Victoria at the Falklands

by Jack Tollers

  Chapter Six

  Brave new world

  That Friday evening it had been Thomas’s idea and Peter had jumped at the opportunity. As for Jimmy, he didn't feel half as enthusiastic. He had recently taken to constantly twitch an incipient reddish-brown moustache. It was typical, Peter thought, of young men who came down from the Army Academy: for one reason or another they took to hairy looks though in this case the interspersed red filaments lining his friend’s upper lip —combined with his newly grown hippie-like long hair—enhanced his friend’s churlish appearance.

  For the past couple of weeks Peter had been in low-spirits, his dejected countenance an unmistakable witness to love sorrows.

  Thomas had recently been reading Historica Calamitatum and, as usual, had told his friends all about the medieval legend surrounding Abelard and Heloise.

  ‘You remind me of Abelard and his misfortunes’ he said, looking meanfully at Peter.

  The three of them were drinking beer, sitting at their favourite table in a corner of the Bar they used to frequent, less than a block away from Jimmy’s home.

  Peter looked interested. ‘Why are you saying that?’

  ‘Well, apparently he wrote to a friend telling him about his misfortunes with Heloise, and that’s how we happen to know all about the famous love story... Indeed, one could rightly consider it the very first modern love story in the Western world.’ Thomas paused in search of words. ‘As a matter of fact, all things concerning Abelard are modern... except that he was tempted by the red medieval demons of passion; the blue devils of fear would appear some centuries later, in our adult times.’ They laughed at this piece of banter. But he added, ‘Which to my mind is Peter’s casea case of cold feet if you ask me.’

  He was referring to Peter’s reaction some time before, to his proposal.

  ‘You don’t mean, just hop into Jimmy’s car and go to this fellow’s place?’

  ‘Well... why not? Andrew specifically invited us all, didn’t he?’

  ‘Not too specific, I thought, more like “anytime”, “any day”,’ Jimmy said.

  As Thomas had secretly anticipated, Peter’s face lit up at the prospect of going near Victoria’s house, not entirely discarding that she might conceivably appear at Andrew’s home. After all he was her cousin and she lived only a couple of blocks away.

  On their way back that first Sunday from Victoria’s house—following some rather cumbersome exertions by which they finally extricated the old Falcon from its ditch—Peter had sullenly told his friends all about his proposal, and how he had been rebuffed by a troubled Victoria who had recurred to the ontological argument that they had not met often enough and that she would not be hurried, or, for that matter, harassed, by an impatient suitor. Both of his friends laughingly advanced that unmistakably the girl had a point and that he had indeed pressed the matter a bit prematurely. Peter was not in the least amused.

  ‘Fat lot of comfort one can count on from one’s friends...’

  But two weeks later, Thomas had begun to think that Peter and Victoria were excellently suited to one another and that any move in any direction was better than just hanging about in that rather foreseeable joint where they had met so very often in the recent past. He couldn’t help feeling rather impatient with Peter’s gloom, his apparently unconquerable ennui with everything, and thought that anything was better than just sitting around drinking beer and talking about nothing but unrequited love. What’s more, he couldn’t quite suppress a small voice in his heart that reminded him of Veronica: half an hour before Jimmy had incidentally referred to the fact that his sister was staying for a couple of days at Victoria’s place and he couldn’t entirely deny that this seemed a case of the wish being father to the thought.

  ‘Not again, you don’t think! We’ve been there only two weeks ago, and it’s a hell of a...’ Jimmy began to say, but was quickly interrupted by his older friend.

  ‘Oh dear, what a wet blanket. I mean, Andrew just plays and sings magnificently, don’t you think?’ Thomas said, while gesturing to the barman for another round of beers.

  ‘Yes, well, we can listen to him any day. I’m not that keen on...’ Jimmy complained.

  But he stopped, as it were, in his tracks, when he caught Thomas’s wink while he was saying, ‘Well... I think our friend Peter here could do with a bit of....’

  ‘Oh! Of course! Bolster. Silly of me not to... Let’s go now. Let’s help Peter out.’

  Peter was surprised at this change of mind, and thought his friend was only fielding for some fun at his expense.

  ‘It’s all very well for you to make fun of me... I know I’m making a fool of myself, but...’ Peter looked defiantly at Jimmy, ‘You don’t have the least idea what real love is about,’ he paused for a second, ‘In the first place it’s not like something that one goes and chooses for oneself... I sometimes wish that you’d all remember the way the English talk about falling in love...’

  Thomas began singing a Marlene Dietrich song from ‘The Blue Angel.’

  Falling in love again,

  What am I to do?

  ‘More like falling into a trap, to my mind,’ Jimmy said.

  Thomas stopped his song. ‘Yes. They say that there’s always a bit of sorcery in these cases,’ he smiled at Peter, ‘for instance, our friend here, he most clearly has been bewitched.’

  Peter acknowledged this with a laugh.

  ‘Well, I don’t know. I mean, calling our Victoria a witch seems a bit thick,’ Jimmy protested.

  ‘You can say what you willwhatever... but I for one, happen to know that one day I’ll actually marry her,’ Peter solemnly said. And he suddently added pointing a finger at Jimmy, ‘and you won’t even be invited!’ He chuckled at his own impudence.

  ‘Hear, hear!’ Thomas rejoiced at the parade, ‘Peter’s brag! That’s my boy. We’ll win every war with such swaggering, confident soldiers.’

  ‘ ...and, if lucky, be rewarded with the Victoria Cross,’ Jimmy tacked on.

  But Thomas, who had had the initiative in the first place, had begun to wonder if it was a good idea after all. On the famous night at Victoria’s, before the storm broke up the party, Andrew had repeatedly invited them all to come along whenever they wished although it hadn’t been a very formal invitation, to say the least. Nevertheless he had managed to indicate his address between bolts of lightning and the rumbling of menacing thunder. Thomas had easily retained the street and number, interested as he was in listening again to Andrew’s boisterous songs and guitar playing. It is true that in those days—especially in Bella Vista—social occasions required little formalities, but the fact that Andrew wasn’t exactly a well known friend had made him rather uncertain about this bit of gate-crashing. He said as much.

  ‘Do you think we should phone first?’ Peter asked, nervously playing around with his coaster and evidently wanting to go.

  ‘Well, maybe’, said Jimmy, ‘but we haven’t the number, so we’ll just have to fetch the old Falcon and off we go...’

  In the prompt way that young people act on a sudden after protracted deliberation, they finished their beer in a hurry and in no time were once again driving towards Bella Vista.

  None of them had ever been to the Borelli’s, but they had heard from Suter and other Bella Vista cadets plenty of stories about the place, which was quite a legend in its own right. In effect, it was something of a locus among Bella Vista’s youngsters based on the fact that Andrew’s bohemian parents kept an open house giving refuge to any outcast, boy, or girl, who was having trouble with their own parents, school authorities or, for that matter, the Law. Everyone in Bella Vista seemed to know about the Borelli’s offhanded ways, and their house was frowned upon by most people who rightly considered it an unreliable sanctuary for all sorts of bohemian gatherings, card playing, long talks into the night, guitar playing and singing, a meeting place for would-be fiancés, and so on. To be sure, one of the family’s most distinctive features was Andrew
’s father, a grocer of sorts who would appear at home at unseemly hours, a bottle of Scotch under his armpit and half a dozen cigarette packs which he generously shared with anyone around, no matter their age, sex, doings or status. There could be a tramp invited to dinner by Andrew or his mother, there could be one of the girl’s fiancés, or perhaps a couple of Andrew’s numerous friends staying the night with the official purpose of studying for an exam or something, even when the actually gathering was for a poker game. No matter, when Andrew’s father appeared, an altogether different party began, with the whisky bottle that he scrupulously held at arm’s length and cigarettes liberally distributed among those present. These meetings would usually kick off with a long tirade against the current government, but the ensuing conversation could end up with the most unseemly arguments on any topic under the sun, from soccer to great cinema stars, the merits or demerits of the current Pope, Argentine history controversies, or different local subjects such as the latest beauty seen at this or that party or detailed adventures with local stray dogs (in those days, one of Bella Vista’s favourite topics). Andrew’s father was well over fifty, but he enjoyed these varied get-togethers meetings which would quite frequently continue well into the small hours of the next day, no matter if some of those present had studies, school, or work obligations pending.

  During the trip Peter brought up the Abelard and Heloise subject again and Thomas dived into the story with relish, satisfied that, even if their excursion didn’t turn out to be quite the best idea, the change in his friend’s mood was well worth it. And anyway, he always had thought that most of the time any price for a bit of good conversation was well worth it.

  ‘How did he happen to seduce Heloise, who was so much younger than he?’

  ‘Actually, 22 years younger. But Abelard was an extraordinary man and had more than one string to his bow: he also happened to compose the most wonderful love-songs which added to his remarkable fame...’

  ‘Troubadour songs, do you mean?’ Peter asked.

  ‘Exactly. Songs to be sung to your loved one... Some say Abelard actually started courtly love.’

  ‘I suppose our serenatas come from there,’ Jimmy chimed in.

  ‘Well, they are not exactly ours you know, I think the serenade is originally Mexican.’

  ‘Maybe Spanish.’

  ‘Maybe Western, as all the best things come from that tradition, and no other one,’ Thomas sentenced, ‘It’s always a good idea to point westwards if you don’t want to lose yourself. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly our course. We are, you know, driving westward.’

  ‘All? All things? All things good?’ asked Jimmy, a ring of contention in his repeated questions.

  But Thomas stood his ground. ‘Absolutely: from hospitals to kindness, from haute cuisine to poetry...’

  But they had almost arrived and Jimmy stopped the car near the railway station and got out in order to ask for directions. He came back with a smile on his face.

  ‘Easy enough, it’s only two blocks from the Wade’s... I think we passed by the place the other night when we were walking under the rain owing to this man’s dreadful driving.’ He looked meaningfully at Thomas.

  The ‘dreadful driver’ continued his harangue undisturbed. ‘Well, and then you have beer, haven’t you. Best drink ever discovered.’

  ‘If in heaven there’s no beer, let’s drink it here,’ Jimmy chimed in. But Thomas proceeded with his contention.

  ‘...bicycles, biscuits and Bishops, if you ask me...’ By the time they arrived at Andrew’s home he was on to the ‘D’ arguing that the myriad of different dances one could find all over Europe was quite without equivalent in the rest of the world.

  He would’ve kept on and on had it not been that Peter and Jimmy got out of the car and stared through open gates into a dark and empty drive lined by huge trees, at the end of which one could just discern a pallid light bulb hanging over a very small porch. Thomas joined them as they assessed the house, not entirely giving up his discourse.

  ‘No, I say, modern science is not exactly Western, because it comes of age exactly when Western tradition begins to’

  ‘Shhh! Can’t you shut up for a minute?’ Jimmy and Peter unanimously censured their friend, and for a couple of minutes the three of them remained silent.

  They were eyeing the house that loomed in the darkness. It was a bit of a mansion except that it didn’t exactly convey a stately impression. It was very big, but even in that light, they could easily see it was very much in want of repair, the old walls badly needed paint, and some loose tiles seemed to dangerously hover over the roof as if ready to fall on top of the first absent-minded straggler to walk under the house’s shadow. Jimmy thought that it was ideally suited for a horror film.

  ‘Looks as though it’s haunted to me’ he reflected.

  ‘Oh, come on!’ said Peter repressively.

  The garden didn’t look too healthy either. The lawn hadn’t been mown for weeks, and the thick powdered brick layer that had originally been spread over the path in order to fend off the mud and decorate the drive now exhibited weeds and several pools that gave the alley a bedraggled appearance.

  They hesitated under the small canopy that hung over the open gates, but eventually marched up the drive to the small porch where a sleeping dog lay on a deteriorated garden chair under a naked twenty-five-watt bulb that barely illuminated the place. Peter and Jimmy looked suspiciously at the animal but Thomas resolutely knocked on the massive door, and to their relief the dog only looked up uninterestedly and yawned. They could now hear what seemed to be a rather heated quarrel between two or three people, and their intruding precisely at that moment made them a bit uneasy. However, apparently no one had heard Thomas knocking while the resounding voices inside the house seemed to be picking up vehemence by the minute. He pounced once more on the daub wood with force, pounding a series of five successive knocks that would have unsettled a less formidable door, and soon enough Andrew himself opened the door standing on the threshold with a glass of Scotch in his hand and a broad smile on his face. He took a cigarette dangling from his mouth to give his visitors a proper greeting, shaking hands vigorously and laughing off their excuses for not having announced themselves.

  ‘Come in! Come in!’ he said, ushering them into the house and promptly introducing them all around.

  They found themselves in a medium-sized hall with a big couch and an odd assortment of armchairs, stools, folding chairs and the like where half a dozen people were sitted around an unlit fireplace. An adjacent coffee table exhibited a bottle of whisky presiding over several ashtrays up to the brim and an odd collection of all sorts of vessels, glasses, jars, a coffee pot, two or three beer tumblers and a teacup for good measure. A maté with its companion kettle could be seen on a smaller table next to Andrew’s stool. The atmosphere was dense with tobacco smoke and the conversation kept circulating even while Andrew introduced the three young men to all present.

  Thomas gathered that two of the teen-age girls sitting right behind their father would be Andrew’s sisters, one of them apparently called Sarah though he didn’t catch the other girl’s name. Next to Sarah sat a young man in his mid-twenties who was noisily arguing about soccer with a very fat boy, who seemed to be sweating all the time. Andrew introduced them as school friends, and then proceeded to do the same with a man next to him, a man of about Andrew’s father age who was drinking wine. He looked rather disreputable, with his muddy shoes and long hair, but especially because he sported a long beard—in those days, quite a statement in itself, as it had come to be a sort of badge for left-wingers and guerrilla sympathisers, probably due to the ‘Che’ Guevara cult, in those days so very fashionable. They were all talking more or less at the same time and at the outset the newcomers felt a bit confused but soon got used to it turning their attention to one piece of conversation or another amidst the general hullabaloo.

  They all made space for the visitors who sat where they coul
d around the coffee table, while the talk resumed with renewed vigour. Andrew’s father offered Scotch and ordered Andrew into the kitchen for more ice.

  It was quite obvious that this middle-aged man had the leading voice, sitting as he was on the biggest armchair in the room as if it were a throne or something. He was smoking away and in an unlikely fashion kept half turning his head to the back of his chair, booming away at one of his daughters who was knitting right behind him.

  ‘Your mother should’ve left me alone, I mean, what with the incredible silly things Cantoni preaches about every Sunday...’

  The girl looked up from her knitting at his back and spoke with reproving tones: ‘You know very well that Mother was only trying to avoid another scandal.’

  Peter observed that the lady was nowhere to be seen while Andrew explained with a raffish grin that that Sunday his father, whom everybody seemed to know as Pelusa—a not too distinguished nickname to say the least—had gone to evening Mass after a big barbecue previously concerted with their neighbours and that the old man had ended up the worse for liquor. Pelusa heard this and guffawed again. He was half bald, with very thin fair hair, a stubbly moustache, piercing blue eyes, and a gruff voice underlining his ribald utterances, gesticulating and impersonating one or another of those who happened to appear in his stories. But the man’s most distinctive feature was a prominent nose that gave him a ludicrous appearance. Soon the three guests were laughing away at his preposterous story and by the time they were comfortably seated and had dipped into their first drink they had learnt that Cantoni was the local parish priest, and that he was well known for his rather unilateral preference for the passage where Jesus reproved Martha while emphasising Mary’s good choice in not working but listening to what the Master had to say.

  Meanwhile, Sarah’s fiancé and the fat boy continued to argue at the top of their voices about the relative merits of River Plate’s latest football star, unheedful of what Pelusa was saying. He didn’t seem to mind a bit.

  ‘Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things!’ Pelusa impersonated the vicar with a studied falsetto that set the boys laughing. ‘Martha, Martha! I ask you? What sort of a sermon is that? We’ve heard it a hundred times and there he goes again! We, the gentle flock from Bella Vista deserve better!’ The man had another go at his drink and burst out again, ‘Martha, Martha! To hell with the damn hairdresser!’

  Andrew laughed at this and explained that Cantoni, in effect, had been a hairdresser before taking up Holy Orders. But there were several present who reproached the accuser for his uncharitable sobriquet.

  ‘Uncharitable, my hat!’ Pelusa counter-charged, ‘I ask you, what could be more uncharitable than to subject us to this ‘Martha, Martha’ mumbo-jumbo every single Sunday of the year?’ he complained while lighting up a cigarette and winking in Peter’s direction. ‘Martha, Martha, I’m fed up to the back teeth with the bloody hairdresser’s sermons!’

  This drew more protest and more laughter from different quarters and it was quite evident that Andrew’s father was thouroughly enjoying himself.

  Meanwhile the fat boy and Sarah’s boy friend kept on with their soccer prattle.

  ‘I’m telling you that any real River Plate fan can see this from a mile away... this will be our ruin... The whole concept of jogo bonito will be the end of...’

  ‘But anyone can see that just now we’re playing wonderfully, so what need to...’

  Andrew was trying to play “Martha my dear” on his guitar but was finding it devilishly difficult.

  ‘That doesn’t entitle you to go to church entirely drunk, Daddy,’ said the girl that sat behind him with the knitting. Peter found Victoria’s cousin quite attractive, even if she offered a rather dishevelled appearance. He guessed her age at something around twenty.

  The man kept half turning his head and actually talking, as it were, to the wall next to him. Apparently he thought he could compensate for this lack of eye contact with a bellowing voice. ‘Well, listen my girl, a man has a right to protect himself from a clumsy hairdresser who takes advantage from his office to absolutely stultify his flock with this never ending ‘Martha, Martha’ bombastic drawl.’ He emphasised this last part with a piercing voice that made them laugh again. ‘If it’s a sin to go to Mass with a few drinks too many, I’ll bet you any day that it’s a much worse one to make a mess of things and keep on going with this ‘Martha, Martha’ nonsense till you’re blue in the face!’

  Andrew told the boys that his Mother had sent him round to the church to try and pull out his Father from the place, since one of the girls had come back reporting that the old man was in no condition to be in Mass in the first place and was actually snoring in his pew and drawing more and more attention to himself. The scandal was gathering force and the girl had run back to ask for help knowing as she did that the man’s snore could reach thunderous proportions, especially when he happened to be fuddled.

  ‘Mummy was terrified and begged me to run to San Francisco and somehow get Daddy out of the church before...’

  ‘You should’ve left me alone,’ said Pelusa to his son. ‘I was only sleeping which was what the circumstances required. Please bear in mind our hairdresser’s somniloquence.’

  ‘Things got a bit thick then, because Father suddenly woke up and rose to the occasion mimicking the ‘Martha, Marta’ bit at the top of his voice.’ The boys couldn’t stop laughing at this while Pelusa heard his son´s report with an imperturbable grin.

  ‘So, what did you do?’ Thomas asked Andrew.

  ‘Well, I just left him there because he wouldn’t budge anyway... I just hoped that if only I left him alone he might fall asleep again which seemed to be, all things considered, much the best bargain...’

  They laughed at this.

  ‘And did you...’ Jimmy left the question half formulated, a bit intimidated by his own bluntness.

  ‘I don´t remember a thing,’ said Pelusa. ‘As a matter of fact, I believe the whole story has been made up by this deceitful family in order to discredit me with I know not what obscure purposes...’

  Andrew laughed at this one and continued: ‘Yup, I just stood at the back of the church until the service ended, but unfortunately...’ he eyed his new friends with affected unhappiness, ‘the show hadn’t finished yet, because....’

  ‘No show, I can tell you, my boy...’

  ‘ ...didn’t he get up and proceed with unsure pace toward the queue for communion?’

  This piece of information set off new ripples of laughter while Pelusa assumed a saintly face that effectively achieved an interruption to the raconteur’s story while he promptly choked with laughter himself as he recapitulated the scene.

  ‘Well, I ask you, who’s being unkind now?’ Pelusa rhetorically asked around, ‘Fancy the bigotry! I suppose these youngsters here can say when I’m fit and when not for Holy Communion!’ he bellowed defiantly. But Andrew unremittingly kept the ball rolling.

  ‘Worse part of all was that, in an unexpected bout of piety, he suddenly broke out singing at the top of his voice...’ he laughed again, ‘and quite out of tune, at that.’

  Pelusa disputed this last part, insisting dogmatically that here was the proof that the whole story had been made up, since it was well known to everyone, he said, that he had a well tuned musical ear and that it was quite impossible to catch him singing out of tune. This drew peels of laughter from Andrew and his two sisters.

  ‘Anyway, after that he went back to his pew and during thanksgiving the old man fell asleep again, fortunately with no snores this time... So all is well, that ends well,’ Andrew concluded, while lighting a cigarette with evident relish, ‘After the ite Missa est I just walked back home and soon enough, Daddy appeared with the most innocent smile on his face.’

  Thomas wondered how on earth Andrew happened to know the old Latin formula with which the priest used to end Mass. This was a most disconcerting family, he thought.

  ‘Innocent
?’ said Pelusa, ‘Well, why not? There’s the old Spanish saying... How did it run?’ He suddenly remembered the old lines and proceeded to recite them with his pitched voice.

  Those who drink tend to slumber

  And those who slumber do not sin.

  Now, sinless people go to Heaven

  So if to Heaven we’re surely bound,

  Let us drink, I’ll pay a round!

  This drew more laughter, especially from the newcomers who hadn’t heard the old rhyme before. But there was no stopping Pelusa’s tirades.

  ‘Anyway, I don’t see how you can accuse a man because he happens to be a bit tired and falls asleep while a cloaked hairdresser keeps going on and on with his “Martha, Martha” drivel...’

  As the evening lingered on Peter worked out the old man’s gleeful formula: clearly most of his jargon was made up of extravagant exaggerations and extraneous nonsense fastidiously chosen to enliven what originally could not have been of any great interest. The other component, which contributed decisively to the general alacrity created by his histrionics, was the constant repetition of his stories, repeatedly going back to parts of them with ding-dong determination and perfectly oblivious to the chorus of protests that his reiterative narrative drew from those present. All of this made for the general merriment of the gathering and when Andrew’s father’s drollery was in full swing nobody could quite refrain from cheering up, like Peter that night, or actually laughing their heads off, like Thomas and Jimmy.

  But Thomas particularly noticed what he thought was so very Mediterranean in the house, partly poor, partly cultured, partly decadent; but basically a buoyancy and ease that could only proceed, he reflected, from a deeply rooted assurance that all was, in the end, well. He also thought that these elements were the basis of the Borelli’s rather special hospitality, the offhanded way in which you felt immediately accepted, no matter who you were and what your business.

  After what seemed quite a long time during which Andrew’s father hammered on and on with this part or that of the same story, he suddenly ceased in his intemperate verbiage.

  ‘Hey, who’s there? Can you hear those odd noises?’

  They all fell silent and listened, and sure enough, there was a grinding and scratching noise that proceeded from somewhere behind a large window next to the front door.

  ‘I told you the place was haunted,’ said Peter on the side to Jimmy, who impatiently hushed him.

  Behind a closed curtain the window seemed to be shaking while the scratching and gnawing sounds seemed to gather force.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Andrew boomed, while getting up from his stool and making for the window.

  At that precise moment the window gave way with such violence that the curtain fell off from the railing and one of the window panes gave way with a clatter of shattered glass. Andrew’s sisters shrieked in panic amidst the ensuing confusion, while Peter and Jimmy stood up with set faces, determined to stop a tall man who hopped into the hall with an odd grin on his face and whom, before one could say jack, walked up to where Andrew was and jauntily asked for a cigarette.

  The visitors were flummoxed.

  ‘But, I say, Manolo, what do you mean by entering the house in this way?’ Andrew asked, quite incapable of suppressing fits of laughter. The boys were surprised to see that all the rest of them were laughing uproariously and couldn’t detect a sign of reprehension or anything like it.

  ‘Hello, hello, hello, hello. Er...grrreat Jove, dreadful thing isn’t it? I mean, hello, er, I couldn’t get in this place, and have been sttt... stttanding out there for years... I mean, out there in the cold all by myself... er, waiting for someone to open the door,’ he looked around while violently rubbing his nose with a yellowish tobacco-tarnished hand, ‘Hello, hi, how’s doing, er, hello... I’m vvv...vvery sorry about that window but I absss... absss... absssolutely needed a cigarette...’ And suddenly perceiving strangers in the place, he turned to them: ‘Hello! Hello! Who are, er, these folk?’ and without waiting for Andrew to introduce him he shook their hands repeatedly with disproportionate force and an inordinate waving of his, and their, arms. He showed no sign whatsoever of embarrassment or sense of blunder and proceeded quite unruffled to sit in Andrew’s stead, taking a cigarette from a pack on the table which he lit up and finished off with a few violent puffs.

  They all sat again in relative peace while no one seemed to pay the slightest attention to the broken window while Andrew loudly explained that Manolo was a friend who lived in the neighbourhood adding that he had recently been discharged from the Borda Hospital—a well known lunatic asylum—after a five year period of internment.

  The three boys looked at him doubtfully while Manolo stammered rather inarticulate words that they couldn’t quite decipher though it was apparent that he was corroborating the current version about his forced stay at that particular madhouse.

  From Andrew’s family—each in turn supplying bits and pieces of information about him—the bewildered boys gathered that Manolo had been sent down on the unreliable premise that he was much better and could actually live with his old parents, only a block away from the Borelli’s.

  Manolo was an unlikely character, an opéra-bouffe fool. Despite being thirty years old, apparently his mental development had been arrested somehow by a stone someone had thrown at him when a child and that unfortunately had hit him on the head. Anyway that was his rendering of the story. But nobody knew much about him, except what he himself chose to say, usually making absurd propositions and telling preposterous stories that sent Andrew into infectious fits of laughter. The man kept rubbing his nose with considerable energy while trying to surreptitiously inspect the newcomers. He kept swearing from time to time and seemed to be suffering from some sort of hyperkinesia, constantly shifting in his chair and apparently quite unable to keep still.

  ‘Grreat Jj...ove, er, I mean Grreaaat Jovvvve! It´s so cc...ccolddd out there!’ He rubbed his hands with exaggerated vigour and looked sideways at Peter who was next to him; his big eyes, savage looks and some snorting sound he repeated from time to time made Thomas laugh. Manolo had a distinctively equine aspect, he thought, not only because of his heaving and grumbling sort of personality, but also because of his very long face and nose. One found oneself expecting to hear him neigh at any moment. But what was really funny about him was this way of his of looking at people sideways like one of Walt Disney’s anthropomorphic animals—his face a complex mixture of aggravation at the world in general and a queer expression of permanent suspicion if not downright paranoia. Maybe he actually suspected that people found him ridiculous, thought Peter, which was substantially the case.

  Not two minutes after Manolo’s arrival there were more knocks at the front door, to which Andrew answered at the top of his voice refusing to budge from where he sat tuning his guitar.

  ‘Through the window, please! Through the window!’

  And in effect, through the window entered a fifteen-year-old boy whom the newcomers immediately recognised as another of Victoria’s brothers. He was the spitting image of his elder sister, with blue eyes and black hair and that distinctive clear forehead of theirs. A case of Viola and Sebastian, Thomas thought.

  ‘What the hell? I mean, what the heaven....???’

  ‘Manolo’s doings again...’

  Joseph looked down at Manolo reproachfully.

  ‘I just can’t believe...’

  ‘It wasn’t, er, me, I have nothing to do with that wwwindow, I did nnnnot, er, Grreat Jjove, hello Joseph, hello, hello, Grreat Jjovve.... I’m telling you, mate, someone must’ve, er, broken it...’

  His infantile lying and preposterous vagary drew renewed laughter and Andrew nearly choked over his drink.

  ‘Manolo! One thing is breaking up the house, but lying is quite another! I can understand your breaking the window, but breaking one of the Ten Commandments is quite another story,’ he said with mock reprehension.

  Manolo just rubbed his nose wit
h more violence than ever and looked sideways at Pelusa who demurely joined the tomfoolery.

  ‘Well, I’m afraid we’ll just have to tell Cora all about this.’

  This piece of information acted like an electric shock on the young man’s body: he suddenly stood up, overturning the stool he had been sitting on, a panicked expression in his eyes while vigorously rubbing his big nose.

  ‘Grrreattt, er, Jovvve, hello, I mean, you won’t tell Cora will you?’ An expression of childlike innocence suddenly appeared on his face. ‘Anyway I just came in thrrrough the window because I wanted a cigarette... but... don’t, er, tell Cora, will you, Grreat Jovvee, hello, I mean, what?’ he said with a woeful look in his eyes.

  ‘Take it easy, Manolo, relax,’ Andrew chimed in, ‘be a good boy and we won’t tell Mum...’

  But without warning the young man suddenly leaped out of the window into the garden amid a chorus of futile protests.

  ‘Manolo, come back! We won’t tell Cora! Come back!’

  He didn’t and Andrew explained to the boys that Cora was his mother and that being a very early riser was usually in bed when Manolo came for a cigarette or something. For the fun of it they had made up all sorts of terrible stories about poor old Cora —a kind and amiable mother, if ever there was one—. It was a joke of Andrew’s, shared by his friends and Manolo had come to believe that this woman was a bit of a witch prone to wield dark powers. Andrew had even told him that his mother practised occultism. It had been a very useful invention and they recurred to it whenever Manolo seemed to get too excited and required some kind of restraint. Of course, one could overdo this, like Pelusa had just done: in such cases inevitably Manolo would take flight and keep away from the house for a couple of days.

  ‘Daddy, you’ve done it again! You’ve frightened poor Manolo out of his wits!’ Sarah reproached his father.

  But Andrew was already playing the guitar, and started a well-known zamba at the top of his voice. They all soon joined in. Thomas was delighted. He observed how Andrew played, his eyes shut, the guitar’s bridge in a nearly vertical position, his resonant voice echoing in the hall, well above the rest.

  Thomas checked his watch and discovered that it was already two in the morning, high time to withdraw, but he was enjoying himself so much that he just shrugged the thought off and poured himself another glass of wine. Then Andrew’s classmates and Pelusa said good night at one time or the other and so did his sisters who quietly retired, as well as the rest of the visitors.

  Eventually only Andrew, who had stopped playing, remained in the hall with Sarah´s fiancé, Stephanhe was the hairy, Che Guevara type they had been introduced toand Victoria’s brother, Joseph. The boys took to talking about themselves and soon learned from Joseph that Philip had received a call from the Seminary to the effect that he shouldn’t present himself until the end of the month. Conversation soon drifted to other topics from where they also learnt that Stephen wanted to marry Sarah but was poorly off since he worked at Andrew’s school as a prefect and was badly paid. It was then that Thomas thought the time right to play his cards.

  ‘Our friend, Peter here, he also...’

  ‘Now stop it, will you? We’ve only just met these lads here and there’s no sense in telling—’ Peter protested.

  To no avail. Jimmy and Thomas soon put Andrew and Stephen and, what was worse, Joseph, into the picture. Andrew was fascinated with Peter’s unrequitted love story, and asked for details again and again, trying to get the facts straight.

  ‘Well, Peter, I think your choice excellent, as a matter of fact, if it wasn’t because she happens to be my first cousin, I’d have a go at her myself,’ he commented with a ripple of raucous laughter.

  There was consensus here, and for a while they all commended Victoria’s good looks. Joseph seemed bored to death with this and Peter thought it all very unnecessary, but was soon explaining that he well understood that he hadn’t a chance with such a girl, etc.

  ‘One never knows with women, you know,’ Stephen chimed in, ‘As a matter of fact I never thought Sarah would actually—’

  ‘You better be careful with my sister or—’

  It was then that Thomas was struck with the idea.

  ‘I say! What we need here is a good serenade’

  ‘Whattt???’ Peter had immediately known what his friend was driving at. He was quite alarmed and looked around at his friends, see if any one of them had the sense to reject the preposterous idea.

  ‘My uncle,’ Thomas added, ‘always used to say that it never fails,’ he laughed.

  ‘What can you mean?’ Peter asked.

  ‘Exactly that. A serenade never fails if you want to win a girl. We’ve seen that in Abelard’s case, don’t you remember?’

  By now everybody seemed enthused with the idea and suggested one song or another as appropriate for the occasion while Andrew began to strum his guitar again.

  ‘Well, I for one, say that a serenade is a very nice thing in any circumstance,’ Jimmy insisted, adding as though it were an afterthought, ‘And if Peter doesn’t want to come he doesn’t have to.’

  They laughed at this while Thomas derisively suggested that if Peter had cold feet he could stay in the car while they all sang at Victoria’s window.

  ‘I say! This is an excellent idea!’ Andrew chimed in, ‘I’ve just remembered that Victoria’s room does happen to have a small balcony, so she can come out and appreciate the show.’

  Joseph wasn't so sure.

  ‘Only problem will be the old man. If we wake Father up, he’ll probably...’

  ‘Ring for the Police?’

  ‘Come at us with the old gun?’ Andrew guessed.

  ‘Nope. Knowing the old man, he’ll probably join us and wake the whole neighbourhood with the subsequent racket.’

  Peter was not relieved by this piece of news and looked like a trapped mouse.

  ‘Listen boys,’ an air of supplication in his voice, ‘be sensible, we can’t go out there and start singing in the middle of...’ He felt quite unmanned.

  ‘Well, why not?’ Andrew asked, ‘it’s not as if it were wrong or something,’ he laughed, ‘and Victoria will just love it.’

  ‘My uncle used to say that it never fails.’

  ‘Well... I for one think that this is no time for shilly-shallying.’

  By now they were all getting rather tight, except Peter who felt his resolve dwindling by the minute. And then they started to argue over the best song for the occasion and question Peter about those he happened to know, and Andrew started to play different boleros, until they found out that they all new Algo contigo. They rehearsed it a few times, laughing away at its improbable lyrics.

  Before he knew what was happening, Peter found himself piled up in Jimmy’s Falcon, crushed between an excited Andrew who had hopped in with his guitar and Joseph who had managed to get hold of Pelusa’s whisky bottle while Thomas was bellowing away in the front. Stephen couldn’t get in so he just lay down on the car’s hood holding on to the windshields for dear life as Jimmy slowly drove round the corner bound for Victoria’s house. Peter couldn’t stop laughing while they all sang out of key and at the top of their voices.

  By the time they got out of the car and started to sing the sky in the horizon began to light up with the first colours of dawn.