Death of an Englishman (16 page)

'Those with children, you mean?'

'Yes … Even my sister —they didn't mean to … She used to cry in the night when she thought I was asleep. I always knew why.'

'She wasn't bored at home?'

'Bored … ? I don't think … I suggested she should take her Middle School Certificate—it only takes a year and lots of people like us do it now, at night school, but she wouldn't go. She was afraid of people knowing and thinking it ridiculous at her age … In the end I talked her into having some English lessons from Miss White. Nobody else needed to know and I thought it might take her mind off things, but it was no good … Miss White is very
simpatica,
very patient, but she doesn't speak any Italian and Milena didn't know a word of English, so …'

'More tears?'

'Yes.'

The Marshal thought he was beginning to understand. Surely Milena had only agreed to play the 'Signora' to please him? What pleasure could she have in sitting at home alone when all her neighbours either had children or worked or, more probably, both. It wasn't unusual; couples spent their lives doing a job or living in a place, thinking they were pleasing each other, never admitting how they hated it … What if that was what he was doing himself? For whose benefit was he a thousand miles away from his family? Would his wife really worry about the children having to change schools, or his mother be so upset about leaving her home village for the first time in her life? Or did they all imagine that he liked leading a bachelor life up here, since he always tried to hide the fact that he was desperately lonely without them? He made up his mind to sort it out this holiday. But just now he shouldn't be thinking about himself.

'So all this time you were working hard and keeping both of you. It must have meant long hours … it's not well-paid work.'

'No, but I don't mind long hours. I enjoy work, I like to go about the city, it suits me.'

Naturally. No danger of open fields and planes, no nettle soup. He liked to trot in the shadow of huge buildings that had stood for five hundred years and more, surrounded by shops bulging with food! But mightn't his wife have liked it, too?

'Your wife did go out to work at one time, didn't she?' They had to come to it some time.

'That was after we found out about … the illness.'

'She went to work when she was
ill
?'

'We had no choice, in the end … the policy covered the operation but then I had to be off work … My sister did what she could, but with children to look after as well … Anyway, I lost some wages and we got a bit behind—I got everything straight in the end but there was nothing left … nothing for … and we knew …'

They knew she was going to die and that too costs money.

'The one thing she didn't want was to die in a hospital. A month or so after the operation she felt more or less normal again—they hadn't done anything, you see … they couldn't—she said she wanted to look for a little job, if only for a few weeks so that I would be able to afford to stay at home with her when …"

So, in the end, she had escaped from the four walls, however briefly.

Cipolla's face was very red. Perhaps the
vinsanto …

'When did you last eat?' asked the Marshal abruptly.

'I can't remember.'

'Today or yesterday?'

'I … yesterday … I don't know … it might have been the day before …'

The Marshal heaved his great bulk away from the table and took the white bowl from the refrigerator.

'I couldn't take your meal, Marshal.'

'I've eaten,' lied the Marshal. 'Before you arrived. And it was your sister who made this so I can't see any good reason why you shouldn't have some of it.'

'Is she … will you … ?'

'I'll go round there later.'

When Carabiniere Bacci tapped gently on the door and came in, he was astonished to see the Marshal stirring a steaming pan of soup and the little cleaner sitting obediently at the table with a striped bowl and a plate before him. There was a second place set beside him.

'Marshal? They'd already taken the bag away so I had to—'

'Sit down,' interrupted the Marshal, and began ladling soup into their bowls as though he were feeding his own children. 'And when did you last eat? Eh?' he growled at the stunned Carabiniere Bacci.

'Last night, sir …'

'Well then. Eat, go on.' He began sawing enormous chunks of bread for them from a rough, floury loaf. 'Here you are. Bread. Eat it.' And he sat down, satisfied, to watch them.

'After the gun, Marshal—they'd already found the hole burnt in the bag and traces of powder on everything inside, but the gun isn't there, so—'

'Later.'

When they had finished, the Marshal took their plates away and put them in the sink. The kitchen window had patches of steam in the centre of each pane. Around the edges he glimpsed the winter sun shining on the head of a Roman statue and the top of a laurel hedge where the Boboli Gardens began. He came back and sat down.

'Do you mind very much, Cipolla, if Carabiniere Bacci stays with us? He's a good lad, a serious lad.'

'I can see that, Marshal. And he's young and has to learn his job … I've caused you all a lot of trouble …'

Was he even pleased to have an audience, for once in his life? Even so, he was too calm …

'So … you needed the money because of her illness. How did she come to work for the Englishman?'

'It was difficult to find anything. These days, it's not like when I started … and most people want somebody permanent. She couldn't lie about it. In the end I thought of something I'd tried before—I'd written to the heads of all the condominiums I worked for and asked them if I could clean their courtyards once a month as well as doing the stairs weekly—that's how I got straight when we were behind. So I asked each of my employers if they knew of any one-off jobs or temporary work.'

'And you asked the Englishman?'

'No, no, I didn't know him, though I'd seen him, of course. I asked Signor Cesarini because he's the head of that condominium and in charge of my work. At first he said no but then he changed his mind. He told me that the Englishman's flat needed cleaning up, that it was his property and he was disgusted by the state it was in. He said the whole place needed cleaning out but that it had to be done within about three weeks which meant full-time work just for that period. It was just what we wanted.'

'So the Signora went to work. Did she like it?'

'She didn't seem unhappy. It was dirty work, though, the whole place was so filthy, she said, it mustn't have been touched for years. Even so, it was a relief not to have to worry about the money business, to know that I'd be with her when …

'Sometimes we used to have breakfast together in the bar—a thing I've never done, but we had to one morning because we were a bit late, she hadn't felt well in the night—she enjoyed it so much that I thought we should do it as much as possible. She liked me to collect her, too, in the evenings, so I changed my round and did this end last so that we could walk home together.'

'Did your wife have a key to the Englishman's flat?'

'No, never. He would get up and let her in himself and then go back to bed. Some people are like that; they don't trust anybody. Sometimes he would
get
up later and go out.'

'He never objected to her coming? After all, it wasn't his idea.'

'No … he just ignored her … Signor Cesarini had told her what to do, to clean the floors and windows, the kitchen and bathroom, but not to touch the living-room furniture or ever go in the bedroom. He used to lock the bedroom door when he went out, the Englishman, I mean.'

'And he always ignored her? He never …' The Marshal hesitated, but the question had to be asked and it was better broached by him.

'He never bothered your wife … tried to — '

'No!' Cipolla blushed. 'Nothing like that—he never spoke to her! Never anything—'

'All right, it's all right. I had to ask you because other people will.' The Marshal watched his face closely. 'Because if that were the case things would go easy with you, very easy indeed … a crime of passion …'

'But that's not what happened.' Not a flicker of guile in his face.

'All right. Just understand that that's the reason I had to ask, and why others will ask. It's no reflection on your wife. Now tell me what did happen.'

'He didn't pay her.'

'What, never?'

'No. We expected him to pay each week at first but he always happened to be out on the Friday when she finished work. We began to get worried—mainly because Milena had found unpaid bills all over the house when she was cleaning. We talked it over and I decided to go and see Signor Cesarini. He laughed and said the Englishman was an old miser but he would probably pay up in the end.'

'Probably?'

'Yes. I told him we needed the money, that we had bills to pay—I didn't feel I could tell him the real reason, maybe I should have done but I couldn't—and he laughed again and slapped my shoulder. He said, "Nobody pays bills in Italy! Forget it, enjoy yourself!" Milena decided to try asking the Englishman, although she wasn't even sure whether he understood Italian.'

'And did he?'

'Oh yes. He spoke with a strange accent but even so … he asked her. "Did I arrange for you to work here?" "Not you exactly, but—" "Who arranged it?" "Signor Cesarini." "So he'll pay you, not me. I have nothing to do with it." He told her to get out if she didn't want to do the work, that he didn't care either way and that if she made a nuisance of herself he would call the police and accuse her of having stolen from him, of being in his house without his permission, that Cesarini would back him up. When she still didn't leave he threatened her with the gun he kept on his desk.'

'Wasn't she afraid of him?'

'In her condition, why should she be?'

'And you?'

Cipolla lowered his head. 'He was a very big man. On her last day of work Milena decided that she wouldn't leave without her money no matter what he threatened. After all, she had nothing to lose. But when she got there he was out—or just not answering the door. She went back day after day but she could never get in and then eventually the illness began to take hold …'

'How did you manage?'

'I was at my wits' end. My sister gave me what she could and she came down and prepared some food for us each morning, then rushed back to see to the children. Neighbours came in, too. But it tired her to have people there she had to talk to, she needed me. She needed me and I couldn't be there … Do you know how much morphine costs? I don't understand how these drug addicts … And I'd promised to be with her, I'd promised …'

The low red sun was glowing outside the kitchen window but the light was already failing. A group of children, probably including Cipolla's nephews and nieces, were playing under the window in the wilderness that the Marshal called his garden and which he would never allow his baffled neighbour to tidy up for him. The children played there every day and the Marshal pretended not to see them. If he wanted peace and quiet he would let himself be seen, from the back, at the window and they would flee. Then he would be full of remorse for ten minutes until they returned. He stood up now and gave them a glimpse of his black jacket and braided collar, afraid their cheerful noise might distress the little cleaner.

'The Marshal's in! Scram!' They skidded away like frightened rabbits.

'Tell me about that night.'

Cipolla's thin hands turned round and round on themselves in his lap.

'My sister was there. Milena had been very depressed but during that last week somehow … maybe it was the morphine … she slept most of the time … Not a natural sleep, her eyes would be half open and she would snore, Milena never … but when she was awake she seemed to have forgotten what was happening to her and she would talk about what she would do when she was up and about—it was worse than when she'd been depressed … I shouldn't say that, it must have been better for her. That night, around midnight, she was awake and she seemed feverish, excitable. She asked my sister for a mirror. Her hair had gone completely grey in the last month or so but I don't think she'd seen it … Still, we couldn't refuse.

"'How ugly I am," she said, when she saw herself, "I think I'll have my hair done as soon as I'm better— I can afford it now I've got a job, you know. What would you say if I were to go blonde? I get bored, do you know that?" Then she began asking for her mother. Her mother had died when Milena was thirteen so we realized … my sister put her coat on and ran up for the priest …

'After the Sacrament she was much quieter. She only spoke once more before … I'm not sure what she said.

'When the women came they sent me into the other room. One of them had brought some grappa for me, though I don't normally drink.

'It seemed to take a long time … the room was so silent and I felt as if I were choking. After a while I slipped out.'

'Can you remember where you went?'

'I think so … I crossed the Ponte Vecchio and wandered about in the centre, looking at the Christmas lights.'

'Were you thinking about Christmas?'