Mimi's Ghost (29 page)

But now Morris was staring. Was there something of Massimina in it too? Could it be? No. He was just becoming paranoiac, or psychotic or whatever it was. Seeing her in everything. Unless it was that, not having the more promising subject of a woman to hand, Forbes's work had imbued the boy with something of the transparent loveliness of the subject he had recently been copying from the Uffizi. Her beauty was infectious.

Morris was pleased with this reflection.

He was just setting off up the stairs to remind Forbes that he had asked to be taken to Mass at Don Carlo's church in Quinzano, when Kwame called him back. Rather urgently.

‘You let me go get the old man, boss!'

‘No, no, it's OK.' Morris was at the turning of the stairs.

But Kwame shouted: ‘No, I mean, I thought, man, maybe, we could wake the poor old fellah with the cup o' tea. He like that.'

Well, this was a generous idea. Once again Morris was impressed by the boy. He came back downstairs. ‘I used to wake my mother with a cup of tea,' he remarked, perhaps unwisely, because now he was remembering how furious his father had been when an adolescent Morris had refused to continue this courtesy for himself and his various fancy women after Mother died. Immediately he was aware of the old poison in his blood, that bitterness you could actually feel in your bowels. For a moment it occurred to him that his father might have heard from some tabloid rag about his being in prison on a suspected murder charge. Well, good, that should show the old lecher who was a mother's boy.

In the kitchen Kwame was bustling about. ‘Just going to get something from my old room, boss,' he said as soon as he'd got the kettle on the gas. He hurried off, long legs taking the stairs three at a time. So that when Morris took up the tea ten minutes later, his discreet knock drew an immediate and very plummy: ‘
Veni Creator Spiritus!'
and Forbes was already wide awake, sitting up in bed, alone, reading a book. The rather sweet smell came from a lighted joss-stick on a surface crammed with medicines and haemorrhoid creams. Morris had the good manners to avert his gaze.

‘Wonderful to see you, my lad,' the old man said loudly. ‘Splendid!' When Morris dutifully complimented him on the excellent artwork he was doing with the boys, Forbes, in the most cheerful mood his benefactor had ever seen him, spread his striped pyjama arms and announced most lyrically:
‘Virginibus puerisque canto.'
As he spoke, he was shaking his head slowly from side to side and looking Morris directly in his blue eyes. He seemed terribly amused by something. Morris thought he had never liked his cultured friend more. He immediately told him about his conversion, how he planned to spend the rest of his life in an orgy of philanthropy, of which Forbes's school was to be the corner-stone. ‘At least two of the pupils,' he insisted earnestly as the old man shook his head in what looked very much like wonder, ‘must be from poor families, their fees being paid directly by myself.'

The service could best have been described as a long rhythmical murmur. Don Carlo's voice was low and toneless. The responses came as soft waves, barely breaking on the stone floor of San Tommaso in Organo. The undertow was a shuffle of shoes, a rustle of expensive clothing. And already Don Carlo's voice was gently drawing his congregation into another ‘
che Gesù vi benedica',
another
‘ave Maria, madre di Dio',
another ‘
amen',
In the small church, the thickly smoking incense was soporific wafting this way and that, coiling and melting in a shaft of sunlight that lay like a great bright girder across the chancel pulpit while, deep in shadow all around, the frescoed figures of the Passion beckoned like ghosts on the fatal shore.

In short, nothing could have been more congenial. Morris genuinely regretted not having made this a habit years ago. If only he could have persuaded Paola to come! What a happily married family life they could have, standing proudly together here with two or three innocent little children. Why couldn't he inspire the woman with this healthy vision? It was a goal to work toward.

Morris contemplated the Crucifixion. For the first time in a long time he found himself deeply relaxed, placed as he was beside the impeccably genuflecting Forbes and the towering Kwame, who stood, sat and knelt just a fraction of a second after the others like some awkward black flotsam bobbing and dipping on the smooth surface of their communal piety. And when it came to filing out to take the host, Morris managed to time things so that he was alongside Antonella, who was sitting in the opposite row of chairs. But he didn't look at her, didn't search out her gaze or even try to follow the practised grace of her devotion. He kept his head bowed and, standing at the chancel steps, immediately closed his eyes in prayerful concentration, lips moving ever so faintly as the body and blood melted on his warm tongue.
‘Cara Massimina,'
he prayed, ‘intercede for me with the saints and the blessed Virgin, that I may redeem my soul and be forgiven my many sins.' It was a heartfelt request. Somehow the ransom letters in his pocket made him feel desperately close to her.

Morris lingered a moment longer than the other communicants, lips faintly moving. Until, as if in a sort of divine version of instant feedback, Antonella, turning to go back to her seat, whispered in his ear: ‘I'm so glad that misunderstanding has been cleared up, Morris. I was so upset when they arrested you. I never believed it could be true.' Morris was only disappointed to register that on her other side she had Bobo's more handsome elder brother.

Later, on the steps overlooking the piazza with its miserably modern war memorial, they all chatted together for some minutes in the spring breeze. Bobo's brother was grimly pleased that the police had finally charged the immigrants. The important thing was to have this horrible business behind them so that they could begin to live again. He looked to Antonella for approval. But the young woman had tears in her eyes, and in an attempt to correct the other man's fatuous insensitivity, Morris said that he for one still chose to believe that Bobo was alive, and that some explanation would soon come to light. It was all too easy for the police to arrest people and then accuse them of the most appalling things merely to appease a voracious local press, and probably for no other reason than that the poor boys weren't white. Heavens, they'd even accused
him
of murdering poor Bobo at one point, just because he and his brother-in-law had occasionally disagreed about how to run the company, as if everybody who disagreed necessarily ended up killing each other. When there wasn't even a body! He smiled sadly. Forbes, however, returning from a trip to the lavatory, was hearing the news about the murder charge for the first time, and had turned to chalk.

‘Quid hoc sibi vult?'
the old man whispered. ‘It can't be true! Not Farouk!' For a moment It seemed as if he might faint, so visibly was the blood draining from his face. He clutched at the basin of a fountain where grubby marble cherubs were not performing. Morris was moved then to observe how the tall Kwame, who had been standing respectfully outside the group, now leant down to mutter some words of comfort to the old man. For a few seconds he was thus able to enjoy the extraordinary Image of the black's big blood-dark lips softly moving beside a tuft of white hair sprouting from Forbes's waxy ear. It was the kind of thing that had he been a painter he would have painted. Or perhaps Caravaggio already had.

Don Carlo emerged from the church and, taking Morris to one side, assured him that he had done what he could to smooth over the bureaucratic problems they had spoken about the previous month. The immigrants would all be granted the appropriate papers, so long as Trevisan Wines gave them official employment and paid their health and insurance contributions. Morris asked what he could possibly do to repay such generosity, to which Don Carlo replied that a good work on behalf of the poor could never be construed as requiring payment; on the contrary, it had been a duty, but if Morris should ever feel a debt of gratitude towards his Creator, he was always welcome to make a contribution to the Church. The most pressing concern for San Tommaso at this particular moment was the sad state of the stonework on the campanile. Far from making the gauche gesture of simply pulling out his cheque-book, Morris nodded sagely and decided to make an anonymous cash donation sometime in the next week or two, perhaps with some tiny mistake in the Italian on the envelope announcing the campanile as the benefactor's desired destination for the money. Feminine for masculine should be sufficient. Or he could spell
‘milione'
with a double T.

‘Padre,'
he said, as the priest was about to turn.

‘Sì, figlio mio.'

But this reminder of his prison confession was too poignant. Morris simply stared the old man in his honest eyes. For a moment he was aware of that feeling he had felt the one time he had been in love, of his soul lying just below the surface of his face. Mimi was near.

‘Is something troubling you, my son?' the priest asked.

Morris waited perhaps fifteen seconds. Then clearly making a considerable effort, he said: ‘I'm seriously concerned about my sister-in-law,
padre.'
This was true. I'd like you to try to be close to her.' In a lower voice, he added: ‘I'm afraid it is probably true that her husband was seeing someone else.' Again he stared at the deeply lined old face before winding up:
‘La ringrazio,
Father, for all your help. You have been a great support to the family.'

‘May God bless
you, figlio mio,'
the priest said. These must be hard times for you.'

It then occurred to Morris that if he hadn't married with such foolish haste, he might himself have made an excellent priest. Certainly he had plenty to teach people and was always willing to listen to their little problems. The strict observance of ceremony would have been a pleasure for someone of his aesthetic leanings. Nor would the detail of a vow of celibacy have presented a serious obstacle. Indeed the more physical enjoyment he got from the whole charade that was sex these days, the more it disturbed him. Only with Mimi had sex been something holy.

Tears filled Morris's blue eyes as he bid the priest good day and called to Kwame to buzz open the car.

Then, wanting to check that the dog was indeed dying the atrocious death he believed it must, Morris asked the black to make a detour on the way back to Villa Caritas. ‘Just a couple of files I forgot to pick up,' he explained to Forbes, who was still bothering him in the back seat about the plight of Azedine and Farouk, something Morris genuinely found difficult to understand when he remembered how reluctant the older man had originally been at the idea of having anything at all to do with any immigrants. Presumably it was just another way in which he, Morris, had influenced those around him for the better. He assured Forbes that such a charge was just part of the interminable farce of Italian public life, where everything was announced and nothing ever done. If they invariably let
Mafia
bosses out on the most minor of technicalities, was there any chance at all that they- could condemn two men for murder without a corpse to show and on the most slender of circumstantial evidence?

Forbes said glumly: The real murderer must be laughing.'

‘On the contrary,' Morris was in a position to insist with sincerity, ‘he's probably not even relieved. I mean, he will already have seen me accused of everything under the sun and then summarily released. He can't imagine the charge will stick on these two.'

‘Fiat justitia, ruat caelum,'

To which grimly delivered and incomprehensible pronouncement Morris had just deigned the usual polite enquiry for enlightenment, when, rounding the bend beyond Quinto, they saw a patrol car with flashing light drawn up outside the locked gate of Trevisan Wines.

‘Let justice be done, though the heavens fall,' Forbes explained.

But Morris wasn't listening. The heavens were already falling. Somebody must have called the carabinieri. And the reason was all too obvious. Beyond the gate the huge ugly guard dog Bobo had bought for reasons that to Morris were still obscure (had the company ever needed a guard dog in the past?) was sprinting up and down by the factory wall, barking quite insanely and occasionally leaping up four or five feet to hurl itself against the cement. Fearing their car might already have been seen and recognised, Morris told Kwame to draw up behind the flashing blue light.

The carabinieri were perplexed, unsure as to whether they should break down the gate to see if an intruder was in the factory, or proceed more cautiously, so as not to damage the property. For his part, Morris had no difficulty appearing concerned. And all the more so a moment later. For no sooner had he gone back to the car for the remote control, thanking the carabinieri for their promptness and wondering aloud why on earth the dog was behaving so wildly, than another car pulled off the road. Turning briefly from buzzing open the gate, the dog howling behind them, Morris found himself face to face with Fendtsteig. And at precisely the same moment he remembered that he still had all the Massimlna ransom letters in his inside coat pocket.

What a hopeless, hopeless fool!

‘Buon giorno,'
Fendtsteig announced, but it might as well have been
Guten Morgen.
Or
Arbeit macht frei.
A shiver of danger flickered up Morris's spine. He was a hair's breadth from discovery.

‘It Is a pleasure to see you again, Signor Duckvorse,' Fendtsteig Insisted through the dog's tortured baying. At least the animal was suffering for Its sins.

Morris merely nodded, almost as if he hadn't properly recognised the man, and, as the opening mechanism now began to whine and the big iron gate to slide, he shouted desperately: ‘Somebody must be in there! They're stealing something!' Squeezing through what seemed an impossibly small gap, he made a mad dash towards the factory building, fearfully aware of the carabinieri and Kwane hard on his heels, of those ransom letters stuffed in his pocket.