Papa Georgio

by Annie Murray

  ‘There certainly isn’t,’ Brenda scolded.

  Grandpa ventured a grin. ‘What an adventure, eh? Come here, My Little Dear!’

  And Brenda gave him a proper smile then and leaned forwards and was folded in his arms. When she sat up she was looking a bit tearful.

  ‘I was so frightened I’d lost you,’ she sniffed.

  ‘Ah no – you don’t lose an old Soldier Boy like me that easily,’ Grandpa said. ‘Now – your turn, little Janey…’

  And I cuddled up against Grandpa and felt his arms tight round me.

  ‘We’ll always remember that, won’t we? Our Vesuvius Adventure?’

  I nodded, my head against his chest. Of course I’d remember!

  Everybody came, those few days. It was amazing. By the end of the week Brenda was quite blasé about driving through Naples and Grandpa was well in with the nurses and talking about buying them presents. Even the Sacchettis at the camp gave us chocolates to take to him.

  And whenever we got there to visit him in the afternoons, there was almost always someone with him. That first day he’d asked me to ‘drop a line to my young friend Alberto, will you? Let him know what a silly old specimen I am?’ We were supposed to go up to Cellina that week and I was disappointed not to be seeing Maria and Giovanna and Laura and Clara. But I sent them a postcard which Grandpa dictated, spelling out the Italian words for me.

  First of all though, the banditos came and all stood round the bed looking soppy and pleased, almost as if Grandpa was their headmaster and they his favourite pupils. There was lots of smiling and jolliness, even though none of us had much clue what anyone else was talking about. Even despite this they managed somehow to flatter Brenda and made her blush and Grandpa slipped me a wink.

  Alberto came of course. On the third day we arrived to find him sitting by the bed and Grandpa was looking ever so happy. He had brought a big bouquet of flowers. When Brenda and I walked in Alberto got up to greet us. I saw his lovely kind face, he gave me big hug, and I felt as if I’d known him forever. We all felt like family already.

  He spoke through Grandpa, but looking at me. ‘My girls want to see you again,’ he said smilingly. ‘They keep saying to their mother, “When is the English girl coming, Mamma? We want to see Gianni – we want to play with her, to do her hair. You must ask her to come – on and on they go!’ Grinning, Alberto sagged, to show how worn down he was by all his daughters and stroked my cheek again. ‘You will have to come – or I shall never have any peace!’

  ‘Oh, yes please,’ I said. ‘Per favore!’

  Alberto visited twice that week and once when we came there was an elderly man in black sitting by the bed, who turned out to be the priest who worked in the hospital. He and Grandpa were chewing over old times during the war together.

  And then one afternoon when we arrived, from a distance I saw the back of a familiar figure sitting there, in large silhouette against the window.

  Archie Chubb.

  III.

  He lumbered to his feet and I expected him to boom out, ‘Ulloor!’ in his normal way. But instead he seemed quiet, and a bit bewildered, almost as if we’d woken him from a dream. He said, ‘Oh…’ and then, ‘Er – please, you have the chair,’ to Brenda. When I saw his face in the light from the window I was shocked because it looked as if he’d been crying. Maybe it was just my eyes playing tricks, but it did look like that, and that was awful.

  ‘I’d best be off,’ he said, picking up his jacket from the back of the chair. I noticed he was wearing sandals - with socks. Oh dear, I thought. (YOU DON’T WEAR SOCKS WITH SANDALS!)

  ‘Oh there’s no need – do stay for a bit,’ Brenda said politely.

  ‘No…’ Archie seemed vague. ‘I’ll be on’t road.’

  ‘Very good of you to come,’ Grandpa said. And he sounded warm, as if he meant it. Sometimes Grandpa said nice things just to be charming but I could tell the difference.

  ‘No, it’s a pleasure,’ Archie said. He went to Grandpa and shook hands, and softly he said, ‘Thanks. I’m very grateful. I’ll come in again.’

  ‘Look forward to it, old lad.’

  I watched in amazement as Grandpa and Archie Chubb parted as if they were the best of old friends. Archie seemed different, frailer. But then I’d hardly seen him in a while – not since he’d been ill.

  Grandpa watched him leave along the ward, then shook his head.

  ‘Poor fellow. Well, well.’

  ‘Well that was nice of him to come and see you,’ Brenda said, puzzled.

  ‘Yes…’ Grandpa sounded very far away for a moment, then he rallied himself. ‘Hello My Little Dear.’ He kissed Brenda’s cheek as she leaned down. ‘And now, how’s my splendid granddaughter today?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I smiled.

  But Grandpa still seemed wrapped up in his thoughts. ‘It does explain a lot,’ he said, half to himself.

  ‘What dear?’ Brenda, in her neat blue frock was tidying up, putting the little bag she’d bought down on the side table. ‘I’ve brought you one of those cakes – and some more grapes….’

  ‘Archie – ’ Grandpa looked back and forth at each of us as if he was trying to decide something. I was perched on the side of the bed and Brenda came and sat on the chair. ‘I’ve been such a fool…’

  ‘Whatever’s the matter, dear?’

  ‘Here am I, coming back here to Italy, mooning over my war experiences, over the past, when there are chaps like that, who live with it day after day, can’t put it behind them however hard they try. That man,’ he pointed towards the door of the ward through which Archie had disappeared. ‘That man is a hero – one of many. Look, I’ll tell you…’ he pushed himself up in bed, wincing at the pain in his leg.

  ‘Archie was in the army, out east, and he was rounded up and put in one of those Jap camps in Malaya.’ He looked at me. ‘A prisoner of war camp. The Japanese captured thousands of the allies, British, Americans, Australians. The lad was only nineteen. So while I was here, and we were working our way up the leg of Italy, that fella was behind barbed wire at the edge of the jungle in the stinking heat. The things they did to them – I wouldn’t want to go in to detail, Janey. There wasn’t much food, the Jap prison guards were brutal. So they were starved and beaten – worse, quite often - and what with all the tropical diseases out there they died like flies, hundreds of them. Archie was caught trying to steal food for a friend and they banged him up. They did unspeakable things to him.’ Grandpa stopped, and shook his head. ‘But he must be tough. Somehow he survived. We’ve seen the pictures, haven’t we dear?’ He spoke to Brenda, who was nodding, her eyes wide and stricken.

  ‘The ones who were left, the lucky ones, you could say, like Archie, were rescued. Well – the state of them when they came out. Nothing more than bags of bones. Many of them hardly looked like men at all. Archie was barely more than six stone. He said…’ Grandpa stopped and swallowed hard. There were tears in his eyes and that made me have tears in mine. ‘When he finally came home – he’d gained a bit by then – he got back to Manchester, to his mother’s house. When she opened the door to him she just screamed in horror and closed it again in his face. She thought he was dead and she couldn’t believe it was him.’

  ‘Gracious,’ Brenda breathed. ‘The poor man.’

  ‘You’d never think it, looking at him now,’ Grandpa said. ‘But that’s just the thing…. He’s never got over an absolute terror of feeling hungry. He can’t help himself – he’s obsessed with hoarding food, as much as he can get his hands on. It just takes him over all the time – going out buying and buying it – far more than the family ever need. And eating of course, too. And he doesn’t sleep well, bad dreams… He gets very low in himself sometimes, so he can hardly move. He says in some ways it’s like being locked up still, as if you can never escape.’

  Brenda’s eyes were full of sorrow. It was so sad to hear about Archie, who was so kind and brave. I tried to imagine him thin as a bag of bones but it was hard.
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  ‘I don’t think Maggie’s life’s been all that easy either,’ Grandpa went on. ‘She certainly left Ireland very young to escape her home. And neither of them can seem to settle – they live a gypsy kind of life, forever moving on.’

  ‘That poor boy of theirs,’ Brenda said. ‘They’re like flotsam.’

  I didn’t like the word flotsam – it made them sound like rubbish. Spindrift, I thought. That was a better word. The name for the spray over the sea and flying powdery snow in the mountains.

  ‘He’s my best friend,’ I said. But as I said it I realized with a dreadful pang that when we all left here, I’d probably never see Fizz again.

  ‘Unlikely playfellows,’ Grandpa said. ‘But there you are. The lad’s all right. And that Archie chap was kindness itself, coming all the way over here. Just shows what an old fool I am.’ He grinned shamefacedly. ‘After all, I’m sure there’s nothing really so terrible about Manchester, is there?’

  IV.

  ‘D’you want to come out for a bit?’

  Fizz appeared soon after we got back, when Brenda was on the back seat of the caravan recovering with a big mug of tea, head back, eyes closed.

  ‘You all right Mrs Baxter?’ Fizz asked, politely. They couldn’t fault Fizz on his manners, even Brenda had had to admit that.

  ‘Oh yes, thank you dear,’ Brenda said without moving. ‘I was just considering my application for a job as a Naples bus driver.’

  Fizz and I looked each other and grinned. I was so happy to see him, his greenish eyes playful as a puppy’s. He had the red Frisbee under his arm. He was just so – well, Fizz. And that was what mattered.

  ‘Off you go and play dears,’ Brenda said. ‘I’ll pull myself round and cook some supper in a while.’

  We went up to the top of the camp, as usual, where there was only a sprinkling of caravans and the air smelled of pine trees. We played for quite a while, sending the Frisbee wheeling back and forth, and a couple of times it sailed right over the edge and Fizz ran down to the next level to fetch it.

  When we got tired we took a drink from the tap and went to sit in our usual spot, looking out over the camp at the evening sky, waiting to see if the fireflies would come out again.

  Fizz was quiet suddenly, and serious. He leaned forward, resting his arms on his thighs, hands clasped.

  ‘I’m really sorry about your Dad,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks.’ I spoke gruffly. I picked a stalk of dry grass from near us and fiddled with it, rubbing the seeds off it. ‘I’m sorry about yours too. I mean – I know Archie’s not your Dad, but….’

  ‘No, but he is kind of. He’s the only father I’ve known, who’s bothered to be anyway. My real Dad, old Carlos, he’s somewhere in Spain still being a waiter, I s’pose.’

  ‘He came to see my Grandpa in hospital today – Archie, I mean.’

  ‘I know.’

  I wasn’t sure whether to say anything, but I knew how much I really wanted Fizz to know things about me and to understand, and maybe he felt the same.

  ‘He told Grandpa about the war, what happened to him and everything. Grandpa said he was a hero.’

  ‘Yeah. I s’pose he is.’ Fizz’s voice was bitter. ‘But being a hero’s not half as great as it sounds. He’s all right, Archie is. He’s kind. But I wish things could be better for him, and for Mum.’

  I glanced at Fizz’s solemn face but I sensed that he didn’t want to be looked at too much so I faced the front, towards the smoky grey sky. I threw away the shredded piece of grass and picked another.

  ‘D’you wish you could go to school?’

  Fizz shrugged. ‘Not really. I learn stuff anyway. Whenever I go to school everyone just gets on at me. I can’t seem to fit in. But sometimes I wish I could – that we could just be normal like most people, you know, live in a house and not move around all the time.’ He looked really lost for a moment, then shrugged. ‘But this is how it is. Tell me about your Dad.’

  So I talked about Dad and how his whole life seemed to be about mountains and climbing. I told him about the Alps, and Chamonix, about Derbyshire and the peaks and rock scrambling, and then how the dream of the Himalayas got bigger and bigger.

  ‘He wanted to climb Kanchenjunga first. He said she was his mountain. Then maybe he’s go for the bigger ones, Everest and K2.’

  Fizz looked really impressed.

  ‘That’s amazing. Your Dad must have been really strong – and bold.’

  ‘Yes,’ I felt myself swell with pride. ‘He is – was.’

  That was when I started crying. I never seemed to know when it was all going to come out in a rush like that, all those feelings that I just wanted my Dad, desperately wanted him to be here, big and strong the way he always was, to put his arms round me and cuddle me and tickle my face with his beard.

  Fizz was so lovely though. He didn’t say much but he shuffled closer and put his arm round me and it felt really nice. He smelt good too, warm and salty. I cried for a few minutes, feeling some of it drain out of me and then I stopped and wiped my eyes.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, sniffing.

  ‘S’allright.’ He didn’t take his arm away though. He couldn’t do anything to make it better and I couldn’t for him either. The thing that did make it better, just a tiny bit, was us sitting here together in each other’s warmth and talking. After a moment Fizz leaned in and softly kissed my cheek.

  My skin seemed to burn and I looked at him and smiled wonkily. Then I kissed him back.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  Actually he looked a bit overcome.

  ‘Archie and Mum will want to move on soon, I can feel it.’ He sounded awkward suddenly. ‘Thing is, I never usually….People come and go you see. I never keep any friends. Could we – would you be able to write to me d’you think? I may not always get it, but…’

  ‘Course I will!’ I was so pleased I felt like jumping up and down! ‘Poste Restante – that’s what you have to do. And will you write to me – tell me where you are and what you’re doing? Promise?’

  A smile broke across Fizz’s face as well. ‘Promise.’

  We didn’t wait any longer for the dark and the fireflies because I knew Brenda would want me in for supper. Fizz and I drifted down through the dusk, not hurrying, to the middle level of the camp.

  ‘Will you come out tomorrow?’ Fizz asked.

  But I never answered him. I stopped dead. It was as if my body had forgotten how to move.

  ‘What’s up?’ Fizz asked.

  I was seeing things, surely? It couldn’t be!

  She came closer, walking her brisk, sturdy walk across the camp, a little rucksack on her back, and I saw her spot our caravan and then I knew I wasn’t dreaming. Who else could it be!

  ‘Mum! MUM!’

  I tore across towards her and she saw me and held out her arms.

  ‘Janey!’ There was a laugh in her voice, which was joyful and strong. ‘Is that my Janey?’

  A second later, forgetting everything else, I was in her arms.

  V.

  It was just AMAZING, Mum being there suddenly like that.

  The three of us sat round the table in the caravan eating the chicken Brenda had cooked, and talked and talked – or Mum did. She had with her a colourful, scratchy wool jacket she’d bought in Nepal, and said she had one at home for me as well. She looked very brown and strong, her cheeks and the tip of her nose patchy with sunburn. Even her hair seemed thicker than before.

  ‘I went home first,’ she told Brenda and me. ‘Picked up a few things, and then I went back to London and caught the first plane I could for Naples. And then…’ She rumpled my hair. ‘I get here and find that you and Grandpa have been getting up to mischief!’

  Since Grandpa was so conspicuously missing, one of the first things Brenda had had to do was fill her in on our adventure.

  ‘I’ll go and see the old devil tomorrow,’ Mum said fondly. ‘And Janey – Brenda says you were really something!’

  I squi
rmed with pleasure at the pride in her voice.

  Mum told us all sorts of things about her trip, all the planes, trains and buses before her feet were in her tough walking boots on our mountain. She praised her friend Roy and their Sherpa companion Kalsang who had been wonderful to her. And she gave us pictures of the mountains, the awesome spread of them with their blue-white ice-caps and axe-blade ridges. She talked about the camps they made, the food and people they met, the tiny villages, Buddhist stupas and tatty lines of prayer flags, their colours fluttering against the white. When she talked about the colours of the mountains when the sun came up it was as if she was making a poem for us.

  I could tell she loved it, following those rocky trails in the biting cold air and sharp sunlight, that she knew why Dad loved it too, and that however heartbroken she was she had felt more alive up there, the way he did. The way I’d felt after Vesuvius.

  She told us about the base camp on Kanchenjunga but she didn’t say much about Dad then, not in detail. It was as if she couldn’t say it all at once. Brenda asked her, gently, just one question.

  ‘There’s no doubt then, dear?’

  ‘No.’ Mum looked across at her, with sad, brave eyes. ‘There’s no doubt.’

  The next few days were very busy, full up with people and comings and goings.

  Of course Mum came to Naples to see Grandpa.

  ‘What’s that?’ Mum asked as we set off, nodding towards the strange package on the roof of the car.

  ‘A crucifix,’ Brenda said, as if this was quite normal.

  Grandpa had had the bandage taken off his head and replaced by a plaster over the stitches. His hair was newly washed and fluffy and he looked much more back to normal, apart from his rainbow of bruises.

  Mum went up to his bed, and said, ‘So what have you been up to, eh?’

  Grandpa looked at her in wonder. ‘Well – my little girlie, so you’ve made it at last.’ He held his hand out and drew her close and they chatted for ages.

  They nurses were starting to talk about Grandpa leaving the hospital and for the couple of days remaining his bed was something like a market place where everyone met up. Grandpa had so many flowers he looked like a film star.