The Bottle Factory Outing (9 page)

‘There is plenty of time,’ protested Rossi. ‘If they don’t come in a little moment, we go.’

Freda kept her temper with difficulty. She pointed out that she hadn’t intended to come here in the first place. She had planned
to go to Hertfordshire. However, now they were here she was going to look at the castle.

With some spirit Rossi argued that it wasn’t his fault if the plans had gone wrong. ‘We take our chances,’ he said mysteriously.

Vittorio decided to take Freda’s part. He walked to the car and tossed the football at Rossi.

‘Let’s go,’ he said.

How American he is, thought Freda, with his dashing moustaches and his baseball-type boots. The red laces trailed like ribbons
in the grass.

She fitted herself into the back seat and allowed Vittorio to manoeuvre the basket through the door.

‘We are going?’ asked Aldo Gamberini, his hat securely anchored to his head by means of a striped muffler tied under his chin.
‘So soon?’

Rossi held the football to his chest. His mouth quivered. ‘I want to play the games,’ he said sulkily.

‘Brenda,’ shouted Freda. ‘Hurry up.’

They positioned themselves in the car.

‘There are little deer,’ murmured Rossi forlornly. ‘I think you like the little deer?’

‘I will later,’ assured Brenda. ‘Honestly, Rossi, I do want to see the little deer.’

They drove out of the Park and back along the road to the flowered roundabout.

Freda thought the castle was wonderful. It towered above the main street, its beige walls curving outwards, the green grass
studded with spotlights. She was reminded of a play about a Spanish family of noble birth that she had been in years before.
She would have liked to have mentioned it but she had only understudied a rather minor part.

‘Isn’t it wonderful,’ she breathed. ‘It’s so old.’

She couldn’t wait to get out of the car and look at the dungeons. If she couldn’t walk through the perfumed gardens with Vittorio,
then maybe here where Henry VIII had danced with Anne Boleyn she could find an
equally lyrical setting for the beginning of their romance. There were bound to be dark places and iron grills, worn steps
leading to cramped stone towers overlooking the countryside. There, above the Thames valley and the blue swell of the Chiltern
Hills, he would, looking down at the small fields laid in squares and the ribbon of hedges, see in perspective how puny was
the world and how big their love for each other. Accordingly she bustled out of the Cortina and lingered only momentarily
outside the tobacco-scented doorway of a sweet-shop. Brenda insisted on writing a note in case the occupants of the mini came
upon the deserted car and searched for them.

‘After all,’ she said, ‘we have got the wine. I’ll never be able to look them in the face again if they don’t find us.’

‘You never look anybody in the face as it is,’ said Freda; and she drummed her fingers on the bonnet of the car, as Brenda
drew an arrow on the back of an envelope, pointing towards the castle, and wrote: ‘This way. We have just left.’ She signed
it ‘Mrs Brenda.’

‘You’re mad,’ Freda told her. ‘You’ve got terrible handwriting.’

All the same, Brenda felt more restful in her mind now that she had left some sign. She stood at various angles from the bumper
of the Cortina to make sure her arrow was accurate in its direction.

Freda began to toil up the steep cobbled rise to the main gate, pushed from behind by Aldo and Vittorio.

‘We are happy, yes?’ said Rossi, and he attempted to put an arm about Brenda’s waist. At that moment Aldo
chose to turn and see if they were following, and Rossi jumped away, anxious not to seem too intimate.

‘He is my cousin.’

‘He’s a nice man,’ said Brenda.

‘He is very inquisitive.’

‘Does he suffer from ear-ache?’ she asked, looking at Aldo with the scarf wrapped about his head.

‘It is a pity,’ Rossi said, panting from the climb, ‘that he fit in my car.’ He cheered up and dug her in the ribs. ‘Later,’
he promised, winking at her encouragingly, and she did her best to look enthusiastic. If his happiness depended on her, who
was
she
to offend him? He wanted his Outing, his day of escape. If the missing mini caught up with them, disgorging its quota of
fellow-countrymen, then she would not be to blame if he was thwarted. ‘It’s not my fault,’ she thought. ‘I can’t be expected
to take any blame.’

‘I’ve told you about that,’ reminded Freda, turning to look at her.

‘You shouldn’t talk to yourself. It looks daft.’

Above them, carved on the gateway, mingling with the arms of Henry VIII, the Tudor rose blossomed in stone.

‘Oh I wish,’ cried Freda, ‘we had a camera.’

She tripped forwards in her purple trousers and gazed entranced at the toy soldier in his red tunic and rippling busby, motionless
outside the guardhouse.

Salvatore spotted the Cortina with the envelope trapped on its windscreen at mid-day. There was a consultation as to what
the arrow meant. Salvatore and his three
passengers thought it peculiar that Rossi and the Englishwomen had entered the fortress, but the fifth occupant of the mini,
not being Italian, said he understood. He borrowed a pencil from a traffic warden and wrote in English: ‘We have gone that
way too,’ and signed it ‘Patrick’.

Murmuring, the four workmen followed him up the hill and stood bewildered on the parade ground. Set at the end of the courtyard
was a kiosk, and there was a thin stream of visitors buying tickets. On a pole above the State Apartments, a yellow flag,
stretched stiff as a board, pasted itself to the sky. The soberly dressed men, searching for the lost remnants of their party,
wandered beneath arches and descended steps. The wind rose in fury and blew them, jackets flapping, along a stone terrace
above a garden. Wearily they climbed back to the parade ground and, urged on by Patrick, joined the queue at the kiosk and
paid 15p each to the attendant. Entering the doorway of a chapel, they removed their hats and shuffled past the alabaster
font. They stared at the carved choir-stalls and the arched roof hung with flags, embroidered with strange beasts and symbols,
heavy with tassels of gold. There were no candles burning, no crucifix, no saints bleeding and bedecked with jewels in the
shadowy niches of the walls.

Bending their heads, they watched furtively the feet of Patrick as he trod the tiled floor.

Freda had enquired and been told that the dungeons had all been sealed off.

‘Off?’ she repeated, outraged. ‘Why?’

Rossi led her away, agreeing with her that it was preposterous.

‘These things,’ he said, ‘how do we know why? What is the purpose?’

And he spread his hands and looked at her with such intensity of feeling that she was quite impressed by him.

He dreaded lest she fight physically with the custodian of the castle and have them ejected. Somewhere, beyond the main portion
of the town, stood the family home of Mr Paganotti, set in gardens fragrant with falling leaves and dying roses. From every
parapet Rossi leaned and searched the landscape for some sign of Mr Paganotti’s existence. Once he had been promised he would
be taken to the mansion – he had come to work in his best suit – but something had occurred to postpone his visit. He had
waited in the outer office for Mr Paganotti to appear, until the secretary had come out shrugging her arms in her modish coat,
and told him that Mr Paganotti had already gone. He did not allow himself to think that Mr Paganotti had forgotten – that
was not possible. It was simply that he had so many responsibilities, so many cares – he had been summoned away with no time
to explain. He had rehearsed how he would behave the following day when Mr Paganotti sought him out and apologised. He would
raise his hand like a drawbridge and tell him no explanation was needed. Between men of business, excuses were unnecessary.
He waited a long time at his desk, his hand flat against his breast, but even on the Friday when he went to receive his wages
Mr Paganotti said nothing.

Freda was irritated when Vittorio corrected every item
of information she gave him about the history of the castle. She understood, but she hated him for it. He was like her in
temperament, conscious that he was mortal and determined to have the last word. She fell silent and was genuinely upset that
the State Apartments were closed.

‘It’s obvious,’ said Brenda. ‘If the flag’s flying, she’s here.’

A group of Americans, pork-pie hats jammed securely on their cropped heads, pulled out identical cameras from leather containers,
and focussed as one man on the statue of King Charles on his horse.

‘She’s in London,’ said Freda.

‘No here,’ Vittorio said firmly, striding ahead of her like some monk of ancient times, the hood of his duffel coat about
his head.

‘If she wasn’t here,’ said Brenda persistently, ‘we could look round her rooms and things. That’s why it’s closed.’

‘Shut up,’ Freda said. She didn’t see it made any difference whether the Queen was in or out. Nobody actually saw her rooms.
It stood to reason that State Apartments were separate. It wasn’t as if they were going to catch her doing a bit of dusting.

The Gallery was closed too and the Dolls’ House. ‘Every bloody thing is closed,’ she thought. ‘I might as well give up.’ The
antiquity of her surroundings began to have a depressing effect upon her. What did it matter if Henry VIII had fallen in love
all those times and lusted and eaten enormous meals? He was dead now and mouldered. She was further annoyed that she had to
let Vittorio pay 15p for her to go into the Chapel. It
was degrading, and it made it more difficult to ask him to pay for her ciggies. She stared gloomily at the carved gargoyles
above the doorway, the swan and the hart and the dragon, and followed him inside.

The goggling tourists, the orange bars of the electric fires placed in strategic corners, robbed the place of solemnity.
Above their heads, circled with motes of dust, stone angels spread their wings and folded pious hands.

‘I want to go home,’ said Freda, echoing Brenda several hours earlier.

‘Isn’t it smashing,’ Brenda replied, fearful that Rossi had overheard. She sought Freda’s hand and held it, trying to comfort
her.

‘That’s Italian, isn’t it, Rossi?’ asked Freda. She pointed at an inscription on the wall. ‘What’s it say?’

He studied it carefully. ‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘it is the Latin.’

Ave lumen oculorum

Liberator languidorum

Dentium angustia

‘Hail bright eyes,’ said Brenda unexpectedly. ‘Sleepy liberator … bent anguish.’

‘What’s that mean?’ asked Freda.

‘It is the sufferers from toothache,’ explained Vittorio; and Brenda felt it was an omen. Here, far from the farm and the
absent Stanley, someone was caring for her teeth. Is it really, she wondered, trooping round the Chapel, holding Freda’s hand
in her own? Just thinking about it brought her down a flight of steps with a twinge of pain
at the back of her jaw. She winced and stared intently at the warm pink stone ahead of her. They had come to the cloisters,
a covered walk of meditation overlooking a patch of grass spread like a tablecloth. They were alone, the five of them, footsteps
echoing on the ancient flagstones worn smooth by time.

‘That’s nice,’ said Brenda.

‘Let go of me,’ hissed Freda. ‘For God’s sake, get lost.’

Seeing the deserted promenade lined with stone seats, she urgently wanted Rossi and Aldo and Brenda to go away and leave her
alone with Vittorio.

Brenda didn’t know what to do. She tiptoed selfconsciously around the square and trusted that Rossi would follow.

‘Lovely,’ she murmured in a little more than a whisper. ‘How old it all is.’

She went at a slightly increased pace along the southern flank of the cloister, relieved to hear the footsteps behind her.
She turned left, fearful of coming back to Freda and found herself in the west wing of the Chapel. High on the wall was the
fresco of a king with a white beard and eyes corroded by dampness. She paused and was joined by Rossi, his face pretentiously
solemn as he stared upwards at the faded painting.

‘Where’s Aldo?’ she whispered.

‘He is somewhere.’

He made as if to retrace his steps, and she seized him by the arm. She had to think of something. Freda would never forgive
her if they reappeared. After all she had ruined her assignation with Vittorio the night Mrs Haddon had called with her gun.

‘I’m going to be sick, Rossi,’ she said. And she pulled him down a dark passage set with little wooden doors and half-ran
with him out into the open air and the cobbled forecourt. She headed towards a distant gateway, her arm in his, and found
herself on a terrace overlooking a sunken garden.

‘I’m weary,’ announced Freda, and she flopped down on the convenient stone bench. Vittorio stretched his long legs and loosed
the hood of his duffel coat. Small flecks of dandruff alighted on his shoulders. Aldo Gamberini, fretting at an archway, stared
at the billiard cloth of grass. He cleared his throat. He wished he was working in his garden or helping his eldest son to
oil his motorbike. After a moment he walked hesitatingly away in the direction of the Chapel.

‘We will all be lost to one another,’ said Vittorio.

‘Ah no,’ she said, ‘not you and I.’ And she leaned her blonde head on his shoulder.

‘You and I,’ he said, ‘are birds of a tree. You do not let me be the man.’

Now that they were alone he did not mind talking to her freely. His impending engagement to the girl from Casalecchio di Reno
was his own concern. At this distance, and with Rossi so obviously in pursuit of Mrs Brenda, he was content to lay his heart
bare to the large English girl who treated him with such familiarity.

‘I don’t what?’

‘You are always shouting. Giving orders.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are never tranquil.’

‘Oh I am,’ said Freda. ‘Don’t you feel like a man?’ And unfairly she laid her pale hand on his trouser leg and stroked his
thigh. ‘You and I,’ she warned, ‘could be something. I know about you.’