market day so people is busy. You can only get to this place by the sea so nobody be here today.”

Archie undressed and took off his calliper. He looked across at Alfredo shyly. Alfredo smiled; he was such a frail little boy, like a skinned rabbit with his pale flesh and skinny legs. A few weeks here in Santa Caterina would soon put a bit of meat on his bones, some colour in his face.

When Alfredo coaxed a terrified Archie into the water, he was surprised to find it warm and not like it was in the Skallies.

Tiny silver fish darted beneath the surface and tickled his legs. Alfredo splashed him and he splashed back timidly, turning his head away so as not to get his face wet.

After they had played for a while, Alfredo carried him in a little deeper.

Archie dung to him, trying to climb higher up Alfredo’s body.

He put him firmly down and Archie stood, petrified, up to his neck in warm water. He shivered with fright as he watched Alfredo untie a strip of doth from around his wrist and told Archie to slip it between his teeth.

“See that way you can’t shout! I pulls you along and you make swimming actions like this.”

Archie bit his lip and held back his tears.

“Come, it’s fun and I no let you drown. This way is how my papa teach me and his papa before him.”

“But I don’t want to be able to swim, Alfredo.”

“Here in Santa Caterina you have to be able to swim. We go in boat and if we tips up and in you go, you needs to swim!”

Archie swallowed hard and took the cloth between his teeth. He flailed around with his arms and Alfredo walked away keeping the doth taut and the terrified boy afloat as he thrashed his limbs like a landed octopus.

Archie wanted to scream and make Alfredo stop, to get his feet safely back on the ground but if he opened his mouth to shout he knew he would sink.

They carried on for a long time and slowly Archie relaxed and moved his arms and legs the way Alfredo had shown him. He felt the water buoying him up, the sun making the waves sparkle around his face. It wasn’t as bad as he had imagined, but he held on to the cloth for grim life, half afraid that his teeth would come out.

Finally, Alfredo gathered an exhausted Archie up in his strong arms.

“Okay, you done well, you must rest now.”

“I think I could do a little more, you know!”

“One more go, eh, and then we rest? We do a little every day. We build up them muscles in you bad leg. Soon you swims like a silver fish!”

They stayed in the water a while longer as the sun rose higher into the sky.

“We stop now, else you skin burn and shrivel. Sun gets too hot. Come, we have a little lunch.”

Alfredo laid out towels on the sand, fetched an enormous umbrella from the boat and started to put it up.

“Do you think it’s going to rain, Alfredo?”

Alfredo threw back his head and laughed. “Maybe but not until September! This for keeping the sun off us while we eat.”

They sat beneath the shade of the giant umbrella eating slices of spicy sausage and chewy bread washed down with a lemon drink that was so sharp it made Archie screw up his face and smack his lips together.

Alfredo yawned and said, “Now is time for siesta.”

“What’s a siesta?” Archie asked.

“A time to sleep and dream while the sun is too hot. Here in Santa Caterina we have two days instead of one.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We gets up early while it still cool. We work and play and then we eats and then we sleeps. Then we gets up again and does some more work and play and eats again, then we stay up very late and talks while ifs cooler.”

“That sounds good,” Archie said with a yawn.

“Take you a little time to get used to the heat. You feel tired at first.”

“Oh, no, I’m fine. I’m not tired at all,” he said with another wide yawn and moments later he was fast asleep.

Alfredo covered him with towels and sat for a long time looking down at the peaceful, sun-pinked face of Archie Grimble.

It was a warm, dear evening when Eloise Fanthorpe and William Dally set out in the car and drove through the winding lanes towards the Skallies. They kept the car windows down and the soft air was filled with the smell of wild thyme, lavender and honeysuckle and the drone of weary bees.

It was quiet when they stepped inside the Pilchard Inn. Eloise sat down at a table near the porthole window, while William went up to the bar.

Eloise looked around her with interest It was an ancient place with low-beamed ceilings and walls ingrained with years of tobacco smoke and decorated with washed-out pictures of long dead Skallies folk holding up giant fish and fat-faced babies.

A young woman appeared suddenly from behind a curtain that separated the bar from a back room and Eloise was reminded of an actress making an entrance. She was a good-looking woman, with an intelligent, strong-boned face, olive skin and thick dark hair tied in a plait. She looked like a no-nonsense sort of woman and yet there was a vulnerability about her too, a well-disguised nervousness.

“How can I help?” she said to William Dally.

“We come over from Nanskelly to try out your grub that everyone’s harping on about.”

“I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Our Keep’s a damned good cook. What did you fancy?”

“What you got?”

Nan handed him two menus and he made his way across the bar to Eloise.

“There you go, Miss Fanthorpe. Don’t know about you but I could eat a scabby donkey.”

“Lefs hope you don’t have to,” she said absently.

Eloise Fanthorpe gathered her wits and looked at the proffered menu. It had been carefully written out in a childish hand and decorated around the edges with small drawings. She looked at it with growing interest. There were drawings of a variety of animals: miniature elephants and wizen-faced monkeys; coiled pythons and dancing bears; there was even a circus caravan and a Big Top.

After a while she swapped menus with William Dally and smiled with delight. On this one there were pictures of a house, or possibly a pub, and a very small child sitting outside in a pram. Above the pub the sky was peppered with stars and a huge moon. She looked closely at the moon and saw that there was the imprint of a cat’s paw on its surface. In another corner there was a picture of a girl running towards a tall grey house with many windows and in each window there was a smiling face, faces looking out into a bright sunlit day.

Along the top of the menu was a long train, the carriages rattling along at speed, and in the window a woman held a baby in a shawl, both looking out with startled eyes. They were truly remarkable drawings. How she wished that her father was still alive to see the raw talent of this artist.

As Eloise looked up from the menu, a small girl stepped out from behind the bar and came towards their table hesitantly, carefully carrying knives and forks and linen napkins.

Eloise Fanthorpe smiled at her and the girl smiled back.

“Do you know who drew these?” she asked pointing at the menu.

The girl nodded. “Cissie Abelson drew them,” she said.

“Is she here?”

The girl nodded slowly.

“Do you think I could speak with her?”

“She don’t speak much,” the girl said. “And she’s not allowed to speak to strangers ever.”

Miss Fanthorpe smiled and said, “Could you fetch her?”

“It’s me,” the girl said. “I’m Cissie Abelson.”

Eloise looked nonplussed. The child standing awkwardly in front of her with her mouth hanging open was obviously not a bright child, not in the accepted sense, but anyone who could draw like this was exceptionally gifted.

“These drawings, Cissie Abelson, are very good, very good indeed. Who taught you to draw like this?”

The girl’s face grew blank and she shrugged her shoulders, looking troubled.

“When did you go to the circus?”

The girl looked dumbfounded and scratched her nose. Eloise looked up suddenly to see the woman behind the bar eyeing her with displeasure.

Eloise coughed, handed the menu back to the little girl hurriedly, took a slug of her drink and then winced.

“She was giving me a filthy look for talking to the child,” Eloise hissed at William, nodding towards Nan who was wiping down the bar.

“Funny folks round here, on the secretive side, always have been. Best not to ask too many questions in the Skallies, if you ask me.”

“I was only being friendly. Anyway, the child’s drawings are quite wonderful.”

“Ave you picked what you want to eat yet?”

“I’ll have the sea bass,” she said with a smile. “And you?”

“Fish and prawn pie. My old mother used to make that. It were a ceiling floater of a dish.”

The woman came out from behind the bar and took their order, before whisking the menus away.

Soon the smell of fresh fish cooking filled the air and out at the back of the pub someone was singing cheerfully.

Two dinner plates emerged through the curtains followed by a man’s head. He stopped in his tracks, blushed deeply, handed the plates quickly to the woman and disappeared but not quickly enough. Eloise Fanthorpe recognized him immediately but looked down at the table diplomatically.

William Dally ate his meal with enthusiasm. The pie was cooked to perfection, the pastry crust golden and moist, the prawns and fish mouth wateringly scrumptious. He hadn’t been in the Pilchard for years; the last time he’d eaten food here was when the Dennis family had kept the place. After they went, it had gone to the dogs. But damn, this young woman was doing well here now and whoever had done the cooking knew what they were doing. It was a bloody grand place and served a damn fine drop of ale too.

As Nan Abelson cleared away the empty plates, William Dally said, “Don’t suppose you know if Archie Grimble is anywhere around?”

Nan looked at him suspiciously.

“He’s hot here at the moment. He’s away with his family.” As she spoke she was aware of Eloise Fanthorpe scrutinizing her face as if she were looking for something concealed there.

Nan turned away as William Dally said, “Gone anywhere interesting, has he?”

“Abroad,” Nan said and walked away.

“Well, I’ll be buggered,” William Dally said with a shake of his head.

Eloise Fanthorpe had gone very pale and was looking ahead of her as if in a stupor.

The bread shop in Santa Caterina was called
II Fanettiere
and it was halfway up a very steep hill overlooked by the towering and ancient convent.

The first time they went to fetch bread, Alfredo showed Archie the way through the narrow streets and taught him how to ask for bread in Italian.

Each day after, it was his job to climb the hill and fetch the early morning bread.

Every day as soon as he woke he dressed and slipped out through the jangling curtains of the Galvinis’ house and made his way there.

In those first few days he hurried past the groups of local men smoking and gossiping along the harbour wall and avoided the old women who seemed always to be out sweeping the cobbles in front of their houses. But day by day his confidence grew and he began to return their calls of
buon giorno
.

He knew now that when they called out
Come sta?
they were asking him how he was and now he replied, “
Motto bene, grazie
.” Very well, thank you. And he was delighted when they smiled and laughed and waved at him. And he did feel well, he felt better than he’d ever felt!

When first he had climbed the steep hill to the bread shop his bad leg had ached and the calliper had chafed his skin raw. But since he’d been having his daily swimming lessons with Alfredo his leg was growing stronger.

After he had been in Santa Caterina for almost a week he set out as usual on his daily errand for bread. Climbing slowly up the steep, cobbled hill, he managed for once not to have a rest halfway up. He arrived at the
panettiere
hot and dusty but pleased with himself.

He bought two loaves of bread and exchanged a smile and a
come sta?
with the young woman behind the counter and then left. Coming back down the hill he paused and looked along a narrow alleyway that led off to the left. It was dim and dark and halfway along an old woman in a black dress and headscarf slept on a low chair outside a house. Up until now he had always taken the route that Alfredo had shown him but he was sure that if he went down the alley and then turned right he should come back to the harbour only further along.

He stepped timidly into the alleyway and made his way along it, tiptoeing so as not to wake the old woman. As he came level with her she grunted, looked up at him with lively brown eyes and held out her wrinkled hand.

Hesitantly he inched his hand towards her.

She took hold of his hand, so pale against the deep weathered brown of her own skin. She held his hand for some moments and then looked into his eyes.

She let go of his hand reluctantly. Archie smiled at her and moved on quickly, conscious of her eyes boring into his back. Turning right into a wider street, he made his way towards a cafe in front of which chairs and tables were set out on the cobbles.

He peeped inside the cafe. It was empty except for two old men who stood at the counter smoking.

They turned and looked at him inquisitively and called out to someone.

A small man, barely big enough to see over the counter popped up and stared at Archie. He had bright; twinkling eyes and an enormous moustache that curled upwards towards his eyebrows. Archie blushed and made to walk away but the tiny man called out to him.

“
Buon giorno!
”

Archie muttered a reply and walked on.

The small man called out again but he spoke fast and Archie could not understand what he was saying.

He grew flustered and quickened his step.

“
Inglese. Non capisco!
” one of the old men said.

The small man hurried out from the cafe and came towards Archie, grabbed his arm and pulled him inside. He took the loaves of bread from him and laid them down on the counter, and then he lifted Archie up onto a high stool in front of the bar. Then he hastened behind the counter, poured a glass of lemonade and pushed it towards Archie with a smile.