Errant Angels (8 page)

The tearoom was crowded, almost drowned out under a sea of khaki and blue. At some tables, couples sat talking or sat in tearful silence. Soon they would make their farewells amongst clouds of steam and the desperate noise of departure; farewells in a war that would separate husbands and wives, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, perhaps for ever. At other tables, groups of service men and women sat smoking, chatting loudly, playing cards or just staring pensively ahead. The odd one here and there was writing a letter or reading one, recently received.

Balancing the cup of tea, the music bag and her coat, the young woman traversed almost the entire length of the large, crowded room, before she caught sight of a man who was making ready to leave his seat at one of the two-seater tables. Several of these lined the walls of the furthest perimeter of the room and because of their position, were not as well lit as the mass of tables filling the main seating area. For an instant it occurred to her to speculate as to where the young man might be going. He wore pilot's wings on his Royal Air Force uniform and was probably not much older than she was. He looked so handsome in his uniform – they all did. The compassion inside her wanted to ask him
where he was going and to wish him luck and for him to have a safe journey, but it could not be done. During the war, thousands of people moved about constantly. Posters and propaganda films at the cinema warned everyone about the folly of speculation and careless talk. After nearly two years of grim conflict, it seemed to have become second nature to most people not to do either.

‘Are you off?' she asked brightly and with an encouraging smile.

‘Afraid so, dear lady,' he replied, flashing a friendly smile in return. ‘Can't stop. I've finished with this, by the way. You're quite welcome to it,' he said, offering her a folded copy of that morning's
The Times
newspaper.

‘That's very kind of you,' she replied, suddenly struck by the realisation that she had no hands free with which to accept his generosity.

‘Don't mention it. Here, I'll put it on the table for you.'

A couple of minutes later, once she had stowed the music bag and her folded coat between the wall and her chair, she picked up the cup and took a mouthful of tea. There was no sugar – again – but she had grown used to not putting it in her tea and now she hardly missed the comforting sweetness. She replaced the cup in its saucer and picked up the still-folded newspaper. It was only then that she became really aware of the huddled form seated on the chair opposite her. It was a young woman, obviously slightly built, who had slumped down so low in the chair that she resembled nothing more than a bundle of clothes. She sat staring blankly at the empty cup in her lap. She held it in both of her hands, as if to hide the fact that it was empty. People became very heated when chairs were not vacated as soon as anything purchased at the counter had been consumed. This woman's cup had not held anything for some time and she was lucky not to have been evicted from the chair.

‘Oh, excuse me. I didn't really notice you sitting there,' said the young woman with the music bag. It sounded ridiculous, but in the crush of the crowded room, it was the truth. The other woman said nothing. ‘The news is getting a little better, isn't it?' Still, there was no response. She tried for a third time. ‘Do you have long to wait for your train? I've got about forty minutes –'

‘I'll not be going anywhere,' replied the other woman, suddenly interrupting in a strong Irish accent, ‘and I'll not be going back there neither, so I won't.'

‘Oh, I see,' replied the young woman, not quite sure that she had fully understood what the other had said, ‘and where would that be … the place you're not going back to?'

‘Carlow, I'll not be going back … not now.'

‘Is Carlow near London?'

‘Near London? Saints preserve us, no! 'Tis in County Carlow. That much they taught us in the convent.' There was no humour in the voice, only a heaviness, which indicated a serious internal struggle for a future direction. ‘On the other side of the water … in Éire.' She fell silent once more.

‘I'm Penelope,' said the woman with the music bag. She couldn't think of anything else to say, ‘Penelope Strachan. I'm studying music.'

For a few seconds there was no response from the other woman. She had a shock of thick auburn hair, which she had crammed into a cheap hat, the likes of which could be bought anywhere for no more than a couple of shillings. In fact, the more Penelope looked at her, the more it became apparent that the rest of her clothing was also far from new. She had the look of the poor about her.

‘Elzeebit,' said the Irish girl eventually, almost reluctant to give anything away.

‘Pardon?' asked Penelope.

‘Elzeebit,' she repeated, slightly louder than before.

‘Is that a place near … er … Carlow?' asked Penelope, taking another mouthful of her tea, which was now barely lukewarm.

‘No! 'Tis me own name, to be sure. ELZEEBIT, like the princess.'

‘Oh, you mean Elizabeth,' said Penelope, laughing softly.

‘That's what I'm telling you. 'Tis Elzeebit, Elzeebit McGraunch.'

Having decided to reveal her identity, it was as if a barrier had been lifted from her shoulders. Within a few minutes, she had told Penelope that she had been sent across from the convent near Carlow to a good position as maid to a wealthy Catholic family in Liverpool. The nuns had arranged it all and, despite her initial misgivings, she had quickly adapted to her new life, free from the shackles of the convent school back in Carlow. That had been three years ago, on her fifteenth birthday. Then things had started to go wrong. Her employer, a highly respected businessman, had suddenly taken more than just a passing interest in her and had gradually become more assertive in his advances. His wife had noticed and quite often the two of them could be heard arguing violently. Apparently, Elizabeth had not been the first. Out of the blue, the mistress had then announced that she would be visiting London and that Elizabeth was to accompany her. On the platform of Liverpool Street Station, the young girl had been given two ten shilling notes, absolved of any guilt concerning the master's behaviour and then abandoned, as her now former mistress prepared to catch the next train back to Liverpool.

‘This has happened before,' she had said, staring Elizabeth straight in the eyes, ‘and I know of no other way to resolve things. We do not want any breath of scandal and if I were to ask the nuns to take you back or move you, there would be embarrassing and awkward questions. You're a good worker, Elizabeth, and this way at least I can give you
the chance of starting again.' The public-address system suddenly announced the departure of the Liverpool train. ‘Now I must go. I do not blame you. God go with you,' she had said. Then she was gone.

Penelope sat dumbfounded, staring in dis belief.

‘God…! GOD? What had he to do with it all is what I'm after asking?' There was real bitterness in her voice. The fingers clenched the cup even tighter than before.

‘Then what did you do?' asked Penelope.

‘Do? 'Tis like dropping a tadpole in the mighty ocean. Do? I don't know what to do, other than move from station to station; at least you can eat and drink there and they have the
faculties
.' Her voice had risen in its intensity of bitter realization to the point where others at the nearby tables were casting furtive glances in their direction. Elizabeth McGraunch lowered her head and stared back from beneath hooded eyes.

‘The what?' Penelope asked.

‘You know; the…' she made the action of flushing a lavatory chain.

‘Oh … I see. You mean facilities.'

Elizabeth did not respond. Her features had become very set, like one of the wax figures Penelope had seen years ago on a trip to Madame Tussauds.

‘I don't know where I am or what 'tis I should be doing,' said Elizabeth, suddenly looking very fragile and helpless, ‘and there's nobody I can ask for help.'

There was a slight pause, during which she looked Penelope in the face for the first time. It was then that Penelope suddenly realized that the girl must be of her own age, although she had a look of weariness about her.

‘But what about the Church? You said you came from a convent school. Can't the Church help you?'

‘And send me back to himself in Liverpool? I'll not be doing with the Church any more. They know how to look
after themselves first, to be sure. Someone like me counts for little. Even less if 'tis I who is after being seen as a problem.'

‘But then what are you going to do?'

Elizabeth did not answer, but simply sat staring at Penelope with unblinking eyes.

Out in the cavernous hanger of Waterloo Station, announcements were being made about train departures. Time had passed very quickly and Penelope's cup was now cold and empty.

‘I'm sorry, but I have to go and catch my train,' she said, starting to retrieve her belongings, ‘but I'll be back in a couple of weeks. As I said, I'm studying music … at the Royal Academy. You can come and visit me there when I return, if you like.'

Elizabeth made no response, but continued to stare hard at Penelope, who had started to look for something in her music bag.

‘Are you going, Miss?' asked a masculine voice behind her. It was a sailor, his hat band bearing the anonymous letters
HMS
, instead of the name of his ship.

‘Er, yes I am … in a moment,' replied Penelope, half turning to look at him. ‘I want to do this first,' she said, turning back to face Elizabeth. ‘I made this to take on the train with me. It's nothing special, I'm afraid, just a plain sandwich with the suggestion of some cheese; my ration ran out. You are very welcome to it,' she said and put the little wrapped bundle on the table and pushed it towards the other woman. ‘Well, good luck. I hope to see you when I get back.'

Penelope turned and made her way out onto the concourse to check the departure notice for her train to Winchester. She had some ten minutes in hand and decided to visit the ladies, as the provision of a corridor train could not be relied upon in these turbulent times.

Some minutes later, as she emerged from the ladies back into the crush of the concourse, she suddenly saw the almost Dickensian form of Elizabeth McGraunch standing in front of her, clutching the little bundle of a sandwich.

‘You were kind to me, to be sure,' she said softly. ‘No one else has been. Can Elzeebit come with you? She has nowhere else to be going.'

‘Well, I don't know what –'

‘I could work for you … or your family. I've got my papers; they made sure of that when they sent me to himself in Liverpool.' There was an equal measure of pleading and desperation in her voice. Behind her, the large station clock showed nine minutes before the train's departure.

‘But I don't think that we need any –'

‘And I've me own money to buy me own ticket … to wherever that might be.'

12

‘…and it is all very interesting. I just hope that I can remember how to do it all,' said Luigi di Capezzani-Batelli, as he picked up his cut crystal wine glass and took a mouthful of the red
Barolo
it contained. ‘Some of the procedures are quite complex and the software controlling everything is even more so. Thank goodness the technician is at hand for the next few weeks. He will keep an eye on me and operate everything if I make a total mess of things. I just hope I can eventually understand all of it.'

‘I'm sure that you will, my dear. Someone as clever as you will have no problem with learning how to use a new machine,' replied the Contessa, beaming with pride, but she was of an earlier age and had little real understanding of modern technology or of the wonders of modern medical imaging software.

Mother and son were seated at the large dining table and had just finished the
secondo piatto
of their Saturday evening meal together. This was a ritual that had gone unbroken – except for the occasional illness or distant conference – for nearly twenty years, since shortly after Luigi had been appointed to the post of state pathologist and later, senior state pathologist at the hospital.

‘Apart from the excitement of the new equipment, it has been rather a quiet week,
cara
,' he continued, smiling at her through his round spectacles with his steel-blue eyes.

Of course, he bore no resemblance to the Contessa, a fact which, in the early days, had prompted some interested
speculation amongst the chattering classes of the society in which the family moved. Any thoughts of the young lad's parentage – or rather the fact that he did not seem to resemble either of his parents in any noticeable way – were kept to the level of interested gossip, well out of earshot of
Il Conte
and his wife. After all, such situations were not uncommon amongst the upper levels of Italian Society – even without the upheaval of the recent war – and the blind eye, which was usually turned towards cases of this sort, could well have taught Admiral Lord Nelson a thing or two.

‘We have been busy with our rehearsals for the concert next Friday. I hope you haven't forgotten about it.'

‘Not at all; I am looking forward to it. Are all the usual old favourites in the programme? And is everyone prepared?'

‘Oh yes, they all are.' She paused. ‘Although Gregorio did seem a little preoccupied at last Thursday's rehearsal. Maybe he had something on his mind. I do hope he's not coming down with something … not before the concert.'

‘That is an occupational hazard, is it not,
cara
?' replied Luigi. ‘Coughs, colds and snivels.' He smiled broadly. He could not remember a time when he had not heard tales of the apprehensions of his mother's prima donnas – male and female.

‘It is always
such
a worrying time … leading up to a performance,' continued the Contessa, ‘but we must think only of the positive … and we do have a good programme. Let them perform the pieces of music they know well; that's partly the key to a successful event. It is also important to maintain interest, so there must always be one or two new pieces. For this concert we are doing for the first time a section from the first act of
Hansel and Gretel
. Do you remember it? We saw it at La Scala … when you were a strapping boy of eleven. It is the part where the mother and then the father return to the cottage to find Hansel and
Gretel have broken the milk jug … so there is nothing for supper. We will stage it with a chair and a table. I have an old jug for the milk … a broom, of course' – she paused – ‘and the backdrop will be a screen. But we haven't found a screen yet and we will also need it for
Figaro
. Tell me, my dear, you don't perhaps have a screen we could borrow for the evening, do you? That's the one piece of furniture I do not seem to possess.'

Luigi raised his eyebrows above the top of his spectacles. His tastes were very modern and almost minimalist – totally the opposite of his mother's.

‘
Cara
, you know that I have modern tastes,' he said kindly, as if replying to a question asked in all seriousness by a young child, ‘so, I am afraid that the only screens I have are those of the computer and the television. But I have an idea,' he continued, wiping the corner of his mouth with his napkin.

It was a generous square of linen, but, in the reflected light of the candelabra that blazed in the centre of the large table, it seemed to have the faintest hint of pink about it. Elizabeth had probably managed to get a coloured item muddled up with the whites again when she loaded the washing machine. The Contessa had not noticed it before, but she would now have to enquire of her irascible housekeeper if that had, indeed, been the case.

‘I might be able to borrow a screen from the hospital for you, provided it goes back the very next day,' continued Luigi. ‘We are not that full at the moment, so I'm sure that it should be possible. You could always drape one of your pieces of damask or brocade over it in an operatically artistic fashion. Nobody would notice it is really a screen from the hospital.'

‘That's very generous of you, my dear,' replied the Contessa, who didn't think much of the suggestion at all. COGOL always presented operatic events of the highest
artistic and musical standard and she was not at all convinced that the presence of a hospital screen on the stage would serve to perpetuate this tradition, even if it was suitably draped to hide its origins. She suddenly sat up. And what if it came to the concert refusing to leave the smell of stringent hospital antiseptic behind? That would never do. ‘Can I let you know about that?' she added.

Luigi nodded and shrugged in the Italian manner, which encompasses everything from acceptance to outright disapproval.

The doors to the dining room opened and Elizabeth shuffled in to clear the plates, which she stacked onto her tray. She returned almost as soon as she had left and cut right across the conversation.

‘Last course – 'tis perfectly good eating pears boiled in wine … again,' she muttered as she placed the two plates in front of the diners. She did not go much with this fancy cooking business.

‘I like a pear steeped in wine,' said the Contessa, picking up her spoon and fork.

‘To yourself be your taste,' muttered Elizabeth, as she shuffled on around the end of the table and headed once again for the doors.

‘Thank you, Elizabeth,' Luigi called out after her. She had been part of the family for as far back as he could remember.

‘Welcome you are, to be sure,' she replied without turning her head to address him. ‘Myself will be back to me own
plain
pear with her majesty in the kitchen.'

The doors closed with a loud bang, which was nothing to do with anger on Elizabeth's part, but rather more to do with the increasing inability of her arthritic hands to successfully control items such as doorknobs.

‘She's getting worse,' said Luigi, as a plainly stated matter of fact. He sat looking at the door, his voice tinged with a
hint of sadness. He was used to the decay and collapse produced in humans by the passing of time – it was his job. But
this
gradual decline was personal. It was within his family circle and that made it harder to accept.

‘As are we all, my dear,' said the Contessa, her spoon full of succulent pear and sweet red-wine syrup. ‘It is the certain inevitability of the uncertainty we call life.'

‘That is a philosophic pronouncement,' said Luigi, looking at his mother.

‘It is a simple statement of the truth, my dear, and the truth is something that we should never be frightened of.'

They continued in companionable silence, the room echoing to the clink of their cutlery against the fine china of the dessert plates. Somewhere further off in the distance, the faintest rumble of the city by night lingered.

‘What was it you were telling me before the pears interrupted us?' asked the Contessa. She patted her mouth with her napkin. Viewed up close, it definitely did have a faint pink tinge in places. She sighed. They had been in Giacomo's family for years and were even older than she was.

‘Uhm … I was telling you about an interesting case we had yesterday; quite late it was, too. They brought a person over from Montecatini.' Luigi used this terminology when talking to his mother about his work; he had always thought that she would find the blunt use of the word ‘corpse' rather distressing. ‘A young foreign woman; it was all rather unpleasant. Strangled and…' he paused, sanitising the more unpleasant aspects of the case. ‘Well, there were other things done to her as well.'

‘Luigi, dear, if this lady was visiting your department at the hospital, she must have been dead,' said the Contessa with sudden frankness. She did not look at her son as she spoke, but kept her gaze fixed on her half-eaten pear. ‘Poor girl,' she continued, with genuine remorse. ‘A stranger in a strange land.'

‘Yes … and there are other considerations about the case, because what happened seems to be very similar, if not identical, to two similar cases here in Lucca a few months back. Identical that is except for the … interference.'

‘What is the difference between violation and murder?' muttered the Contessa. ‘They are as heinous as each other. Were the two poor souls found in Lucca foreigners, too?' she asked, an absent look on her face.

‘No, they were both local,' he replied, ‘and there were no other complications, other than the strangulation.'

‘Well, at least they were not strangers in a strange land,' she continued softly. ‘When I first came here with
Il Conte
, I felt like that for a little while. I used to feel really lost when we lived out at the villa: that huge house surrounded by acres of vineyards, stuck way out in the hills. That was before you were born.
Il Conte
,
La Contessa
and En…' There was a pause, during which a look of profound sadness and longing flashed across her face and was gone again. ‘And energetic servants, of course. It must have been the same for
Il Conte
… He was a stranger in a strange land when he went to live in London. But that was many years ago, even before you were born, my dear,' she said kindly, repeating herself and reaching out a hand to pat him on the arm, ‘so you wouldn't remember any of that, naturally.'

The Contessa had subconsciously avoided the use of the word ‘father' when speaking to Luigi about her husband. He thought nothing of it, as he had been brought up to address the person he regarded as his father as
Babbo
– the Tuscan term of endearment. The fact that his mother did not use the same terminology did not strike him as unusual. There were formal as well as informal forms of address used in Italian.

‘I do remember going to the villa when I was a small boy,' replied Luigi, ‘but only just, and it seemed such a rare occurrence. How often was it that we went to look at the
villa and the vineyards?'

The Contessa smiled at him. ‘We used to go once a year … just before the grapes were picked,' she said. ‘Do you need to go out there very often these days?' she asked, changing the subject slightly.

‘Occasionally,
cara
, but I can usually talk to the estate manager by email. The wine continues to do well and I am pleased to say we are in the running for a medal at the next Merano International Wine Festival.'

They sat in contented silence for a few moments. The Contessa beamed proudly at her son, her expression hiding the confusion she was experiencing over what he had just said. Even her extremely limited grasp of the technology of the twenty-first century was sufficient to know that you couldn't talk to anyone using an email.

‘Do you know a funny thing about the villa?' continued Luigi. ‘Despite all of our guests there and the staff who look after them, to me the place is so big that I find it hard to believe it was ever actually a home.'

‘The guests continue to visit, which is excellent news,' said the Contessa, looking at the remains of the pear on her plate, ‘and you have told me that we are fully booked up to February of next year,' she added, a sense of triumph in her voice masking the flood of sad memories of her dear Enrico and of her last year at the
Villa Batelli
. ‘You were telling me about your latest case,' she said, suddenly changing the subject.

‘I was, indeed,
cara.
This case from Montecatini is so serious that I have had a meeting with Assistant State Prosecutor di Senno – you know, Renata's husband,' he continued.

‘Oh, but surely you've met him before … at one of our concerts?' she asked, the empty expression of sadness now gone from her face.

‘Certainly I have,' he replied, ‘and very occasionally I also
meet him through my work at the hospital … through the more rare and serious of cases. I mention this latest instance to show just how serious the Montecatini case is. Apparently the Department of Foreign Affairs in Rome has asked to be kept informed of the investigation because of the diplomatic complications of the girl being a foreigner – a German.'

‘Yes, so you said, my dear; the poor soul who was a foreigner in a foreign place.'

‘Coffee?' asked Luigi softly.

The expression on his mother's face was an indication that in the fields of her memory, she had left her seat at the head of the dining table to wander through the years of her past…

A young Penelope Strachan stood at the tall window and gazed out over the street below her, out across to the Royal Albert Hall and the spacious Victorian apartment blocks, which were a landmark of the well-heeled in South Ken sington. It was a perfect summer's day. In the large room behind her were several rows of chairs and a Steinway grand piano. On the wall were pictures of the great composers and on the top of a tall wooden filing cabinet was a plaster bust of Giacomo Puccini, who stared down into the empty room with the superiority born of the inner knowledge of self-worth.