by Guy Burt
‘Has it been a good summer?’ Signor Ferucci asks. He sounds interested, more than just polite. His voice is mild and good-natured.
Jamie says nothing, so I say, ‘Mm – yes.’
‘That’s good. What have you been doing?’
I try to look to Jamie for some kind of support. I’m not used to talking to strange adults, and Signor Ferucci is more than just a stranger – he’s a stranger about whom we’ve told stories, about whom we’ve theorized and conjectured a hundred times. He might be a vampire or a zombie, I remember rather crazily; he’s certainly a recluse. He hardly ever comes out from his white house on the hillside, from behind his tall white wall over which we’ve peered many times now. And yet here he is, sitting in the sunshine with Jamie and me, and talking to us as if it’s the most natural thing in all the world.
I say, ‘Mm … playing.’
‘Yes? Where? At the beach, maybe?’
‘Sometimes,’ I say, rather guardedly.
‘You mustn’t go swimming too soon after your meals,’ he says, sounding like Lena.
‘I know,’ I say.
‘And what of your friend?’ Signor Ferucci says. ‘Your cousin. Anna. How’s she? I would have thought the three of you would be together on an afternoon like this. Everyone in the town says that you’re never apart.’ He chuckles quietly at this. I wonder how Signor Ferucci manages to know what the town gossips about, since he’s hardly ever in it. I could almost believe he has a telescope like Jamie’s trained on the town square; except that wouldn’t let him hear what people were saying. He adds, ‘How old would she be, now?’
‘Thirteen,’ I say.
‘She’s growing up fast,’ Signor Ferucci says. ‘It doesn’t seem so long ago that she was just ten, does it?’
I’m surprised. This is something I’ve found myself thinking more and more of late; I’m unprepared to hear Signor Ferucci put it into words for me. I say, ‘Mm.’
‘And you, too,’ he says, turning to Jamie. ‘You’re off to school soon, if what I hear is right.’
Jamie twitches in his seat when the man’s eyes turn to him, as if I’ve pinched him. He says, but only just audibly, ‘Yes.’
‘That’s going to be quite an adventure,’ Signor Ferucci says seriously. ‘A new school – new friends – lots of chances to do new things. And a different country, as well. You’re a lucky young man,’ he adds. ‘It’s not many people who have the opportunity to see so much of the world at your age.’
‘I s’pose,’ Jamie says. His voice isn’t as tentative as before, and I can see that he’s becoming reassured by the way the conversation is going. It’s just the same kind of conversation we might end up having with any adult; except, I remind myself, that Signor Ferucci seems to know a lot about what’s going on in our lives.
‘England will seem very different to sleepy little Altesa, I expect. I should think it will be quite exciting, once you’re there. Are you looking forward to it all?’
‘Kind of,’ Jamie says.
Signor Ferucci nods, and in his eyes there is understanding and intelligent compassion. ‘But not entirely, perhaps? Well. That’s in the way of things. When you move on, you have to leave things behind sometimes. Places, people.’ He shrugs. ‘That’s part of living, part of growing up. In a while, you may find you don’t miss Altesa as much. You’ll have new places to call your own, and new friends, like I said.’
I glance swiftly at Jamie. I don’t like how this sounds: it’s too close to some of the fears I keep hidden inside me.
Jamie says, more boldly, ‘I’ll still come back, though.’
‘Yes?’ Signor Ferucci seems pleased. ‘That’s good. You’ll be able to see Alex, then?’
Again, I’m surprised at how easily he seems to know what’s in my mind. I say, ‘Yeah.’
‘That’s another thing about growing up,’ Signor Ferucci says thoughtfully, as if it’s just occurred to him. ‘Deciding what to leave behind and what to take with you. What to remember and what to forget.’
Jamie shifts a little uncomfortably in his seat, and I think he’s about to say something when he’s stopped by a clink of glass on glass and Anna says, ‘I got them. This is yours, Alex, and this—’
Her voice stops dead as she reaches the table, and I know she’s finally noticed the figure there.
‘Ah,’ Signor Ferucci says, sounding surprised and pleased. ‘Anna. I didn’t know you were here as well. I thought maybe the boys had abandoned you for the afternoon. I should have known better. Here, you can sit down, you know.’ He glances at the drinks she’s brought. ‘Beer, is it? I’d join you, but there are a lot of things I have to do today, and I don’t suppose there’s time to sit and drink the afternoon away, pleasant though it may be.’
Anna sits slowly, her eyes fixed on him. Something of the strangeness of the situation is starting to get through to me more strongly now. The three of us sit, waiting for what Signor Ferucci will say next.
For a while he just looks out at the harbour and the little fishing boats there. Then he turns back to us. He’s looking at Jamie again.
‘School,’ he says, as though he’s just remembered something. ‘That’s what we were talking about. Going away to school. Yes.’ He rubs his thumbs together, and seems to be thinking about something; his brow furrows for a moment.
Anna says, abruptly, ‘What are you doing here? You never come down here.’
I’m appalled by her rudeness. This is the first time she’s ever spoken to this man, and she sounds both fierce and angry, as if he’s done something wrong.
Signor Ferucci’s eyebrows lift momentarily, but he doesn’t get cross. He says, still in his mild voice, ‘I didn’t realize there was anything wrong with coming down to town once in a while. Actually, I’m probably here more than you imagine, you know. I just don’t go to the same places you do. I don’t have time to go bathing, I’m afraid, and I don’t think I’ve visited a rock pool in fifty years. Perhaps that’s my bad luck. As for what I’m doing here – well, given the number of times you’ve visited my house over the past few years, I thought it about time I repaid the courtesy.’ Anna’s mouth has opened slightly at this, and Signor Ferucci smiles a little. ‘You should have rung the bell at the gate,’ he says. ‘There’s not so much to see by just looking over the wall. The estate’s been too badly neglected, I’m afraid; but the house itself has some good points. I have a small collection of sculpture of which I’m rather proud, and there’s an old-fashioned walled garden at the back that’s still kept up. You would have been welcome, you know.’
We sit in silence, staring at him. Even Anna’s boldness seems to have deserted her.
At last, Jamie says, ‘How do you – I mean—’ His voice tails off, but Signor Ferucci seems to know exactly what he was trying to say.
‘I like to keep in touch,’ he says, nodding to himself. ‘I imagine people must think that because I keep myself out of the way a good deal, I don’t know what’s going on around me. Well, perhaps that’s true for a lot of things. But in certain things, I do take an interest.’
‘Like what?’ Jamie says, and his voice has faded away almost to a whisper. Anna, I notice, is just staring at Signor Ferucci, waiting to see what he’ll say next.
‘Like you, for instance.’ Signor Ferucci smiles more broadly as he says this, and I notice that the corners of his eyes do wrinkle up a little. I still can’t imagine him laughing aloud, though. ‘It’s not every day that someone takes as big a step as you’re about to. I wanted to wish you luck, for one thing.’
‘Oh,’ Jamie says blankly. Then, ‘Thanks.’
‘And I’m pleased that you’re going to keep in touch. Like I said, it’s important to decide what you want to remember, and what you want to forget. England is going to feel like it’s a long way from Italy, after a time; and perhaps all of this—’ He sweeps his hand around to take in the town, the harbour, the hills. ‘All of this will seem very long ago. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
> Anna says, ‘Nobody’s going to forget anything.’ Her voice is cold as stone.
‘No. I didn’t think so. That’s best, I think.’ There’s a pause, as if Signor Ferucci is trying to think of the right words to say something. ‘Sometimes,’ he says eventually, ‘we do things that – later – might feel different to us than they did at the time. That’s because we change, as we get older. Our ideas, our minds, our perceptions – they alter. But what’s been done is what’s been done, and that doesn’t change. So—’ He looks at us, and gradually his smile widens again. ‘I don’t need to say this, do I?’
‘Nobody’s going to forget,’ Anna says again.
‘No. All right.’ He takes a breath, and then shakes his head, smiling to himself. ‘Well. Do you know, the older I get the more I realize something: and that’s that no matter how old you are, you’re not too old to learn something new. And I think today has been a day of learning for me.’ He stands up. ‘I must be going. You don’t want your beer to get warm, do you? Have a good time in England, Jamie. I meant to congratulate you on your exam results, by the way – especially the music. Perhaps there’s a career there one day, eh? To think that once upon a time we’d all have sworn it was to be astronomy. That’s something that’s changed, without a doubt. Alex. It was good to see you again. Remember me to your parents, and Lena. And Anna—’ He pauses, looking at her. ‘Well. Perhaps we’ll meet again some day. I really should have invited you up to the house before this, but the summers always seem to go by so quickly, and by the time I think about it, you’re gone again. Still. You can drop by any time. You’ll always know where to find me.’
‘I suppose you’ll always know where to find us, too,’ Anna says quietly.
‘Anna,’ he says, curiously gently. ‘I try to keep in touch with friends. That’s all. There’s nothing to worry about – nothing to be afraid of.’
‘I’m not afraid.’
‘No. I know.’ He looks out to the sea for a second. ‘I must be on my way. Enjoy your beer, Alex.’
We watch him as he walks down to the harbour wall, stares out at the boats for a while, and then continues on towards the south side of the valley. I look at Jamie; his face is ashen, even though the heat is back in the afternoon again.
Jamie says, ‘He knows everything about us.’
‘Yeah,’ Anna says. ‘But you heard him – it’s OK. There’s nothing to be—’
‘It’s not OK!’ Jamie shouts, loud enough that the old man at the table across from us looks up, frowning. ‘It’s not fucking OK!’
‘Quiet,’ Anna says, looking round. ‘Keep it down.’
I say, ‘What did he mean?’
Anna says, ‘He just meant we shouldn’t forget. That’s all. And we won’t.’ She looks hard at Jamie. ‘We won’t, will we?’
Jamie says nothing. He’s looking at the sea wall, where Signor Ferucci stood for a moment before he passed out of sight.
‘Jamie,’ Anna says, quietly. ‘Jamie, it’s OK. Really. He was just – reminding us.’
‘Warning us, you mean,’ Jamie says.
‘No. Just reminding us.’
‘Well I wish he hadn’t,’ Jamie says. ‘I don’t want to be reminded. I didn’t need to be reminded.’
‘No,’ she says, soothingly. ‘I know you didn’t. But I know you better than he does, don’t I?’
Grudgingly, Jamie nods.
I have understood what the conversation has all been about. I say, ‘Why did he leave it until now? Why didn’t he say something before?’
Jamie says, ‘Because I’m going away. Where he can’t – keep an eye on me. That’s why.’ He slips back into a morose silence.
‘Well,’ Anna says. She’s quiet for a while, and then she says, ‘Do you like beer, then?’
We all pick up our glasses and sip at the beer. It’s gone a little warm in the sun, and it’s bitter and metallic to taste.
‘No,’ Jamie says. ‘Not really.’
‘Me neither,’ I say. I try some more. ‘It’s nasty, don’t you think?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she says. ‘It’s not so bad.’
Jamie lets out a low breath and his shoulders, which I now realize have been tensed up, slump a little. ‘Oh, screw it,’ he says. ‘I’m not having this ruin my summer. Screw it. Let’s go and fish for crabs or something.’
‘Let’s finish our beer first,’ Anna says.
We’re lying out on the gentle slope of the roof outside my bedroom window one night, watching the patterns of the stars. Anna and I always listen while Jamie tells us their names, and points them out; some of the names have stories that go with them, and Jamie tells these too.
‘You know,’ I say, ‘I always dream of sleeping out here. Just looking up and falling to sleep with the stars looking back down at me.’
‘Shooting star,’ Anna says.
‘I see it.’
Jamie says, ‘Yeah. But you’d get cold.’
‘I know.’
‘It would be good, though.’
‘When you’re grown up, you could have a bedroom with a glass ceiling,’ he says after a moment.
‘What, like a greenhouse?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That would be weird.’
Anna says, smiling, ‘Yeah. It’d be hot. You’d boil in the day.’
‘I s’pose,’ I say.
She’s quiet for a minute. When I look at her, she’s got a slight frown of concentration on her face.
‘Shooting star,’ Jamie says.
‘Yeah.’
Anna says, ‘There’s something we could do, though.’
‘What?’ Jamie says.
‘We could try tomorrow. We’d need a bit of money.’
‘I’ve got some left over from my birthday,’ I say. ‘Why? What is it?’
‘Not now,’ she says. ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow. I need to think about it.’
Jamie raises his eyebrows at me, and I grin back.
* * *
Jamie brings his star charts while Anna and I clear all the stuff out of my room and into Lena’s room at the back of the house. It takes us three goes to get the bed through the door, but Anna’s stronger than I’d imagine, and we manage it in the end.
‘There,’ she says, when the room’s clear. ‘Now the newspaper.’
We spread the newspaper all over the bare floor, which looks very strange now that everything’s gone. Anna brings in a stool from the kitchen, and sets out the pencils she’s brought on the windowsill. My mother’s agreement to Anna’s plan has been won only after many assurances that no harm will come to the carpet, or any of the furniture. In fact, when we leave her, she seems to be starting to like the idea; I’ve wondered if she will. It’s good luck that my father’s away today, since I am pretty sure that he wouldn’t approve.
Jamie comes back with the star maps and we spread them out on the floor and kneel over them, planning, working things out. While Anna and Jamie start to pencil in the positions of the constellations, I lie on my back on the softly rustling newspaper, guiding them, letting my mind’s eye fill in the gaps from the star chart I now have in my head.
By the end of the morning the whole ceiling is covered with a dense rash of pencil marks. Anna and Jamie, who’ve spent more time tilting their heads back to see than I have, rub their necks a lot when we finish. I’ve been lying on the floor so my neck’s OK, though I do find that when we leave the room the haze of pencil dots floats down the corridor in front of me for a while. Anna says, ‘It’s nearly done. We just need to finish off the bit by the window, and we can start with the paint.’
After lunch – during which Lena quizzes us about what’s going on upstairs, and we resolutely stick to telling her to wait until it’s finished, that’s it’s a surprise – Jamie is dispatched into town with my birthday money and instructions on what to buy. Anna and I set to work completing the design. We know now where the remaining stars should lie, so I hold the chart for her while she works.
‘It’s going to be good, don’t you think?’ she says.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It’s going to be great.’
She’s quiet for a time, and I can tell something’s bothering her.
‘What is it?’
‘Do you think he was right?’ she says.
‘Who?’
‘Signor Ferucci. When he said that Jamie would – would forget stuff. When he went away.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Of course not. I mean – what stuff?’
Anna’s eyes are fixed on the ceiling while she draws the dots in. ‘Well – stuff about Altesa,’ she says. ‘Stuff about us.’
‘Jamie wouldn’t forget anything like that,’ I say. A thought strikes me. ‘You go away,’ I say. ‘And you don’t forget things.’
‘Yeah – I know. But this is …’ Her voice trails away.
‘What?’
‘It’s different, don’t you think? They’re going to live there. It’s like …’
I wait for her to go on. She takes a breath, and the arm holding the pencil drops to her side, though she’s still looking upwards.
‘It’s like everything’s changing. I just think – nothing’s going to be the same any more. What’s going to happen next summer?’
I blink. ‘We’ll – we’ll all come back here, I guess. Jamie’ll come back.’
‘His parents might be moving then. He might not be able to.’
‘Of course he will,’ I say. ‘He can stay with me. So can you. Nothing’s going to change.’
I can see her bite her lip. ‘I think things have already changed,’ she says.
I want to tell her she’s wrong, but I know she isn’t. It’s in the air, like the smell of hot resin from the stone pines. Even painting the ceiling of my room like this is part of it. I look up at the star patterns, and somewhere deep inside me I already know what they really are: something to remember Jamie and Anna by, when they’re not there any more. A keepsake. I want to say that we’ll always be the same, and everything’s going to go on next year like always, but I know – some part of me knows. Things are different now. When I look up at Anna, reaching above her to draw in the positions on the white plaster, the shape of her body under her T-shirt and jeans, and what it does to me inside, is only part of what’s different. The rest of it I can’t even begin to understand.