The Bottle Factory Outing (10 page)

‘What do you know of me?’

She brought her face closer to his until the hairs of his moustaches tickled the edges of her mouth.

‘You see,’ she confided, ‘I’m not what I seem. I know I’m aggressive, but I’m not entirely. I’m surrounded perpetually by
fools. Given the right opportunity, I could follow. If someone was strong enough to lead.’

She was staring at his mouth, her eyes veiled by the golden sweep of her lashes.

‘Ah well …’ he said, and his lips quivered.

‘I need something serious. Something I can get my teeth into.’

He brought his hand protectively to the collar of his red jumper.

‘I’m not fooling. I mean it for real. If I want something I go after it.’ She looked at him boldly. He was mesmerised by her
blue eyes, the creamy texture of her cheeks, her tinted nails moving softly across his leg. ‘I’d do anything for you.’

‘I cannot,’ he said, ‘be less than truthful with you. I have other commitments.’

She had not heard the concluding words of his sentence. She had heard him say he could not be less than true to her, and all
else was drowned and deafened in the flood of joy that filled her heart and suffused her face with colour. He did love her.
He could only be true to her.

‘I will never let you go,’ she breathed.

She clung to him and raised her lips to be kissed. An old man came out of a recess in the wall and passed them by. Clad in
a long black gown bunched at the waist by a length of rope, he hurried deeper into the interior of the Chapel. Vittorio drew
away from Freda and looked curiously at the open door.

‘It is his home?’ he inquired.

‘Never mind,’ she said. And she fondled his neck and twined her fingers in the tendrils of his soft brown hair.

It was easy now to be tranquil and happy and kind. She was sickened by her unkindness to Brenda; she wanted everything to
be lovely and safe, like the warm clasp of Vittorio’s arms. She desired with sudden urgency to show him where she was born,
where she had gone to school, a view from the top of a hill, the surface of a lake near her home, clay-brown and pitted under
rain. She wanted him to tell her that he too had seen a film years ago that only she remembered, that he too could listen
with closed eyes to a certain melody. These few and fragmented reasons for believing love existed and could be unique stayed
alive and sweet for perhaps thirty seconds in her mind – and faded as she looked beyond his shoulder, and the pale outline
of his ear, and saw a line of black-suited men walking in single file along the opposite side of the cloister. Patrick, his
cloth cap and pleasant face glimpsed in profile, strode in their rear. Freda pulled Vittorio’s head down to her breast and
closed her eyes. At that instant, Patrick, glancing casually across the square of smooth grass, saw them. He ran like a whippet
beneath the pink arches and confronted her.

‘You,’ she said, stealing his thunder. ‘How the hell did you get here?’

‘Where is she?’ demanded Patrick, his cheeks glowing like apples from indignation and the biting wind.

Vittorio bent to tie his shoe lace. He was worried inside; he felt that something had not been clearly understood. He dwelt
fleetingly on the curved dark profile of Rossi’s niece by marriage and wondered at Freda’s formidable instinct. Was it possible
she knew him better than he knew himself? Did she think she could take him by force?

‘What have you done with her?’ Patrick was asking.

Vittorio was not clear what was at issue. The Irish van driver was an unknown quantity. Nobody had explained what he was doing
in the bathroom the night he had visited Freda. Maybe she had allowed him too to take liberties with her Rubensesque body.
The remembrance of her billowy flesh and her grasping little hands pulling his hair made him giddy. He strolled casually away
from the bench and appeared to be studying the grass.

Freda, seeing how he deserted her, was filled with hatred for Patrick. She wished the loaf of bread had been a broken bottle.
Spitting, they faced each other, and Patrick held her by the shoulders.

‘Help me,’ she cried and twisted round to appeal to Vittorio, but he was no longer there.

‘Swine,’ she shouted, ‘beater of women.’ And she struggled with the Irishman, pinning him with her knee in his groin against
the surface of the wall.

Vittorio in the main chapel, waited for several minutes. He would have liked to have run for it, but Rossi had disappeared
and he was next in order of seniority. Mr Paganotti
would have expected him to do his duty. After an interval, Freda, quivering with anger, swept round the corner.

‘What sort of man are you?’ she raged.

‘Sssh,’ he said, fearful of the reverent tourists and the black-garbed priest climbing to kneel in prayer.

‘He hit me,’ she said. ‘Where were you?’ Her eyes blazed reproachfully.

‘I do not want a scene.’

He turned and made for the exit, conscious he was a coward but terrorised by her loud voice and the strength of her arm.

Salvatore and his party were hurrying forlornly down the hill towards the car. But for the wine in the boot of the Cortina,
so generously bestowed by Mr Paganotti, and the money they had already contributed to the Outing, they might have headed for
home. It was just possible that Mr Paganotti might inquire if they had enjoyed themselves, and how could they disappoint him?
They could not imagine what had happened to Patrick. One moment he had been ushering them forwards and the next he had vanished
into the shadows. He had abandoned them. They called his name softly, but there was no answering voice. Gino, an elderly
man who had been once to visit his son in America and never forgotten the experience, said it was a sign of the times. ‘Such
a hurry they are in.’ Speed and violence and a lack of consideration. He shook his grey head and looked up at the North tower,
as if Patrick might be seen clambering inconsiderately about the battlements. They trotted down the hill
and huddled inside the interior of the mini and watched the women outside in the street.

‘Please don’t,’ Brenda was begging, her teeth chattering, her back against the wall of the parapet.

Beneath her, the sunken garden, heavy with lateflowering shrubs, heaved in a spasm of wind. Rossi, his hands inside her cloak,
his black curls blown over his forehead, took no heed.

‘I am warming you,’ he said, and he nipped her skin between his fingers and gobbled the tip of her reddening nose. She was
looking foolishly at him and grinning toothily. He could not understand why she was so friendly to him and so resistant. It
was torture to him. He respected his wife. He did not wish to break the sanctity of his marriage vows or lower himself in
the estimation of Mr Paganotti, but what was he to think when the English girl allowed him so much freedom? If he took no
advantage she would think him a cissy. Perhaps Mrs Freda, with her apparent contempt for men, was indeed the true woman,
open to advances.

Beneath them, the massive rhododendrons pitched under the scudding clouds. A ray of cold sunlight, salmon pink, washed over
the grey stone. Across the valley, the beech trees with stripped trunks paled to silver.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘how beautiful it is.’

She escaped from him and hugged the stone parapet and leaned as far as she dared, her thin hair hanging about her cheeks,
and wished she was down there among the plump yew hedges, walking the paths littered with fallen leaves and the red berries
of rowan. She thought of the commercial traveller who had stopped to give her
a lift when she was going into Ramsbottom to buy groceries. In vain she said she was married, that her husband was big as
an ox. He inveigled her out of his car and bundled her down beneath the bridge, his big feet snapping the stems of foxgloves,
and panted above her. She wished Mrs Haddon had done her job properly, had put an end to this aimless business of living through
each day. She squeezed her eyelids shut, but no tears would come. Rossi was behind her now, the muzzle of his face worrying
her hair.

‘Does Mr Paganotti live in a very big house?’

‘Ah yes. He is a very big man in business.’

‘What sort of a house?’

But he would not be put off. He dug his ferret teeth into her neck and redoubled his efforts.

Perhaps Freda was right. She was a victim, asking to be destroyed. With any luck Rossi would manoeuvre her to such an extent
that she would topple from the wall and be dashed to pieces. If ever I get out of this, she vowed, I will never be friendly
again, not to anyone. Please God, send someone.

At that moment she heard a voice torn by the wind and saw Aldo Gamberini propelled along the terrace like a black angel, his
arms flapping like wings, the cloth of his trousers whipped into folds about his prancing legs.

Rossi spoke to him heatedly. He clenched his fists and berated the cellar worker. Aldo Gamberini hung his head and seemed
near to tears.

‘Stop it,’ said Brenda. ‘The poor man.’ And Rossi stalked away as if not trusting himself to say more, and returned abruptly,
face sullen and voice harsh.

Severely reprimanded, Aldo followed them through an archway on to the parade ground and slunk down the cobbled hill. At the
bottom he made to enter the red mini but Rossi would not allow it. Overcome with emotion, Aldo sank into the back seat of
the Cortina and unwound the muffler from his head. His hat, limp over his collar, drooped like the ears of a whipped dog.

There was no contact between the two cars; no horn blowing or festive cries. Salvatore hesitated to remonstrate with Rossi
– he looked so thunderous and out of sorts.

At last, through the gate at the top of the hill, came first Freda and then Vittorio. They walked separately, shrouded in
emotion, until Freda stopped and asked Vittorio for something. He felt in his pocket and counted coins into her hand. He climbed
into the car and it was agony for Brenda, faithful to her vow of half an hour earlier, to keep silent. She watched Freda enter
the tobacco shop and reappear snapping the clasp of her handbag shut.

Freda laid her embroidered tablecloth on the ground, and it flapped upwards immediately and threatened to fly into the branches
of an oak tree. She knelt on her elbows, bottom raised in the air, and told Brenda to help her. Between them they anchored
the cloth at its four corners with the basket, the cocked chickens, the bag of apples and a convenient stone. The men were
shy of placing their provisions on the cloth. They held tight to their briefcases and carrier bags and sat self-conciously
on the grass. Stealthily – for hours of stalking each other about the castle had given them an appetite – they tore pieces
of bread and chewed salami.

‘For God’s sake,’ entreated Freda, ‘put your food all together.’

She was like a matron, starched and encapsulated in her stiff sheepskin coat, ordering them to take their medicine. They
did as they were told, heaping the loaves of bread and the fat lengths of sausage in front of her, and munched in silence.

Some children ran through the grass and stood at a distance looking at the barrels of wine perched on the slaughtered oak.

Freda served Vittorio first. ‘Have the best part of the chicken,’ she urged. ‘Go on, have the breast.’

Brenda looked at the ground. Freda handed her a
shrivelled portion of wing and a piece of skin. I want chips, thought Brenda, in this weather.

‘Come, come,’ called Rossi, smiling at the children and gesturing towards the food.

Freda scowled, and the children scattered and ran to the parked cars.

The morsel of chicken stuck in Brenda’s throat. She longed for a mug of hot tea. ‘It’s nice here,’ she said, and scoffed a
hunk of bread and looked up at the road for signs of Patrick. Freda had said he had gone home. It didn’t seem possible – he
hadn’t said goodbye.

Freda recollected that there was a safari park nearby. She said it would be nice to go there later in the after-noon. ‘You
know,’ she said impatiently, ‘it’s a park full of wild animals.’

‘Wild animals,’ repeated Rossi. ‘You are thinking of the little deer?’

‘No I’m not. I’m thinking of the little lions and the little tigers – wandering around free, not in cages.’

The workers watched first Rossi then Freda, eyes flickering hopefully back and forth in an effort to understand.

‘But it is dangerous,’ said Rossi. ‘We will all be running.’

‘In the car, you fool. We go in the car and they’re outside wandering about.’

Rossi liked the idea, once he felt it would be safe. He translated rapidly to the men, who murmured and looked at each other
in wonder. They eyed the stretch of grass and the parked mini as if measuring the distance they might have to run.

Gino, whose son had gone to America, refused to eat
communally. He had deposited his carrier bag in a pew in the chapel and forgotten to reclaim it.

‘For God’s sake,’ bullied Freda. ‘Feed, you fool.’ And she thrust into his hand a yellow scrap of meat.

He shook his head politely in denial and turned his face to the wind, the unwanted food lying on his palm.

Vittorio ate heartily. He enjoyed Freda’s salad and the dressing in the bottle. He put his bread on a paper plate and saturated
it with oil. She watched the juice run down his chin and his fingers slippery with grease. She was repelled by his unabashed
vulgarity, the common way he wiped his hands on the grass.

The wind slowly abated, the sky cleared and the sun shone. A dozen cars slowed to a halt and lined up on the grass verge.
The men were warmed and revived. They filled their celluloid cups with wine and stretched out on the ground. Too polite to
speak in their native language in front of the English girls, they remained monosyllabic.

‘Stick this,’ said Freda at last, when she had eaten her fill, and she rose to her feet and wandered away in the direction
of the beech wood. She hoped Vittorio would follow. She was in a state of suspense as to his intentions. His declaration
of true love, his betrayal moments later, had confused her. Still, she was not too distressed. The gradual turning of the
October day from storm and cold to balm and mildness filled her with optimism.

Rossi wanted to play games, he tried to explain. He spoke in English to Brenda and in Italian to the respectful men.

‘In the woods … a little jump out … you will count and we will hide.’

They looked at him without enthusiasm. He pointed at the woods and at Freda slowly perambulating round the perimeter of the
fencing and covered his eyes coyly with his hands.

‘We will hide and you will come to find.’

He jumped to his feet and urged Brenda to stand up.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to rest.’

‘Ah, never. We are here for a little jump out, yes?’ And he pulled her quite roughly to her feet and she cried, ‘No, no, later,’
and sank down again among the dandelions.

The men averted their faces. They had had enough of finding and seeking. They knew well who would be found and who would be
lost.

Rejected, Rossi went slowly to his car and returned with the stained football. He kicked it high in the air and the men lumbered
to their feet and brushed down their clothes and ran about, eyes dilated and legs stiff from lack of exercise. Vittorio did
not follow Freda across the park. Instead he discarded his coat and, luminous in a red jumper and trousers of black velvet,
joined in the game. In contrast to Rossi, who trundled, garments flapping, in a furious rush along the pitch, he ran elegantly
with arms outstretched, placing the heel of one foot precisely against the toe of the other, as if balanced on a tight-rope.
After a few moments several players stopped in mid-field and bent over, heads dangling, and fought for breath. If they felt
the day lacked real splendour, they were too polite to declare it. It made no difference that the sky now drifted baby-blue
above their heads – there were no village girls to dance with, no perspiring
members of
la banda
blowing golden trumpets flashing in the sun; the wine balanced on the stump of the tree was contained in barrels of brown
plastic. Digging their fists into their stomachs, the men jostled and stumbled together on the turf. They erupted into sly
bursts of hysterical laughter as one or other of them, lunging too energetically at the flying ball, lost his balance and
slipped on all fours upon the green grass. Patches of damp darkening their knees, and clumps of earth sticking to the soles
of their winkle-picker shoes, they dashed back and forth between the oak trees.

Freda, lingering at the edge of the timber fence, watched Vittorio in his fiery jumper, flickering beneath the autumn leaves.
She went very slowly round the curve of the fence and entered the beech wood. Singing in a slight acrid voice a song her aunt
in Newcastle had taught her as a child, she started to march at a rapid pace, with swinging arms, along the path. After one
verse, the bracken crackling beneath her boots, she stopped abruptly and listened. Faintly from across the park, now lost
to view, she could hear the sporadic cries of the gambolling men, the drone of an aeroplane above her head and somewhere,
deeper among the trees, the distinct noise of someone moving. She had the feeling she was being watched. She tried a few experimental
paces further along the path and was sure she was being matched, step for step, by something invisible and level with her,
screened by the stippled bark and the dying leaves of the beeches. She halted, and all was quiet. It was probably children
playing Indians, stalking each
other, unaware of her presence. Above her, the vapour trail of the vanished plane rolled wider and mingled with the clouds.
Uneasily she continued along the path and tried not to feel afraid. She was nowhere near the safari park: it couldn’t be a
wolf or a runaway lion. There would be notices all over the place if she had wandered into the lion reserve. She paused and
pretended to be examining the curve of a leaf. This time she saw the shape, human in form, of someone gliding behind the trunk
of a tree. It’s a dirty old man, she thought, relieved, but turned all the same and walked back towards the park. It would
be funny if it was Mr Paganotti keeping an eye on them, watching to see if there was any hanky-panky going on in the forest.
She wouldn’t put it past him. He acted as if he owned his employees body and soul, handing out his cast-off clothing as if
he was God Almighty.

A pebble, spinning from the bushes, glanced her cheek. Instantly she was filled with anger.

‘Who the bloody hell did that?’ she shouted, brave now that she was approaching the fence.

Another pebble, bigger in size, pitched on to the path a few inches from her foot. She went stealthily as a cat through the
tangle of bushes, cuckoo spittle on her boots, and stooped to select a large stone from the undergrowth. Peering into the
trees she flung it with all her strength into the gloom. There was a pattering of torn leaves, a thud, and an audible intake
of breath.

‘Serve you right,’ she said and half ran, for fear of reprisals, round the curve of the path and into the park.

She trudged thankfully towards the running men and
the tilted barrels perched on the oak table. She thought Brenda looked ridiculous, still wrapped in the purple cloak, attempting
to kick the ball without exposing her legs. Freda said nothing, but she gave one of her mocking smiles.

‘Do join in,’ called Brenda. ‘It’s good fun.’

Her hair was messy and her ankles were braceleted with stalks of grass.

‘Don’t be absurd,’ snapped Freda, and she lowered herself on to the ground and propped her back against the stump of the oak.

She rubbed at her cheek with a piece of twig, trying to scratch it though not wishing to draw blood. Vittorio, peacocking
across the pitch, hunched his shoulders like a baseball player and ran to her.

‘Where have you been?’ he asked.

She held her cheek and shook her head. He squatted on his haunches in front of her. Lip beaded with perspir ation, his face
bloomed like a rose.

‘Ah, you have hurt yourself,’ and he touched her soft cheek with one exploring finger. ‘What has happened?’

‘There was a maniac in the woods,’ she said, ‘hurling stones at me. I shouldn’t be surprised if it was Patrick getting his
own back.’

He found it difficult to understand. His eyes widened, and he waited for more words, but she bent her head and kept silent.
She hadn’t thought of the Irishman until this moment. Surely he wouldn’t dare to chuck stones at her? Maybe it had been children.
Perhaps some irate parent would come soon over the grass leading a bleeding child by the hand.

‘Come,’ said Vittorio caressingly. ‘Be on my side. You play the ball game with me.’

He was challenging her, she thought, asking her to show her allegiance in front of the workers.

‘I’m not keen,’ she demurred, and he coaxed her to her feet, holding her hands in his. The men faltered and gave a few encouraging
cries as the ball raced across the pitch.

‘Why didn’t you come for a walk?’ she asked.

‘But I cannot leave the men,’ he said. ‘It is not possible.’

Still entwining his fingers in hers, he dragged her some yards across the grass and then loosed her. She floundered as if
in deep water among the sea of men, striking out, first in one direction and then another, in a breathless endeavour to intercept
the ball kicked from side to side.

‘That’s it,’ encouraged Brenda. ‘Get at it, luv.’

She was in her stockinged feet, with one toe protruding from a hole, hopping up and down with excitement. There was no goal
mouth to aim at – Freda wasn’t even sure whose side she was on. She saw a row of black hats dumped on the ground and kicked
out wildly with her boot. She missed and fell heavily on to her bottom. A faint titter began and died away instantly. Vittorio
and Brenda, taking no heed, ran together, bumping and shouting after the bouncing ball.

Struggling to her feet, the tide of players rushing away from her, Freda returned, scarlet in the face, to the tree stump
and turned the tap of the wine barrel.

Presently Vittorio came to see if she was all right. He looked at her spoilt face and disturbed hair.

‘You want a little rest?’ he said.

‘My back,’ she said abstractedly, as if it was an old burden she was used to bearing alone. She refused to meet his eye and
winced bravely and bit her lip.

‘Have you hurt your back again?’ asked Brenda, leaving the game and looking at her anxiously. It seemed to Freda that wherever
Vittorio went, Brenda followed. She stood very close to him, as if they were both united by their concern for her.

‘Play on,’ said Freda nobly, waving her hand selflessly at the make-shift football pitch, though she would have liked to catch
Brenda a stinging slap across the face. She sank down with extreme caution on to the grass and closed her eyes.

‘She’s got a bad back,’ said Brenda. ‘It plays up from time to time. That’s why she has to sit on a beer crate to do her labelling.’

‘Perhaps a little sleep will do her good,’ Vittorio said, as if speaking of his grandmother; and they went away together.

When Freda opened her eyes, her head turned resolutely from the happy team of workmates, she was astonished to see a row of
horses at the boundary of the field, flowing along the blue line of the firs. She sat up, shielding her eyes from the sun,
absorbed in the sight, touched by some chord of memory, and watched them turn from mauve to chestnut brown as they swerved,
two abreast, away from the trees and began to canter across the park. At this distance they resembled an illustration she
had seen in a war book, sepia-tinted, of cavalry on the march. They came nearer, the thud of hooves
muffled by the grass, and she saw that there were three riders each leading a saddleless horse on a long rein, and they were
no longer brown but jet black from head to tail with trappings of dark leather burnished by the sun. Now she knew who they
were. She could see quite clearly the peaked caps of the mounted men, the mustard jackets buttoned at the throat. The game
of football broke up. The workers flocked to the tree stump to refresh themselves with wine. They gazed in awe and pleasure
at the animals and the proud uniformed men sweeping towards them.