2008 - Recipes for Cherubs

by Babs Horton

  “Norma said you went away to school once. Did you like it?” she asked, changing the subject hastily.

  “I loved it.”

  “Oh.”

  “You sound surprised.” Ella’s voice was wistful.

  “I thought, well, the way Norma said it, it sounded like you would be glad to be back because Alice missed you.”

  “Of course I missed Alice terribly, but it was a great freedom to be at school. I needed to be away from Alice for my own sanity.”

  “So you weren’t happy when you were made to come back?”

  “No. I was furious. Alice and I were twins but we were very different. I always had to be there for her, constantly looking out for her, and sometimes as a child that was too much to cope with.”

  Neither of them spoke for a while. Catrin understood what Ella meant about being furious inside. She was furious most of the time, and when she wasn’t she was full of a simmering anger which every now and again threatened to bubble up and drown her. It was hard to know what made her so angry. Her mother, of course, was one of the reasons. She wasn’t like a grown-up at all and she didn’t do the things mothers were supposed to do. Catrin had found it easier to control her anger since she’d put herself on a diet, and she was so hungry most of the time that it pushed the anger to the back of her head.

  “Were you sent away because you were always in trouble?”

  “It was partly that. I was a bit hair-brained and drove my mother mad because I was such a tomboy. She wanted me to be a proper girl and I couldn’t be. My father was a very wise man and he realised that to send me away was the best thing for me, if not for Alice. But Alice pined for me, my mother couldn’t cope with her, and I was brought back. I hated it.”

  “But you stayed at Shrimp’s with Alice for years after you’d grown up?”

  “I did, but I didn’t plan to. I had my own dreams once but they were dashed. After that I never got round to leaving. You see, I felt responsible for Alice, more like a parent than a sister. I thought something would happen to her if I wasn’t around. And of course it usually did.”

  “So you were afraid to leave her?”

  “Yes. I was a coward, Catrin. I should have upped and left Shrimp’s years ago but instead I stayed, tried to make the best of it and cared for Alice, only not well enough, as it turned out.” Ella’s eyes were damp with tears, and her chin was wobbling with grief, like that of a child who could not be consoled.

  Suddenly she stood up. “Look, the rain’s stopped at last. I’m going to set about the garden, see if there are any vegetables we could use. Why don’t you go over to the library and pick Dan Gwartney’s brains about that artist fellow, Piero di Bardi?”

  Catrin watched her go, and for the first time in her life she felt enormous sympathy for someone else.

  26

  Luca Roselli stepped angrily out into the Via Dante, slamming the door behind him. He scowled as he walked towards the piazza, kicking out at a loose cobblestone, muttering to himself.

  “What’s up, Luca?” Bindo called from his perch on the window-ledge of a long-deserted house.

  Luca looked up, his face puce with fury, but on seeing Bindo he smiled. “Oh, it’s just him in there,” he muttered, nodding towards the house.

  “What’s he done now?”

  “He’s just so damned cheerful!”

  “But for weeks you have been moaning that he is a misery. Is there no pleasing you, my friend?”

  “He’s so changeable. One minute he has a face like he’s swallowed a rancid frog and does no work at all. Then suddenly he’s singing and laughing and working like a fiend.”

  “Artists are like that; they have to be a bit mad.”

  “He has worked hard all morning full of the joys of spring, but this afternoon he will become a misery again and then my life will be hell”

  “How do you know he will be miserable?”

  “Because the widow Zanelli and her daughters are coming for a sitting.”

  “Why are they sitting for Piero? Can’t he find anything better to paint?”

  “He has a commission for a painting of cherubs to hang in the church and those two are to be models for the cherubs.”

  Bindo chuckled. “I bet I could find better models to paint than them.”

  “Maybe, but Signor Bisotti has paid my master well to paint them so that he can get in the widow’s good books.”

  “Why would he want to get on her good side?”

  “Haven’t you heard?” Luca said, lowering his voice. “All the talk is that Signor Bisotti wants to marry her.”

  Bindo stared open-mouthed at him.

  Luca grew flustered, blushed, put his hand to his mouth. “Me and my big mouth. I’m not supposed to have said a word about that. Bindo, you must promise not to repeat it. I overheard the widow Zanelli telling my mother, so if she knows I’ve opened my big mouth she’ll take a stick to me.”

  “You can trust me, my friend.” Bindo winked and slapped Luca heartily on the arm. “If she marries Signor Bisotti, she’ll move into the Villa Rosso, won’t she?”

  “Si. The sparks will fly then, eh? Maria already crosses the road to avoid her. Imagine those two living under the same roof.”

  “They are so different. Maria will give you anything and the widow Zanelli is the opposite – she wouldn’t give you the skin of her shit. Say, Luca, have you been to the Villa Rosso this week?”

  “No, I haven’t been able to slope off. He’s kept me busy with his ‘Do this, do that, fetch me this, fetch me that!”’ Luca said with rising anger. “Yesterday I had to go all the way to Terrini to buy dragon’s blood.”

  Bindo, his eyes alight with interest, said, “Dragon’s blood? Where would you find a dragon to slay around here? Is your master mad?”

  “Mad as an overheated bull – you know what these artist types are like. They’re not like normal people. Don’t look so alarmed. Dragon’s blood is only red paint. Today I have to get some bristles from a white hog – not a wild hog, mind you, a domesticated one.”

  “What for?”

  “To make the paintbrushes for His Majesty back there. When I’ve done all that, I have to make the cheese glue that he uses for joining wood. Then, when all those jobs are done, I have to find some cat’s teeth.”

  “Cat’s teeth? Why would anyone need cat’s teeth?”

  “I have to grind them down and then they’re used for burnishing. The teeth of any meat-eating animal will do but his high-and-mighty prefers the teeth of cats.”

  A growing smile lit up Bindo’s small face. “I think I might be able to help you there. There’s plenty of cats in Santa Rosa.”

  “You get me some cat’s teeth and I’ll teach you how to make the paintbrushes you’re always on about.”

  “It’s a deal. Luca, do you think one day you’ll ever open that eating house Ismelda was talking about?”

  “I doubt it, but sure as hell I won’t become the artist my mamma wants me to be.”

  “That’s why she wants you to work with Piero, so that you can learn to paint?”

  Luca nodded and spat disconsolately. “She doesn’t realise that hard work isn’t enough. You have to have talent.”

  “Did you see Ismelda when you were at the Bisotti house?” Bindo asked innocently.

  “You’ve not got an interest in Ismelda?” Luca asked teasingly.

  Bindo coloured. “No! Well, maybe a little but I’m hoping they invite me again soon. Er, you don’t have an interest in her, do you, Luca?”

  “No way. I don’t like girls, and anyway, nice as she is, that one isn’t quite right in the head.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because once when I was helping Maria to bottle tomatoes she left Ismelda for a few minutes and when she came back she had tipped the tomatoes all over herself and then rolled about on the floor.”

  Bindo threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  “Upon the Virgin’s nose, it is true. From head to toe
she was covered in tomatoes. It was just before mass and she was wearing her best clothes.”

  “Mamma mia! So you don’t have a glint in your eye for her, then?”

  Luca laughed, his dark curls bouncing. “No. If I get married I don’t want to come home and find my wife dressed up in the dinner, maybe wearing petticoats of pasta.”

  Bindo doubled up with laughter, holding on to his belly.

  “That’s very fine tagliatelli you’re wearing, my darling,” Luca spluttered.

  “My, what a beautiful pair of gnocchi,” Bindo said.

  Luca opened his eyes wide and roared and Bindo, realising what he’d said, joined him.

  An old woman stuck her head out of a nearby window. “Bugger off! There’s somebody trying to die in peace in here.”

  “Mi scusi.” The boys moved away, whispering together.

  “I think Ismelda has a soft spot for you, Bindo.”

  “Has she?” he asked eagerly.

  “Maria said she’s never stopped talking about you since you were there.”

  Bindo shivered with pleasure. “I am going to make her a present and give it to her when I go there next.”

  “What will you give her?”

  “Something she will never forget.”

  “You have money for such a present?”

  “The best things in life are free, my friend.”

  Then, seeing Signor Bisotti’s old cat slinking out of an alleyway, Bindo was off in pursuit, running as fast as his little legs would take him across the sun-soaked piazza.

  27

  Dan Gwartney struck a match and Catrin heard a friendly pop as the gas mantle lit. A gentle glow illuminated the shadowy recesses of the reading room in the library.

  A small fire was lit in the hearth, for the evening was chilly, and the smell of coal smoke filled the room, the flames flickering and throwing shadows across the walls and floor. An enormous white cat lay asleep on a threadbare rug, its pink tongue lolling out of its mouth. Catrin eyed the cat nervously.

  “You don’t like cats?” Dan Gwartney asked, noticing her apprehension.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never had a pet.”

  “Pedro won’t bite you. He’s ancient and hardly has a tooth left in his head.”

  On cue the cat yawned, and revealed his few remaining yellow teeth.

  “It doesn’t stop him gallivanting, mind you. He’s a real Casanova.”

  “Is that a type of cat?”

  Dan Gwartney laughed loudly. “No, Casanova was an Italian lady-killer.”

  “A murderer?”

  “No. He liked the women. Had a lot of, er, lovers.”

  Catrin blushed crimson.

  “Pedro comes from a long line of feline Casanovas. There are plenty of his offspring around Kilvenny; his blood line will never die out.”

  “A bit like the Grieves?” Catrin gave the cat a wide berth.

  Dan Gwartney indicated that she should sit down on a battered leather sofa and he sat opposite her in a wing-backed chair, perusing her in silence for a while. Catrin looked around at the threadbare velvet curtains and battered armchairs. She liked this room, liked the feel of the worn floorboards beneath her feet and the smell of old books all jumbled up with a whiff of stale tobacco and nose-tingling snuff.

  “How can I help you?”

  “I’m doing some work about art for school and I wanted to know everything there is to know about someone called Piero di Bardi,” she lied.

  “Piero di Bardi?” Dan’s eyes lit up with interest. “Ah, now, he was a very interesting man. There used to be a book about him here, but I’m afraid it was stolen a long time ago.”

  “Stolen?”

  “Well, stolen or inadvertently not returned. It happens sometimes, though thankfully not often. As I remember, it was a woman who was staying at Shrimp’s. She had a temporary membership of the library, as a lot of the guests did in the old days, but she forgot to return the book. Sadly I’ve never been able to get hold of another copy.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  The windows rattled under the onslaught of the wind and Catrin shivered. Dan got up and put more coal on the fire.

  “As the book’s no longer here, you’ll have to settle for what I can remember about him.”

  “That’s fine, thank you.”

  “Now, I know Piero was born around 1721 in Naples, Italy. He was the eldest son of a poor musician and he had a younger brother who died of a fever when he was about eight years of age. Piero started painting when he was very young and soon people recognised his talent. He used to paint the lids of snuffboxes for tourists and eventually he was apprenticed to a painter where he learned his trade as a shop boy.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard of them. Artists used to employ boys to work for them and they learnt how to mix paints, make brushes and stuff, and in return the master gave them lessons.”

  “You’re very knowledgeable for one so young.”

  “And some of the boys became great painters,” she added.

  “Some of them did, but of course they had to have the talent and the desire. I expect some of them were encouraged to take up art more for the satisfaction of their parents.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Some parents want their child to achieve their own dreams rather than what the child wants.”

  “I see.”

  She wondered for a moment what Kizzy might want her to become. A dancer? A model? Or a film star? Fat chance.

  “Anyhow, Piero was commissioned by many rich people to paint their portraits, and he painted the ceilings of many a palazzo in Rome. Now, it was believed that he moved to Naples and married a girl there, and some people think that she is the woman in the painting of Woman and Child, but that’s not proved. There’s some confusion about what happened to him after that, but then he resurfaced in a small village in the mountains.”

  “Santa Rosa?” Catrin murmured.

  Dan Gwartney looked at her in surprise. “That’s right. So you’ve done a little homework already?”

  “That’s all I really know.” She tried to hide her excitement but she knew for certain now that Santa Rosa was a real place.

  “What happened to Piero?” she asked.

  “Well, there was a great mystery surrounding him.”

  “What sort of mystery?”

  “He lived for some years in Santa Rosa, where he did a lot of his best work. Woman and Child is one of the paintings from that period, along with a lot of others. Then he was commissioned by a wealthy chap to paint a group of feasting cherubs which was to hang in the church there.”

  “And did he?”

  “He finished the painting but he never kept his half of the bargain because one day he upped and left, taking the painting with him, and was never heard of again. That’s about all I know, Catrin.”

  “So no one knows what became of him or the painting?”

  Dan shook his head. “No, but over the years countless people have tried to solve the mystery.”

  “Where do they start looking?”

  “Oh, from time to time sketches have come to light which are believed to be Piero’s, often found in the most unlikely of places, and people have gone rushing off trying to find clues to what happened to him.”

  “But no one ever has?”

  “No. People still try, though, and if the picture of the feasting cherubs is ever found it’ll be worth a fortune.”

  “And would whoever found it be able to keep it?”

  Dan nodded thoughtfully.

  “Piero was at the height of his powers when he went missing, and that picture would doubtless have been a masterpiece.”

  “Aunt Ella was right. She said you’d know all about Piero.”

  “Did she send you over here, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “I expect she said go and ask old Mr Knowitall, didn’t she?”

  Catrin shook her head, but she felt her face go pink and she knew that he could tell she was lying.<
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  Catrin looked more closely at him. He had a sweet face for an old man. His cheeks were pink and shiny, and his bushy eyebrows lifted up when he smiled. He had hair like silver candyfloss and kind blue-grey eyes which twinkled in the firelight.

  “Would I be able to find out anything about Santa Rosa while I’m here?”

  Dan went over to the bookshelves. He took a small step-ladder, climbed to the top and began to search the shelves. A few minutes later he climbed carefully down, holding a dusty book in one hand.

  “You’re in luck,” he said. “Here we are, Days in Old Italy, by Theodora Sprenker. Your Aunt Alice, God bless her, could probably recite every word in this book.”

  “Could she?”

  “Oh, she loved this book, spent hours with her nose in it. Anyhow, come over to the table and I’ll put the reading lamp on so you can see properly.”

  Catrin crossed to the large shiny-topped table near the window.

  “There’s a spirit stove over there in the corner and a tin of chocolate biscuits. If you fancy a brew or get peckish, you can help yourself.”

  She eyed the biscuit tin longingly, then turned her back on it. “Thank you, but I’m not hungry. What time do you close?”

  “No proper time, my lovely; you can’t put opening and closing hours on learning, I always think. The door’s open most of the time. It’s so nice to see a child who has a love of books. Most youngsters seem to spend hours stuck in front of the television.”

  “We’re not allowed to watch television at school.”

  “How about listening to the radio or the record player?”

  “We’re only allowed to listen to classical music.”

  “None of that loud pop stuff?”

  “Only Val Doonican and Vera Lynn, but they’re not very easy to dance to. Sister Lucy says Cliff Richard and Elvis Presley are the spawn of the devil, wriggling their hips and pulling goo-goo eyes like madmen.”

  Dan chuckled, sat down in his chair, picked up a book and began to read.

  Days in Old Italy was heavy and the pages yellow with age.

  There was a date on a page near the front of the book: 1903.