Lizzie laughed, signalled to Piper that she needed to settle up and took her leave, chasing after the minister.
CHAPTER 27
In Which the Piece Fits
After a round of tea that seamlessly became a round of beer, the very vaguest outline of a plan had been agreed upon. In order to get it into action, it was imperative that Pavel was happy to co-operate. The scheme was exciting, Lizzie was sure, so it was with a degree of trepidation that she set off to enlist the support of the young clockmaker.
She approached his shop anxiously, rubbing her wrist where her watch normally lay and wondering whether the scheme she had just engineered was a good thing or a bad thing. She could hear him whistling before she had even reached the shop-front and, at this, her heart sang just a little bit. ‘Pavel?’
No sooner had she ducked through the doorway than Pavel pounced on her, kissing her cheek noisily and lifting her off the ground, albeit by just a few centimetres.
‘Put me down, you’ll hurt yourself!’ she squealed.
Elio, who had been busy in the workshop, rushed out to perform a similar ritual, kissing Lizzie’s other cheek. ‘You did it! We are fixing the clock!’
‘And can you do it? I mean, it’s an enormous task, isn’t it?’
Pavel disappeared into his workshop, Elio and Lizzie trailing after him. With surprising agility, the clockmaker used one hand to vault onto his workbench and, using the shelves on the wall to steady himself, walked slowly along, examining jar after jar of unlabelled contents. Eventually, just as he was running out of workbench he reached up on tiptoe and wrestled a small glass jar from behind a cluster of larger containers. Holding it to his chest, he leaped to the floor.
Lizzie smiled at his enthusiasm, with absolutely no idea of whether he had heard her question.
Pavel shook the jar, forcing the smaller items to jiggle their way to the top. ‘Aha!’ he cried. Using his thumb and forefinger as pincers, he prised out a very small copper-coloured object. This he held up to the light for both wide-eyed onlookers to inspect. ‘Sometimes, my friends, to make even the biggest things happen, all it takes is one very small cog.’
Leaving Elio to mind the shop, Lizzie and Pavel headed back to the bar to discuss the clock repairs and to allow Pavel to consider the added layers of complication that the newly hatched plan would inevitably bring.
As Pavel poured a beer and ate a handful of crisps, Lizzie chatted excitedly, thrilled by the progress they were making.
‘You,’ Pavel said, ‘deserve thanks of the very highest order. I will go to church on Sunday and your name will be whispered in the ear of the Boss. Of that you can be sure.’
‘Church? You’re religious? I’ve heard the bells ring and I’ve often spied a priest in the bar next door but I hadn’t got the impression that religion figures too highly here.’
‘I go to church for the same reasons that everyone goes to church,’ said Pavel, with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘When I feel guilty, when I feel grateful and when it is important to have my devotion witnessed. But other than the guilt or the gratitude, the births, deaths and marriages that, of course, must be honoured, I feel no need to remind God of my existence. And I don’t need any further reminder of His existence than to breathe the Vallerosan air. Look around you. This piazza is the altar of a very holy place. When we step out into it each day, it’s impossible not to give thanks.’
Lizzie frowned a little, wanting a label to help her understand the doctrine and perhaps the people a little more. ‘But you do believe in God? What God? What religion do you practise?’
‘Does He need a name? To have faith that tomorrow the sun will rise over the mountains is to have faith in God. To know unconditionally that there is a higher purpose.’
Lizzie smiled. ‘Surely knowing that the sun will rise tomorrow is just believing in science.’
Pavel ignored her playful rebuttal. ‘No, Lizzie. Believing in science is to know that one day the sun won’t rise. Believing in God is to trust that it will.’ He removed the cigarette from behind his ear, contemplated it for a moment, then replaced it with exaggerated resignation. ‘Enough of God, the attention will go to His head. Let’s show our thanks with another beer, shall we?’
They clinked their empty bottles, and as Piper hurried over to take their order, God was once again held responsible for the town’s recent good fortune. The barman muttered some thanks of his own under his breath.
CHAPTER 28
In Which There’s Education in Moderation
Sergio had retired once more to his study where he sat at his desk, the fingers of both hands woven together and propping up his chin. He faced forward, the notebook beneath him winking its blankness at him in accusation. The humming was intense and he was experiencing a new sensation, a prickling in his back and neck that seemed to foretell of some other, rarer, strain of impending disaster.
Angelo burst into the room. ‘We’re just going to let them walk all over us, are we?’
‘The students?’
‘Students? No. Of course not the students. The Americans.’
Sergio continued to stare steadfastly ahead. ‘Angelo. Please do something for me. Go and look out of the window.’
The chief of staff opened his mouth to speak but, sensing a cooling down after the previous row and, perhaps, a better opportunity to talk about the Americans rationally, he walked up to the window. He looked out.
‘What do you see?
‘I see the Piazza Rosa. The clock tower is in scaffolding again, the bars look reasonably busy—’
‘I mean do you see anything ominous?’
‘Well, there’s a preternaturally large crowd around our rent-a-royal but I wouldn’t say that’s particularly ominous. Depends if she’s kept her word and, being British, I suspect she has. But nothing else, no.’
‘Good. Good.’ Sergio’s shoulders relaxed a little and he allowed himself to roll them and, in doing so, lose the prickling feeling that had spelled doom.
Angelo took the more convivial atmosphere as an opportunity to begin again, this time on a lighter note. ‘What was that all about, in there?’ He nodded his head in the direction of the conference room.
‘My policy, Angelo. You helped me draft it, didn’t you? What did I call it? Education through Saturation, wasn’t it? Surely that can’t have been it.’
‘Hmm. I know what you mean. Sounds a bit on the wet side now, doesn’t it? Education through a good dunking, held securely by the scruff of the neck.’
Sergio allowed himself the smallest of laughs.
‘I sense a U-turn, Sergio. Are we not liking the education policy any more?’
‘No, I don’t think we are. These are grown men, Angelo. They deserve better. I mean, what are their prospects?’
‘Their prospects? Well, realistically, their prospects are to replace their fathers. That’s all any of us can really hope to do. And, on the basis that our population doesn’t seem to be expanding, that’s a sustainable policy.’
‘And just replacing your father. Is that a good prospect, do you think?’
‘Depends on who your father is. If he’s the President of Vallerosa, yes, I’d suggest your prospects would be pretty fine. If he’s Franco, maybe things are a bit gloomy in the opportunity stakes.’
‘I suppose you’re right. A U-turn might be a bit strong. I was thinking that perhaps a subtle change of direction might be beneficial. Our men deserve a little more than Education through Suffocation.’
‘Education in Moderation?’
‘Exactly. Education in Moderation. Opportunity in Profusion.’
‘Tea in Infusion?’ suggested Angelo, glad to have his sparring partner back.
‘I think so. Just a smidgeon of something in mine, thank you.’
Sergio replaced Angelo at the window as his aide went to pour the tea. ‘Looks like the scaffolding’s coming down again. That blasted clock, every time I look out of the window it seems to jeer at me.’
‘I know what you mean. But fixing it is a pretty small point on the agenda when you consider the other things you need to deal with. What, for instance, are we going to do about our American friends? I thought that was the purpose of the meeting today.’
‘It was, it was. But I was distracted. We’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll call a meeting, tell them I’m concerned about security issues and suggest we employ the services of our friends at Client Opted Inc. to investigate the possibilities. Just that. I’m not going to scare anyone rigid about nuclear deterrents and whatnot. It’s not like we’ve signed up to anything as such. Just a bit of consultancy.’
‘Like the last bit of consultancy that’s still ongoing all these years later?’
‘Granted. But we got somewhere eventually, didn’t we? Our country is, apparently, in better shape. We’ve pulled a farming industry out of the hat. There are plenty of job opportunities there now, opportunities that didn’t exist before. And we’ll have some cash coming into our economy …’
‘Which we can spend on more consultancy.’
Sergio peered keenly out of the window once more. ‘Do you sense unrest in the country? Is there any thought in your mind that there might be a movement towards revolution?’
‘A revolution, no.’ Angelo smiled. ‘A small amount of belligerence from a few disgruntled citizens, perhaps, but what do you imagine they’re going to revolt for, exactly?’
‘Jobs? Opportunities? Prospects?’
‘I don’t sense we’re on the eve of revolution, but if you lose the plot completely and put the money that ought to be going to help create jobs, widen opportunities and increase prospects into a second-hand gun, you might just have a revolution on your hands and I might be the one who starts it.’
Sergio looked round sharply, and relaxed on seeing his friend’s face, which hinted at none of the animosity his words had suggested.
‘You’re doing fine. We’re doing fine,’ urged Angelo. ‘And if something’s spooked you that you’re not sharing with me, then take it as a sign. A kick up the backside from the anti-complacency police.’
‘Mm. Complacency’s no good.’
‘How about No Vacancies for Complacency at next week’s rally?’ suggested Angelo.
‘Yes, that might …’ He saw Angelo’s face. ‘Oh, I see, you jest.’
‘Yes, Sergio. I jest. But, seriously, we need something up our sleeve for the election, even if it’s just to give you the confidence to stop feeling sorry for yourself and start thinking like a president again. Something that will make people take note.’
‘How about the girl? Could we use her, do you think?’
Angelo dropped into an accent that he had absorbed while chatting to their English visitor. He had studied languages voraciously for much of his life, but more recently he had been paying particular attention to the little nuances that differentiated her use of the language compared to, say, their American visitors’. ‘Yes, absolutely we should. I mean, to have a royal condescend to visit us all the way from Queen Elizabeth’s Great Britain, it would seem almost impolite not to use her, would it not?’
‘Indecent,’ quipped Sergio, a willing partner in the game.
‘Quite,’ finished Angelo.
CHAPTER 29
In Which the Chief of Staff Plots
When Lizzie next made a visit to the Piazza Rosa in search of a drink, she now faced an even greater quandary. Her initial plan, to frequent each bar equally, had seemed fine as a theoretical exercise but now, having befriended Pavel and Elio at Il Toro Rosso, she feared that to return to Il Gallo Giallo would snub Piper and her new friends. The alternative, to visit Piper’s bar again, might run a greater risk still: that she would offend Dario, and possibly the upper echelons of the country’s hierarchy, with whom she felt she was beginning to make real headway.
The problem, seemingly insurmountable, forced her usually sprightly step to a crawl, and it was while she was nudging forward in the direction of both bars, still with no clear destination in mind, that she heard hurried footsteps behind her.
‘Might I join you?’ It was a dishevelled Angelo, who decelerated abruptly to fall in with her impossibly slow pace.
‘Lovely. I was heading out for a drink. A few days here and I’ve already fallen into a routine.’
‘We all do here. Routine is part of our very essence. Come on, let me buy you one.’
So the problem was solved. Angelo made his way unreservedly towards Il Gallo Giallo, and while the bar was unusually busy for a mid-week afternoon, a few drinkers seemed mysteriously to evaporate, vacating a prime central table by the time the two visitors had arrived at their destination.
They sat down and Angelo frowned. ‘Something’s different,’ he said, looking around him.
‘The tablecloths, perhaps? I don’t remember seeing them yesterday.’
‘Of course! Tablecloths. How very …’ he surveyed the bar once again and noted that a white cloth was draped on every table ‘… unusual. And pleasant.’
He smiled up at Dario, who now stood nervously at the ready, notepad in hand and an anxious smile on his face. ‘Marvellous, Dario, very nice indeed. I must say I think the tablecloths are a good addition. It looks classier somehow.’
‘Thank you, sir. May I get you a drink? Tea? Beer?’
‘And table service! This is an honour indeed.’
As they placed their orders and exchanged pleasantries, Lizzie stole a glance at Il Toro Rosso, keen to see if her friends were sitting there, and if they were, whether they seemed perturbed by her not joining them. Her view was blocked by the glowering figure of Piper who, even when she raised a hand in greeting, held fast his stance, which radiated disgust and disappointment in equal measure. And just in case there had been any room for misinterpretation he turned, with a dramatic toss of his head, and busied himself wiping tables, regardless of whether they were occupied or not.
Next to her, Angelo was speaking and she turned back to hear him repeat his question. ‘I was saying, how have you found your stay so far?’
‘Well, I like it very much. This is certainly one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever been to. I can’t get over the valley and the houses, this gorgeous piazza and the government buildings. It’s all so, so perfect, really.’
‘And what about the citizens? Have you been treated well?’
‘Oh, absolutely. Everyone has been very kind. Mosconi took me on a tour across to the east side of the river to see your Museum of Things Left Behind, which was …’
‘Curious?’
‘Yes. And charming. I’m almost tempted to leave something behind deliberately so that it will find its way into the collection!’
‘Of course that might be possible, but there is a very different quality between the things that are genuinely misplaced and those that are not. There is an air of the forlorn about abandoned articles. I cannot go into the museum without feeling very, very sad. It moves me.’
Lizzie checked that Angelo was being serious but there was no trace of irony. Aware that the conversation was turning, she asked brightly, ‘Why do you always come to this bar, not the other?’
‘I have never thought about it. Tradition? Habit? Heritage, even? I had my very first drink here with my father and I have never stopped coming. It was such a deeply ingrained habit for him too, that I suspect that – even after death – he probably pops in for his afternoon tea or a late-evening drink. If that’s the case, then I think he would be happy to see me here, drinking still with his friends and the sons of his friends. He’s left his imprint and I fit into it very comfortably. He was a man of habit, my father. I don’t know what he would make of this, though …’ He trailed off as Dario placed the tea on the table, followed by a small selection of china bowls containing nuts, crisps and olives on sticks. ‘Sometimes I think the world has gone mad.’ Angelo glanced around him: the men with whom he had drunk every day of his adult life were chatting amiably and dipping their hands into similar dishes of snacks or wavin
g olives at the end of sticks to emphasize a point.
‘And your mother? Is she still alive?’
‘Very much so.’
‘And what does she do?’
‘Do? Well, she does what mothers do, of course.’
‘Which is?’
‘Oh, you know, the usual. You must meet her one day – she’d like that very much. Come for dinner.’
‘I’d love to. What about the rest of your family? Brothers, sisters?’
‘A younger brother, a student at the moment. I would have loved to have a sister. Wouldn’t we all?’ he said wistfully. ‘But it was not to be. And I consider myself as having two brothers. Sergio and I grew up together so he is a brother to me really. Younger in years, but he had to do so much growing up when his own father died that he somehow overtook me. He has the weight of the world on his shoulders.’
‘He certainly has the air of a man with worries. And what about Sergio? Is he married?’
‘Not yet, no. His schedule hasn’t really allowed it, but I am hopeful that after the elections are out of the way he might turn his attention to this matter. A wife would be excellent news for Sergio personally and, of course, a wedding is always good for the country.’
‘And you? Is your schedule too busy to make room for wife hunting?’
‘Well, it’s a matter of priorities. Sergio’s needs are greater than mine at the moment, so we will look for him first. When he’s happily wed, I suspect I might be tempted to settle down myself. But I must be realistic …’
‘Well, you’re a young man still. You’re good-looking and you’ve got a great job. You’d make a fabulous catch for some lucky woman. They should be queuing up for you!’
Angelo shook his head sadly. ‘That certainly won’t be happening. But,’ he said, brightening, ‘we’ll see, shall we? Enough of me. What about you? You have a couple of days yet before your big performance at the weekend’s festivities. Have you thought about what you might want to say?’
The Museum of Things Left Behind Page 21