Last Train from Liguria (2010)

by Christine Dwyer Hickey

  ‘Look,’ I begin, ‘I just need you to leave because I’m expecting guests and would appreciate—’

  His hand lifts to stop me. ‘Don’t talk to me as if I’m some fuckin’ kid in your class.’

  ‘I didn’t say you were.’

  ‘You’re forgettin’ somethin’, love - you asked me back here. Not the other way around. And I’m goin’, now, soon as I’m ready. So just spare me the friends over for lunch on a wet Monday morning bolloxology.’

  He begins working the bootlace through the eyelets of the boot, his movements sharp and impatient. He lifts his head at intervals to survey the room and I can see his cold eye taking everything in. The dirty dishes piled in the sink, the towels on the floor, the dust, the grease, the plastic bags filled with rubbish that goes back a lot further than last night. And the multitude of empty Rescue Remedy bottles, little dark bodies and yellow labels, like big dead wasps all over the flat.

  ‘So tell us - these mates of yours - are they pigs? Or maybe rats? Because to tell you the truth I can’t see anyone human eatin’ in here. Like what a kip. Jaysus! No wonder your man fucked off back to his wife.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ I say. ‘You little gurrier, get out. Go on. Get.’

  He stands up presenting his bald chest to me.

  ‘Ah now, that’s not what you said last night.’ He puts on his shirt, flexing and jutting his neck and shoulders as he does. ‘And don’t fuckin’ call me a gurrier. Who the fuck do you think you are anyway? Bleedin’ slapper.’

  He’s raging now, and in a way I don’t blame him. Last night we were equals, there had been talk about art and books. He had said it was nice to have someone to talk to about that sort of thing. Now here I am looking down my nose at him, and calling him names to put him back in his place.

  He picks up his pretend airman’s jacket off the chair and finally heads for the door. His face is red now, his jaw tight. But he keeps grinning at me like he couldn’t care less. ‘You weren’t a bad little ride, all the same,’ he says, ‘for an oulone like.’

  I open the door and stand behind it.

  ‘Ah, what’s wrong? I’m only tryin’ to give you a compliment. Though I suppose come to think of it, it’s not much of a one. Sure I’d ride anyone. Everyone knows that.’

  ‘Get out,’ I snarl.

  Suddenly he’s back in the room, lunging towards the window where he lifts the white shape I noticed earlier and I see now that it’s a page from my sketch pad. A drawing.

  ‘Souvenir.’ He grins and rushes through the front door again.

  ‘Give that back,’ I say.

  ‘No way I’m giving this back, love. This is worth a fortune to me.’

  ‘Give it back now. Or I’ll call the guards.’

  ‘Would you do that? Would you? Then I suppose, in that case, I’d have to give it back.’ He holds the drawing out to remind me.

  ‘Please, Shay, please give it back.’

  ‘Please,’ he whines at me. ‘Oh, she’s remembered her manners now, has she? Well, she can fuck right off on her high horse, because I’m keeping it.’

  He’s down the first few steps of the stairs. ‘Tell you what I will do for you. I’ll tell me mates where you live. And that you’re gagging for it. You know, they could drop round next time they’re stuck. The end of a night like when all the young ones are gone. Or here, me little brother and his crew. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? And I’m sure they’d be happy enough to oblige. You could draw them an’ all. They’d love that, they would.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’ I call down to him, rushing to lean over the banister. ‘You little bastard, are you threatening me?’ I’m screaming now, he’s shouting back. We’re calling each other other names. The word ‘slapper’ looms larger than most. He’s laughing and I could fucking kill him, I could fly down those stairs after him and punch him right in the face.

  Before he turns out of sight he gives me the finger. Then winks. ‘Thanks for the ride, love. It was great.’

  I see my neighbour Tony then, on the way up the stairs. Tony hesitates and appears to be deciding if he should go back downstairs or continue on up to his flat. Shay sees him and stops. ‘Ah, sorry about that, bud, sorry about all the noise. But to be honest, I’m a bit hurt like, you know. She takes me home, fucks me brains out and now she’s throwing me out in the pissin’s of rain. Terrible, isn’t it? And she draws this when I’m out of it. That’s me, there. A nude study. Signed and all it is. Like I feel abused nearly - know what I mean? Like taken advantage of. Violated, in fact. Violated, yeah, that’s the word I’m after.’

  Tony presses his back to the wall, and waits for Shay to pass him. I want to run back upstairs and lock myself into my flat but I can’t seem to move. There’s Tony on the flight below, carefully placing his dripping umbrella in the corner by his door. His morning Irish Times sticking out of his Centra bag, the white of his doctor’s coat showing under his rain-stained Burberry raincoat. He waits until he hears the front door of the house slam, then glances up at me. ‘I’ve been up all night,’ he says, ‘I really don’t need to come home to this.’

  Then he pushes his key into the lock and opens the door of his immaculate flat, where his immaculate boyfriend will be waiting in their chrome and marble kitchen with the coffee gurgling and everything so fucking perfect and clean. He looks up at me with a mixture of pity and disgust. ‘You know, Anna, you should really be more careful of whom you invite into your home.’

  I come back inside and my hands are shaking. I find my handbag, and in the side pocket a Rescue Remedy bottle with a few drops left, which I lower onto my flattened tongue like a sacrament. I notice my purse is looking thin, and when I give it a feel, almost empty. The same goes for the fridge. I open the door and the stark light shows me: one full lemon wearing a Juliet cap of white mould, a few out-of-date jars and bits of God knows what, wrapped in tin foil, so old it has begun to desiccate. By some miracle there’s a full bottle of soda water in the shelf on the door and slipping two paracetemol into my mouth, I go at it like someone who’s just crossed the dessert.

  I think of the drawing. Pissed, stoned, showing off, I had insisted on doing it last night. Him in the nude, his dick a lewd exaggeration. And signed of course, I had to have signed it. I begin sobbing with rage. I would willingly suffocate myself to stop that sobbing but no matter how hard I press my hands against my mouth I can’t keep it in. Finally I do stop. I have to calm down. There is something I need to find. I don’t want to name it yet, or think about it even, but I have to look for it and I have to find it.

  I ransack the flat, tear the bedclothes off the bed, pull the cushions off the sofa, search everywhere and anywhere we may have been. By now I’m way beyond crying and have resorted to a deranged chant of fucket oh fucket oh God please no fucket. I go back to the bedroom, look through every inch of it, under the mattress, under the bed. I shake out the sheets, reef the pillowcases off the pillows, peer into their every corner. But still there is nothing. I can’t find it. Maybe he’s flushed it down the toilet. I go in and look for a few moments down at the frothy lager of piss he’s left behind him. Or maybe it never existed.

  I know I had it off with him, and can remember every mortifying second of going through the false, fancified motions of drunken sex. But I can’t remember if he used a condom or not. I’m not on the pill. Hugh had a vasectomy years ago, so there’s never been a reason to.

  I give up eventually, sit on the floor, my back to the wall, the Golden Pages open on my lap, trying to get the alphabet to settle down in my head so I can find the name of a surgery. At least I can deal with the pregnancy worry with the morning-after pill. I will not even think about the HIV question, I will put that completely and utterly out of my head.

  Then my eye catches something. I crawl to the sofa and shove it aside. There. There it is. And so I sit back down on the floor of my filthy flat, with my splitting head and my near empty purse and the memory of the way that little prick has spoken to me, and
the face on Tony at the door of his flat, and the thought of the drawing being passed around with the rumour, through the school, the neighbourhood. And I thank God with all my heart for this pink sausage skin under the sofa. This sad little sack of obsolete snot.

  PART FIVE

  Bella

  BORDIGHERA, 1936

  May-October

  SHORTLY AFTER HIS FATHER’S death it had been decided that Bordighera should become Alec’s permanent home. ‘Less isolating,’ was how the Signora had put it. Three years on and as far as Bella can see, Alec remains as isolated as ever, rarely mixing with other children except during the high-summer season when the beaches and tennis club are full of visitors and there is often someone needed to make up a tournament or game. Otherwise he is usually alone, and as a result, Bella sometimes thinks, just a little odd. He never mentions his father, which she finds a little worrying. He still reads the letters they sent to each other through his nature books - at least Bella has often come across one or more of them under his bed. She also suspects that Alec may occasionally write to his dead father, but has never been able to bring herself to open a notebook to see this for herself.

  When Alec come across a possible friend he often frightens the child with his zeal, wanting to be with them every minute of the day, suffocating them with attention and gifts smuggled out of the house (she caught him one time, with a Swiss army knife belonging to Edward stuck up his jumper). His only real friends are Martha and Lina Almansi, two little black-haired girls from Turin who come to Bordighera on their annual holiday for three weeks every September. Inclined to the overstatement themselves, they take Alec’s neediness in their own sweet, dramatic stride. He lives for September, becoming almost sick with excitement as the date of their arrival nears, then growing quiet in himself for a week or so after they leave. In between there are letters; pages from him filled with funny drawings, which the sisters seem to love. And they write back. To Bella’s mind this means as much as all the hours of play. It keeps him in touch with the outside world. More importantly it makes him feel wanted.

  The difficulty is in filling his day. Weekdays have lessons of one sort or another, meals, a walk, a game of tennis, and bedtime eventually comes round. Weekends tend to drag. All the more since they’ve stopped going to the ‘Fascist Saturday’ parades.

  She used to love the parades; the truth is she often misses them. Their childlike exuberance, the way the whole point seemed to be the party afterwards. Boy scouts trying to keep their minds on the job, little girls sweet in white socks and capes. Old men showing off medals from battles they could barely recall. Officers and vanguard, Cavalieri, Alpini, all in their own way magnificently absurd. She used to stand on the sidelines with Alec, and wish in her heart he could be part of it. For a while she had hinted, then, as her position in the household had become more established, broached the subject with Signora Lami. Until Edward had advised her to drop it.

  ‘She will never allow him to be part of the Balilla,’ he had said.

  ‘But what harm can it do?’ Bella asked. ‘It’s only the boy scouts and if the child is lonely?’

  ‘She would prefer him to be lonely than Italian. Haven’t you noticed yet? She thinks being Italian is beneath him.’

  ‘I thought it was just the fascists she disapproved of?’

  ‘Fascists, Italians - it’s all the same now, I’m afraid.’

  In the end Bella had conceded. It would probably be best for Alec anyhow, she decided, to stay on the outside looking in. By then she was beginning to realize how he could be affected by strangers and crowds.

  And so under a sky bloated with flags and fascist insignia, Bella would choose the most suitable spot, moving onto the next corner or doorway, at the first sign of a crush. The streets and piazze of Bordighera chiming with footsteps, Alec waving his flag and screaming his lungs out as each section filed by. ‘Eia, eia. Alala! Alala! Evviva il Duce! Evivva il re! Evviva l’Italia! Duce! Duce! Duce!’

  The swagger of a dignitary here and there. A priest or two thrown in for good measure. Altar boys holding relics overhead: Santa Teresa, San Giuseppe, Madonna of the various locations. Mussolini, of course, just like any other saint, only better. And the band always that little bit ahead of itself, that little bit out of tune, while the air crackled with children’s voices singing ‘La Giovinezza‘, Alec joining in, word perfect. He had been as enthusiastic as the best little fascita in town, his hand darting in and out in a Roman salute. His mother would have had a fit - had she ever been there to witness it.

  Roll calls and speeches at either end, the whole town out to escort a single minor official to the train station or maybe to welcome a mob of poor children to Mussolini’s fresh air colony camp. Whatever the reason it always ended the same way. Food, wine, dancing and high humour. Never a dark hint or a cross word. Apart from a rare squabble usually caused by a greedy hand or a jealous heart. Just another Italian excuse to get dressed up and go out to a party. The Day of the Faithful put a stop to all that. Since that day last December she can no longer enjoy such occasions, nor does she find they make suitable entertainment for Alec, especially as an outsider looking in.

  Signora Lami, meanwhile, has continued to come and go; Germany, occasionally France or England. Whenever she visits Bordighera it always seems to be en route to, or from, one of these places. She comes for the whole month of December, stays for the fireworks on capodanno and goes off again on her travels come the second of January. She also spends the month of June in Bordighera. After that it depends on her somewhat mysterious schedule - which of course is never explained nor discussed. For almost three years, this has been the case.

  Then, one morning towards the end of May, a telephone call is put through from the Signora. It starts with the usual blast of domestic instructions, then the Signora reminds Bella that she will be arriving next month and would like everything to be organized, also that the best guest room be made ‘up to scratch’. She does not say in whose honour.

  ‘Can you please tell me, Miss Stuart, what are my son’s chances for promotion in next month’s exams?’ she goes on to ask then.

  ‘Not bad, he’s been working quite well lately. Algebra has been a bit of a problem again but Edward has—’

  ‘Excellent. Please inform the authorities that he will no longer be an outside pupil, but that we will be sending him to school next term.’

  Bella is sure she has misheard. ‘School? Do you mean everyday school?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Everyday school.’

  ‘As in the state school, Signora?’

  The Signora gives a slight tut. ‘Miss Stuart, I really don’t know. This is why I am asking you to research all solutions. What is available to him - this is what must be ascertained. I will make my decision when I arrive. If he passes his exams and is promoted next term it will be to the scuola media - are there many such schools in Bordighera, do you know, Miss Stuart?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘You can find out. Yes, indeed. Oh, and make inquires also about the Balilla.’

  ‘The Balilla?’

  ‘Yes, yes, you know, the Wolves, or the Musketeers or whichever is for his age group just now. One of the fascist youth brigades anyhow. The Sons of Italy, whatever they are calling it. You have seen them I’m sure - you go to the parades, I believe?’

  ‘Not for a while, no.’

  ‘Ah yes. The Day of the Faithful put you off, I understand?’ The Signora gives a little laugh here before continuing. ‘Well, you must overcome your reservations. Apply for him to be a member of the Balilla. Nothing too boisterous. Perhaps he could join the band? He is musical enough I suppose. Ask Maestro Edward if he can teach him a few suitable pieces on the flute or some portable instrument anyhow. Nothing requiring too much blow, with his asthma, also I don’t want his cheeks becoming over-developed and spoiling his looks. Like Rosa’s son, you know, the trumpeter?’

  ‘Very well, Signora Lami. So that’s state school? And the Balilla?’ B
ella asks.

  ‘Oh yes, and Sunday mass. Do you take him to mass, Miss Stuart?’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘You are not religious?’

  ‘No. But in any case I’m not Catholic. I’ve taken him occasionally to the Anglican church. And sometimes Elida brings him to mass.’

  ‘Forgive me, I sometimes forget I am not the only non-Catholic in Italy.’

  ‘I can take him if you like.’

  ‘Excellent! He has made his communion you know. Rotate the churches, I wish him to be seen in all. However, as there is a Lami pew in the Magdalena - in the old town, you know - you may favour that a little more than the others.’

  ‘So that’s the scuola media, the Balilla and Sunday mass?’ Bella asks again, just to be certain.

  ‘Yes, yes. In fact, Miss Stuart, it is time Alec Lami went out to the world!’

  *

  On the first day of June the Signora arrives with Signor Tassi by her side, and gradually the complete turnaround regarding Alec begins to make sense.

  Gino Tassi, the lawyer from Naples. Bella recognizes him at once as the man she delivered the letter to when Signor Lami was dying. If he has any recollection of their previous meeting, he keeps it to himself.

  Bella finds him a pleasant sort, with a friendly, handsome face. Early forties or thereabouts, much younger than his predecessor anyhow - if this is what he intends to be. And he certainly seems to please the Signora, who has become quite giggly and frequently pink, causing Bella and Edward to exchange several amused glances. Alec, on the other hand, and despite Tassi’s best efforts to woo him with presents and jokes, shows indifference. At best he responds with a chilly politeness, at worst he behaves as if Tassi simply doesn’t exist.