Bitter Remedy: An Alec Blume Case

by Conor Fitzgerald

  ‘Near it,’ admitted Blume, smiling at the young woman. ‘Anyhow, a gardener, a small brown man in dirty clothes, showed me the way, and here I am.’

  ‘My father, you mean,’ she said.

  ‘Oh. I didn’t mean to . . .’ But he never got to finish his apology, because now the young man with the satchel had had enough.

  He made a fist of his right hand and attacked the palm of his left with it. ‘This is total bullshit. We came all the way out here to the arse-side of nowhere . . .’ He glanced over at his tanned girlfriend who giggled again at his wit.

  ‘I thought I had cancelled all the bookings. Do you have more than one email?’

  ‘Silvana, that’s your name isn’t it? Well, listen to me, Silvana,’ said the young man, ‘are you trying to tell us,’ he swept his arm to include his sniggering girlfriend, the middle-aged woman, and Blume, ‘that we are at fault for daring to have more than one email?’

  To avoid watching the flush of embarrassment that was spreading upwards from the soft spot in the centre of Silvana’s throat, Blume plucked a leaf and rubbed it between his fingers.

  ‘It’s just I probably sent the cancellation notice to the address you signed up from . . . I’m sorry. The Polizia Provinciale came the other day. I have a problem with ASL health and safety permits. I sent out an email immediately cancelling, just after they left.’

  ‘Only in Italy,’ said the young man, who indeed looked as if he had travelled to many places in the world, picking up a bead or a talisman to decorate his body in each one.

  At last the older woman spoke up. ‘I expect you shall be refunding our travelling expenses.’

  ‘And maybe something for the sheer waste of fucking time. And false advertising,’ said the young man. ‘Isn’t that illegal? Maybe we should report you to the police.’

  Blume, now intent on smelling his fingers, glanced up at the word ‘police’. I have thyme on my hands, he thought in English, then surprised himself by laughing out loud at his own private joke. ‘I would be surprised if they gave much thought to your complaint,’ he said, earning a grateful glance from Silvana.

  ‘Oh, we have an expert,’ said the young man with a shake of his curls.

  Blume extracted a nasal spray, shot a jet up his nose, and snorted rudely with the back of his nose and throat.

  ‘Ma vaffanculo,’ said the young man. He turned to his girlfriend. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘I don’t think I would have enjoyed spending three days with that couple anyhow,’ said the middle-aged woman, once the young couple was out of hearing range. ‘So, Silvana, about the refund for fuel? I came down from Milan for this.’

  ‘Milan? That’s very far,’ said Silvana.

  ‘You say that like you doubt my word,’ said the woman. She repeated the concept to Blume. ‘She says that like she doubts my word.’

  ‘I am inclined to believe you are Milanese,’ he told her.

  She peered at him suspiciously, seeking irony. Then, as the sound of the young man angrily revving his engine in the car park reached them, she said, ‘Three hundred and thirty euros. Toll charges and fuel, down here and now the trip all the way back.’

  Silvana blinked. ‘I’ll need to ask my father for that. Do you mind waiting?’

  The woman sighed. ‘We’ve waited this long, what’s another few minutes?’

  This last was addressed to Blume, who, however, had turned his back on her and was wandering aimlessly back into the garden. He did not need a refund, and he certainly did not need company.

  Silvana found him a quarter of an hour later outside the crumbling villa at a point where the wooden stays keeping the wall up were overgrown with sprays of white and pink flowers. He had his hands pressed on the small of his back and was staring upwards to the boarded windows on the third floor, as if looking for something. He did not seem to notice her come up behind him, and she was afraid she might startle him, but when he turned round, he seemed completely unsurprised to see her there.

  She held out a wad of banknotes. ‘Your refund.’

  ‘I don’t need a refund.’

  ‘I did send emails, you know.’

  ‘I’m sure you did,’ he said.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want the money?’

  ‘Quite sure.’ He waved his hand at the crumbling mansion. ‘So this is the villa we were supposed to be staying in?’ When she nodded, he continued, ‘I’m no expert, but it seems to me you’d need to spend a few hundred thousand to fix it up, and thousands per year in maintenance. How were you expecting a weekend course on Bach Flower Remedies to pay for that?’

  ‘I am not trying to fix up the whole house, just a section of it.’

  ‘It looks like a dangerous place. I can see why they did not give you permission to hold classes in it.’

  ‘The classes would have been back at the lodge. The sleeping quarters were supposed to be in the villa.’

  ‘Then I definitely see why you got no permissions. Hardly any of the windows even have glass in them. Creepy place to sleep, if you don’t mind my saying.’

  ‘It was not here. At the back of the villa, where it is structurally solid, we did a conversion. You’re not supposed to be here.’

  He looked at her, seeking clarification.

  ‘You ignored the striped tape cordoning the area off. This side of the house is unsafe. Did you not see the sign saying this is off-limits?’

  ‘Actually . . .’ He seemed on the point of explaining himself, and then simply shrugged. ‘Sorry. I’ll go back now.’

  He had authority and was wearing it lightly. She had naturally used the formal ‘Lei’ with him, but was surprised, and a little put out, when he used it back at her.

  ‘Come round the other side, and I’ll show you. But use “tu” with me, please.’

  ‘With pleasure. As long as you do the same with me.’

  ‘Of course, Mr . . . ? I have your name on my computer, but I am afraid I can’t remember it.’

  ‘Alec. Alec Blume.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘You seem surprised?’

  ‘No. I remembered the unusual name. I thought you would be more foreign.’ She led him round to the front. ‘The main door is still boarded up.’

  ‘Where is the part where the course participants were supposed to be staying?’

  ‘I told you, at the rear. Basically opposite where we are now.’

  ‘Shall we go round and see?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘No reason,’ said Blume. ‘I just want to see what I am missing.’

  ‘I don’t really feel like gazing upon my failure,’ said Silvana.

  ‘I could go round myself, I suppose.’

  ‘No. I’ll come with you. Just stay outside the plastic tape, or what’s left of it. You don’t want a piece of masonry falling on you. We have to keep a wide berth, make a detour through the garden, and the path is not direct, as you’ll see. It’s sort of like having to creep up on the building from behind.’

  The villa walls were plastered with yellow warning signs. Pericolo Crollo. Vietato ingresso ai non addetti. Non Entrare. They walked off to the right, following a D-shaped path that led them into the garden away from, then back to the building. On their way, Blume stopped to drink from a fountain, once sculpted but now so weather-worn that the stone seemed to have melted.

  ‘Is the water all right here?’

  ‘Of course!’ said Silvana.

  ‘You can’t always be sure,’ said Blume. ‘I was visiting a tomb recently in Rome. The graveyard has hoses and fountains for the flowers, you know? And there was a man there drinking from it. I didn’t like the idea, drinking water that comes up from graves.’

  ‘This is a garden, not a graveyard.’

  ‘True. The land outside the gardens is marshy, I suppose I was worried about that.’

  ‘I have lived here all my life and drunk the same water,’ said Silvana. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with me.’

  As they reached the
back of the building, where, indeed, the walls were straighter, and no windows were missing, she said, ‘You can smell the damp here.’

  ‘Like mushrooms,’ he said. ‘I find it soothing.’

  ‘Unless it’s in a bedroom,’ said Silvana. ‘OK, so here you have a walled garden coming out from the back of the villa, a perfect square. In fact, the area is precisely the same as the villa itself. In 1870, they added sheds, stables, and storerooms on this side, and, well, you’ll see in a minute, this is where we did the conversions. So strictly speaking, the intended living quarters were not in the villa. Through this gate here . . .’

  They came into an enclosed courtyard. The central area was filled with prolific weeds, most taller than humans.

  ‘The former owners . . .’

  ‘The Romanelli family,’ said Blume.

  ‘You did your homework,’ she said. ‘The Romanellis, maybe because they did not have that many guests, converted the stables into storerooms and this courtyard into a vegetable garden.’

  ‘As if they didn’t have enough garden already,’ said Blume. He pointed to the far side, ‘Are those steps leading down to a basement?’

  ‘Presumably.’

  ‘So three floors, plus an entire basement. They built big in those days,’ he said.

  She fished a key out of her jeans, unlocked a door next to them. ‘This is one of the converted stables.’ She switched on a halogen light. The fresh plaster was peeling and blackening already. Corrugated tubes were sticking out of the walls.

  ‘The wiring is not finished either,’ she said sadly. ‘We did up ten rooms like this. We had a geometra check for structural integrity, we got all the necessary permits, or almost all of them, the Region even made us sign a rider to our lease specifying that these improvement works would revert to public ownership in the event of a sale, even though that’s already part of the agreement.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘My father and I. We have a concession for the villa and the gardens, but it is owned by the Regional government. In the old days, you would get the concession practically in perpetuity and hand it down generation to generation, but these are tough economic times. The Region could even decide to repossess and sell the place. We get right of first refusal, and we would get a decent discount, but we’re still talking in terms of millions for the house and gardens.’ She pointed to the empty room. ‘Do you like those hexagonal tiles?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘You would not believe how much it cost to restore them. More than all the plastering and new wiring put together. They refused me the licence at the last moment. An inspector said it was not fit for temporary habitation, which of course it wasn’t because we did not want to invest any more until we were sure we could get the licence. We tried to explain it to him, but he would not listen. Anyhow, if you don’t mind . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can we leave now? It’s all a bit depressing for me.’

  ‘Oh, of course. I am sorry,’ said Blume. ‘You were doing a great job with those rooms. Funny isn’t it, the way the former stables and your gate lodge turn out to be far more habitable than the building to which they were meant as accessories.’

  They returned to the courtyard.

  ‘Well, I suppose I’d better be getting back to Rome,’ he said.

  ‘That’s where you’re from?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a pity this didn’t work out for you. Maybe next time, you’ll have more luck. I hope they give you a licence, and you get this place done up.’

  Together they contemplated the crumbling masonry, the rotten shutters.

  ‘Come on,’ said Silvana, ‘I’ll show you the way back. It’s harder than it looks to find your way. You tend to use the house as a landmark, but the paths follow a different logic. By the way, this section of the garden closest to the villa is the least looked after, because, well, my father says he’d need another three people to keep the whole place in order.’

  ‘I’m sorry for my description of him. I meant no offence.’

  ‘That’s all right. You were not to know.’

  ‘He does a fine job,’ said Blume, pausing to admire a tangle of high-growth weeds.

  ‘Only by avoiding this area. The seeds from those plants get everywhere.’

  Blume turned his admiration of the white-topped plants into a critical frown. ‘Must be a nuisance,’ he said. ‘How about fire, to control them?’

  ‘Some weeds love fire. They thrive on it. The seeds need heat to pop open. And it’s illegal and dangerous, too, especially near the villa.’

  They walked on in a comfortable silence. She pointed to an unkempt patch of weeds, one of the last before her father’s landscaping efforts reasserted themselves. ‘You see those really tall plants?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Most of them belong to the carrot family.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really,’ she said. ‘They thrive on damp soil. There is a river running below this villa. That’s probably why the Romanellis were always sick and left here. Damp. Mould, mildew. The walls in the villa are sponges.

  ‘Big carrots.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If those are carrots, they must be giant carrots.’

  For the first time that day, Silvana felt she could laugh. ‘The carrot family, also called the apiaceae, includes all sorts of other things: parsnips, fennel, hedge parsley, celery. If you smell or taste them, you’ll see what I mean.’

  Blume pulled off a handful of curved seeds and smelled them. ‘You’re right. Parsley, or . . .’

  ‘Angelica. That’s called garden angelica – I think. The seeds are used as flavouring in candies and cakes . . .’

  Blume popped a handful into his mouth, and chewed for a bit. ‘Can’t say I’d want that in a cake. Too much like . . . parsnip or horseradish. That’s it. Horseradish. Excuse me . . .’ He spat out a few remaining seeds and fingered his teeth. ‘Bitter! Well, I suppose I should be going.’

  ‘I’ll accompany you.’

  They walked back towards the gate lodge, and she explained the layout and how he had turned straight into the main gate ignoring the sign for parking ahead. ‘Not that it matters, of course. The car park behind the spice garden, well, it’s larger but its main advantage, I suppose, is we don’t get people parking outside our house.’

  ‘Spice garden? That sounds interesting.’

  ‘We were standing on the edge of it just now with the other guests. If you had used the right entrance, you’d have walked through it.’

  ‘I can’t get anything right.’ He pulled out his car key and bleeped open the door. ‘You know, I wouldn’t have been a good customer anyway. I don’t really believe in Bach Flowers, herbs, and all that sort of stuff.’

  ‘But you were open enough to give it a chance.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Blume, rubbing his upper arm, then scratching his chest.

  ‘You seem anxious. Valerian is very good for that. I have some in the lodge. We live upstairs. Downstairs is my herb centre. Come on, I’ll give you a free sample. Are you itching, too?’

  ‘Bit of an itch. I have pills though.’

  ‘I have a balm that works miracles! You never asked me for any refund. It’s the least I can do.’

  She entered the gate lodge. It was a long building, with two floors, but so low that a tall man could probably jump and grab the windowsill of the upper floor, which he noticed was accessible from an external staircase. Inside, in a far more successful version of the efforts in the stables behind the villa, they had cleared out the old agricultural equipment and whitewashed the lower part, which was divided into three rooms. The central section was a herbal store and laboratory, and he was quite impressed by the sanded floors, baskets, flowers, spot lighting, tasteful books, and the scent of dried and fresh herbs. One of the smaller spaces contained a large oak table. Beside it was a disused potter’s wheel and an old Singer sewing machine. Keys, rusty and unused, hung on the wall.

/>   It should have felt pleasant and cool, but he felt suddenly constricted, and found himself hurrying outside again in search of more air. He drew a breath, which stopped halfway before he was finished. He drew another, which stopped a quarter of the way, and the one after that was even shorter. He coughed, then winced, then coughed some more, and, as he reached the outdoors, called back to Silvana, still searching for the balm, ‘I don’t suppose I could trouble you for a bit of water? Those seeds seem to be burning my mouth.’

  She appeared on the doorstep, holding a jar of ointment. ‘Burning? They shouldn’t burn.’

  ‘Something is definitely burning my mouth and throat – and chest. It’s sort of a soapy taste.’

  She looked at the pointless ointment in her hand, then at him.

  ‘What sort of weird cakes . . .’

  ‘Cakes?’

  ‘You said the seeds were used to flavour cakes.’ He stopped talking. His tongue felt too big for his mouth. He started fumbling at his shirt, which was soaked in sweat. On the third button, his finger slipped and he ripped it open. ‘Water.’ It was a command, not a request.

  Silvana went running back inside, calling for her father. She filled a pitcher of water and brought it out to Blume, who was sitting slumped against his car now, breathing heavily. In the minutes since she had left him, he had turned deathly white.

  ‘Papà!’ she screamed. Blume grabbed the pitcher and poured the water into his mouth and over his face, then groaned and stretched out on his side.

  ‘Papà!’ Then she remembered her phone. She had left it in the store. She ran in, found it, fumbled with the keypad, and finally managed to call him. He answered almost immediately. ‘Papà, there’s a man here . . . no, listen, this is serious. He’s eaten something poisonous. I don’t know. It was . . . he just took a handful.’

  ‘Some sort of carrot,’ said Blume. ‘Call an ambulance, please.’

  Silvana collected herself. ‘I am sorry . . . My father’s calling an ambulance. Look, there he is now!’

  ‘The ambulance?’

  ‘No, my father.’ She seemed to turn away from him as she said this, and then suddenly her face was right up in front of him, and her voice was bellowing and loud. Everything felt chubby, like in a Botero painting, and his stomach heaved. A sensation of enormous pressure filled his chest, as if there were a vastness of air in it and the only escape was through a thin tube that could block or burst at any moment. And there was a lot of pain. The air in his chest seemed to be expanding, forming an echo chamber in which he could feel his heart, thumping out of rhythm with his breathing, which, he realized, was coming in short rasps. Not red jumping pain like when a dentists drills into a nerve, but grey and spreading. He no longer felt his legs, but a new type of ache had spread to his arms. Usually an ache was a deep but dull sensation, a promise of pain to come, but this one had all the panicky urgency of a cramp. And now his bowels, too . . . A bony man, dark brown, soil embedded in the wrinkles of his wide forehead, a smell of earth from his clothes, was shouting something – then whispering, it seemed. Blume retched. The burning was intolerable, but he was afraid to scream in case his throat ripped itself open.