The Bottle Factory Outing

by Beryl Bainbridge

  The goggling tourists, the orange bars of the electric fires placed in strategic corners, robbed the place of solemnity. Above their heads, circled with motes of dust, stone angels spread their wings and folded pious hands.

  ‘I want to go home,’ said Freda, echoing Brenda several hours earlier.

  ‘Isn’t it smashing,’ Brenda replied, fearful that Rossi had overheard. She sought Freda’s hand and held it, trying to comfort her.

  ‘That’s Italian, isn’t it, Rossi?’ asked Freda. She pointed at an inscription on the wall. ‘What’s it say?’

  He studied it carefully. ‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘it is the Latin.’

  Ave lumen oculorum

  Liberator languidorum

  Dentium angustia

  ‘Hail bright eyes,’ said Brenda unexpectedly. ‘Sleepy liberator … bent anguish.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’ asked Freda.

  ‘It is the sufferers from toothache,’ explained Vittorio; and Brenda felt it was an omen. Here, far from the farm and the absent Stanley, someone was caring for her teeth. Is it really, she wondered, trooping round the Chapel, holding Freda’s hand in her own? Just thinking about it brought her down a flight of steps with a twinge of pain at the back of her jaw. She winced and stared intently at the warm pink stone ahead of her. They had come to the cloisters, a covered walk of meditation overlooking a patch of grass spread like a tablecloth. They were alone, the five of them, footsteps echoing on the ancient flagstones worn smooth by time.

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Brenda.

  ‘Let go of me,’ hissed Freda. ‘For God’s sake, get lost.’

  Seeing the deserted promenade lined with stone seats, she urgently wanted Rossi and Aldo and Brenda to go away and leave her alone with Vittorio.

  Brenda didn’t know what to do. She tiptoed selfconsciously around the square and trusted that Rossi would follow.

  ‘Lovely,’ she murmured in a little more than a whisper. ‘How old it all is.’

  She went at a slightly increased pace along the southern flank of the cloister, relieved to hear the footsteps behind her. She turned left, fearful of coming back to Freda and found herself in the west wing of the Chapel. High on the wall was the fresco of a king with a white beard and eyes corroded by dampness. She paused and was joined by Rossi, his face pretentiously solemn as he stared upwards at the faded painting.

  ‘Where’s Aldo?’ she whispered.

  ‘He is somewhere.’

  He made as if to retrace his steps, and she seized him by the arm. She had to think of something. Freda would never forgive her if they reappeared. After all she had ruined her assignation with Vittorio the night Mrs Haddon had called with her gun.

  ‘I’m going to be sick, Rossi,’ she said. And she pulled him down a dark passage set with little wooden doors and half-ran with him out into the open air and the cobbled forecourt. She headed towards a distant gateway, her arm in his, and found herself on a terrace overlooking a sunken garden.

  ‘I’m weary,’ announced Freda, and she flopped down on the convenient stone bench. Vittorio stretched his long legs and loosed the hood of his duffel coat. Small flecks of dandruff alighted on his shoulders. Aldo Gamberini, fretting at an archway, stared at the billiard cloth of grass. He cleared his throat. He wished he was working in his garden or helping his eldest son to oil his motorbike. After a moment he walked hesitatingly away in the direction of the Chapel.

  ‘We will all be lost to one another,’ said Vittorio.

  ‘Ah no,’ she said, ‘not you and I.’ And she leaned her blonde head on his shoulder.

  ‘You and I,’ he said, ‘are birds of a tree. You do not let me be the man.’

  Now that they were alone he did not mind talking to her freely. His impending engagement to the girl from Casalecchio di Reno was his own concern. At this distance, and with Rossi so obviously in pursuit of Mrs Brenda, he was content to lay his heart bare to the large English girl who treated him with such familiarity.

  ‘I don’t what?’

  ‘You are always shouting. Giving orders.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You are never tranquil.’

  ‘Oh I am,’ said Freda. ‘Don’t you feel like a man?’ And unfairly she laid her pale hand on his trouser leg and stroked his thigh. ‘You and I,’ she warned, ‘could be something. I know about you.’

  ‘What do you know of me?’

  She brought her face closer to his until the hairs of his moustaches tickled the edges of her mouth.

  ‘You see,’ she confided, ‘I’m not what I seem. I know I’m aggressive, but I’m not entirely. I’m surrounded perpetually by fools. Given the right opportunity, I could follow. If someone was strong enough to lead.’

  She was staring at his mouth, her eyes veiled by the golden sweep of her lashes.

  ‘Ah well …’ he said, and his lips quivered.

  ‘I need something serious. Something I can get my teeth into.’

  He brought his hand protectively to the collar of his red jumper.

  ‘I’m not fooling. I mean it for real. If I want something I go after it.’ She looked at him boldly. He was mesmerised by her blue eyes, the creamy texture of her cheeks, her tinted nails moving softly across his leg. ‘I’d do anything for you.’

  ‘I cannot,’ he said, ‘be less than truthful with you. I have other commitments.’

  She had not heard the concluding words of his sentence. She had heard him say he could not be less than true to her, and all else was drowned and deafened in the flood of joy that filled her heart and suffused her face with colour. He did love her. He could only be true to her.

  ‘I will never let you go,’ she breathed.

  She clung to him and raised her lips to be kissed. An old man came out of a recess in the wall and passed them by. Clad in a long black gown bunched at the waist by a length of rope, he hurried deeper into the interior of the Chapel. Vittorio drew away from Freda and looked curiously at the open door.

  ‘It is his home?’ he inquired.

  ‘Never mind,’ she said. And she fondled his neck and twined her fingers in the tendrils of his soft brown hair.

  It was easy now to be tranquil and happy and kind. She was sickened by her unkindness to Brenda; she wanted everything to be lovely and safe, like the warm clasp of Vittorio’s arms. She desired with sudden urgency to show him where she was born, where she had gone to school, a view from the top of a hill, the surface of a lake near her home, clay-brown and pitted under rain. She wanted him to tell her that he too had seen a film years ago that only she remembered, that he too could listen with closed eyes to a certain melody. These few and fragmented reasons for believing love existed and could be unique stayed alive and sweet for perhaps thirty seconds in her mind – and faded as she looked beyond his shoulder, and the pale outline of his ear, and saw a line of black-suited men walking in single file along the opposite side of the cloister. Patrick, his cloth cap and pleasant face glimpsed in profile, strode in their rear. Freda pulled Vittorio’s head down to her breast and closed her eyes. At that instant, Patrick, glancing casually across the square of smooth grass, saw them. He ran like a whippet beneath the pink arches and confronted her.

  ‘You,’ she said, stealing his thunder. ‘How the hell did you get here?’

  ‘Where is she?’ demanded Patrick, his cheeks glowing like apples from indignation and the biting wind.

  Vittorio bent to tie his shoe lace. He was worried inside; he felt that something had not been clearly understood. He dwelt fleetingly on the curved dark profile of Rossi’s niece by marriage and wondered at Freda’s formidable instinct. Was it possible she knew him better than he knew himself? Did she think she could take him by force?

  ‘What have you done with her?’ Patrick was asking.

  Vittorio was not clear what was at issue. The Irish van driver was an unknown quantity. Nobody had explained what he was doing in the bathroom the night he had visited Freda. Maybe she had allowed him too to take libert
ies with her Rubensesque body. The remembrance of her billowy flesh and her grasping little hands pulling his hair made him giddy. He strolled casually away from the bench and appeared to be studying the grass.

  Freda, seeing how he deserted her, was filled with hatred for Patrick. She wished the loaf of bread had been a broken bottle. Spitting, they faced each other, and Patrick held her by the shoulders.

  ‘Help me,’ she cried and twisted round to appeal to Vittorio, but he was no longer there.

  ‘Swine,’ she shouted, ‘beater of women.’ And she struggled with the Irishman, pinning him with her knee in his groin against the surface of the wall.

  Vittorio in the main chapel, waited for several minutes. He would have liked to have run for it, but Rossi had disappeared and he was next in order of seniority. Mr Paganotti would have expected him to do his duty. After an interval, Freda, quivering with anger, swept round the corner.

  ‘What sort of man are you?’ she raged.

  ‘Sssh,’ he said, fearful of the reverent tourists and the black-garbed priest climbing to kneel in prayer.

  ‘He hit me,’ she said. ‘Where were you?’ Her eyes blazed reproachfully.

  ‘I do not want a scene.’

  He turned and made for the exit, conscious he was a coward but terrorised by her loud voice and the strength of her arm.

  Salvatore and his party were hurrying forlornly down the hill towards the car. But for the wine in the boot of the Cortina, so generously bestowed by Mr Paganotti, and the money they had already contributed to the Outing, they might have headed for home. It was just possible that Mr Paganotti might inquire if they had enjoyed themselves, and how could they disappoint him? They could not imagine what had happened to Patrick. One moment he had been ushering them forwards and the next he had vanished into the shadows. He had abandoned them. They called his name softly, but there was no answering voice. Gino, an elderly man who had been once to visit his son in America and never forgotten the experience, said it was a sign of the times. ‘Such a hurry they are in.’ Speed and violence and a lack of consideration. He shook his grey head and looked up at the North tower, as if Patrick might be seen clambering inconsiderately about the battlements. They trotted down the hill and huddled inside the interior of the mini and watched the women outside in the street.

  ‘Please don’t,’ Brenda was begging, her teeth chattering, her back against the wall of the parapet.

  Beneath her, the sunken garden, heavy with lateflowering shrubs, heaved in a spasm of wind. Rossi, his hands inside her cloak, his black curls blown over his forehead, took no heed.

  ‘I am warming you,’ he said, and he nipped her skin between his fingers and gobbled the tip of her reddening nose. She was looking foolishly at him and grinning toothily. He could not understand why she was so friendly to him and so resistant. It was torture to him. He respected his wife. He did not wish to break the sanctity of his marriage vows or lower himself in the estimation of Mr Paganotti, but what was he to think when the English girl allowed him so much freedom? If he took no advantage she would think him a cissy. Perhaps Mrs Freda, with her apparent contempt for men, was indeed the true woman, open to advances.

  Beneath them, the massive rhododendrons pitched under the scudding clouds. A ray of cold sunlight, salmon pink, washed over the grey stone. Across the valley, the beech trees with stripped trunks paled to silver.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘how beautiful it is.’

  She escaped from him and hugged the stone parapet and leaned as far as she dared, her thin hair hanging about her cheeks, and wished she was down there among the plump yew hedges, walking the paths littered with fallen leaves and the red berries of rowan. She thought of the commercial traveller who had stopped to give her a lift when she was going into Ramsbottom to buy groceries. In vain she said she was married, that her husband was big as an ox. He inveigled her out of his car and bundled her down beneath the bridge, his big feet snapping the stems of foxgloves, and panted above her. She wished Mrs Haddon had done her job properly, had put an end to this aimless business of living through each day. She squeezed her eyelids shut, but no tears would come. Rossi was behind her now, the muzzle of his face worrying her hair.

  ‘Does Mr Paganotti live in a very big house?’

  ‘Ah yes. He is a very big man in business.’

  ‘What sort of a house?’

  But he would not be put off. He dug his ferret teeth into her neck and redoubled his efforts.

  Perhaps Freda was right. She was a victim, asking to be destroyed. With any luck Rossi would manoeuvre her to such an extent that she would topple from the wall and be dashed to pieces. If ever I get out of this, she vowed, I will never be friendly again, not to anyone. Please God, send someone.

  At that moment she heard a voice torn by the wind and saw Aldo Gamberini propelled along the terrace like a black angel, his arms flapping like wings, the cloth of his trousers whipped into folds about his prancing legs.

  Rossi spoke to him heatedly. He clenched his fists and berated the cellar worker. Aldo Gamberini hung his head and seemed near to tears.

  ‘Stop it,’ said Brenda. ‘The poor man.’ And Rossi stalked away as if not trusting himself to say more, and returned abruptly, face sullen and voice harsh.

  Severely reprimanded, Aldo followed them through an archway on to the parade ground and slunk down the cobbled hill. At the bottom he made to enter the red mini but Rossi would not allow it. Overcome with emotion, Aldo sank into the back seat of the Cortina and unwound the muffler from his head. His hat, limp over his collar, drooped like the ears of a whipped dog.

  There was no contact between the two cars; no horn blowing or festive cries. Salvatore hesitated to remonstrate with Rossi – he looked so thunderous and out of sorts.

  At last, through the gate at the top of the hill, came first Freda and then Vittorio. They walked separately, shrouded in emotion, until Freda stopped and asked Vittorio for something. He felt in his pocket and counted coins into her hand. He climbed into the car and it was agony for Brenda, faithful to her vow of half an hour earlier, to keep silent. She watched Freda enter the tobacco shop and reappear snapping the clasp of her handbag shut.

  6

  Freda laid her embroidered tablecloth on the ground, and it flapped upwards immediately and threatened to fly into the branches of an oak tree. She knelt on her elbows, bottom raised in the air, and told Brenda to help her. Between them they anchored the cloth at its four corners with the basket, the cocked chickens, the bag of apples and a convenient stone. The men were shy of placing their provisions on the cloth. They held tight to their briefcases and carrier bags and sat self-conciously on the grass. Stealthily – for hours of stalking each other about the castle had given them an appetite – they tore pieces of bread and chewed salami.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ entreated Freda, ‘put your food all together.’

  She was like a matron, starched and encapsulated in her stiff sheepskin coat, ordering them to take their medicine. They did as they were told, heaping the loaves of bread and the fat lengths of sausage in front of her, and munched in silence.

  Some children ran through the grass and stood at a distance looking at the barrels of wine perched on the slaughtered oak.

  Freda served Vittorio first. ‘Have the best part of the chicken,’ she urged. ‘Go on, have the breast.’

  Brenda looked at the ground. Freda handed her a shrivelled portion of wing and a piece of skin. I want chips, thought Brenda, in this weather.

  ‘Come, come,’ called Rossi, smiling at the children and gesturing towards the food.

  Freda scowled, and the children scattered and ran to the parked cars.

  The morsel of chicken stuck in Brenda’s throat. She longed for a mug of hot tea. ‘It’s nice here,’ she said, and scoffed a hunk of bread and looked up at the road for signs of Patrick. Freda had said he had gone home. It didn’t seem possible – he hadn’t said goodbye.

  Freda recollected that there was a safari
park nearby. She said it would be nice to go there later in the after-noon. ‘You know,’ she said impatiently, ‘it’s a park full of wild animals.’

  ‘Wild animals,’ repeated Rossi. ‘You are thinking of the little deer?’

  ‘No I’m not. I’m thinking of the little lions and the little tigers – wandering around free, not in cages.’

  The workers watched first Rossi then Freda, eyes flickering hopefully back and forth in an effort to understand.

  ‘But it is dangerous,’ said Rossi. ‘We will all be running.’

  ‘In the car, you fool. We go in the car and they’re outside wandering about.’

  Rossi liked the idea, once he felt it would be safe. He translated rapidly to the men, who murmured and looked at each other in wonder. They eyed the stretch of grass and the parked mini as if measuring the distance they might have to run.

  Gino, whose son had gone to America, refused to eat communally. He had deposited his carrier bag in a pew in the chapel and forgotten to reclaim it.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ bullied Freda. ‘Feed, you fool.’ And she thrust into his hand a yellow scrap of meat.

  He shook his head politely in denial and turned his face to the wind, the unwanted food lying on his palm.

  Vittorio ate heartily. He enjoyed Freda’s salad and the dressing in the bottle. He put his bread on a paper plate and saturated it with oil. She watched the juice run down his chin and his fingers slippery with grease. She was repelled by his unabashed vulgarity, the common way he wiped his hands on the grass.

  The wind slowly abated, the sky cleared and the sun shone. A dozen cars slowed to a halt and lined up on the grass verge. The men were warmed and revived. They filled their celluloid cups with wine and stretched out on the ground. Too polite to speak in their native language in front of the English girls, they remained monosyllabic.