by Babs Horton
Ella rounded on him. “You save your breath to cool your bloody porridge. You haven’t set foot in Shrimp’s for years, so how would you know.”
“You can deceive yourself all you like, but the local kids’ favourite game is to try and peer through your windows, get a glimpse of the funny old woman who lives there like a recluse.”
“Not so bloody old. I can give you a few years.”
“Perhaps it would be best if we got in touch with one of the children’s homes, got her put up there for a while until something is sorted out,” Dan said.
Ella glared at him. “Over my dead body. You keep your children’s homes for those who need them. She’ll be fine with me at Shrimp’s until other arrangements can be made.”
“Sit down, Ella, while I make us all a drink,” Tony intervened. “Let’s talk things through calmly. We don’t want to wake the girl, now, do we?”
Catrin was wide awake but paralysed with anxiety and mortification. If it wasn’t bad enough that she’d been sent here to her stupid aunts, only to find that one of them was dead and the other one didn’t want anything to do with her, but in the next breath they were talking about putting her in a children’s home.
“Maybe she could stay with someone in the village until you can get hold of her mother,” Dan ventured.
The coffee machine hissed ferociously, steam rose up above the counter as Tony busied himself, and soon the sound of cups clinking and the aroma of coffee filled the café.
Catrin tried to swallow, but there was a lump in her throat as big as a walnut. She had to get out of this awful place as soon as she could. She wasn’t going to spend another night up at Shrimp’s Hotel. If only she could get home to London she could look through her mother’s address book, ask her friends if they knew where she was staying in Italy. The only other hope was that her mother had said she’d write, so as soon as a letter arrived at Shrimp’s she’d be able to contact her. If she got round to writing, that was; Kizzy was always making promises and not keeping them.
“You’ve got to see sense, Ella,” Dan Gwartney persisted. “You were always stubborn even when you were a girl, and you must realise that Shrimp’s isn’t a fit place for a child to stay.”
“And you can’t tell me what to do. Never mind I was stubborn. You were a bossy little bugger when you were a boy.”
“Put it this way, Ella. You take her back to that dump and I for one won’t be afraid to ring the authorities. I’m in regular touch with Jerusalem House Children’s Home and I could talk to someone and get some help for you and the girl.”
“Don’t you patronise me with your talk of Jerusalem House and your do-gooding nonsense. When I want your help I’ll ask for it.”
There was a pause, but the air was brittle with tension. Catrin was glad of the silence.
“Ella, no one’s saying you couldn’t look after the girl, it’s just that you’ve not been yourself for years.”
“You think I’m mad, is that what you’re saying?” Ella’s voice was angry and Catrin held her breath.
“Not mad, exactly,” Tony said quietly.
“But you can’t escape the fact that the Grieves are well known for their mad streak and no one who was sane would have lived in squalor for God knows how many years,” Dan said with a note of triumph in his voice.
“You can shut your trap when you like. That sister of yours up in Coronation Row used to have the dirtiest net curtains in Kilvenny. She wasn’t too fussy about the grain on her washing or the company she kept, as I remember.”
“You leave my sister out of this,” Dan growled.
“He’s right, Ella. We mustn’t speak ill of the dead.”
Ella was silent. She hadn’t known that Gwennie Gwartney had passed away. How could she know? She’d not stepped outside Shrimp’s or spoken to anyone in years.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she murmured.
Dan grunted in reply and stirred his coffee briskly.
“What about finding somewhere else for the pair of you to stay?” Tony asked.
“Where do you suggest?”
“The castle?” Dan volunteered. “It’s been empty for years but I’ve always made sure that it’s well looked after, kept clean and aired.”
“The castle doesn’t belong to me, as well you know,” Ella said.
“No, but it belongs to the girl’s mother, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know. I know Kizzy inherited it but I wouldn’t have thought she’d have kept it – she hated the place,” Ella said.
“She’s tried to sell it plenty of times, but there’s not much call for draughty old Welsh castles. I never hear from her but I still get money paid through the solicitors to look after the place,” Dan told her.
“So you could stay there, Ella. Kizzy isn’t likely to object in the circumstances, is she?” said Tony.
Catrin bristled. How could your mother own a crumbly old castle in Wales and never think to tell you? No way was she going to stay there with awful Aunt Ella.
“I suppose so,” Ella mumbled, “if it’s only for a few days. I can’t leave Shrimp’s for too long.”
“Why don’t you let me walk you back up there to pick up some things?”
“I’ll manage by myself, thank you, Dan Gwartney.”
“Well, I’ll get over to the castle and light fires in the bedrooms to take the chill off,” he replied frostily. “Perhaps Tony could make you something to eat. You don’t look like you’ve had a good meal inside you for years, Ella Grieve – nor the girl, come to that.”
“I’ve had more good meals than you’ve dreamt of,” Ella snapped.
“Suit yourself. I’ll be off.”
“Not before time.”
“Seems we’ll be seeing a bit more of each other, as we’ll be neighbours for a while.”
“Not if I see you first.”
“Look, Ella,” Tony said, “you do whatever you have to do and then get back down here. I’ll wait for Catrin to wake and then take her over to the castle.”
The bell above the door tinkled as Dan Gwartney left the café, muttering under his breath.
“Pompous old fool,” Ella said. “I may have been away a long time but some things in Kilvenny haven’t altered.”
“He means well.”
“Nosy old sod.”
Catrin covered her face with her hands. Her head ached unbearably and she wanted more than anything to press herself down against the bench where she lay, disappear inside it and never be seen again.
11
Catrin kept her eyes closed as Tony Agosti stood looking down at her. Her face was burning up with embarrassment and her heart beat furiously behind her rib cage.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a voice just louder than a whisper.
She pretended not to hear him. If she didn’t answer maybe he’d go away, maybe they’d all go away and leave her alone.
“Righty oh, I’d better get you over to the castle and tucked up in bed. It’s a good rest you need, by the look of you, my girl,” he said to himself.
Before she had a chance to object he had scooped her up in his muscular arms and carried her through the café and out of the door. So shocked she could scarcely breathe, she lay in his arms like a big baby, feeling the robust beat of his heart through the soft material of his shirt. He smelt of soap and cigarette smoke, of chocolate and hair oil, all mixed up together. She was mortified; she’d never been this close to a man before, never been carried by a man in her life.
Oh God, she’d just die if he undressed her and put her to bed. Her heart fluttered wildly as she felt the black hairs of his arms tickling the back of her knees and his breath warm on her face.
It was hot outside, the smell of stale beer wafting up from the Boot Inn mingling with the fragrance of the white roses that grew in abundance over the castle walls. High above their heads the rooks flew up from the tall trees of Gwartney’s Wood, squawking as if in warning.
She felt the sudden change in tempera
ture as they passed out of the sunshine and into the cool of the castle, goose pimples erupting on her skin like mini-volcanoes. As he climbed the stairs she swayed in his arms, acutely aware that her sensible cotton knickers were on show for the whole world to see. A door opened with a squeak and then she was laid down gently on a bed. A few moments later Tony Agosti had thankfully gone. Hastily she pulled back the heavy blankets, scrambled beneath them and pummelled the pillows in frustration.
Later he returned, pulled the sheets away from her tear-stained face, took her cold wrist in his warm hand and felt for her pulse. Her heart was beating so fast that she thought he must hear it from where he stood, and she feared that if she feigned sleep any longer he might call for a doctor and then they’d keep her here for sure. She opened her eyes, blinking and looking around her in confusion, like a princess awaking from a hundred years’ sleep.
“You’re okay, lovely girl. I brought you over here to the castle while you were sleeping. I’ve put you in your mammy’s old room – I see there’s still a few of her bits and pieces here to make you feel at home.”
“Thank you,” she mumbled, unable to look him in the face.
“I’ve brought you something to eat.”
“But I’m not hungry,” she almost wailed.
“Got to eat, girl, to keep your strength up.”
To add to her mortification, he fed her like a baby, spooning thin chicken soup into her mouth and wiping her chin with a napkin, all the while her stomach complaining noisily and she doing her best to avoid his tender gaze.
Afterwards she must have slept for some time, because when she woke a fire was crackling lazily in the hearth and the draughts that swirled under the ill-fitting door sent sparks skittering away up the chimney. On a tallboy a candle burned erratically, casting an eerie glow around the strange room. A copper warming pan on a nail near the hearth gleamed in the firelight, and the eyes of a hooknosed man in a large portrait shone as though he were glad of the unexpected warmth. The faded velvet curtains had been drawn across the latticed windows, but through a gap she could see a huge moon hovering in the sky.
She sniffed the air. The smell of the olden days seeped out from the ancient walls, bringing a transitory whiff of camphor, then lavender, crushed velvet and, strangely, the sharp scent of lemons. The sound of a wireless drifted up from downstairs, and hearing the voice of the English announcer made her homesick.
She checked her wristwatch. It was nearly ten o’clock. If only she were at school, she would be rucked into her bed in the narrow cubicle in St Agnes’s dormitory, safe beneath the steady gaze of the statue of St Francis that stood patiently on a ledge above her bed.
An orange nightlight would burn near the door and Sister Lucy’s shadow would drift through the dormitory checking that all the girls were asleep. A tap would drip in the washroom and two cubicles away Mary Donohue would snore softly. The clock over in the convent where the nuns slept in their cells would chime every hour and the arched dormitory windows rattle in the night breezes.
She watched the candle on the tallboy burn lower and lower, dreading the moment when the flame would splutter and die, thrusting the strange room into darkness. She wondered what Aunt Ella was doing now, the thought of being alone in a spooky old castle with only a mad woman for company making her afraid.
The candle hissed and the light dimmed, sending shadows darting across the uneven walls. Catrin shivered, the sort of shiver that meant someone was treading on your grave. Her heart beat wildly and her throat constricted with fear as she thought she heard the pad of bare feet out in the corridor, imagined the handle on the door turning slowly…
She got out of bed, locked the door, then scurried across the cold floor to the window, knelt on the window seat and yanked the curtains open. Moonlight spilt into the room and dulled her fear.
She looked down into a deserted Cockle Lane and saw Dan Gwartney’s white cat crossing the road. As if aware of being watched, it turned and looked up at her, its eyes green and glittering in the moonlight. The cat mewed mournfully then slunk away into a shadowy doorway.
In Meredith Evans Photographer’s shop a low-watt bulb burnt behind the ragged curtains of an upstairs room and a shadowy figure paced up and down. Melancholy music drifted out of the Boot Inn into the night. There was a cough beneath her window, someone spat out a mouthful of phlegm, and then footsteps died away.
Across the room from where she stood at the window, there was a bookcase with a selection of battered books and she wondered, had they belonged to Kizzy when she was a girl? Hardly. Kizzy only ever read magazines and the price tags on expensive frocks. Catrin couldn’t for the life of her imagine her mother living here in Kilvenny Castle or sleeping in this old-fashioned bedroom. She hated old things, and in their house in London she was forever modernising and putting in new bathrooms and luxurious carpets.
She rummaged half-heartedly through the bookcase but there was nothing very interesting. There were some old school textbooks covered in stained brown paper; boring old algebra and biology. There were copies of Oliver Twist and The Old Curiosity Shop, which she’d read at school, and some dog-eared Christmas annuals. As she knelt down she saw a book stuffed in behind the others. It was just another Girls’ Annual but it was much larger than the others. She blew the dust from the spine and opened it. She was expecting to find the usual comic-book stories but to her surprise the pages had been ripped out and in their place was an old leather-bound book on which someone had painted in gold letters, he ricette per i Cherubini.
It was curious, as though someone had been trying to disguise the book. There was no point reading it, though, because she wouldn’t understand a word of it.
Well, perhaps one word. She’d heard ‘ricetta’ at school because Sister Tomasina sometimes said, “You should talk to Sister Angela if you want a ricetta for cakes or puddings – she is a wonderful cook.”
She meant ‘recipe’ of course, but Sister Tomasina was from Italy and peppered her speech with Italian words.
“Cherubini” could mean only one thing: cherubs.
Recipes for Cherubs. What a peculiar name for a book. Cherubs were holy things which were found in old religious paintings. They were plump and dimpled and had wings and rosy cheeks. Cherubs weren’t real creatures made of flesh and blood so they wouldn’t need to eat. She was about to put the book back on the shelf when a sudden draught from the ill-fitting windows ruffled the pages.
The usual smell of old books tickled her nostrils, a musty, exciting fustiness she loved. There were other smells too, the faint, sharp scents of lemons and rosemary. Rosemary for Remembrance.
She carried the book over to the fireplace, sat cross-legged on the threadbare rug and began to turn the pages, delighting in the feel of the thick, rough paper beneath her fingers.
On the first page was a picture, not the glossy type of illustration usually found in books but an oil painting on a square of canvas which had been stuck carefully on to the page. It was surrounded by a delicate frame, made from four thin slivers of wood joined together expertly and painstakingly covered in gold leaf. There was a smudged fingerprint on the page below the painting, probably left by the artist.
Catrin looked in fascination at a winter scene of a village shivering beneath a thick covering of snow which glittered in the light thrown down by a huge moon hovering in a brooding indigo sky. On the right stood an ugly church with a bell tower and next to the church was a building with bars on the windows, a giant crucifix set into the wall and a door with a grille, unmistakably a convent. On either side of the door there was a large jar, the sort of oil jar in Ali Baba stories. On the wall above one of the jars was a glass-fronted niche where a small saint stood patiently looking on, a candle stub breathing its last beneath his feet.
Opposite the church loomed a big house painted red, the colour of dried blood. It was a grand house surrounded by high walls, with smoke curling up from a tall chimney.
Her attention was taken by a d
ark figure walking across the square, leaving a trail of lone footprints in the snow; a furtive figure in a swirling black cloak and a strangely shaped hat, carrying a bundle in its arms.
In the foreground there was a fountain where four naked cherubs stood looking up through cascades of frozen water.
Catrin ran her fingers slowly over the surface of the picture, feeling the undulations of paint and brushstrokes. There was a tiny piece of white bristle stuck in the paint, and she remembered an art lesson where Sister Matilde, with her usual enthusiasm, had told the class how paintbrushes were made in the olden days. She’d said that many artists had shop boys working for them, who learned the secrets of painting and how to make glue and brushes and a million other things the artist needed. They, poor devils, couldn’t just pop along to a shop and buy half a dozen paintbrushes as modern artists could. Oh no, they had to make them from scratch. Sister Matilde had described how these boys were sent to find the tail fur of a squirrel or else bristles from a hog – not any old hog, mind you; it had to be a white hog and a domesticated one. Mary Donahue had asked if that meant that the hog had learned to wipe its feet before it came into the house and whether it drank its tea without slurping. Everyone had laughed their heads off for ages but it was okay to laugh in Sister Matilde’s lessons: she said learning should be fun. Sister Matilde told them that wild hogs were never used, but white hogs probably got quite wild when some shop boy sneaked up and helped himself to a handful of their bristles.
Catrin wondered if whoever had painted this had used a brush made with the bristles of a hog. One thing was sure: the painter must have been a genius because the picture was brilliant and the longer she stared at it the more things she discovered, and it reminded her of the pictures in puzzle books that asked you to find a number of hidden objects.
The pawmarks of an animal led across a snow-covered roof and disappeared suddenly, but looking higher up she saw, perched among the bare branches of a tree, a shivering cat looking down on the scene with eyes bright with curiosity.