by David Elvar
‘I do indeed mean you. Please stand when you address me.’
I mumbled an apology and got up. This is it, I was thinking, this is where I get told off for confronting him in the corridor like that.
‘You are Elisa Cecilia Consuella Pellegrino, aged fourteen years and currently residing with your father—is this correct?’
I nodded, too scared to say anything.
‘Right. Now, I doubt you are familiar with Italian law but it is a legal requirement that anyone of your age be heard in any proceedings involving them. So I must ask you: you know what this case is about, you know your father wishes to strip your mother of her custodial rights over you, but what is your wish in this?’
My father was on his feet again in a flash.
‘I really must protest!’ he was saying. ‘She cannot be old enough to know what is good for her!—’
‘Sit down, please, Dr. Pellegrino.’
‘—The influence of her mother, it must be stopped!—’
‘I said sit down, Dr. Pellegrino!’
‘—The only answer, the only answer must be denial of custody, of contact, of everything.—’
‘If you do not sit down this instant, sir,’ the judge was shouting now, ‘I will have you removed from this courtroom for contempt!’
I glanced round to see my father’s lawyer nodding to him to do as he was told. He did so, slumping down red-faced and furious, glaring up at me as though all this was my fault.
‘So, again,’ said the judge, turning back to me, ‘what are your wishes in this matter?’
For a moment, I didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. I’d been expecting a good telling off and had instead been handed this? I got myself together, stood up straight (beloved nonna would have been proud of me) and started speaking.
‘I do not wish to lose contact with my mother,’ I said, ‘with the only parent I’ve ever really had in my whole life, who was always there for me, who always had time for me, who always listened to me. I do not wish my life to be controlled by my father, because that is exactly what will happen if the court allows what he’s asking for. If anything, I want custody to be stripped from him since he isn’t even a fraction of the parent my mother is.’
I stopped. The judge was looking at me, waiting for me to go on.
‘Is there more?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I want to go back to England. I want to go home.’
Beside me, I could sense my father fidgeting in rage and fury and every shade of anger under the sun. There would be fallout from this one, I knew, but I didn’t care. I’d got my point across, I’d dared to defy him. That was all that mattered.
The judge nodded. ‘You may sit down now.’
I sat down. The judge glanced through the papers one last time then folded his hands on his desk and spoke.
‘Matters of custody are always delicate,’ he began, ‘but the wishes of the child are paramount in any such hearings. The father, Dr. Vittorio Pellegrino, has made representations to this court containing certain demands, and I am bound to say I am not minded to grant them. The request that this case be heard Inaudita altera parte is denied. The child Elisa Cecilia Consuella Pellegrino’s mother will be informed of these proceedings and afforded the right to defend herself in them.’ He looked directly at me. ‘Elisa Pellegrino, will she—and by extension, you—have legal representation or do you wish the court to appoint it?’
I remembered what was expected of me and stood up, hoping—no, scrub that—knowing that what I was about to say would hit my father like a bombshell.
‘I’ve been told that a lawyer has been engaged,’ I said. ‘He will be contacting the court in the next few days.’
Then I sat down again. As the judge was summing up, I snuck another glance at my father. He was gazing blankly at me. Open-mouthed. I mean, like, wide open. Yep, the bombshell had found its target. Direct hit. I looked away again, smiling to myself. He hadn’t heard anything yet.
TWENTY FIVE
My father and his lawyer didn’t speak to me as we left the court. You might even say they didn’t know I was there. You see, they were too busy talking to each other. Or maybe that should be hissing at each other, yelling in low tones so that no one else could hear, but no one looking their way could be in any doubt that these two weren’t exactly on the best of terms just then.
‘I told you of the dangers involved!’ the one was saying. ‘I told you to be careful!’
‘I thought you said you could fix this!’ said the other.
‘With anyone else, I might have stood a chance! But how was I to know you’d be given one of the few judges not open to inducement?’
I sniggered, and only then did they seem to notice me still with them, that I was listening to every word.
‘We will continue this another time,’ my father hissed, and the conversation was curiously over.
We got to the end of the corridor and stopped, father and lawyer turning and glaring at each other for long moments. They nodded a wordless farewell then the one was swinging away and marching off, leaving me with the other. I could pretty much guess what to expect. He did not disappoint me.
He turned on me. There’s no other way to describe it, he turned on me. And he was furious, his face flushed with anger, his mouth shooting dribble and venom with every word he spat.
‘You were told to say nothing! Why did you disobey me?’
‘I didn’t disobey you,’ I said reasonably. ‘I obeyed a judge.’
‘You were told to say nothing! You should have said nothing regardless of who asked you!’
‘Yeah? Wasn’t it you who once said to me that in a democracy, we must all obey the law? Whether you like it or not, the judge asked me a question. I answered. End of. And by the way, thanks for telling me I had the right to be heard in any legal proceedings that involved me.’
‘There was no need. Nothing you had to say would have been of any consequence. Why did you say what you said? Why did you tell the judge you wanted to go back to England?’
‘Er…because it’s true?’
‘IT IS NOT TRUE!’ he screamed. ‘IT IS NOT TRUE!’
All around us, people were looking our way. Was I embarrassed? Nah. I could use this.
‘What would you know about truth?’ I yelled back. ‘You’re so wrapped up in your delusions, you can’t even forge a letter properly!’
‘It was not forged!’ He was really angry now. ‘It was—!’
He pulled up short. It seemed something had just clicked.
‘How would you know if it was forged?’ he asked. ‘You do not even know what is in it.’
‘Actually, I do,’ I said wearily. ‘I’ve seen it.’
‘You have seen it? Then—’
‘Yeah, I looked in your desk. So sue me!’
‘You think it right to go prying into other people’s private business?’ He was screaming again, repeating himself like he always does when he gets really mad. ‘You think it right to go prying into other people’s private business?’
‘You think it right to lie to a court?’ I yelled back. ‘Which is the bigger crime here?’
‘And what is this about a lawyer?’ Neatly deflected again. ‘How would your mother know of these proceedings, how could she know of them?’
‘Because I told her?’
‘Impossible! Impossible! You have had no chance to, you have been cared for constantly!’
‘Oh, your idea of caring for me is to have me watched all the time, is it? But actually, there are times when I’m not in range of your surveillance network. Go figure.’
‘Eliana,’ he said coldly, ‘when you went to visit her. But no, she would not dare.’
‘Oh, she offered,’ I said, ‘and I refused. I know what your family can be like to her when it’s crossed.’
He didn’t react, didn’t fly into a fury at the insult to his precious family. No, he stood there pondering for a moment, the realisation dawning slowly but surely.
‘The school,
’ he said at last. ‘Of course, the school.’
I said nothing, just hoped I hadn’t landed my understanding headmaster in hot water.
‘I should have known it was a mistake to leave you in the care of someone so obviously untrustworthy,’ my father went on. ‘An ill-mannered man full of disrespect to those of note in the community. Yes, I should have known.’
‘You leave him out of this,’ I snarled. ‘He’s shown me more consideration in the few weeks I’ve been there than you’ve shown in my whole life.’
‘Obviously, a profound error of judgement on my part,’ he went on, ignoring me. ‘Well, this can be easily amended, this will be amended.’ He stopped, looked directly at me, added in a voice full of menace: ‘This will be the last time, Elisa, the last time you disobey me.’
‘You want to take bets on that?’ I hissed back.
He broke into a grin, like this was an empty threat and he could afford to just wave it away. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘Actually, I do. Now, come. Our business here is finished.’
I followed, glaring at his back all the way. I could pretty much guess what he was going to do, I didn’t need to waste time wondering about it. And I was right.
TWENTY SIX
And that’s how I got taken out of school. Like the rush from England, there was no time for goodbyes or gathering my things together, I was just suddenly not there any more.
More than anything else, I was worried about the headmaster, was hoping my father hadn’t done something to make him lose his job or something. It would have been like him to do something like that: anyone crosses him, he’s off to the authorities like a shot, like a little boy running crying to mummy when someone steals his lunch money. He’s a kid in all but age, a bully of a different kind. So yeah, I was worried.
You’d think maybe I’d just get sent to another school, but when my father gets burned, he thinks twice about sticking his hand into another fire. So no, there was no marching me into another school office and demanding to see the headmaster and puffing himself up and trying to impress and being made to look small when things didn’t turn out the way he’d planned. You know, I was almost sorry about that.
But it’s kind of illegal to keep a kid from an education, even the shamefaced and shabby Sicilian kind, so he had to do something. I really should have guessed what he was going to do next. But I didn’t. So when it happened, I was what you might say a little unprepared for it.
It was a few days after his court disaster that he announced that he had to go out, and so he did, taking all the precautions he could and more: his computer wasn’t just logged off, he removed the internet cable; he unplugged the phone and locked it away in a cupboard; and he locked me in the house without a key so the only way I could get out was through a window. Yeah, he pulled out all the stops for that little trip, wherever it was he was going, and even that he didn’t tell me. But one thing was for certain: he sure as hell wasn’t just going to the supermarket to buy bread.
He returned some two hours later. I didn’t hear him come back, I was in my room and flicking through my notes on fighting dirty. I’d added to them over the days until I’d got a pretty sizeable list. The trouble was, most of what I’d put down depended on me being away from the house and, more importantly, on my own. Only then could I set up the surprises I had in store for him. It had never occurred to me that even that would be taken away from me.
The first I knew he was back was when his voice barked up the stairs at me.
‘Elisa? You will come here, please.’
Yeah, I took my time—clicked my pen closed…bundled my papers together…set everything on the bedside table—then got up off my bed and sauntered out my room and downstairs. I was expecting to find him in the hallway but he wasn’t there. He must have heard me because—
‘In the living-room, please, Elisa.’
—and I kicked the door open and strolled in. And that’s when I found he wasn’t alone.
Yeah, it was another of those Anya moments, only this wasn’t another Anya. No, where Anya had been a broad-beamed battleship, what my father had brought him this time was…well…the nearest I could get to describing her would be as a U-boat—short, thin and sinister.
Apart from being those three things, she was also a little on the wrinkled side. Imagine beloved nonna put through a couple of wash cycles on the wrong setting and you’ll get the picture. She looked like a pantomime witch who’d escaped from a seedy back-street theatre, with beady eyes that cut right through you and a hooked nose that looked like it was sniffing the air for trouble. She was dressed all in black, in clothes that looked in better condition than their owner, and I figured she was maybe a widow, showing to the world the way Sicilian widows do that she’d lost someone dear to the Grim Reaper, that or she’d driven him into an early grave he’d maybe been happy to crawl into after years of nagging and torment. If the way she was looking at me was anything to go by, I could believe it.
‘Elisa,’ my father was saying, ‘this is your new governess.’
‘My new governess,’ I repeated blankly. ‘Right.’
‘And teacher,’ my father added, and I glanced up to see a triumphant smile break across his lips.
‘Teacher,’ I repeated again. ‘You mean as in school teacher.’
‘I mean exactly that. From now on, you will be home-schooled.’
‘Home-schooled!’ I was so surprised, I could hardly get the words out. ‘But—this is crazy! Only religious cranks and hermits get their kids home-schooled!’
‘This is my decision, Elisa, one I have made after careful consideration. You will be home-schooled and in a manner in line with my wishes.’
His wishes again. Hadn’t all of this been about his wishes? And I’d had just about enough of them. I just exploded.
‘Are you off your head! I mean, what the hell are you trying to pull here?—’
‘Elisa—’
‘—This is nothing to do with my education and we both know it so you can cut the crap.—’
‘Elisa, stop this!—’
‘To hell with you! This is just payback for me getting in touch with mum.’
‘SILENCE!’
I snapped round to the voice, shocked and shaken all at once: that wasn’t my father, that was the U-boat.
‘You will be silent, girl,’ she hissed in a rasping voice that could have come straight out of a TV commercial warning of the dangers of smoking. ‘Your father is speaking and you will show him the courtesy of listening without interruption.’
I glanced from one to the other. If my father resented this intrusion, he was giving no sign. If anything, he seemed happy with it, like they’d already formed some kind of unholy alliance, ganging up on me by way of making sure I didn’t step out of line. And for the first time since I got there, I wasn’t sure I liked the odds.
‘As I was trying to say,’ my father went on, ‘your education is now out of the hands of the state and in mine. I was not happy with the curriculum you were being taught, I thought it beneath you, so I have decided to take full control of it. I have informed the authorities of my decision and all is in place to allow this to happen.’
I wanted to back-answer, to ask who he’d bribed this time in order to get this one through so quickly, but I knew the U-boat already had another torpedo primed and I wasn’t yet up to speed with dodging them.
‘This isn’t right,’ I said instead. ‘I was doing fine at school, whatever you think of what they were teaching me. And anyway, school isn’t just about learning, it’s about making friends, interacting with other people, learning how to deal with life and stuff. You can’t take that away from me.’
‘You do not need these people,’ he sniffed, ‘inferior in intellect and social standing as they are. You have your family, you have me. That is all the daughter of a distinguished scientist will need.’
‘Inferior in—’ I couldn’t believe he’d just said that. ‘You know, you really are an insufferable snob.’
<
br /> My father didn’t answer. With an insult like that thrown at him, he should have but he didn’t. Instead, he just turned to the U-boat, a tolerant smile curving his lips.
‘As you see,’ he said, ‘there is a lot of work to be done here.’
‘Indeed I do!’ she rasped, turning to glare at me again. ‘But I see nothing that cannot be corrected.’
‘Of that I have no doubt, Signora Di Scoglio. But you come from the agency with the highest credentials, and though your fees are somewhat on the high side, I feel them to be justified if you can set right the considerable psychological damage her time with her mother has caused.’
‘It will be set right,’ she rasped again. ‘You may be certain, it will be set right.’
I glanced from one to the other. I had to hand it to my father, he’d won this round. My only chance of any contact with mum had been shot out from under me, and to top it all, this shrivelled Sicilian battleaxe would be keeping a beady eye on me every waking hour. And worse than that and unlike with Anya, there would be no way of getting rid of her. Somehow, I knew I was not going to get away with anything with this one.
TWENTY SEVEN
You ever been in prison? No, I guess not. So that alone will probably make what I’m about to tell you kind of hard to believe.
She moved in, of course she did. My father said this was for the sake of convenience but I knew better: he didn’t want me left alone for even a moment, he wanted me kept under surveillance 24/7. Imagine living under the constant scrutiny of security cameras, only there’s just the one of them and instead of eavesdropping from a ceiling or glaring at you from a wall, it follows you from room to room, peering over your shoulder and rasping questions about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. I figured from that that my father had warned her and more than warned her about me so she wasn’t taking any chances, and I had to give him that. First opportunity, I’d have been out of there and doing what I needed to do. And he knew it.
She took Anya’s old room, which was no surprise. What was a surprise was that she chopped and changed it around until it was to her liking. The bed she shifted with much grunting and scraping on the wooden floor until it aligned north-south. Why, I didn’t know and she wasn’t saying. Nor was I about to just come out and ask her. She’d brought a few sticks of furniture with her, which she carefully arranged around the room. Most of it was old—like her, antique—and I figured from all this that she was intending to stay for some time.
