Steal You Away (47 page)

She had goggled at him and asked in amazement: ‘Graziano, are you angry?’

And he had put his hand on his heart. ‘No, I’m not. I swear on the head of my mother. I’m perfectly happy. I’m not angry at all. You must go to Los Angeles. If you don’t you’ll be making a mistake you’ll regret for the rest of your life. I wish you all the luck in the world. But if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a plane to book.’ He had kissed her and dashed off to a travel agency.

And when he was in flight ten thousand metres above the Atlantic Ocean, after a while he had dozed off and dreamed of Flora.

They were on a hill with some other people and some little silver-haired bears and they were kissing and there was a little Biglia crawling on all fours. A little red-haired Biglia.

Pietro entered Gloria’s bedroom, out of breath.

‘Hi!’ said Gloria, who was standing on the table trying to reach a book on the top shelf of the bookcase. ‘What brings you here at this time of day?’

At first Pietro didn’t notice the large suitcase open on the bed and full of clothes, but then he saw it. ‘Where are you going?’

She turned and hesitated for an instant, as if she hadn’t understood the question, but then explained: ‘This morning my parents gave me a surprise. As a reward for pas … I’m leaving for England tomorrow morning. I’m going to do a horse-riding course in a village near Liverpool. It only lasts three weeks, fortunately.’

‘Oh …’ Pietro flopped down in the armchair.

‘I’ll come back in the middle of August. So we can spend the rest of the holidays together. Three weeks isn’t long, after all.’

‘No.’

Gloria grasped the book and jumped down from the table. ‘I didn’t want to go … I even quarrelled with my father. They told me I had to. They’ve already paid for it. But I’ll soon be back, you know.’

‘Yes.’ Pietro picked up a yo-yo from the table.

Gloria sat on the arm of the chair. ‘You will wait for me, won’t you?’

‘Sure.’ Pietro began to spin it up and down.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’

‘No.’

‘Really?’

‘No, don’t worry. You’ll soon be back and I’ve got a lot of things to do at the place, with all the fish I’ve put in the net … Actually, I’m on my way there now. Last night when we left I forgot to feed them, and if they don’t get anything to eat …’

‘Shall I come with you? I could finish packing this afternoon …’

Pietro gave a forced smile. ‘No, better not. We made a lot of noise last night and the wardens might get suspicious. It’s better
if I go on my own, really. It’s better. Listen, have a great time in England and don’t ride so much that your legs go bandy.’

‘No, I won’t. But … won’t I see you this afternoon, either?’ said Gloria, disappointed.

‘I can’t this afternoon. I’ve got to help my father mend Zagor’s kennel. It rotted during the winter.’

‘Oh, I see. So this is the last time I’ll see you?’

‘Three weeks soon pass, you said so yourself.’

Gloria nodded. ‘Okay. Bye, then.’

Pietro stood up. ‘Bye.’

‘Aren’t you going to kiss me goodbye?’

Pietro briefly rested his lips on Gloria’s.

They were dry.

Graziano drove across the main street of Ischiano and down the road that led to Flora’s house.

He had no more saliva in his mouth and two waterfalls were dripping from his armpits.

The emotion and the heat.

He would go down on his knees and beg her to have pity on him. And if she refused to see him, he would stand outside her house day and night, it didn’t matter how long, without eating or drinking, until she forgave him. It had taken Jamaica to show him that Flora was the woman of his life and he wasn’t going to let her get away again.

There were two hundred metres to go when he saw, behind the cypresses, blue flashes in the yard in front of the house.

And now what’s happened?

An ambulance.

Oh God, Flora’s mother … Let’s hope it’s not serious. Well,
anyway, I’m here. Flora won’t be alone. I’ll help her and if the
old lady has died, it’s probably just as well, at least Flora will be
relieved of a burden and her mother will be at peace
.

There was a police car too.

Graziano left the hire car at the side of the road and entered the yard.

The ambulance was parked, with its doors wide open, beside the front door. The police car, ten metres away, also had one door open. There was a blue Regata as well. Flora’s Y10, however, wasn’t there.

What the
…

Bruno Miele in his police uniform emerged from the house, turned round and held the door open.

A male nurse emerged, carrying a stretcher.

On the stretcher was a body. Covered with a white sheet.

The old woman has di
….

But then he noticed a detail.

A detail that froze the blood in his heart.

A lock of hair. A lock of red hair. A lock of red hair stuck out. A lock of red hair stuck out from under the sheet. A lock of red hair stuck out from under the sheet and dangled down from the stretcher like a grisly paper streamer.

Graziano felt as if the ground beneath his feet were sucking away all his strength. Underneath him was a magnet which had drained him of all vital fluid and reduced him to a heap of bones devoid of energy.

He opened his mouth.

He clenched his fingers.

He thought he was going to pass out but didn’t. His legs, as stiff as stilts, one step at a time, carried him over to Bruno Miele. Mechanically he asked him: ‘What’s happened?’

Miele, who was busy coordinating the operation of loading the body onto the ambulance, swung round irritably. But seeing Graziano appear like a ghost, he was puzzled for a moment, then exclaimed: ‘Graziano! What are you doing here? Weren’t you on tour with Paco de Lucia?’

‘What’s happened?’

Miele shook his head and in the tone of someone who has seen it all before said: ‘Miss Palmieri’s died. That teacher from the
junior high. She was electrocuted in her bath … We don’t know if it was an accident. The pathologist says it could have been suicide. I knew it, everyone said she was half crazy. She was out of her mind. It’s strange, though, her mother died the same night. A massacre. Oh, by the way, I’m having a little party this afternoon, nothing very grand. I’ve been promoted, you see …’

Graziano turned round and walked slowly back to his car.

Bruno Miele was disconcerted for a moment, but then turned back to the nurses: ‘What are you trying to do now? There isn’t room for both of them in there.’

The positive currents had suddenly disappeared and the albatross, its magnificent wings numb with pain, was plummeting into a grey sea, and a black, bottomless abyss was opening up, ready to receive him.

Pierini was feeling good.

The teachers had bitched at him a lot during the year but in the end they’d passed him. His father was happy.

He himself couldn’t give a shit.

I’m damned if I’m going back next year anyway
.

Flame hadn’t finished school either and he’d said that if you simply refused to take their crap, in the end they stopped going on at you.

The new development was that he had made some influential friends in Orbano. Mauro Colabazzi, aka Jawbone, and his mates. A gang of sixteen-year-olds who hung out night and day outside the Yogobar, a gelateria that specialised in yoghurt ice cream.

Jawbone, who had been around a bit, had taught him a couple of very simple tricks for getting rich. Smash a window, put two coloured wires together and bingo, the car is yours.

Child’s play.

And for every car you brought him you got three whistlers (three
hundred thousand lire). Only one and a half whistlers if you did the job with Flame, but what the hell, two’s company.

And Ischiano Scalo, in some ways, could be seen as one big car park full of vehicles just waiting to be ripped off, and if you added the fact that the local police were a bunch of imbeciles, the whole situation could not but put him in a good mood.

That night, for example, he was intending to steal Bruno Miele’s new Golf. He was sure the fool didn’t even lock it, convinced as he was that nobody would dare to steal a car from a policeman. How wrong can you be!

And next day he was going with Jawbone to Genoa, where he’d heard there were rich pickings to be had.

That’s why he was feeling good.

The only thing he was a bit sorry about was that he’d heard Miss Palmieri had died. Drowned in the bath. One of his favourite masturbatory fantasies had gone, because wanking over a dead woman isn’t much fun and someone had even told him it brought bad luck.

After he’d set fire to her car, he had grown quite fond of the schoolmistress, his anger had cooled, he had almost come to love her, but then he had seen her with that arsehole Biglia, the guy he’d had a fight with that day when he had been beating up Moroni.

That was the kind of thing that drove him wild.

How could any woman screw a jerk like that?

The schoolmistress deserved better than some poor fool who thought he was Bruce Lee. He must be well hung, that was the only explanation.

And now she was dead.

But who cares, anyway
. He caught the frisbee and threw it to Ronca, who was standing opposite him. The disc skimmed across the piazza and arrived as hard and true as a bullet, whipped through Ronca’s hands and landed by the drinking fountain.

‘What are your hands made of, shit?’ shouted Bacci, who was standing by the palm tree.

They had been playing for half an hour, but the heat was
beginning to make itself felt and soon the piazza would be as hot as a grill. He was tired of playing with those two idiots. He would seek out Flame and go to Orbano to hear the latest news at the Yogobar.

At that moment Moroni appeared, on his bike.

Something must have changed, because he didn’t feel an immediate urge to beat him up. Since he had been hanging around with Jawbone, he had lost interest in that kind of entertainment. He had tired of playing the cock on the dung-heap. A few kilometres away he felt that there were infinitely more exciting things to do and picking on a loser like Moroni was stupid.

Pathetic little jerk, he was the only one they’d failed. And he’d burst into tears in front of the noticeboards. If he could have done, he’d have given him his own place in the higher year, for all he cared about it. And what if he was going out with that little slut Gloria I’m-the-only-one-who’s-got-one? Pierini cared even less about that, he had the hots for a little girl he’d met at the Yogobar, a certain Loredana, known as Lory.

I’ll leave him alone
.

But Ronca was not of the same opinion.

As soon as Moroni came within range, he spat at him and said: ‘Hey, Dickhead, you failed and we didn’t!’

The gob of spit hit him on the cheek.

‘Hey, Dickhead! You failed and we didn’t!’ Ronca jeered.

Pietro braked, put his feet on the ground and wiped himself clean with his hand.

He spat in my face!

He felt his guts twist together and then a blind rage explode within him, a black fury which this time he wasn’t going to suppress. Too many things had happened to him in the last twenty-four hours, and now he was getting spat on as well. No, he couldn’t accept that.

‘You’re going to repeat the whole year, you stupid little Dickhead,’ continued that odious little flea, hopping around him.

Pietro sprang off his bike, took three paces forward and slapped him in the face as hard as he could.

Ronca’s head bent over leftwards like a punchball, bent slowly back over to the other side like a slack spring, then finally straightened up again.

Ronca opened his eyes wide in slow motion, passed his hand over the offended cheek and stammered, in utter amazement: ‘Who did that?’

The blow had come so quickly that Ronca hadn’t even realised he had been hit. Pietro saw Bacci and Pierini arriving to help their crony. He was past caring by now. ‘Come on then, you bastards!’ he roared, putting up his fists.

Bacci raised his hands, but Pierini grabbed him by the shoulder. ‘Wait. Wait, let’s see if Ronca can beat him.’ Then he addressed Ronca. ‘It was Moroni who hit you. Go on, hit him back, what are you waiting for? I bet you can’t. I bet Moroni beats you hollow.’

For the first time since Pietro had known him, Ronca had lost that odious leer on his face. He was rubbing his cheek and looking bewildered. He glanced first at Pierini, then at Bacci, and realised that this time nobody was going to help him. He was on his own.

So he behaved like the desert dragon, that harmless non-venomous lizard, which, to frighten its adversaries, looks mean, raises its crest, swells up, hisses and goes red all over. Very often this technique works. But for Stefano Ronca it didn’t.

He gnashed his teeth, tried to look fierce, jumped up and down and threatened him with: ‘Now I’m going to hurt you. Really, really hurt you. You’re going to suffer like hell,’ then he threw himself on Pietro, shouting ‘I’m going to whip your arse!’

They rolled over and over on the ground. In the middle of the piazza. Ronca seemed epileptic, but Pietro grabbed him by the wrists, pinned him to the ground, got his shins over his arms and rained punches on his face, neck and shoulders, making strange hoarse noises. And if Pierini hadn’t been there to grip him by the scruff of the neck, God knows what he would have done to him.
‘That’s enough! That’s enough, you’ve beaten him! Now stop it!’ He pulled him away, Pietro still kicking at the air. ‘You’ve won.’

Pietro brushed off the dust, breathing heavily. His knuckles hurt and his ears were buzzing.

Ronca had got to his feet and was crying. A trickle of blood ran down from his nose. He limped over to the drinking fountain. Bacci was laughing and clapping his hands in delight.

Pietro picked up his bike.

‘It’s not fair,’ said Pierini, lighting a cigarette.

Pietro got on to the saddle. ‘What?’

‘Them failing you.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘You’re right.’

Pietro put his foot on the pedal. ‘I must be going. Bye.’