Papa Georgio

by Annie Murray

  Funny thing is, Brenda seems to get nicer all the time. We went into Sorrento together and walked the backstreets, which smell lovely, of sweet sawdust from the workshops and of fruit. We went down to the sea where there were little shops and cafes. Just when I expected Brenda would get as fed up with Grandpa as I was, she’s being all gentle and understanding, as if she can see that there’s something he’s got to do and that we’ve got to wait.

  And she’s even nice to Fizz! He’s helping us get the salamander right, making lots of drawings. He says it’s very hard to get a salamander tail in the right proportion. So we’re waiting for that too. Waiting. I‘ve never been any good at waiting.

  Two people who were very kind were Signora Sacchetti and her older daughter Rita.

  By that afternoon Fizz had come out of the Ship and was hanging about down at the end of the bottom level of the camp, where there were no other caravans. He had his hair draped over his face like a curtain and was hurling a long bit of wood into the bushes and going to fetch it again and again. He wasn’t going to bother coming to find me obviously. As usual he was in a world of his own. I went over in the end.

  ‘What’re you doing?’

  Fizz scowled, retrieving the piece of wood from the shrubbery again. It was like a flat, upside down coat hanger.

  ‘It’s a boomerang. It’s supposed to come back when you throw it.’

  He threw it again. Once more it wheeled up into the air and spun round and round, landing with a crash in the bushes. We both waited as if it might suddenly get up and come whirling back of its own accord.

  ‘Not doing it right,’ Fizz mumbled.

  I knew that if I just stood there, Fizz would keep doing it over and over again, as if he got locked into doing things and couldn’t stop and I was ready to explode if he did. I wanted him to pay attention to me.

  ‘Want an ice cream?’

  He followed me, as usual. Sometimes I thought, if I suggested going to the moon he’d just drop everything and say OK.

  We went to the camp shop for our ice creams and Rita Sacchetti slipped us one of the sugary ring doughnuts left over from the morning to share as well. Rita was twenty, and she was interested in us because she was trying to learn English. After a moment she beckoned us inside. We followed, licking our ice creams.

  ‘You speak me English,’ she said.

  ‘Ok.’ Fizz nodded politely.

  Rita smiled, showing us her little white teeth, then led us along a stone flagged passage. A delicious smell floated to meet us, and soon we were in the huge kitchen at the back of the house. It was amazing. It was a great big room, full of shiny steel surfaces, with a big steel table in the middle. Strung on lines all across the kitchen were big bunches of herbs, thick sausages and white mozzarella cheeses which looked like little fat snowmen hanging from strings round their necks. And one wall was almost covered by pots, pans, knives and choppers all suspended from nails. The smell was a wonderful mixture of onions and tasty sausages, tomatoes and cheese. On the big stove at one side, two vast saucepans were sending up swirls of steam.

  ‘Mama – ecco gli Inglesi ! Here are the English!’

  ‘Aaahh!’ Signora Sacchetti cried in welcome.

  She was a huge, red-cheeked woman, wrapped in a massive white apron which was tied so tightly at the waist that she looked a bit like a mozzarella cheese herself. She was wielding a huge knife which she put down, wiped her hands on her apron and advanced on us, pinching our cheeks in enthusiasm. Italians did that a lot and it hurt rather a lot too, usually. But we smiled through the pain.

  ‘You see – we cook!’ Rita announced.

  They seemed to want us to watch, so we did, as the Signora went to the big table on which was a marble slab. On it lay an enormous fish, and she cut open its shimmering silver belly and pulled out various lumpy bits before stuffing a large bunch of herbs inside. Rita took us to the stove and stood us in turn on a chair, to look down into a heaving mass of tomato sauce, flecked with green, which smelled truly delicious. In the other pot was simmering spaghetti water, which breathed damply into my face.

  ‘For tagliatelle,’ Rita said. ‘We make some. I show you – OK? And you speak me English.’

  Fizz and I glanced at each other. We were united now and I felt better. One of the things uniting us was that we couldn’t think of a single thing to say. But as Rita rolled out a long piece of dough, very thin, then cut it expertly into strips, she fired questions at us.

  ‘How old you? Where you live? Have you brother or sisters?’

  We tried to answer as she worked with the knife, making pasta ribbons. Fizz’s face was intent, interested. Until she started on his name.

  ‘Fizz? Fizz? This is no a name! Tell me your name, eh?

  ‘It is my name,’ he scowled.

  ‘No – is no a name!’ She took his face in her beefy hands and squeezed it. ‘Boy you have name – tell me!’

  ‘OK,’ Fizz surrendered, his face all red. Without looking at me, he said, ‘My name’s Vincent.’

  ‘Aah! Vincenzo! Buono!’ She chucked his cheek again. ‘Molto bello – you very beautiful boy!’

  Fizz glanced at me then and I shrugged. What was all the fuss about? What was wrong with being called Vincent?

  Signora Sacchetti laid the fish into a long pan. Then, from a sieve, she poured on to the slab a cascade of tiny silver fish. She looked at us watching, and laughed. Fizz and I were still holding our empty ice lolly sticks, as there was nowhere to put them. We watched her begin to sort through the fish with her beefy hands. She kept turning to us, her round red face all smiles and Fizz gradually moved closer as if he was being drawn by a magnet. She gave him a special smile and patted his arm.

  ‘Eh – Rita!’ She gave some order which sent Rita out of the room, returning a moment later with what looked like a pink and white tree, about the same size as her hand.

  ‘For you lovely one,’ she said, holding it out.

  Fizz had a funny expression on his face. He stared at both the women as if he’d been hypnotized. So I took the little tree and saw that it was made of cream coloured wire and at the end of the branches were pink and white sugared almonds.

  ‘Oh – grazie, thank you,’ I said shyly and Fizz thanked her as well.

  The Signora opened her arms and we found ourselves in a tight embrace, pressed against her cushiony-bosomed chest.

  ‘Ah, bellissimi ragazzi!’ she crooned. ‘Beautiful children!’

  She released us, stroking first my cheek with her work worn finger, and then Fizz’s.

  ‘Beautiful girl,’ she said. Then she stared down into Fizz’s eyes. ‘And you are very, very lovely boy.’

  I didn’t know what it was that set Fizz off, but to my horror I saw his eyes fill with tears, his face contorting with terrible emotion. He pushed Signora Sacchetti away and ran. We heard his footsteps slapping fast along the stone corridor.

  Fizz completely disappeared. I followed him out into the sunshine, but couldn’t see him anywhere.

  I knew I had to find him. Seeing Fizz like that was horrible, like another great chasm opening up, terrifying, waiting for us both to fall down it. Like when the phone call came about Dad. My legs were shaky but I made myself run. I had to find Fizz and make things better.

  First I ran to the Ship of Dreams. To my surprise, Archie was sitting outside, looking very pale and plump. After, I realized he didn’t look like Archie. He was so quiet, not giving his usual booming greeting. But I was in too much of a hurry at the time to take it in.

  ‘Is Fizz here?’ I panted.

  ‘’No darlin’.’ Maggie looked up from between her curtains of hair. Her face seemed a little more relaxed. ‘Isn’t he with you?’

  Not answering, I ran round the camp, checking Fizz’s favourite haunts: the scrubby corners where he tried to lure salamanders towards him and the toilet block with the moths. But there was no sign. I slowed down, panting, determined not to cry, kicking at the base of the wash bins with my dusty pumps,
not knowing where to go next.

  What upset Fizz so badly? And where on earth was he? I felt as if my body was going to explode. I was hurting on behalf of Fizz, for some terrible pain he was feeling, but I didn’t know what it was. I just knew I hurt as well.

  Then it came to me where Fizz might be.

  Queen Esmerelda was eating, as usual. She stood looking up at Fizz as he leaned on the wall of her sty, her mouth squelching loudly at a mouthful of food. I couldn’t see Fizz’s face because he was leaning with his hands shielding it on each side. He was swinging his right foot, kicking and kicking the wall.

  With a cold feeling inside, I knew that there were all sorts of things I didn’t understand about the Chubbs. I was scared of Fizz suddenly. He was my friend – my best friend it felt like now - but sometimes he was so silent and far away, even though he looked familiar enough in his baggy shorts and grubby T-shirt. It felt vitally important at moment that he talk to me.

  I crept closer to him and leant on the wall. I knew he’d noticed me but he didn’t move.

  Queen Esmerelda gave a deep snort. We were not interesting any more and she went back to swinging her snout inquiringly over her food like a giant vacuum cleaner.

  ‘What’s up?’ I said once the silence had gone on and on. But it came out sounding pushy when I didn’t mean it to so I added softly, ‘I mean, are you OK?’

  I expected Fizz to get cross and push me away, like he did before. But there was a silence and then I noticed that his shoulders were moving. He was fighting with himself not to cry, and he lost the fight and couldn’t stop, pushing his fists into his eyes, sobbing and sobbing. I came close to crying too, he sounded so heartbroken.

  I put my hand on his shoulder. It felt very warm, as if he had been running. He didn’t push me away.

  ‘Are you worried about your Dad – because he’s poorly?’

  Another silence, then, ‘He’s not my Dad.’

  ‘No, but…. Anyway, he looks better today – I saw him.’

  Fizz turned on me fiercely then, shaking his head, tears running down his cheeks. It was awful seeing him like that. He looked into my face and his expression softened. For one trembling moment I thought he might be about to hug me and I wanted him to. But then he pulled away and started to walk, with stiff, furious movements.

  ‘He’s not better. He’ll never be better. You don’t understand!’

  He gave an almighty stamp, as if he wanted the earth to shake, and turned round again, face contorted with feeling.

  ‘He’s never going to be better - ever. And there’s nothing I can do about it!’

  Alberto

  I.

  ‘All right, now I’m ready to take you with me,’ Grandpa George said.

  Yesterday he had gone on his wanderings and come back, wearing a smile. That smile couldn’t lift me right out of what had happened with Fizz, of seeing his rigid back hurrying away from me, but it was certainly something.

  Next morning we ate a breakfast of bread and cherry jam and climbed into the Landrover, dogs, crucifix, the lot (he’d tied the crucifix on to the roof, wrapped in plastic with ropes running in through the windows over our heads). Brenda had almost given up tutting. We drove round the edge of the Bay of Naples. The sea was sapphire, sky a milky blue above the steaming purple cone of the volcano.

  ‘One day,’ Grandpa announced, ‘we must Climb Vesuvius.’

  But today he had other things on his mind. As I sprawled on the feather bed on top of the dogs, I knew the secret box was also stowed underneath us. Would we be needing that? I stared at the creases in the back of Grandpa’s neck. It was no good asking – that never got you anywhere with Grandpa.

  It was a hot day. From my bed at the back all I could see was a seething mass of traffic, sunlight sparking off rear lights and mudguards and there was a constant hooting and parping of horns.

  ‘Really,’ and ‘Dear me!’ Brenda kept saying at the sight of the crazy Neapolitan drivers but I couldn’t see much and I was hot and sleepy and cross at being in the car when I could have been out in the sun, playing with Fizz… But thinking about him gave me a sick, plummeting feeling inside because all I could see was his face, screwed up, shouting and his body all knotted up when he stormed away from me. What had Fizz meant, that Archie was never going to get better? I was confused and I felt like crying every time I thought about it. I wanted to comfort Fizz but I didn’t know how. It was another thing I tried not think about – like Dad. I squeezed my eyes shut and fell into a doze.

  ‘Right – come along!’

  We were parked somewhere. I slid out from the back into a side street where voices echoed between the tall buildings with their flaking pale green and yellow paint. It was cool there in the shade, but the sun was beating down and as Grandpa led us out into the main street I screwed up my eyes. Brenda was shielding hers with her hand, even though she had on a lacy white hat with a brim. Her cheeks were a rosy pink in the heat. I could tell that she, like me, had decided it was useless to protest or ask questions.

  ‘Now,’ Grandpa announced, plonking his straw hat on his head. ‘We’re going to catch a bus.’

  This was too much for Brenda’s vow of silence. ‘But why don’t we just drive, George? We’ve come this far.’

  ‘No, not this time. The way to do it is by bus. You’ll see. Soon be one along.’

  I couldn’t resist asking then. ‘Do we need the box, Grandpa?’

  I saw Brenda’s lips form the word BOX? But no sound came out, except a small sigh.

  ‘No,’ Grandpa decreed briskly. ‘No box.’

  As he predicted, a bus soon arrived, panting like a monster. On the front it said, ‘Cellina.’ Pronounced Chellina.

  The bus crawled out of the edge of town and began to zigzag up a very steep hill. We had to hold on tight. Brenda had a seat but Grandpa and I stood at the back, near the little kiosk where the man took the fares, and I was squeezed in between him and two elderly ladies, both barrel-shaped and dressed in black. One wore heavy silver hoops in her ears and the other grinned at me, showing a set of gums with a few scattered teeth, one big gold one at the side. She grinned even more when we lurched round the hairpin bends and saw us clinging on to the pole near the door. I was just relieved that they didn’t have their hands free to start pinching my cheeks and saying, ‘Ah, bella!’

  ‘Look where we’re going, ‘Grandpa said, leaning his tanned face close to me. His snowy hair blew about in the breeze through the window.

  I peered out between the steel-grey heads of the old ladies. The side of the hill fell away beneath us, dry and rugged, the road edged sometimes with low walls and tile-roofed cottages near the bottom. It was greener below. Further up grew yellowed grass and a scattering of olive trees with twisted trunks and grey-green leaves. Looking up, I could just see thick grey walls.

  Eventually we stopped climbing, and pootled along a gently sloping road. CELLINA the sign said outside and we swerved in through a big stone gateway, growled through the narrow streets for a time, then braked. The engine died and we stepped out into the quiet of a town square paved with grey stone slabs. At one side there were sleepy little cafes under awnings, advertising beer and Pepsi Cola and Motta ice-cream. A fat man sat outside, forking up spaghetti into his mouth, a thick white napkin tucked under his chin like a bib.

  ‘George,’ Brenda said with the dangerous air of a woman nearing the end of her patience. ‘Will you please tell me why we’re here on this wild goose chase?’

  ‘I shall my dear, in just a few moments.’ Grandpa spoke very gently, as if all he could do was be very kind to everyone.

  He led us out of one corner of the square, past a gaggle of children with shrieking, peacock voices. I could feel the warmth from the paving stones through the thin soles of my pumps, but there was a breeze blowing too and the air stroked my bare legs like a warm cat.

  ‘Not far now…’

  There was a high wall on the right of the street covered with trailing plants. On
the left were little houses of crumbling grey stone. At the end the road forked and in the fork stood a church and Grandpa stopped with his back to it. Brenda and I halted beside him. He looked round, and a silence began which lasted some time. Grandpa seemed very far away.

  ‘I stood here,’ he said eventually. ‘In 1943.’

  The War, I thought. They were always on about that. It wasn’t easy to understand when you weren’t even born at the time. Brenda didn’t say anything either, she just looked hot and bewildered.

  ‘My unit came through here, one evening. We’d walked miles and we all needed somewhere to sleep. Most of the lads stayed outside the town and set up camp. I often went jangling off on my own to take a look round - I was known for it. Bunking Baxter they used to call me. It wasn’t that I was worming my way out of anything – I was just keen to take an interest. It wasn’t just me that night. There were four of us and we decided to come and have a look round.’

  He gazed up and down the street, seeing things that we couldn’t, painted there by his memories.

  ‘It was October, warm-ish, the sun just going down, mellow light. Lovely: I’ll never forget it. It was all different then – dirt poor, tumbledown houses, and almost deserted. Most of the men of the town had gone to war of course. We stood here –’ he shifted his feet on the dusty street. ‘Me and Charlie Roberts, Hoggy Hodgson and Fred Barrett. The only living thing we saw for a good while was a great big pig lumbering along from over there –’ He pointed. ‘Snuffling and snorting. Then a priest – a thin, stooped old fellow, all in black of course, black hat. He raised his hat and went on past… The church was a dreadful mess – it had been hit … Part of the roof had collapsed and everything was white with dust inside.’

  Looking up at the church you could see it was a patchwork of rebuilding, the old stones held together with new.