‘What is this jelly beans?’ asked Nadia.
‘An English sweet,’ Tobias explained. ‘Brightly coloured sugar beans that taste as good as Freja’s laughter sounds.’
‘Aaaaah,’ said Nadia, nodding and frowning. ‘They sound spectacular! I must try these sometime, Boris. Maybe we go to England on our next holiday.’
‘Maybe we do, Nadia,’ said Boris, nodding and frowning at his wife.
Freja giggled once more. Not because of the jelly beans, but because Boris and Nadia looked like twins. They were both large and square, with brown eyes and short, cropped hair. They wore the same plain and practical clothing — grey zip-up jackets, black pants and hiking boots. When Boris threw back his head and laughed, Nadia threw back her head and laughed. When Nadia frowned, Boris frowned. When Boris took a mouthful of pasta and made murmurs of approval, Nadia took a mouthful of pasta and made similar murmurs of delight. The only real difference was that Nadia wore bright red lipstick and dangly earrings in the shape of fish. Boris did not.
Tobias lifted a forkful of pasta into the air. He stared at it from above, below and side-on. ‘Fascinating shape,’ he murmured.
‘Orecchiette!’ boomed Giuseppe. ‘It means little ears. Each piece of pasta is shaped like a small ear, so it holds a drop of the delicious sauce.’
‘Yes, I can see that,’ said Tobias. He took one little ear in his fingers and squeezed it. ‘Mmmm . . . squishy . . . slimy.’
He pushed a pile of little ears back and forth across the tablecloth.
He ran his finger around inside one of his own large ears.
‘Uh-oh,’ moaned Freja, and she sank low in her chair.
‘A bowl of little ears,’ murmured Tobias. ‘My word! If you look at it the right way, it’s quite dreadful! A bowl full of severed ears! Someone might have done a very bad thing! Of course, the ears are too little to be human. Perhaps they belonged to a rat or a monkey . . .’
Giuseppe dropped his fork. His face turned as white as his shirt.
Tobias continued, oblivious to the discomfort of those around him. ‘Or perhaps they are human ears that have been dehydrated. That would certainly make them smaller than usual . . . although if they spent long enough in the pasta sauce, they might rehydrate and swell up to their original size . . .’
Nadia and Boris stared at each other and pushed their bowls away.
Freja shrugged. She passed the rejected meals along the table to Finnegan and continued to eat her own orecchiette with tomato sauce.
‘Now, my friend,’ Giuseppe said, leaning across the table to Tobias. ‘It is time. You must tell me about this priest, Padre Flavio. How do you know him? Why is he so angry?’
Tobias slouched back in his chair and sighed. He pulled a pencil from his shirt pocket and used it to scratch his head. ‘The truth is, I’ve never seen him before.’
‘But he knows you,’ said Giuseppe.
Freja stopped eating and looked up at Tobias.
‘Yes,’ said the writer. ‘I think he might be a friend of another priest who is angry with me. A chap called Padre Paolo.’
Boris thumped his fist on the table. ‘That is very bad!’ he boomed. ‘A priest should be kind, not cross.’
Nadia thumped her fist on the table. ‘Boris is right!’ she boomed. ‘A priest should love, not hate!’
‘There was a mishap,’ Freja explained. ‘Tobias spilt ink all over Mother Superior Evangelista. Padre Paolo — the first priest — was cross. Perhaps he was Mother Superior’s friend. He knew Tobias was the one who did it because Tobias had ink all over his fingers . . . and his face . . . and his clothes.’
‘But you have no ink today,’ Giuseppe pointed out.
Tobias wriggled his fingers in the air. They were clean and white, except for a bit of pasta sauce, which Finnegan licked off right there and then.
‘This nun with the ink,’ said Boris. ‘Did it happen yesterday?’
‘Oh no!’ cried Tobias. ‘Over a week ago. It’s quite old hat.’
‘Old hat?’ asked Nadia.
‘Old news,’ explained Freja. ‘Lots of stuff has happened between then and now. Padre Paolo tried to punch Tobias at the Trevi Fountain, then he chased Tobias from the bookstore, and now it looks like he’s sent another priest, Padre Flavio, to catch him.’
‘But this is nonsense!’ cried Giuseppe. ‘A little bit of ink is not so bad!’
‘It did make a mess of Mother Superior’s nice cream habit,’ whispered Freja.
‘No! No! No!’ said Nadia. ‘Giuseppe is right. It makes no sense. I think there is something more. Something you are not remembering.’
Tobias stared at the ceiling.
‘Tobias did call Mother Superior “Mamma Spaghettiosa”!’ said Freja.
Boris, Nadia and Giuseppe threw back their heads and laughed.
Giuseppe slapped his leg and wiped tears from his eyes. ‘Mamma Spaghettiosa!’ he bellowed. ‘That is very funny. You should be writing comedies for the theatre, Signore Appleby, not crime novels!’
At that moment, their laughter was drowned out by an uproar at the bar. Pazzo had grown weary and fallen asleep in a bowl of walnuts. When Roberto had tried to take another nut, the monkey had grabbed his little finger, popped it into his mouth and sucked it like a baby. He would not let go.
The old men were now rocking back and forth, howling with glee. They called Roberto ‘mamma’ and shrieked even louder. Sebastiano and Edmondo collapsed into each other’s arms, laughing so hard that Edmondo dribbled on Sebastiano’s shoulder.
‘I think,’ said Giuseppe, ‘it is time for me to go home. Pazzo will be too tired to perform in the morning if I do not tuck him into his bed.’ He heaved himself out of his chair, then bustled around Trattoria Famiglia, singing, ‘Arrivederci, my Russian friends. Good evening! Good evening! Come and see me again before you leave my beautiful city. I will sing for you. You will dance for me!’
Freja squeezed out from the table and crept up beside him. She tugged at his sleeve and whispered, ‘Thank you, Giuseppe. Grazie.’
‘What for, bella?’
‘For helping us trick the priest,’ she whispered. ‘And for being kind . . . and for teaching me to dance . . . and . . .’ She barely dared say the words. Her voice grew even quieter. ‘And for being my friend.’
‘Aaah, but that is so easy,’ he said, his voice softer than usual. ‘Grazie for being my friend. I think we have the same heart, Freja — soft and full of things we cannot always say. I have learnt to pour these things from my heart into my music. You will find your own special way to pour the beautiful things from your heart.’ He leaned forward and kissed Freja on the top of her head.
‘Goodnight, Giuseppe,’ she whispered.
The organ grinder smiled. He scooped Pazzo out of the nut bowl and into the crook of his arm, then disappeared into the street.
When the Russians had left, the girl, the dog and the writer sat alone at their table, eating tiramisù, enjoying a moment’s quiet reflection.
Finnegan was obviously reflecting on how rapidly his dessert had disappeared and how much of Freja’s remained. He stared and dribbled and moved closer and closer to Freja’s bowl.
Tobias patted his tiramisù with the back of his spoon while reflecting on orecchiette. ‘It might be fun,’ he murmured, ‘to include a severed ear or two in my current novel . . . It could easily happen if someone plummeted from a cliff and caught their ear on a sharp rock on the way down . . . Or if my villain became particularly enraged and ran amok with a knife . . .’ He whipped his pencil from his pocket and began to scribble notes on one of Nonna Rosa’s menus.
Freja was reflecting on the day’s astonishing run of events, but was continually drawn back to one detail in particular.
‘Tobias,’ she said, her spoon freezing halfway to her mouth.
‘What is it, old chap?’
‘Giuseppe said I’m your niece. Why do you suppose he did that?’
‘It was a trick, of course. Part of t
he lie we told to coax Padre Flavio away from the truth — the fact that I really am Tobias Appleby, the English writer he was hoping to find.’ Tobias ran his hand through his hair. His mop of curly, feral hair.
Freja recalled the two women in the library at Little Coddling. ‘And that hair,’ the husky-voiced woman had hissed. ‘Feral and curly! Just like . . . well, you know . . .’
Freja now stared at Tobias’ hair. She patted her own hair, mouth open, eyes wide. She plucked at the end of one of her curls, pulled it out and let it spring back against her forehead. ‘We could be uncle and niece,’ she whispered. ‘We have the same sort of hair.’
‘Yes, I suppose we do, old chap.’ Tobias smiled and tapped his pencil on the table.
‘And we are very fond of one another.’
‘Absolutely! Not a doubt about it!’
Freja poked at her dessert for a moment, then pushed the bowl towards Finnegan. The dog slurped the leftovers into his mouth, licked his lips and blinked with satisfaction.
‘Tobias?’ Freja’s voice was a mere breath. ‘Are you my uncle?’
The pencil dropped from Tobias’ hand and rolled across the floor. ‘No. No, old chap.’ He blushed and tugged at his ear. ‘No. Well, no. No, no, no, no! It’s a little more complicated than that. What I mean is, would you like another glass of lemonade?’
‘No, thanks. What do you mean “a little more complicated”?’
‘Oh, nothing. Just babble. Well, you know, Clementine is my chum and she asked me to look after you and of course I said yes and it has been an absolute joy and delight to have you here with me, not at all a chore, and we are having a jolly spiffing time, don’t you agree? So I suppose it is not really complicated at all but a great deal of fun and excitement, and I am not your uncle but I’m still the one who must see that you are safe and sound, and it’s getting rather late and I think I might say goodnight to Enzo and Nonna Rosa before Nonna Rosa tries to feed us another mouthful, or we will surely burst, and I dare say it’s way past your bedtime.’
He scraped back his chair, stumbled, then dashed to the bar. He patted Enzo on the back until the old man coughed and gasped for air. He kissed Nonna Rosa — twice on each cheek, then once on the nose. He knocked over three stools, then set them upright. He shouted, ‘Come along, Finnegan! Come along, Freja! Goodnight, Enzo! Buonanotte, Nonna Rosa! Ciao! Ciao, orecchiette! Arrivederci, fettuccine!’ and tumbled out into the cool night air.
CHAPTER 24
A busy night
Freja slept fitfully. Her dreams were filled with strange and disturbing images. Pigeons flocked into Café Vivi and gobbled up all the macarons. Giuseppe was chased by the police for stealing ten million pillows. Tobias and a priest were having a swimming race across the Trevi Fountain.
‘The winner gets to be Freja’s uncle!’ the priest said, smirking. But the fountain was so wide that the race never ended. It went on and on until Freja feared that Tobias might drown.
‘Help!’ he cried. ‘Throw me a macaron!’
Freja didn’t want to waste the delicious macarons, so instead she threw the little treasure chest and it hit him on the head. ‘Oh no!’ she cried. ‘Tobias is sinking and the priest will win the race and be my uncle and I don’t even like him!’
Freja woke, her face wet with tears. Wiping her eyes on the sheet, she opened them as wide as possible to make sure she was truly awake.
A beam of moonlight streamed through the window, lighting up the dressing table and the battered little chest. ‘Rotten treasure chest,’ she grumbled. But at least it was here and not sinking to the bottom of the Trevi Fountain. That proved the nightmare was not real.
Freja stared at the treasure chest for several minutes, then narrowed her eyes. ‘Secrets,’ she muttered. ‘Secrets locked away.’
She rolled over and bumped into Finnegan. The hairy grey hound was stretched along the full length of her bed, sleeping. He sneezed, licked his nose, then grew still again. Freja wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her face against his and fell back to sleep.
Next time she woke, it was to the sound of footsteps. Pazzo was tiptoeing through her bedroom door!
‘Cheeky monkey!’ she cried. ‘What are you doing here?’
Pazzo waved a small black key in the air.
Freja sat up.
The monkey danced across the room and sprang onto the dressing table. He leaned over the treasure chest and slipped the key into the lock.
‘Wait!’ shouted Freja. ‘I want to open it myself.’
But Pazzo ignored her. He turned the key and flipped open the lid.
‘Oo-oo-oo!’ he sang, jumping up and down.
Freja leapt out of bed and ran across the room. She leaned over the treasure chest and gasped. ‘Walnuts! There’s nothing inside but walnuts!’
Pazzo pulled on a tiny white sleeping cap and climbed into the treasure chest. He wriggled around on the pile of walnuts until he was comfortable. He smiled, closed his eyes and fell asleep.
‘Ridiculous!’ scoffed Freja.
Pazzo began to snore. It was a deep, rumbling sound, far louder than she expected from a small monkey. It went on and on and on. Finally, she became so irritated that she shouted, ‘STOP!’
Freja woke with a start. Now she really was awake, her heart racing, her hands clutching the quilt to her chest. Finnegan was still snoring, making a deep, rumbling sound like the monkey in her dream.
She looked over to the dressing table. The treasure chest was locked. Of course it was locked! And it was not full of walnuts. She could only imagine the secrets hidden inside. Tobias’ and Clementine’s secrets.
All I really know, thought Freja, is that Clementine is my mother . . . and Tobias is not my uncle.
She tossed and turned, fluffed up her pillow and settled once more.
‘I am not Tobias’ niece,’ she whispered.
She twisted handfuls of quilt.
‘I am not Tobias’ niece,’ she whispered to the moonlit room. She whispered it over and over again until the tears dribbled down the sides of her face and dampened the pillow.
Because the truth was she longed to be his niece.
Tobias was strange, certainly, but he was also funny, clever and terribly kind. She’d be proud to call him her uncle.
Then, just to see how it felt, she said, ‘Hello, my name is Freja Peachtree and I’m Tobias Appleby’s niece.’
She sniffed and said, ‘Hello, my name is Freja Peachtree and I’m Leonardo Stupido’s niece.’
She wiped her eyes on the edge of the quilt and sighed. ‘Hello, my name is Freja Peachtree and I am nobody’s niece . . . but I am Clementine Peachtree’s daughter.’
Clementine.
‘Mummy Darling Heart,’ she whispered.
The homesickness that had been circling the room for the last ten minutes now swooped in. Grabbing at Freja’s throat, it squeezed its talons shut until she could barely breathe.
‘Clementine,’ she sobbed. ‘Come back soon.’
Getting to the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli was easy in the early hours of the morning. The streets of Rome were dark and empty. Except for a few three-wheeled trucks making deliveries. And the cats. The cats were everywhere — scavenging in rubbish bins, prowling along the tops of walls, slinking down alleyways. Rome at night belonged to the cats.
Getting to the church was easy. Getting inside the church was not so simple.
Freja climbed up the long flight of stairs and pushed against the heavy wooden door. It wouldn’t budge.
She tried again. Nothing gave. Which was not surprising, really. Last time she was here it had taken her and Nonna Rosa’s combined strength to open the door.
This time, Freja tightened her scarf, pulled her beanie down low on her brow, took a run-up and threw her shoulder into the door. It didn’t make a scrap of difference. Except that a few splinters of dry timber fell to the ground. And now her shoulder ached.
‘Of course!’ Freja moaned. ‘The door’s locked! I suppo
se it should be at this time of night!’ She slumped against the wall and sighed.
Something soft and warm brushed against her leg. She looked down and saw a cat, a tabby with a white chest and paws.
‘Hello, puss,’ Freja whispered. But when she bent down to pat it, the cat trotted away. Freja watched as it padded along the front of the church. Coming to a second, smaller door at the end of the wall, it disappeared through a crack.
‘It’s open!’ cried Freja. And before she wondered why the door might be ajar, or whether she really should be going inside, she had dashed along the terrace, pushed the door a little wider and crept into the church.
‘Urgh!’ Freja froze. The vast space was cold, grey and lifeless. The chandeliers no longer danced and sparkled. Robbed of all light, they looked dark and heavy, like giant bats hanging from the ceiling of a cave. Freja shuddered and realised there might be some sense in discouraging children from wandering out alone at night.
‘Nevertheless,’ she told herself, ‘I’ve made it this far. I might as well do what I came here for.’
Slipping from one marble pillar to the next, she made her way silently to the front of the church. The pale moonlight did not reach this far and all Freja could see was a gaping black space in front of her. She opened her eyes wide, willing them to adjust to the dark. She looked up to where the special chandelier hung. The one that had shone most brightly. The one she had chosen as Clementine’s chandelier.
‘There it is!’ Freja whispered as the silhouette came into view. She walked forward until she was standing right beneath it. Closing her eyes, she clasped her hands together and prayed. ‘Ciao, God. It’s me again. Freja.’
Something thudded to the floor!
Something in the darkness, behind the altar!
‘Oh!’ Freja cried out in surprise. Her head prickled all over.
She dashed behind the nearest marble pillar and pressed herself hard against it. Her tummy clenched in fear.
‘God?’ she whimpered. ‘Is that you?’
The Girl, the Dog, and the Writer in Rome Page 14