The Italians at Cleat's Corner Store

by Jo Riccioni

  ‘You’d think the parish could chip in and get you a new one for next year,’ she said, tapping the handle of the roller. With a practised shove, they leaned their weight against the clunking beast of it. The roller let out a prehistoric groan.

  Uncle Jack exhaled, nodding towards the memorial hall. ‘They got bigger and better things to raise money for than cricket,’ he said.

  Through the open door, they could see the clutch of women inside and hear their faint gabble.

  ‘The Great Mural Scheme for St Margaret’s,’ she said. ‘Anyone would think it was the Sistine Chapel the way they carry on.’

  ‘Now then, Rita,’ Uncle Jack murmured, but she could tell from the way he teased her that he felt the same. He rarely called her Connie. She suspected he’d been uncomfortable with the name change from the start but, rather than incurring the wrath of Aunty Bea, he had staged his protest by calling her a variety of nicknames, ever changing, sometimes tenuous, often clichéd, but always playing on that one constant as she grew up: the undeniable fact of her red hair. Sometimes she was Greer, Rita or Bette, sometimes Lizzie or Your Majesty after the great Tudor Queen, sometimes plain old Red. But these multiple identities became an early security in her adopted life, the first sign of approbation, growing as they did out of his acceptance of her, his quiet affection.

  She nudged him with her elbow. ‘You reckon Rita Hayworth would be getting her hands dirty rolling the village green?’

  He shook his head. ‘Course not. The Yanks don’t understand cricket,’ he said, deadpan as ever.

  From the memorial hall, a round of stagy laughter rang out. Connie recognised the sound of nerves fraying. The Christian Ladies were making the last frantic arrangements for Sunday’s harvest fair. Mrs Cleat had closed the shop well before lunchtime that morning especially to set up the hall, and Connie had been obliged to help. Even then she had found the women in a frenzy of activity nearing panic. The stakes were high for this year’s fair. The proceeds were going towards the services of Mr Harry Swann, the artist commissioned for St Margaret’s murals, which, being a cause so close to home, had turned the modest fete into a gala event.

  ‘They certainly got enough folk donating fare this year,’ Uncle Jack said, as yet another family of villagers entered the hall, which was already full of flower arrangements and oversized vegetables, jars of chutney and stewed fruit, cottage loaves and Battenbergs.

  ‘Even Mrs Livesey brought an offering,’ Connie said. ‘A bouquet of carrots in a milking pail and two bottles of stout. You should have seen Mrs Cleat’s face.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with Janet Livesey’s carrots. Sweetest in Leyton, I reckon.’

  ‘Yes, but it didn’t stop Mrs Cleat from setting them down behind the sheafs of wheat at the back of the display. Thank you kindly, Janet, she says. We can always rely on you for … root vegetables.’ Uncle Jack’s eye glinted as Connie mimicked the shopkeeper. ‘Some people’ll throw any old thing together to get in this hall and see Mr Swann’s cartoons for the murals.’

  ‘Are they up, then, for all to see?’

  Connie nodded. ‘That’s why there are so many donations this year. It was Mrs Cleat’s idea — exhibiting the high art alongside the harvest display. She knew no one could resist having a nose at the sketches. But people could hardly show up empty-handed, could they?’

  Uncle Jack gave a loose, knowing laugh and hummed, as if to warm up his rarely voiced opinions. ‘That woman could get the devil to donate his horns if she thought it’d help her cause.’

  ‘Mr Farrington!’ Connie feigned outrage, channelling Mrs Cleat again. ‘I’ll have you know Mr Swann is an award-winning artist from the college in London, no less.’

  ‘Is he now?’

  ‘Oh yes. His cartoons are most uplifting. They have the approval of the diocese itself, I should tell you.’

  ‘And what exactly are these cartoons?’

  ‘They’re a die-rama of edificating episodes from Christian history — the flight from Egypt, the Garden of Gethsemane, the stories of St Margaret and St Dorothea. High art it’ll be, but rendered to satisfy modern sensibilities. No one can accuse Leyton of lacking vision.’

  Uncle Jack wheezed. ‘Been memorising Mr Gilbert again, has she?’

  It was Mr Gilbert who had secured the involvement of his friend Harry Swann in the Leyton mural scheme. Mr Swann was indeed an artist from the Royal College, but Mrs Repton had told her he’d been reduced to earning a living as an ad-hoc set designer in the West End. Despite apparently straitened circumstances, he’d only accepted the Leyton commission under the proviso that he could have free rein in the execution and interpretation of the murals — at least, as much as was possible within the approved religious framework.

  ‘You’re playing with fire, Harvey,’ Connie had heard Mrs Repton warning her brother in the library. ‘Hot-headed left-wing muralists with large egos don’t mix with country parish committees.’

  ‘Nonsense. Swann’s quite aware what he’s getting himself into,’ Mr Gilbert replied. ‘Besides, any artist would be a fool not to behave himself for the prospect of a year’s continuous work these days, especially one with Swann’s debts.’

  ‘Any artist, except Swann,’ Mrs Repton corrected him. ‘That’s why he has the debts in the first place. How many commissions has he actually finished?’

  ‘When did you become such a stick-in-the-mud, Evie? Really, sometimes I think playing lady of the manor has knocked all the fun out of you.’

  Connie had eagerly awaited the arrival of Mr Swann, whom she imagined as some kind of artistically tortured firebrand pacing the lanes of Leyton and upsetting everyone in the Green Man with his revolutionary opinions. But when by chance she cycled past Mr Swann on the road to St Margaret’s one afternoon, she was disappointed to find him a reedy, rat-faced man wearing the clogs of a fen worker and a miner’s cap.

  ‘That Mr Swann,’ Connie mused to Uncle Jack above the complaints of the oil-can. ‘He’s definitely not the religious type. He doesn’t even seem that artistic, does he?’

  Uncle Jack hummed again, considering. ‘He’s harmless enough, I ’spect. Nurses his pint at the Green Man against the best of us after a hard day. But he only has to open his mouth to show he were brought up on single malt, not stout.’

  ‘But he hasn’t got any money,’ she said. ‘I heard Mr Gilbert tell Mrs Repton.’

  ‘I dare say. Money comes and money goes. But class is not so easy to lose, even if you try.’ Her uncle paused. ‘Bit like your Mr Gilbert … parlour pinks, the pair on ’em.’

  Connie was quiet. In contrast to the machine gun of Mrs Cleat’s views, her uncle reminded her of a sniper, his words picking off their target, square and precise.

  ‘Sketches aside,’ he continued, ‘be interesting to see what they actually get on the walls of that church.’

  Aunty Bea and Mrs Cleat emerged from the hall, their heads inclined conspiratorially. ‘I see those two are on talking terms again,’ Connie said, indicating the two women to Uncle Jack. He began to bring the roller around in a wide arc. The ladies fussed with their hats at the door, then disappeared together down the high street. In the months of planning for the mural scheme, Connie had heard in excruciating detail both sides of the heated debate over fine art for St Margaret’s. She quite understood why Mrs Cleat, with her operatic predilections, should prefer the dramatic stories of the Bible for the murals. But Connie found it quite odd that Aunty Bea, for all her fervent faith, wanted a series of memorial scenes of the war. The committee had finally taken a vote. Aunty Bea had lost by one count. For a while the village had held its breath: there threatened to be a schism among the Christian Ladies, the tremors of which were felt as far away as the Green Man, where villagers who couldn’t tell a Raphael from a Rout’s Cider had been heard professing their views on the matter. But the price of making a stand was too much
even for Aunty Bea to bear. She reunited with the Christian Ladies, much to the delight of Reverend Stanton, who told Connie he thought his sermon on ‘Holy Spirit, Community Spirit’ deserved the credit. She suspected, though, that her aunt couldn’t stand to miss out on further decisions concerning the murals.

  ‘Why d’you think Aunty Bea was dead set on war scenes anyway?’ she asked Uncle Jack. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve, but remained silent. ‘In the shop the other day, Mrs Livesey was going on about Uncle Bill and Monte Cassino,’ she added casually, hoping she might trick her uncle into some kind of unguarded disclosure. But he only straightened and squinted across the green.

  On the far side, partially obscured by the shade of the great oaks that edged it, a figure was sitting. She narrowed her eyes: it was Lucio Onorati. He was leaning back on a tree trunk, one forearm propped on his raised knee, the hand hanging across his body as if to shield the other, which worked hurriedly, secretly, across the pages of his journal folded back along one thigh.

  ‘Looks like you’re being watched,’ Uncle Jack said at last. She caught herself peering, her mouth open, and she closed it quickly.

  ‘I am not.’ She prodded Uncle Jack in the arm. ‘Might have spoken to him a couple of times, that’s all,’ she conceded. ‘He hardly knows anyone here. Don’t tell Aunty —’ He shook his head to stop her. Uncle Jack wasn’t one for explanations. It worked both ways — she hadn’t really expected he would offer any answers about Uncle Bill either. It was his habit to avoid difficult questions, changing the subject or immersing himself in some task at hand, like he hadn’t heard a word. This selective deafness infuriated Aunty Bea, which was perhaps the intention, and it often frustrated Connie, particularly as she got older. Nevertheless, she had grown up accepting that it had its benefits at times. So when she reached onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, she was surprised to hear him speak again.

  ‘There’s summat you should know. You might hear the wrong thing, see.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It weren’t Cassino. You know, Uncle Bill. It were after, in the Liri Valley …’ His eyes were restless, as if searching for the quickest route possible to what he needed to say about his brother. ‘The Italians, they was on our side by then, most on ’em. But in your aunt’s mind they’ll always be no better than Nazis. I ’spect it’s easier to blame someone, see, than accept the lame truth of it.’

  Connie waited, but he didn’t go on. Eventually she asked, ‘What do you mean? What lame truth?’

  He drew up the corner of his mouth in an impatient shrug at the words. ‘Strafing. It was strafing, from American planes. That’s how Bill died. Just being in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Not much glory in that, is there?’ He ran a cuff across his dry lips.

  ‘Uncle Jack,’ she began, but he tilted his chin at her, signalling she should go and meet her friend. She bent down for her shoes on the grass and walked backwards a few steps, watching her uncle as he went inside the clubhouse. When she turned and began to walk towards the great oaks, Lucio Onorati was already gone.

  The harvest-festival service was held in the memorial hall. Reverend Stanton had decamped all worship there so that Mr Swann could prepare the walls of St Margaret’s for his murals.

  ‘Don’t let it be said that the people of Leyton can’t accommodate the artistic nature,’ Mrs Cleat told the Misses Penny on the steps of the hall afterwards. ‘An artist of Mr Swann’s calibre needs absolute quiet and the freedom to work whenever the creative urge calls.’ What she had neglected to say, Connie knew, was that Mr Swann had made a contractual demand that no one enter the church while the murals were being painted. His frescoes were to be viewed by the commissioning committee only at key stages of their completion. Connie suspected Mr Gilbert’s hand in this: it was his attempt to keep a lid on the inevitable gossip and village politics the paintings would provoke.

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ Grace Penny said, agreeing with Mrs Cleat. ‘And Mr Swann is working so hard. Fossett told us he’d cycled past St Margaret’s well after last orders at the Green Man —’

  ‘— and he’d seen the lights still burning in the windows —’ Hope Penny broke in.

  ‘— glowing like a divine visitation,’ Grace finished. Her sister giggled. The Misses Penny habitually spoke over each other, until their timorous voices sounded as one. Connie imagined it was both the gift and the curse of sisters who had lived together for more than sixty years. She always listened to them with a fond fascination, as well as a pang of loneliness.

  ‘Stage lights,’ Mrs Cleat said in a raised voice, evidently pleased with the chance to show off her insider knowledge to the wider congregation vacating the hall. ‘No miracles yet, Miss Hope. Mr Swann has brought his theatre lamps up from the West End. Artists must have their light, you know, particularly if the muse is inclined to visit at night.’ In unison the Misses Penny gave their girlish laughs, but behind them Connie could hear more excited voices gathering around the figure of Mrs Stanton, who had hurried from the hall after Mr Gilbert. The reverend’s wife, in her enthusiasm, had backed the schoolteacher into the memorial cross and was thrusting a roll of thick paper under his nose. Mrs Cleat’s face stiffened: she could sniff out a drama at fifty paces, and Connie knew she would not be excluded from it for long. The shopkeeper broke away from the old ladies, parting the villagers with her intimidating purpose. Connie walked the Misses Penny to the gate and then skirted behind the memorial garden to offer Mr Gilbert what rescue she could.

  ‘Well, who else could have done it?’ Mrs Stanton was saying as he unscrolled the paper. ‘It must have been Mr Swann. No one else in Leyton can paint like that.’ She tapped the underside of the sheet as he studied it. Mrs Cleat intercepted Connie just as she was positioning herself at Mr Gilbert’s elbow to take a look over his arm. Aunty Bea had already planted herself firmly on his other side.

  ‘Perhaps he left it with the harvest donations last night before he went back down to Town,’ Mrs Stanton added.

  Mrs Cleat gave a tight cough and raised her chin somewhat grandly. ‘Mm,’ she mulled, considering the painting again, of which Connie could see nothing but the grubby margins where the paper had been taped to a board. ‘Well, I expect you’re right, Ivy. Mr Swann’s obviously donated it for us to sell at the fair,’ Mrs Cleat said, as if disappointed her opinion aligned with Mrs Stanton’s. ‘No doubt it’ll raise a rare sum at our auction. Even more if we’d had the time to get it framed.’ She tutted. ‘Very generous of Mr Swann, no less. Very generous indeed.’

  Mrs Cleat placed a hand on her hat and proceeded to weave through the departing congregation, eager to disseminate the news. Mrs Stanton sighed and took her place at Mr Gilbert’s arm. Connie tried to peer around her, but the rouged netting of Mrs Stanton’s hat obscured her view even more.

  ‘Nice enough, I ’spect,’ came Aunty Bea’s voice from the other side of Mr Gilbert. ‘Mind, I’m not one for hanging pictures of dead creatures over me mantel.’

  ‘It’s a still life, Beatrice,’ Mr Gilbert said vaguely, engrossed in the artwork.

  ‘Is it now? A still life?’ Aunty Bea spoke with the superiority of someone who understood that a life study attracted the same dust and cobwebs as any other type of picture when framed and hanged. Connie prayed for her to stop there. She had heard Aunty Bea’s views on art at the Big House when she helped at spring-cleaning. ‘Who wants to stare up this enormous old goat’s nostrils on the way to bed, I ask you?’ Aunty Bea would declare, standing on the stepladder to clean the portraits along the wide staircase. To her aunt, the merit of an artwork always seemed in inverse proportion to its size, and the intricacies of its moulded frame where dirt could harbour. ‘Least it’s small,’ she offered over Mr Gilbert’s shoulder. Connie bit the inside of her cheek. How Aunty Bea could have ended up on a committee making decisions about church murals was one of Leyton’s many ironies. Mrs Stanton moved to take her aunt
’s arm, and the two stepped around the memorial cross to search out Mrs Cleat, finally allowing Connie to see the painting in Mr Gilbert’s hands.

  It was an oil-on-paper, finely detailed and textured. She had read enough art books, and studied their plates, to know that it was in a realist style, not unlike some of the Pre-Raphaelite studies she had seen in catalogues in the Reptons’ library. The subject was a large hare laid upon a hessian sack, its head at the unnatural angle of dead quarry, its orange eye the focal point of colour in the scene. Arranged about the hare, and bound coarsely with twine, were the hedgerow fruits of the summer’s end: the drooping heads of elder, heavy with overripe berries; rosehips starting to shrivel; and the hearts of hazelnuts browning on the branch among brittle leaves. At the table’s edge, the loose folds of a cloth were gathered under a skinning knife, soiled from use.

  ‘My God, it’s beautiful,’ Connie said. It was true, but she also felt a creeping sadness work its way over her as she admired the study.

  ‘Apparently it was left tucked among the corn dollies,’ Mr Gilbert said wryly. ‘It’s not Swann’s. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘How do you know?’ she asked, even though she was already certain of the painter.

  ‘There’s no signature. Swann signs everything, even his sketches, and these days he doesn’t so much as pick up his brush without knowing he’ll get paid for it. He doesn’t donate.’ He smiled at her. ‘His artistic ego as much as necessity demands it, I suspect.’

  She examined the hare again, the way the artist had caught the variations in the fleck and sheen of its coat, the veins of its translucent ears, the eye that was dead as a pebble.