The Sound of the Hours

by Karen Campbell

  THE SOUND OF

  THE HOURS

  To my sister, Val.

  ALSO BY KAREN CAMPBELL

  The Twilight Time

  After the Fire

  Shadowplay

  Proof of Life

  This Is Where I Am

  Rise

  Contents

  Also by Karen Campbell

  Paisley, Endings

  Autumn 1943

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Summer 1944

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Autumn 1944

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Autumn 1945

  Chapter Thirty

  Paisley, Beginnings

  Acknowledgements

  Note on the Author

  Also available by Karen Campbell

  And again the hour sounds, sending down

  to me twice now a cry almost fretful,

  then back to that slow, tranquil voice.

  In my own garden’s shade, it persuades me.

  It’s time. It’s late. Yes. Let’s return there

  to where I am loved, where I love.

  From ‘L’Ora di Barga’

  by GIOVANNI PASCOLI

  Paisley, Endings

  Outside, the moon is bright. Obscenely bright. It silvers the rug, patches the eiderdown in wonderful threads. Nonna doesn’t want the curtains shut.

  ‘Il cielo,’ she says.

  ‘Yes. The sky.’

  ‘Voglio vedere il cielo.’

  ‘It’s still there.’

  ‘Sì.’

  She’s been talking more Italian recently.

  Torri’s father comes in, stands loosely in the shadow. A beam of moonlight catches his toes. His slippers are torn where the dog’s been playing with them; she can see a neon pink sock. Dad, she thinks. What are you like? He’s a professor, but you wouldn’t know it. He waits, one hand worrying the base of his neck, lifting, lifting, tiny puffs of grey, until it looks like his ears are gently blowing steam.

  They share the same unmanageable hair. While he clips what’s left of his into the wood, Torri’s is overgrown: she carries a thicket on her head. Only those blessed with hearty hair can know how good it feels on a summer day, fresh out the hairdresser’s, and that light lick of air catching, unfamiliar, on the nape of your neck, when you see your tamed head in a window and swear your step is lighter, because two feet of tangles are spread over the salon floor.

  On the bed, Nonna shifts some more. Paper-thin eyelids – you can see the dart of her eyeballs underneath. The pink of her scalp, the violet of her blood: her workings are on show. Torri notices how her fingernails splay, how they are like yellow-ridged spades, and it makes her think of moles, digging blindly for air.

  ‘You want some tea, love?’

  ‘Not for me. Non—’

  ‘She can’t.’

  ‘Nonna, would you like some tea?’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘That’ll be one tea, please, waiter.’

  Her dad shakes his head. ‘Water would be fine. All she can taste is the sponge.’

  ‘Nonna would like tea, wouldn’t you? I don’t know.’ Leaning in to kiss her forehead. ‘Was he always this disobedient?’

  ‘Hhm.’

  Her dad disappears downstairs again. He’s happier when there’s something to do. Torri plaits her fingers though her grandmother’s, careful not to break the skin. This room hasn’t changed in years. As a child, she’d sleep here every Friday, when her parents went dancing. Her brother, sometimes her cousins too, in the back room with Papà Joe; her and Nonna here, each chewing mint creams, a hot-water bottle between them, spongy curlers in their hair. Awful music on the radio – accordions or fiddles – and that same patchwork blanket, draped across the bed in faded pleats. Her tutti-frutti bedspread, Nonna called it. No pattern to it at all. There is a piece of blue rabbit, there is wedding lace, embroidered hexagons and a weird, humpy creature whose black back rises like a whale. The pink silk lampshades are the same too, the framed pencil sketch on her dressing table, the tapestry rug and the three black-and-white photos on the wall, unchanging in their hierarchy. Although more family has come and gone, it is these three Nonna stares at every night, embraces every morning as dawn comes through curtains that are never closed.

  Top picture is Nonna’s First Communion: all spindly legs and stiff white dress, her mum and dad tight-lipped proud behind her. They are neat and dark like their daughter; they stand before a stone wall, by the glimpse of an oak door. Nonna has a gap between her front teeth, is grinning wildly at the photographer and clutching her bridal posy so hard you can see the flowers wilting. Torri imagines it as a hot day, imagines the sun as fierce as the moon is now, but of course, you can’t be sure. The photo is tinged with age, as if tea-washed or left too long in the Tuscan sun. Time has made the people faded, and the heat of memory’s passed too. She’s never asked Nonna how hot it was that day. She looks at the wee soul on the bed and realises all the things she’s never asked her gran, the unrecorded, half-remembered things she might have said, inconsequential words and adages, advice that Torri wants to scrabble up and save, all the old-lady witterings made when Torri and her brother were trying to watch the telly or huffing over homework or adults or life. Later too, when she should have known better, when her nonna deserved at least five minutes of attentive grace.

  ‘How about a hair brush while we’re waiting?’

  She doesn’t use a brush, just her fingers. Tip-touching the scalp, the ghost of bounce present in sparse curls. It feels like patting air. Nonna sighs, a good, long sigh, not the rattles of earlier. The middle photo is of another bride: Nonna on her wedding day. Papà Joe looms two foot taller, his profile demanding respect, black eyes melting over his carina. His little dear one. For all Papà Joe is grand and stately, it is her grandmother who dominates, whose energy spills from the picture frame so she is almost 3D. Her flattened, waved hair gone frizzy in the sunshine; there’s a halo of escaping strays; her tea-dress-clad body angled as if she could climb out the frame at any minute. Even her hands are undemure, one finger pointing at something beyond the camera, a blurred, mobile bouquet in the other fist and her mouth open, laughing golden notes into the world. Tucked in the foreground, just on the right of the frame, a child’s bare leg kicks out in a blurry run, some disobedient pageboy who will not stand still for photos.

  Cameras never lie. Compare the picture to that pencil sketch – such a poor likeness of teenage Nonna. Torri wonders why she keeps it. The face is too long, too sharp; the eyes almond like a cat’s.

  Dad returns with the tea. He puts it on the bedside table, moving detritus with his elbow.

  ‘Like a bloody nature table, this.’

  Torri’s great-uncle insists on bringing thyme and cut lemons instead of flowers. He calls it ‘sniff ’n’ drift’, says it’s good for Nonna. Last night, he sat with a bag of roasted chestnuts, rubbing the blistered hu
sks to release woodsmoke and burnt caramel. Curls of half-shells remain on the table. She’ll bin them once they’ve had their tea – maybe that’s what’s unsettling her grandmother.

  ‘Your mum says, do you want a sandwich?’

  ‘No, it’s fine. You two get off to bed.’

  ‘Will you—?’

  She nods. He doesn’t wait to see the torture of drinking, which is fair enough. This is his mum. Nonna’s tongue is blackened, swollen. Torri scrapes her mouth with moistened cotton wool. Then she slides her hand under Nonna’s neck.

  ‘We don’t need the sponge, do we?’ Slowly, slowly – you can hear bones creak – she tilts her grandmother slightly, so that when she pours little drops of tea into her mouth it won’t run straight back out and into Nonna’s ears. They have learned by trial and error. Stroking her throat helps her swallow, but again, the drops must be managed: enough to make a flowing puddle in her mouth, not so much it will drown her.

  ‘That nice? Bet you’d rather have coffee, eh?’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘But that would make you jittery. Canny have you getting the coffee-shakes, can we?’

  Nonna forgets to swallow. Torri catches it with her sleeve as pale tea trickles, but she’s not quick enough. Damp spreads on the pillow, only a wee bit but they’ll need to change it. She is not having her nonna lying on stains.

  The third photo on the wall is of Nonna, Papà Joe and their family. Dad’s about eight: same gap-toothed grin as his mamma, arms folded and squinting at his parents. Papà Joe’s jacket looks like scratchy tweed. The skyline of Paisley is behind them: a distant outline of the abbey roof, a sandstone wall to their left with a plate-glass window and a door. The door frame has a starburst of coloured glass above and the words Caff è del Rio; it is an art deco extravaganza.

  In this photo, Nonna looks no different from her wedding day. Less smart of course, she has a flowered overall that crosses her breasts; the housewifely garment makes her look younger than when she was a bride, and her hair’s a bit crazy, but she looks so much fun, still a kid herself, with a husband and kids and café to run. Younger than Torri is now. Tucked in either arm is a bundled-up twin. The darker shawl is probably blue, thus Uncle Davide – which makes the one on the right Torri’s aunt. Something else she’ll never get to ask. How did you do it, Nonna? All that?

  She hears a car draw up on the street beneath the window. The engine is thick and throaty. A taxi, maybe? The car keeps running. A door slams. Engine stops. Another slam, quick footsteps, then their doorbell rings. Nonna’s novelty alarm clock is a windmill from Amsterdam, and the sail is set at eleven. Who comes visiting at eleven at night? Dad’s been here all day, and Aunt Lena’s on the breakfast shift.

  ‘It’s OK. Go back to sleep.’

  Her nonna mumbles. Knot-knuckles twisting, leather tongue repeating.

  ‘Castagne. Voglio le stelle.’

  ‘I know, Nonna. The stars are still there.’

  Autumn 1943

  Chapter One

  ‘Vita! Vita!’

  Picture the scene. The dance beginning. Quick flicks and flashes, the pale undersides of wrists held high, her sister waving in a swirl of dresses, hair obscuring all but tips of noses and lips counting intricate time-laced steps to call out ancient gods. The bend and sweep, the twirl and sweep. Again and again, women stamping their feet. The unmarried girls pretending to brush, the children clapping, hooking arms through compliant elbows, making space to catch and spin, sweeping, stamping, the jagged edges blurring lines and squares into angular poses, like the posters of the Mother sweeping forth; home behind, all held in the bosom of the land.

  Vita spun past Signor Tutto, fingers shiny-plump as he worked his accordion. She didn’t understand those posters; why some man had drawn them in hard blocked lines: women, children, wheatsheaves, Il Duce’s chin above them, squarer than it was in the photographs. People should be round and generous – she linked arms with her little sister, flung her extra hard – yes, round like the angels in church. Faster, faster, some older women playing the role of absent boys – Is your Giuseppe not here? panted Signora Pieri; My Giuseppe? – she tried to be bashful, but the moment had passed, and so had Vita, lungs on fire as she swept her elbows high; then the lunge and the push – It’s all about sex, Renata had said – but it was only sweeping, mimicking how they brushed the forest floor, all of them here, the whole of Catagnana (which wasn’t many) – she linked arms briefly with Maria Pieri – the girls from Sommocolonia, some of the Ponte lot too – the ones who could be bothered dragging their lazy backsides up the hill – Pay attention! Sorry – that was Signora Nardini’s foot, but Vita’s zoccoli were falling apart; galumphing clogs with the tops disintegrating, her heels hanging over the soles.

  She breathed deep, ribcage a mix of pleasure and pain. Twilight coming. But no sign of Joe. Her skirt billowed – Mamma had insisted she wear an old flowered silk of hers – pretty, but stinking of camphor, and nothing of Mamma’s would ever fit her. Ever. Dress nicely, Vittoria. For once, yes? There was a plea in her mother’s voice, almost an excitement, which had made Vita excited too.

  Above the camphor-pangs, she could smell earth, rising like baking bread. Tonight, everyone would take their brooms and brush soft moss and leaves from the forest floor so that, when the chestnuts fell, they’d be gathered cleanly. The men would stand with candles as the women took the first harvest for Sagra della Mondina. The Chestnut Festival, a glorious mix of gathering and roasting and milling and more dancing and music – she tugged a strand of hair from her mouth as Signor Tutto, in one fluid swoop, switched from accordion to – yes! tuba; he’d brought his tuba up from Ponte too. His name wasn’t Tutto, of course, he was named for his shop, which sold everything. But it suited him; the roundness of it, the little oh of fun attached. Vita stamped and clapped; she couldn’t think what his real name was, but it didn’t matter because he was Papà’s friend and tutto meant all and everything, and it was always his music that made their feste sing. Her friend Giulia was laughing to herself, laughing and spinning until her skirts flared so high you could see the curve of her backside, and then her mother lunged, slapping the fabric back into place. But even she was laughing. They desperately needed this high day; a day when the music took you, when some unknown hand seized yours and twirled you upside down.

  Except the hands this year were mostly women’s. Vita could see her mother, standing on the outskirts of the dance, worrying the iron band on her finger like she always did. The awful greyness; all those women with their thick waists. Il Duce’s brides. Every time she saw her mother’s ring, Vita saw fire. Fire and the slow, grave procession: all the little tots who had held their mothers’ hands and stumbled to match pace. Giornata delle Fede. Thousands upon thousands of women, from every fold and curve of Italy, offering their wedding bands as sacrifice, to be melted down for war. Along with their ecstatic tears, they were offering themselves too – even as a child Vita had known this. They were saying to Il Duce: Take me. And got iron bands in return.

  A shiver ran under her skin. The leaves were starting to fade. In one week’s time, Vita would be eighteen. She twisted her head, trying to see if Joe had arrived. Woodsmoke crackled in bright air, old men already building bonfires. Soon the first of the chestnuts would be spitting in a giant padella – But not until we’ve made them castrati! shrieked an old lady Vita didn’t know. The Madonna swayed past, her blue cloak draped in greenery, on her annual escape from her hillside chapel. A tiny San Cristoforo followed. You could see the arms of the child carrying it shake with effort. Papà had made a smaller bier for the Madonna this year; it too was borne aloft by boys who could not yet shave.

  ‘I’m so dizzy I can see stars!’ Cesca looped her arm through Vita’s again and they threw each other wide; it was her sister’s first time in the dance, finally allowed to sweep and spin with the rest of them. ‘Show her no mercy!’ Vita shouted. The Pieri sisters took an arm each and lifted the feet from under Cesca. Vita pitched
backwards, into old Sergio, who’d his hat clamped over his ears.

  ‘Watch my toes, girl!’

  ‘Scusi, Signor Bertini.’

  ‘I need to go,’ he said. ‘The noise is too much.’

  Vita slumped against the wall. Felt a sudden emptiness now she’d stopped. She’d no air left in her lungs. Why was she trussed in this flowery thing if he wasn’t coming? Behind her, a fountain sparkled. Trees flickered to the music. Several of the Sommo girls were sitting out the dance, knees and lips prim. Who were they trying to impress? Only a couple of spotty teenagers, a few walking wounded and poor Pietro from Albiano, home on leave. He sat alone, wiping at the side of his face. Or rather, it was a husk of Pietro, a boy whose fingers had jittered the whole time Vita was trying to say hello. He hadn’t answered, just grabbed her shoulder – not in a bad way; a quick dart like he was trying to catch a fish, or press on her a message that he couldn’t say.

  She flattened down her hair. She’d been sure Joe would come; that she would be one of the few girls dancing with a male under forty. The music quickened, out of time now with the clapping. Leaves drifted, hearts of russet and gold. The dress clung to her legs. It felt sticky.

  Despite all this demented, forceful gaiety, there was an emptiness at the centre of the festa. Just as she and Cesca had switched from clapping to dancing, one day she would switch again, and be with the grey women who no longer danced, but stood on the perimeter, stamping veiny, stout legs. She looked up at a big mauve sky. Even the trees were unsettled. Everyone was rustling like the leaves, you could sense it. The fretfulness below the skin of them. The air had changed. Italy was holding her breath.

  Vita wiped her nose on her arm. She heard one of the Sommo girls giggle. They thought they were something special up here, with their literal looking down on everyone, and their several piazzas and two churches and their castle and their ancient towers. Sommocolonia. Named by the Romans, don’t you know? Yes, yes. We know. So what? The Sommos were Romans? Everyone knew that proper Tuscans were far more ancient than that.