Constant Tides

by Peter Crawley

  She colours. “I, er… Well, I studied languages at school and at university.”

  “University, eh?” he says. “An intelligent woman: it is a rare privilege to meet someone so… well, a rarity for one like me.” There is a bitterness to his tone, but it is not aimed at her gender; rather, Antonio has reversed the insult to suggest he has not met many, if any, intelligent women and for that, he is to blame. “I do not include my sister in that sad exclusivity,” he adds, bowing his head towards Angelica.

  “I should hope not, Antonio.”

  “But, Caterina, it is unusual to hear a person who was not born here speak Sicilian. So, where did you learn? Who taught you?”

  “I learnt Sicilian from my grandmother, my nonna; for though she lived most of her life in England, she was born here, in Messina, in the Borgo del Ringo.”

  “In the Borgo del Ringo?” Antonio sits back and studies her very openly and perhaps a little rudely. “You are sure?”

  “Yes,” Caterina replies, a little offended. “Why would I say she was born there if she had not told me? And why would she tell me she was if she wasn’t.”

  “No,” he says swiftly, his hands outstretched as if praying to her. “Forgive me, I did not mean to doubt your nonna; it is just unusual that any person should talk of the quarter of Messina that was once the province of fishermen. I apologise.” Antonio looks from Angelica to Alberto and then back to Caterina. “How old was your nonna? When was she born? If, that is,” he holds out his hands to her in appeal, “you don’t mind talking about her.”

  “Why would I mind? I think Nonna Lilla would like to hear her name spoken so close to where her life began and was so very nearly ended.”

  “Lilla,” Angelica repeats. “You say your nonna’s name was Lilla?”

  “Yes, that’s right, why?”

  “Oh, nothing, I just wanted to make sure I heard you right. I… I will make coffee,” she adds, with all the controlled excitement of one who decides she must have an ice cream before the theatre curtain is raised. “Please, go on.”

  Caterina is curious as to why the mention of her grandmother’s name has stirred such interest. “As I told Angelica, my nonna died when I was eleven and even though I don’t recall that much about her, I do remember that when I went to stay with her, she used to tell me wonderful tales at bedtime. One in particular she used to tell me so often I never forgot it.”

  “Then, share it with us, please?” Antonio asks.

  “Oh, it’s only a child’s fairy tale and I’m sure she made it up. I think we’re a bit old for fairy tales, don’t you?”

  “Old?” he replies. “No, one is never too old for a good story. And besides, we Sicilians love fairy tales. Tell us, please. Take your time: try to tell the story just as your nonna would have told you.”

  She studies him for a moment, wondering if he isn’t pulling her leg and then, because he looks at her so earnestly, so charmingly and so warmly, Caterina takes a deep breath. “All right,” she says, “but if afterwards you laugh, I’ll never live it down.”

  “We won’t laugh. We promise. And if you tell stories half as well as you cook, then we won’t be disappointed, we will be doubly grateful.”

  “Okay. Here we go. Naturally, the tale is about a beautiful young girl, the daughter of a fisherman, who falls in love with a handsome young prince. The king and queen do not approve of their love affair because the girl is from a poor family and her father cannot afford a dowry. So, the two young lovers hatch a plan to run away together: to sail from the island and live happily ever after in a land far away from the influence of his parents.”

  She stops for a moment and is confused as to why she should command their attention with nothing more than an old fairy tale.

  Angelica serves the coffee. “Go on, please, Caterina, your nonna’s story is fascinating.” She glances at her brother, who acknowledges her look with the slight lift of his little finger.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, yes, Caterina,” Antonio says, “please continue. We are listening.”

  She looks at Alberto, and even he is rapt.

  “Okay then. The way Nonna told it, the king’s castle sits on the side of a mountain, inside of which there sleeps a great dragon. The king, desperate to thwart the two young lover’s plans, locks the prince in a tall tower, and then climbs the mountain and asks the dragon if he will kidnap the girl, promising him halls of gold and silver in return. The dragon refuses, saying that though he is stronger than any ten, hundred or even a thousand men, it is not within his power to keep the two young lovers apart.

  “In a fit of anger and frustration, the king drives his sword through the rocks of the mountain deep into the dragon’s flesh. And the dragon, thus wounded, roars and howls; flames come from the wound in his side and he rolls over and over until the pain ceases. In his turmoil, in his irritation at being disturbed from his sleeping and because of the insult and injury the king has afforded him, the dragon breaks out of the mountain, breathes his fiery breath and shakes the castle until it falls down, killing both the king and queen and nearly all their subjects. By the time the dragon has finished, there is only one part of the castle left standing, the tall tower in which the king had locked the prince. And because the fisherman’s family live beyond the castle walls, the young girl, too, is alive. She finds a ladder and together with some sailors who have come to help the survivors rebuild the castle, she frees her prince and they sail away to live…”

  “Happily ever after,” Angelica, finishes.

  “Yes, of course.” Caterina glances at her and for a split second she perceives tears welling at the corners of Angelica’s eyes.

  “Bravo!” Alberto calls, clapping enthusiastically. “Bravo. A good story. Like a fairy tale from Giuseppe Pitrè. You could not have told it better.”

  “Yes,” Antonio agrees, smiling – no, beaming – at her. “Very well told, Caterina. Bravo!”

  Chapter 7

  Caterina had been woken by Alberto in the bathroom, and she’d lain in bed until a tide of restlessness had swept her outside and settled her beside by the lagoon. The stone bench is cool, pleasantly so, and she smiles to herself as her thoughts turn to the previous evening.

  Before dinner, she had grasped the nettle and phoned Lucy.

  “What about all my emails?” she’d groaned. “Didn’t you read any of them?”

  Caterina had offered a lame excuse about not being able to charge her laptop, as the socket on the wall of her room didn’t take her plug and she’d mislaid the adaptor.

  “And what about the texts I sent?”

  “Couldn’t charge my phone either, sorry. Never mind me, darling, how’s everything with you?”

  And the trick had worked, for there was nothing Lucy liked more than to talk about Lucy. Information had come thick and fast: people she’d met, facts she’d learned, a summer cold, prospects, obstacles, frustrations, her long–term partner, Rob, his annoying habits, his inability to…

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Caterina had cut in, surprised to hear her daughter complain so. “Before I left, you both seemed happy. And you’ve been together quite a while now, I thought perhaps he might–”

  “Well don’t, mum. It’s not going to happen.”

  When she’d finished the call, Caterina had stared at her phone and muttered, “So, that was what all the fuss was about. It wasn’t about me; it was about you. You needed me. Well, fancy that!”

  After dinner, the curtain of her evening had drawn to a gentle and unusually late close. Unusually late because Alberto had waxed long and lyrically about the art of the cuntisti, the troubadours, who in days of yore occupied street corners to earn their keep telling stories. Giuseppe Pitrè, he’d explained, was the father of Sicilian folklore, a senator and recorder of local customs, and her tale had reminded him of Pitrè’s work. And Alberto, with the bit fi
rmly between his teeth, had then gone on to introduce her to the long traditions of Sicilian puppeteering, to the knights of Charlemagne and his twelve Paladins, to Orlando, the hero, to Oliver, his rival, and to Ganelon, the traitor.

  In fact, Alberto had proved a considerable surprise to her; for at first, she had thought him boorish to the point of being wholly uncommunicative, if not plain rude, when all along there lay concealed within his bald, round head a worldly refinement and, for a man who was no spring chicken, a good measure of youthful exuberance.

  As far as Antonio was concerned, she’d found him peculiarly and unexpectedly urbane; peculiar in as much as the stains on his shirt and the scars on his large hands suggested he might lack sophistication which, judging by his knowledge of the history of Messina, he didn’t. His shoulders seemed to her to be ridiculously broad and his head very square; or perhaps his head was made to look so by the way his wavy hair fell to frame his face. And although his face, thick neck and forearms were near mahogany in colour, when he reached across the table or stretched his arms up in one of his many theatrical gesticulations, Caterina could see that the skin beneath his sleeves was really quite pale. His eyes, though, were far from pale: they were blue, blue and a strangely vivid yet deep blue at that, and on the odd occasion he’d fixed his gaze upon her, Caterina had found the intensity of their colour more than a little unsettling.

  The mirrored surface of the lagoon reflects fine wisps of high white cloud. To her left, traffic motors steadily, most of it heading south to the gradually waking city, and to her right, the sun has now crested Aspromonte, casting long, thin shadows from the lampposts of the promenade.

  She leaves the bench and walks around the lagoon to the bakers, where she stops to buy almond biscuits, a brioche and a bottle of water, and then on into the warren of narrow lanes and alleyways that will, she hopes, lead her to the shore of the Strait. On a curved white–washed wall, a black witch, stovepipe hat, voluminous dress and stick legs, trails a thin line of black spray–paint from her can; on the line, a cat stalks a small bird and further on as the line disappears around the bend, a second cat stalks a second bird.

  “Graffiti: from graffiare, to scribble,” she says, standing back to admire the simplicity. “Can’t really call that a scribble, now can we? It’s just too affascinante; too enchanting,”

  Caterina emerges from the stone maze onto the shorefront, where a terrace of low houses overlooks a shingle beach littered with all manner and colour of small wooden boats. She lingers, relaxed and yet pleasantly stimulated by the delicate air, gazing out across the waters of the Strait and the mountains beyond.

  A row of large and irregular square blocks, tumbled like giant’s dice, form a breakwater, in the quiet calm of which a feluca is moored. The tall metal tower of the blue fishing boat pierces the horizon, impaling the sky, and a man climbs up, hand over hand, steadily and carefully, until he reaches the crow’s nest. Below him, the crew are making ready, untying and coiling lines.

  Caterina steps onto the shingle beach and strolls down to the water’s edge. She shades her eyes to the sun and watches.

  The long passerelle bounces in rhythm as a man walks along it, pausing now and again to examine the lines.

  Antonio: she would recognise those broad shoulders and that black wavy hair anywhere.

  He turns, walks back and talks to a younger man: Enzo, his son, probably.

  A second man begins the long climb up to the high platform and once through the trapdoor, he leans over and calls to one of the men on the deck, who ties a white plastic bag to a line and between them they run it up.

  Engines rumble, oily smoke spews momentarily from the stern and the feluca is under way, nosing its long passerelle around the breakwater and out into the Strait.

  Caterina lifts her arm up, but quickly lets it fall slack against her hip. “Stupid girl,” she mutters, colouring with embarrassment. “What are you, the sailor’s wife waving farewell?”

  However, as she chides herself, it is as though Antonio has heard her and he turns to face the shore. That he has seen her, there is no doubt, for his body stiffens and straightens, and he steps his foot onto the raised lip at the outer edge of the deck, and holds onto a stay for support. He leans forward, watching her.

  Again, Caterina lifts her arm and again she lets it drop.

  Whatever the reservation that prevents her from completing her gesture, Antonio suffers no such restriction and he raises his hand, acknowledging her presence with a single, casual, lazy wave.

  Behind him, one of the crew wolf–whistles and another barks. The lookout, up on the platform has also spotted her: he grins and digs the capobarca in the ribs. The capobarca, though, is not to be distracted: the slightest lapse in his concentration will see the passerelle crashing and crumbling into the breakwater; a day’s fishing ended before it has begun.

  Antonio ignores them. He simply smiles, waves once more and turns away as the feluca glides, popping and burbling out into the open water.

  Caterina stays rooted to the pebbles and watches until the blue fishing boat has passed beyond the red and white pylon on the far slopes of Aspromonte.

  “No matter how many times I see a feluca, they still amaze me.” An old and shrunken fellow stands, or rather slouches, beside her. In her moment of… what, concentration, deliberation, distraction, she has not noticed him approach.

  “They are like the huge metal aeroplanes that, for a reason I cannot comprehend, defy the laws of gravity.” Like her, he shades his eyes and stares up towards the neck of the straight. His accent is thick, his every word running seamlessly into the next in a form of constant and continuous sing–song.

  “Yes,” she replies, “they look as though they’re about to topple over or plunge down headfirst into the sea.” She turns and looks down at him. “I am Caterina, pleased to meet you.”

  “Thank you, I am Beppe, though some still bother to call me by my full name, Giuseppe.” His forehead is rippled rather than furrowed, his smile lines plentiful and deep, and his teeth few. Beppe smokes a roll–up cigarette so short it threatens to burn his fingers, which are long and slim, like those of the witch painted on the wall. “You know the feluca Salvazione? You know Antonio?”

  She considers his question, realising she has met Angelica’s brother just the once, across a kitchen table and only for… what, an hour or two. “No.”

  “You were waving to him,” Beppe says, without turning his eyes to her. “People don’t wave to boats unless they know the people on board. Either that or they don’t expect to see them again for a long time: which is it?”

  Caterina, unsure how to respond, stands back and studies him.

  Beppe is short and bent and wizened, his chest a mat of thick white hairs and his shorts paint–splattered.

  “I met Antonio last night, at dinner, at his sister Angelica’s house,” she says.

  “Ah, okay, so you know him a little. He is the funcitta of what was once my boat. Now, it is his. He is a good funcitta; the best, he never misses.”

  “Superman, eh?” she giggles, before putting her hand to her mouth in apology.

  “No,” Beppe says, for the first time looking up at her, “Antonio is better.” He grins, or at least he looks as though he is trying to.

  A cruise ship, top–heavy with decks, turns in from the north. Beppe lifts his head and nods. “She is late.”

  “Is that what you do these days, Beppe; sit here and watch the ships go by?”

  “No,” he grins, “I used to. I used to sit here, watch the boys go out and wait until they came back. Then, one day I woke up and decided I was wishing my time away just when my time was wasting away. Now, I paint.”

  *

  Later, with the sun at its height, Beppe walks with her over to the lagoon and when they pass the wall with the witch, Caterina pauses and smiles. Hocus–pocus or quaint and therefore e
nchanting, she cannot make up her mind.

  “Why should one make choices when one doesn’t have to?” Beppe says, reading her thoughts.

  He shows her the two old wooden feluche lying up on blocks beside the lagoon.

  “This one we call a fulua.”

  A dozen or so metres in length and wide as a carthorse is long, a rope ladder runs up the wooden boat’s tall mast. The hull is painted white with a green and red stripe below the gunwale, and an image of San Nicolo di Bari, Ganzirri’s patron saint, at its bow. So solid and sturdy is the boat that Caterina imagines it must have taken a team of galley–slaves to row it.

  The green hull of the second is shorter in length and sleeker, its mast shorter, too, and with room for only four oarsmen, a look–out and a funcitta. “This is what was called a luntro,” he says, pointing at the smaller boat. “For thousands of years, this was how they used to hunt for swordfish. It was dangerous, eh? There are many tales of enormous swordfish towing boats away from the land only to drag them below the surface and leave the crew to drown. In those days, there was not the sound of engines to scare away the fish and the hull of the luntro was painted a dark colour so that the fish would not see the reflection in the water. In those days, men used to be afraid of sea monsters and whirlpools. Now,” he shrugs, “we know Charybdis is nothing more than a pandemonium of tides, strong tides maybe, and Scylla nothing more than a product of Homero’s fertile imagination. Think of it: think of how it must have felt way back before we educated ourselves in the ways of the sea.”

  “Educated,” Caterina repeats, absent–mindedly, “in the ways of the sea. Yes, Beppe, you’re so right. People think education is all about getting ahead in life: they forget that fishermen have to learn their craft.”

  “Yes, young lady, what do people remember once they are assured their food is available in the supermarket? Look,” again he points, though this time at a small rowing–skiff out in the middle of the lagoon.

  A man, a man of late years judging by his white hair and unhurried movement, stands waist–deep beside a boat in which a young boy sits. A triangular net is fastened to the serrated end of a rake, with which the old man is dragging clams from the bed of the lagoon. When he empties the net into a bucket, he sets down the rake and sorts through his catch, showing the young boy those that are too small to keep and saving those large enough to eat.