2006 - Wildcat Moon

by Babs Horton

  She leant out of the window. “There is someone staying at Lena and Alfredo’s. Be a good man and find out who it is.”

  “Of course! I call in on my way back. Be sure to have breakfast for me. The food in the monastery is vile.”

  Down in the convent the first bells began to ring and Sister Isabella knelt down in front of the stark crucifix on the bare white wall of her cell, clasped her hands together and prayed. Then she rose and made her way through the winding corridors and down the stairs to the ancient church.

  Miss Noni Arbuthnot was polishing the tables in the parlour of Periwinkle House. She loved the smell of beeswax and when she’d finished polishing she looked down at her reflection in the burnished wood; a small, prim face looked back at her with a smile.

  Across the hallway in the dining room her sister Agnes was playing the piano. Noni put down her duster and moved over to the doorway, careful not to make a noise and distract her sister while she played. She watched as Agnes, head bowed, stroked the keys with her long slender fingers; oblivious to everything except her music. The black and white of the piano keys reminded Noni of the way Agnes was. Black and white. That was the way Agnes saw the world, there were no shades of grey. Good and evil. Right and wrong. She’d always seen things that way ever since she’d been a small child. She’d been different to other children, lonely and withdrawn, unable to join in their games of make believe. Unable to tell a lie, and that had almost been her undoing in the end. Yet when she’d found music she had blossomed. Black notes on a white page. Black and white piano keys. The rules of music were easy for her to follow: play the right notes and you made a wonderful sound. And with her piano playing she had been able to lose herself and subsequently find herself in a world that responded to her touch.

  It was so good to hear her play again and despite all the years in the Skallies when she had refused to open the lid of the piano, she had not lost any of her formidable talent.

  It had happened the night it had started to snow; she had wandered over to the piano and lifted the lid.

  Noni had waited with bated breath and then suddenly Agnes had put her fingers to the keys.

  It was a miracle.

  Noni looked up and saw Nan Abelson passing the window. Nan looked so much better these days and she’d wager it had something to do with that Fleep fellow from the Grockles. Good for her! She could do with a little romance in her life, put some colour in her cheeks.

  The Skallies folk called the fellow Fleep but his real name was supposed to be Philippe Martin. Well, it wasn’t the name he was given at birth! He wouldn’t know who she and Agnes were, of that she was sure, but she remembered him well enough. She’d attended his christening at St Mark’s Church in Chelsea. The last time she’d seen him he’d been about twelve years of age, a bored boy yawning his way through the recitals in the drawing room at the Sefton Brynes’ house in Bloomsbury. She’d remembered thinking at the time how very like his father he was to look at.

  Years later she’d seen the engagement notice in The Times. “Mr and Mrs So and So announce the engagement of their daughter…to James Peter Etherington, only son etc.”

  And later, there’d been some kind of scandal only she couldn’t remember what it was all about, it was at the same time as Agnes’s trial, those dark dismal days she’d rather forget.

  Archie awoke with a start at the sound of loud talking and laughter beneath his bedroom window.

  He sat for some time in the half dark of the strange bedroom. He remembered arriving in the boat last night and Lena almost smothering him with her hugs and kisses. Then he had eaten an enormous supper and Lena had shown him up to this room and he had fallen asleep before she’d finished tucking him in.

  He clambered out of bed and crossed to the window. He fumbled with the catches on the shutters and opened them wide.

  Sunlight caught him like a backhanded slap in the face and he stepped away from its fierce glare.

  It took him several minutes to get his eyes accustomed to the brightness of the light and then he stepped towards the window again and looked out.

  High up, he looked down on a group of old men talking and laughing as they sat on the harbour wall below. How lovely it was here in Santa Caterina! He could understand why Lena and Alfredo had wanted to live here. And no wonder Thomas Greswode had wanted to escape back here from the gloom of Killivray House.

  It was just as Thomas had described it in his diary! The sun was hot and on the balconies washing of every colour was flapping in the sea breeze. Archie sniffed up the morning smells; just like Thomas, he too could smell baking bread and hot coffee on the go. And down below his window the loud, happy chatter of the people.

  He dressed quickly, pulled on the calliper and made his way carefully down the steep stairs that led into the kitchen.

  There was no one around but through a curtained archway that led off the kitchen he could hear the sound of someone singing joyfully.

  He pulled back the curtain and looked into a large bare room where Alfredo was perched precariously on a dilapidated cart painting the walls bright yellow with an enormous paint brush.

  “Archie! You sleep your head off! You feel good?”

  Archie nodded.

  “See here I am making this room ready for when we open our ristorante.”

  Archie smiled, “It’ll be grand, Alfredo.”

  “Ah, now I have little rest from painting, give you some food.”

  “Where’s Lena?”

  “She gone to market and she be there chattering for many hours. She got a bell on every tooth, that wife of mine! You and I eat and then I going to teach you to swim before it gets too hot.”

  “Alfredo, I can’t swim.”

  “Everyone can learn to swim!”

  “But I have this thing on my leg!”

  “Ah, so we take it off when you in water. You swim a little and then after you puts it back on.”

  Archie shook his head and bit his trembling lip.

  He was far too embarrassed to take off the calliper and let everyone see his withered leg.

  “I know what you thinking. You no want anyone to see you leg. I understand this so we go to little place where there is no one to see. Just me and you in my little boat.”

  Archie nodded nervously and without enthusiasm.

  In the kitchen Alfredo made him coffee and gave him some peculiar bread that was rubbed with tomato and something strong that made his eyes water. It tasted good, though, and he hadn’t realized how hungry he was even though Lena had served him up a feast last night.

  Later, with Alfredo holding his hand they stepped out of the house on to the cobbled path. Archie looked around him in awe, eager to feast his eyes on his new surroundings in the daylight.

  The houses strung out along the small harbour were tall and narrow and gracefully shabby. They were painted in pastel colours, pinks and lemons and palest turquoise, colours bleached by the hot sun, the paint bubbling and peeling in parts. The balconies groaned under the weight of earthenware plant pots that were filled with bright flowers.

  Outside most of the houses were small, glass-fronted shrines built into the walls, and behind the glass stood the statues of small, faded saints, with the stubs of burned-out candles at their feet.

  Alfredo seeing his interest in the shrines explained, “Many years ago in Naples, there only a few shrines. But there were many robbers there who waits till the dark and then jumps on you and takes all you money. So people have idea to make many shrines with candles, make the night lighter, chase the dark away and stop them robbers.”

  “Are there many robbers in Santa Caterina?” Archie asked looking up at Alfredo anxiously.

  “No! Santa Caterina very peaceful place. See, most of the saints here in the shrines here is Santa Caterina. She our saint and people here loves her and think she holy.”

  “Who was she?”

  “Long time ago she nun up at the convent and she help many children who don’t have no parents
. She can do miracles.”

  “What kind of miracles?” Archie asked eagerly.

  “She make sad people happy, weak people strong and scared people brave!”

  “Oh.”

  “You see, Archie, this only little place but makes many people with great courage. Santa Caterina, and the man they called Il Camaleonte!”

  “Who’s he?”

  “You never hear of him! II Camaleonte is very famous in Italia. He very brave man and in the war he help many children escape from Germans. He work with peoples here in Italy and France to save the children. He very good man but have many enemies.”

  “Why?”

  “The Germans don’t like him but also the bad men in Naples don’t like him and want to kill him if they finds him.”

  “Is he here now?”

  “No, no one ever see him. He old now. Maybe even dead.”

  “What’s his real name?”

  “He don’t have real name, he have many names, many disguises.”

  “And Santa Caterina, is she dead too?”

  Alfredo laughed and patted Archie on the back.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Oh, she dead for many hundreds of years.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Ah, there big mystery about Santa Caterina. She go out fishing one day and she don’t come back. Some peoples say she drown and others say the pirates takes her.”

  “Blimey,” said Archie, “but no one really knows the truth?”

  “No, no one ever know now, there all kind of stories. Sometimes they digs up old houses and finds skeleton and say, Ah! We have found bones of Santa Caterina, but it never true.”

  “Why would anyone want to find her bones?”

  “Because she holy. People of Santa Caterina like to have her bones buried here.”

  “Oh,” Archie said. “How would they know if it was her bones? I mean, I expect that all skeletons look the same.”

  “Ah, but she different! She have six fingers on one hand and only one leg.”

  “Crikey!” Archie said. “She’d be easy to recognize then, as a skeleton. Why did she only have one leg?”

  “She sick when she little girl and they have to take off her leg with saw and they say she never even cry out, she have much courage.”

  “Don’t tell me any more, Alfredo, I feel sick.”

  Alfredo looked down at him. The boy was as pale as moz-zarella cheese and sweat was pricking his forehead.

  They walked together hand in hand and Alfredo called out a greeting to a couple of bent-backed old men who were mending nets on the quayside.

  The old men looked up with interest, waved and called out to them.

  “I don’t speak any Italian, Alfredo, what will I say to people if they talk to me?” said Archie in a panic.

  “You just smiles you lovely smile and say buon giorno! Is good morning. Very soon you will learn many words. By end of summer you speak like an Italian.”

  They walked together through the narrow streets of Santa Caterina, past opened doors that led into dim and intriguing interiors. Archie sniffed up the multitude of smells eagerly: oil and tomatoes; freshly baked bread and marzipan; apples and lemons; ham and herbs; coffee and soap suds; the heady scent of freshly watered flowers in terracotta pots.

  Alfredo and Archie crossed a tiny piazza where an ancient dog with a triangular scarf knotted around his neck chased the shadows of pigeons across the sun-baked ground A fountain in the centre of the piazza, bubbled and splashed and old women leant from precarious iron balconies and called out tp them as they passed. Children ran out of some of the houses and the metal curtains tinkled tunes at their passing.

  They stared at Archie with wide brown eyes then ran back inside calling out excitedly.

  “They happy, they have new Mend to play with in Santa Caterina.”

  Archie sighed. He didn’t make friends easily and he didn’t want to come up against the Italian version of the Kelly brothers.

  Alfredo noted his troubled expression and said, “Don’t be afraid, Archie. While you here I look after you. If you find friend you like then you go play. If you don’t want play I no make you, eh? Then next year when you come again maybe you ready to make friends!”

  Archie brightened up.

  A small dog ran out of a house and sniffed Archie’s legs and then ran off piddling as it went.

  Alfredo pulled a hat from his pocket, gave it to Archie and helped him into the little boat. He put in a bulging knapsack and soon the boat was nosing through the clear waters. They made their way out to sea, followed the curve of the coast and after some time they headed in towards a small deserted beach.

  “Today is market day so people is busy. You can only get to this place by the sea so nobody be here today.”

  Archie undressed and took off his calliper. He looked across at Alfredo shyly. Alfredo smiled; he was such a frail little boy, like a skinned rabbit with his pale flesh and skinny legs. A few weeks here in Santa Caterina would soon put a bit of meat on his bones, some colour in his face.

  When Alfredo coaxed a terrified Archie into the water, he was surprised to find it warm and not like it was in the Skallies.

  Tiny silver fish darted beneath the surface and tickled his legs. Alfredo splashed him and he splashed back timidly, turning his head away so as not to get his face wet.

  After they had played for a while, Alfredo carried him in a little deeper.

  Archie dung to him, trying to climb higher up Alfredo’s body.

  He put him firmly down and Archie stood, petrified, up to his neck in warm water. He shivered with fright as he watched Alfredo untie a strip of doth from around his wrist and told Archie to slip it between his teeth.

  “See that way you can’t shout! I pulls you along and you make swimming actions like this.”

  Archie bit his lip and held back his tears.

  “Come, it’s fun and I no let you drown. This way is how my papa teach me and his papa before him.”

  “But I don’t want to be able to swim, Alfredo.”

  “Here in Santa Caterina you have to be able to swim. We go in boat and if we tips up and in you go, you needs to swim!”

  Archie swallowed hard and took the cloth between his teeth. He flailed around with his arms and Alfredo walked away keeping the doth taut and the terrified boy afloat as he thrashed his limbs like a landed octopus.

  Archie wanted to scream and make Alfredo stop, to get his feet safely back on the ground but if he opened his mouth to shout he knew he would sink.

  They carried on for a long time and slowly Archie relaxed and moved his arms and legs the way Alfredo had shown him. He felt the water buoying him up, the sun making the waves sparkle around his face. It wasn’t as bad as he had imagined, but he held on to the cloth for grim life, half afraid that his teeth would come out.

  Finally, Alfredo gathered an exhausted Archie up in his strong arms.

  “Okay, you done well, you must rest now.”

  “I think I could do a little more, you know!”

  “One more go, eh, and then we rest? We do a little every day. We build up them muscles in you bad leg. Soon you swims like a silver fish!”

  They stayed in the water a while longer as the sun rose higher into the sky.

  “We stop now, else you skin burn and shrivel. Sun gets too hot. Come, we have a little lunch.”

  Alfredo laid out towels on the sand, fetched an enormous umbrella from the boat and started to put it up.

  “Do you think it’s going to rain, Alfredo?”

  Alfredo threw back his head and laughed. “Maybe but not until September! This for keeping the sun off us while we eat.”

  They sat beneath the shade of the giant umbrella eating slices of spicy sausage and chewy bread washed down with a lemon drink that was so sharp it made Archie screw up his face and smack his lips together.

  Alfredo yawned and said, “Now is time for siesta.”

  “What’s a siesta?” Archie aske
d.

  “A time to sleep and dream while the sun is too hot. Here in Santa Caterina we have two days instead of one.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We gets up early while it still cool. We work and play and then we eats and then we sleeps. Then we gets up again and does some more work and play and eats again, then we stay up very late and talks while ifs cooler.”

  “That sounds good,” Archie said with a yawn.

  “Take you a little time to get used to the heat. You feel tired at first.”

  “Oh, no, I’m fine. I’m not tired at all,” he said with another wide yawn and moments later he was fast asleep.

  Alfredo covered him with towels and sat for a long time looking down at the peaceful, sun-pinked face of Archie Grimble.

  It was a warm, dear evening when Eloise Fanthorpe and William Dally set out in the car and drove through the winding lanes towards the Skallies. They kept the car windows down and the soft air was filled with the smell of wild thyme, lavender and honeysuckle and the drone of weary bees.

  It was quiet when they stepped inside the Pilchard Inn. Eloise sat down at a table near the porthole window, while William went up to the bar.

  Eloise looked around her with interest It was an ancient place with low-beamed ceilings and walls ingrained with years of tobacco smoke and decorated with washed-out pictures of long dead Skallies folk holding up giant fish and fat-faced babies.

  A young woman appeared suddenly from behind a curtain that separated the bar from a back room and Eloise was reminded of an actress making an entrance. She was a good-looking woman, with an intelligent, strong-boned face, olive skin and thick dark hair tied in a plait. She looked like a no-nonsense sort of woman and yet there was a vulnerability about her too, a well-disguised nervousness.

  “How can I help?” she said to William Dally.

  “We come over from Nanskelly to try out your grub that everyone’s harping on about.”

  “I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Our Keep’s a damned good cook. What did you fancy?”

  “What you got?”

  Nan handed him two menus and he made his way across the bar to Eloise.

  “There you go, Miss Fanthorpe. Don’t know about you but I could eat a scabby donkey.”