2006 - Wildcat Moon (37 page)

Slowly, he lifted the lid on the roll-top desk and peered inside. There was a thick wadge of bills stuck on a spike. They were stamped
PAID
with red ink. A pen was stuck in a dried-up inkpot on the left-hand side. There were balls of string and sticks of red sealing wax. He picked up a sheaf of papers that had pictures of houses on them. He flicked through them. Le Petit Bijou, Almond Cottage, Dos Casitas, The Kilpenny. He put them down and picked up a red leather-bound book. He glanced at the first page.

Adler. Jacob and Ruben

Abrahams. Rudi and Ruth

Blomstein. Miriam

Goldberg. Benjamin

Solomons. Daniel

It was some sort of address book. Closing the book, he opened a small drawer at the back of the desk and peered in; he drew back when he saw the shiny black gun, the sort that gangsters had in books.

He cocked his ears. He was sure that he’d heard a noise somewhere in the house, the sound of a key turning in a lock.

He stepped back out into the corridor and listened. He was probably just imagining it; he did that when he was afraid. He crept back along the corridor and tried the door of the last room. It was locked. He bent down and put his eye to the keyhole. The door was locked from the inside, he could see the key. He stood stock-still, suddenly conscious that someone was inside the room, someone on the other side of the door who was as afraid as he was, someone in there hardly daring to breathe.

He felt the fear weaken his legs, his heart squeeze up into a double knot. Why would you lode a door from the inside? The shadows around him grew deeper and downstairs a clock dumed the hour. Holy mackerel! If the clodc diimed then that meant that someone wound it up regularly. A floorboard creaked and outside a bird squawked as it flew away over the rooftops.

He was absolutely sure now that there was somebody in the house, every musde and sinew in his body told him so.

It was important not to panic! But Holy shit! Whoever lived here had a gun. He tiptoed back along the landing and into the first room he’d gone into and crossed to the window. He peeped down into the garden. The lemons on the tree had turned to black and the sunflower heads bobbed like people hiding. A palm tree waved, making shadows that looked like arms.

He looked up at the spooky convent towering above the house. In a lighted window he was sure that he could see the outline of a nun. Sister Isabella, looking down at where he stood quaking by the window.

That was fanciful and daft. She couldn’t possibly know he was in here. As he watched, though, the light was extinguished, then lit again.

He was sure that she was watching the house; spying on him. There was something creepy about Sister Isabella. He wasn’t sure if he could trust her.

Outside a cat growled a warning. Jesus, he’d had enough. He was off. Out of here. Fear clutched at his heart as he clattered noisily down the stairs. He raced back into the cupboard, heaved himself into the gap and wriggled through the window. He landed head first in the grass, terrifying the cat who shot off through the waving sunflowers with a wail.

He hurtled back through the narrow streets startling old people who were sitting outside their doors taking in the cooler night air. Bats arced above his head and a dog barked at his passing. He arrived back at the house just as they were sitting down for supper.

His mammy looked up as he came in. “Where’ve you been, Archie? I was worried sick when it got dark and you didn’t come back.”

“Oh, I was just out and about and lost track of the time,” he gasped.

“You been running, Archie, you face all pink and you breathing hard,” Alfredo said.

“Where’s your calliper, Archie?” Martha Grimble asked.

He looked down at his naked leg. He’d run all the way back without it and hadn’t even realized it was missing.

Martha Grimble looked at him in wonder and made the sign of the cross.

“It’s a bloody miracle, that’s what it is,” she said.

“A bloody miracle!” yelled Lissia and laughed like a drain.

In the kitchen the oil lamp burned dimly and shadows danced along the whitewashed walls. Alfredo, Lena and Martha sat around the kitchen table talking.

“What did Archie mean when he say he think Lissia dead?” Alfredo asked, pouring wine for everyone.

“Alfredo, it’s a long old story. Have you got half the night?”

“Si. I enjoying myself with all my favourite people round me. I good listener too.”

“I made a big mistake in telling him she was dead. It seemed the easiest thing at the time. The truth is that Lissia has been in a convent in Ireland for years.”

“She was a nun?” Alfredo said in disbelief.

“No, she wasn’t a nun but she was looked after by the nuns.”

“I see, because she not able to look after herself?”

“She’s never been able to look after herself; she has the mind of a child.”

“Was she always this way?” Lena asked.

Martha took a long drink of wine and put down her glass before she spoke again.

“She seemed normal when she was a little girl but as she got older it was more and more obvious that things weren’t quite right.”

“And so she was sent to the nuns?”

“No, not exactly.”

Martha paused and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Alfredo refilled her glass.

“When she was fifteen she got herself into trouble. God help her she wouldn’t have even known what the fellow was up to…”

“My God! You don’t mean she have a…”

“Yes, she had a baby,” Martha said. “I had moved away from home after my mother died and was working in Dublin. My father and I didn’t get on; when he found out Lissia was expecting he went berserk He beat her to try and get her to tell who the father was but the poor girl hadn’t a due. Some unscrupulous bastard took advantage of her being simple.”

“God help the poor child,” said Lena.

“My father was a hard, unfeeling man and he put Lissia with the nuns, working in a laundry, and she was there until I fetched her a few weeks back.”

“Why did you wait for so long?” Alfredo asked.

“My father would never have agreed to her leaving the place. But he died recently and now I’m her next of kin and I agreed to take her away. Oh, Alfredo, not a day went past when I didn’t think of her. It broke my heart to think of her shut up in there.”

“What happened to the child?”

“The child was put up for adoption to a good Catholic family. The Connollys from Wexford were going to take the baby on and bring it up as their own.”

“I hope to God these Connollys peoples was good peoples?”

Martha finished her wine and put down the glass.

Alfredo refilled it along with his own.

Martha Grimble’s face was flushed and her eyes bright with recklessness.

“The thing was, the Connollys from Wexford were bogus.”

“What is this bogus?” Lena asked.

“They were only pretending to be the Connollys from Wexford. When the real Connollys turned up, they were too late. The child had been stolen.”

“Stolen! Who would steal a little baby?” Lena said.

“Did they find the child?” Alfredo asked.

“No. There was a massive police search but they never found the baby.”

“That’s terrible. I wonder where the poor child is now.”

Martha Grimble took a large swig of wine and banged down her glass.

“Upstairs asleep in bed,” said Martha Grimble.

Lena Galvini choked on her wine and Alfredo stared at Martha Grimble, eyes wide with fear.

“You see,” said Martha, “Walter Grimble and I were the bogus Connollys who stole him.”

Outside an owl called, bats squeaked and the bells of the ancient convent tolled the midnight hour.

Cissie had finished the letter that she was writing to Archie Grimble and was painstakingly writing the address on the envelope. Next she was going to do him some drawings.

She smiled as she worked. She was so full of being happy that she thought she might burst.

Fleep and Nan had taken her out to meet the lady who had liked her drawings and soon, soon she was going to start school with all the other little girls. She was going to have brand new clothes to wear. A uniform. And at the school there was a big room full of things to paint and draw with. Easels and big sheets of paper. Fat brushes and thin ones. Smudgy charcoal and waxy crayons…

And if she liked it she was going to sleep there and Nan and Fleep were going on holiday.

Cissie liked Fleep. He smiled a lot and he cooked the best food ever. And he’d kissed Nan. Twice in the kitchen and once on the lips!

That meant they had to marry and then she’d have a daddy all of her own.

She finished addressing the envelope, then got up and moved her chair closer to the parrot who sat on his perch looking around him inquisitively.

Cissie approached the cage apprehensively, cooing and lisping.

The parrot looked at Cissie and squawked. Cissie giggled.

“Good morning,” Cissie said.

The parrot chewed a sunflower seed and stared at Cissie.

“Good morning,” she said again.

The parrot put his head on one side and eyed Cissie quizzically but stayed sullenly silent.

“Who’s a pretty boy?”

“Arseholes,” screeched the parrot.

Cissie put her hand to her mouth to stop herself laughing.

She picked up her pad and began to draw the bird, tongue poking out between her teeth, totally immersed in her drawing.

Nan and Fleep came out from the kitchen. Nan pulled a pint for Fleep and poured herself a small nip of brandy.

“Well, you could have knocked me down with a bloody feather when Gwennie came in here and told me the news,” she said.

“What happened exactly?” Fleep said.

“Well, first of all the Faynes said a fellow came in here the other night asking after Gwennie. They had no idea who he was, just knew that she didn’t take kindly to visitors so they told him she was dead.”

“So how did he find her?”

“I don’t know. But find her he did. She came in here first thing this morning. Told me that her son had turned up and she was off to live in America with him.”

“Why did she come here?”

“She said she’d got a message for Archie Grimble. I didn’t think she even knew Archie Grimble.”

“What was the message?”

“To tell him he was looking in the wrong place. That he should look in the collecting box.”

“What did she mean by that?” Fleep asked.

“God knows. I asked her that and she tapped her nose and said Archie would know what she meant.”

“Well, what a turn up for the books.”

“None of us knew she had a son, even. What a dark horse she turned out to be! Anyhow, she said her son was adopted and he grew up in America, does some sort of work in films, a producer or some such thing. Apparently she had him years ago by the black fellow who worked up at Killivray. He came to a sad end and her father made her give the baby up.”

“What an ending,” Fleep said.

“Imagine living in a dump of a place like the Boathouse and then being whisked off somewhere glamorous like America. Los Angeles, I think she said he lived. Mind, she deserves a bit of comfort after the life she’s had.”

Cissie finished her drawings of the parrot and crept closer to the bird, holding her head on one side the way he did.

“What’s your name?”

“Zucca. Who’s a silly Zucca.”

Nan looked up from the bar. “I hope he’s not saying what I think he’s saying,” she said, “or he’ll end up in a stew.”

“
Dio mio!
Gwennie’s in a stew!” the parrot yelled.

“You’re a silly young bugger!”

“He’s a very rude bird,” Cissie said. “But I like him.”

Archie barely had a moment to himself once the Ristorante Skilly was opened. Lena and Alfredo, Martha, Archie and Lissia were run off their feet. The inquisitive villagers of Santa Caterina trooped down to taste Lena Galvini’s cooking and pronounced it good. In the following days old men came early in the morning and took up residence at the outside tables, drinking wine and coffee, playing cards and smoking. Soon it was as if the Ristorante Skilly had always been a part of Santa Caterina. Tiny birds came on the search for scraps and a three-legged dog adopted the doorstep. A few tourists found their way to the restaurant and soon word spread and the place was full most evenings. As Lena worked tirelessly in the kitchen, she glowed with happiness and Alfredo watched her with pride.

Martha Grimble worked alongside Lena and learned how to make pizza, pasta, risotto and many other things. For the first time in years she was happy, although sometimes she caught Lena looking at her as though she hadn’t quite fathomed her out.

Lissia washed up like a trouper, never tiring of the piles of plates and dishes that came relentlessly in from the restaurant. In quieter moments she blew bubbles between her thumb and finger and all the while Martha watched over her solicitously.

Archie, resplendent in his first ever pair of long black trousers, became the apprentice waiter to Alfredo, who watched him proudly as he handed out the menus to the customers and took the orders. Sometimes he looked from Lissia to Archie and wondered how the boy would take it if he ever found out she was his mother, and it made him afraid. Secrets of this sort weren’t good for anyone, they could only bring sorrow.

The letter from the porker came out of the blue at the end of the first full week of the restaurant being opened. It had been sent to Bag End but the postman had taken it to the Pilchard and Nan had sent it on. Archie watched his Mammy with trepidation as she read it.

He was dreading the day when they had to leave Santa Caterina. He didn’t want to imagine living under the same roof as the porker ever again. And what about Lissia? She would hate him and he would be unkind to her.

“What does it say, Mammy?” he asked. “Is he coming to fetch us?”

Martha Grimble put down the letter and wiped her eyes. Lena paused in her kneading of dough. Alfredo eyed Martha warily over his coffee cup. Archie held his breath while Lissia yawned and sucked the ends of her hair.