2008 - Recipes for Cherubs

by Babs Horton

  She put her hand to her mouth to stop herself crying out.

  Kizzy must have been pregnant while she was still at school, but if she was pregnant she must have been married. She couldn’t have been the sort of woman who would have a baby without having a ring on her finger. That was unthinkable. There were words for women like that: trollop and tart, slut and slag.

  But when could Kizzy have got married? She couldn’t have married while she was still a schoolgirl, and the letter downstairs said she would be arriving back from school on 8 July, only a week before Aunt Alice’s wedding.

  That was stupid. She was muddling herself up with all the dates, looking for problems where there weren’t any. There must be some sort of explanation.

  There wasn’t.

  If her mother hadn’t been married, that meant Catrin was illegitimate.

  Or, as Mary Donahue would say, a bastard.

  One of the Palfrey twins had asked her once why she had her mother’s surname and not her father’s. Catrin had explained patiently, just as Kizzy had to her, that she had taken her mother’s surname because her father was foreign and he’d thought she might get teased having a name that was hard to pronounce.

  The girl had given her a strange, knowing look and whispered to her twin, and then they’d run away together, snorting and sniggering.

  Why had she been so stupid and accepted Kizzy’s explanations without questioning them? The more she thought about it, the more she realised how blind she’d been, how she’d ignored all the clues that had been staring her in the face. Her cheeks reddened as she recalled Sister Lucy, on her first day at school, taking her birth certificate off her mother and the long, cold look she’d given Kizzy as she’d handed it back.

  Everyone had known and they must have been laughing at her behind her back.

  She slammed the bedroom door and hurtled down the stairs, through the kitchen and out into the fresh air. She bent double, began retching into the long grass, then, gasping for breath and blinded by tears, ran headlong back towards Kilvenny. The sky was darkening and the gulls wheeled above her head in a screaming frenzy.

  36

  Ismelda lay back in the bathtub and looked up at the ceiling, where a lizard was patiently waiting for a fly to settle. How wonderful it would be to be able to walk upside down like a lizard. How she would love to be able to walk across the ceiling, climb over the high walls that surrounded the Villa Rosso, maybe even to the top of the church tower, and look down on the village. She sighed; she would never be let out, just be kept cooped up here, bored and lonely.

  She rubbed the coarse bar of lemon-scented soap between her hands until she had a good lather going. She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger and blew gently into the film of soap as Maria had taught her to do. A bubble grew slowly, wobbling dangerously, growing bigger and bigger until she could see her distorted reflection in its quivering brilliance.

  It was magic. There she was inside the bubble. A girl with a big head and a small body, a little like the lovely Bindo.

  Papa said that Bindo was a freak of nature, a monstrosity. Papa could be so silly. Bindo was just a boy put together differently. He was warm and funny and kind and, unlike some people, he told the truth. You didn’t have to search for the truth with Bindo; it rolled off his tongue like warm honey off a spoon.

  She blew another bubble and watched it float up on the warm currents of air. She giggled. Two Ismeldas. One here in the bath and one up there in the bubble. She blew a third bubble and watched as it broke loose and wafted upwards. It hovered for a moment, then touched the wall and popped.

  She blew more bubbles and watched with envy as one drifted between the bars of the high window and out into the garden. The other Ismelda had escaped and soon she would be blowing over the high villa walls, away across the piazza, over the heads of the stone cherubs that the artist had made. Higher and higher she would fly, away down the valley, past the Convent of Santa Lucia where the mad people were sent…drifting far away, even as far as the sea.

  What would Papa say if he knew that she could conjure herself up many times? Didn’t he always say that one of her was enough for anyone? Poor Papa. He was such an old misery.

  She heard someone passing under the window, humming as he went. It was Father Rimaldi.

  She didn’t like Father Rimaldi. He smelt horrible and he told lies with his eyes without his lips knowing.

  “It’s good to see you, Ismelda,” his lips said when he saw her at early mass. His eyes said it wasn’t good to see her at all. Once she had seen him kick a donkey in the piazza when no one was looking.

  She washed herself more quickly, not forgetting the back of her neck or inside her ears, for Maria was sure to check. After her bath, if she behaved herself and didn’t start her antics, she might be allowed out to play in the garden on her own. She must keep quiet, though, because Papa would be taking his after-breakfast nap on the upstairs balcony.

  Papa couldn’t bear it when she made a noise and he was always saying, “Why can’t you be like other little girls?” Like the silly Zanelli girls, he meant. The sort of girls who spent all day brushing their hair or preening and prissing in front of a looking glass. She didn’t give an oxen’s fart for that kind of nonsense. Oh no. When she was allowed out to play she pranced around like a performing monkey, she jigged and whooped and cartwheeled across the grass. She had even tried to swim in the grand fountain that Papa had had built last summer. She had stripped right down to her baggy drawers and frolicked like a drunken mermaid. Papa had gone berserk and screamed that she was strange in the head and should be locked up for her own safety.

  She did know how she was supposed to behave most of the time, it was just that it was much more fun not to. Besides, it was tiring to be good, and hard to keep clean when the world was such an exciting but dirty place.

  There were so many rules to remember. Why would she want to sip from a cup when you could tip the whole lot down your throat in one hot, gurgling gulp? If you jumped up and down, you could hear the liquid slopping around in your belly.

  Going to mass was one of the worst of all things. Maria and Papa always took her to the earliest mass when there were few people around, and she was always wedged tightly between them.

  Stand up. Kneel down. Beat your chest. Be quiet. Sing. Don’t sing.

  At that special moment in the mass when Christ was present you were supposed to sit with a bowed head. Why, when you knew that all around you the statues were opening their eyes in wonder, the gargoyles pursing their lips to sing and the light dancing in through the windows?

  “Stop fidgeting, Ismelda,” Papa would mutter. “Keep your hands in your lap.”

  When all she wanted to do was reach out and catch the fizzing dust motes that floated around her.

  Today she was going to sneak a spoon out of the kitchen, dig down as far as she could in the garden and see if she could find some treasures to stash away in her secret box. She might find a bit of blue glass if she was lucky, or maybe some tiny birds’ bones.

  Then she might stand on her head for a while underneath the pine tree. She liked to see the world from upside down.

  She stood up in the bath and shook herself the way she’d seen dogs shake themselves on rainy days. Droplets of water flew off her and spattered the floor and walls. She stepped over the edge of the tub and planted her feet on the floor.

  She lifted them up and looked at her wet footprints. She walked round the room, looking in delight at the patterns her feet made. After her bath she would help Maria carry out the tub and tip the soapy water on to the path and watch as the thirsty sun sucked it up.

  She pulled on her robe, tied the belt clumsily and tiptoed to the window.

  If she climbed on to the stool and on to the wicker box where the lemon soap was stored, she could look out into the piazza. It was her secret: the only time she was able to see the outside world.

  She peered inquisitively out, though her view through the small barr
ed window was restricted. She saw the widow Zanelli walking towards the Via Dante. Ismelda wrinkled her nose. Maria had told her all about the widow Zanelli, how she had nagged her husband until his ears melted inwards and his face wrinkled up like a pickled walnut; had nagged and moaned until the poor man gave up the ghost and died.

  The widow Zanelli held her head high but she waddled from side to side as if she had piddled herself and it hadn’t yet dried. With her were her two daughters, the ones Papa was always talking about.

  Oh, such a pretty pair. So neat and dainty. So kind to their mother. Poor little girls without a papa of their own.

  Ismelda spat through the window. Then she clambered off the box, dressed hurriedly and went to find Maria.

  Maria threw up her arms and rolled her eyes. “Holy Mother of God. Are you sick?”

  Ismelda shook her head and smiled.

  “Why, you haven’t even fussed about what you are wearing. Usually you are running around naked and I am trying to catch you. Maybe at last you are growing sensible. All those candles I light for you in the church are doing some good, eh?”

  “Can I go out into the garden and play?”

  “Si, but you behave, you hear? No cursing or singing. Your papa is in a very bad mood.”

  “Papa is always in a very bad mood.”

  “Well, today it’s a worse one because he can’t find that blessed cat of his and the widow Zanelli told him that Bindo was chasing it through the village yesterday.”

  Ismelda hid a smile behind her hand. The cat, Pipi, was the bane of her life. Sometimes he pissed outside the door of her room and the stink was terrible for days. When he shat in the garden there were white worms wriggling in the steamy volcanoes he left behind. The only good thing about the cat was that it hated Father Rimaldi and when the priest came to the villa and got too close to Pipi he bared his rotten teeth, and then he pounced and scratched, spat and hissed like a tiger. Animals were very clever like that; they were good judges of character.

  37

  Ella, coming in from the kitchen garden carrying an armful of freshly picked runner beans, stood back as Catrin hurtled past. She called out to her but Catrin was already racing up the stairs and a moment later the bedroom door slammed shut and the key turned in the lock. What could have upset her like that? That bloody Meredith had better not have opened his big mouth and said anything to her. If he had, Ella would fill his trap for him. Ella went quietly upstairs and stood outside the bedroom door, listening to the unbridled sobbing. She turned reluctantly away; it was probably best to leave her for now.

  Catrin lay on the bed, her ribs heaving with emotion, her heart thumping wildly. She was never speaking to her mother again – never going back to school, either. How could she look any of the girls in the face, knowing what she did now? God, it was so awful. Everyone must have known that her mother wasn’t married and that she’d done a terrible thing and had a baby before she was married. It was shameful, horrible. Disgusting. Arthur Campbell and his snooty wife probably knew, too, and Aunt Ella and everyone else in Kilvenny. Why had her stupid, stupid mother told her a pack of lies, made such a fool out of her?

  Oh God, she’d rather be dead than…than like she was now. She was a bloody bastard and that’s why no one liked her at school except for Mary Donahue – and the Palfrey twins said Mary didn’t count because…

  She didn’t count because she was a scholarship girl from a poor family, a rough family, who had her fees paid by a charity. Her mother had run off when she was a baby and her father was a good-for-nothing who spent most of his money on gambling and strong drink. But at least Mary had a father.

  When Catrin eventually stopped crying, sat up, and wiped the tears from her face, she saw a letter lying on her pillow. There was only one person it could be from, and she couldn’t care less about how her mother was. She hoped the bloody nuns at Santa Lucia had put the evil eye on her, or locked her up in a cell with bars on the windows. Or even better that she was sick, lying dying on her bed of straw begging for forgiveness for what she’d done. She snatched up the letter. It took up one thin sheet of paper, and had clearly been written in haste.

  Hotel Paradiso

  Via Rafaela

  Dear Catrin,

  At last I am back in civilisation – well, almost. I managed to borrow a little money from an English traveller who came to the convent the other day, so I have been able to escape. It wasn’t a moment too soon, either, as I was half starved and bored witless. There is a limit to how many times one can sit through mass and benediction in one day. I have been feeling quite poorly ever since I left there, which is probably due to the fact that I had to do all my own washing and scrub and polish half the day in return for my keep. I never want to set foot inside a convent again as long as I live.

  I am staying here for as long as my money lasts, but I need money NOW!

  Mummy

  It would be lovely to see Kizzy getting her hands dirty! Kizzy the scrubber! Catrin screwed the letter into a tight ball and dashed it down on the floor.

  “Sod my mother!”

  She’d a good mind to find out the telephone number of the Hotel Paradiso, ring her blasted mother and tell her exactly what she thought of her. She’d tell her that she, Catrin, wasn’t as stupid as Kizzy thought, that she knew that everything she’d been told was a pack of lies…that Kizzy was a dirty, loose woman who’d had a baby without bothering to get married. All that stuff about her father dying when she was a baby was probably made up, too. She pulled the pillow over her head and began to sob again until her eyes burnt and her throat felt as if it would close over.

  Later, when she was calmer, she climbed beneath the covers and opened Recipes for Cherubs. As she turned the pages the smell of lemons seemed to seep into the room and she felt as if someone was in the room with her, yet she didn’t feel in the least afraid. Wasn’t that how Alice had felt? She held the book tightly and thought how strange it was that Aunt Alice had held it, too, and turned the pages desperately looking for clues.

  She looked closely at each page, trying to fathom what Alice had seen and why she had thought there were clues hidden there which would point her towards the treasure. And what was the treasure?

  The painting on the last page was one of Catrin’s favourites: a beautiful garden surrounded by a high wall. There was a large pomegranate tree laden with ripe fruit, and to the left of the tree was a fountain where a plump cherub stood on a plinth, spitting a stream of water into the air.

  There was a wooden bin set against the wall and a fat white cat was curled up on top of it, basking in the sunlight. She looked more closely, and saw what looked like a soap bubble drifting away over the wall.

  Beyond her latticed bedroom window the enormous sun began to sink, and a soft pink light washed the room. Catrin laid down the book and closed her eyes.

  She imagined that she was lying beneath the pomegranate tree, listening to the birdsong, sunlight filtering through the branches, the ripening pomegranates above her like planets in orbit…the drone of fat bees weighed down with pollen, and all around her the smell of lemons and herbs growing stronger as the sun rose higher and higher. She could hear children’s laughter…Ismelda, Bindo and Luca Roselli somewhere not far away. Maria Paparella was singing in a croaky tuneless voice and a hand softly caressed her warm cheek, gently wiping away her tears and smoothing her forehead. The lazy trickle of water from the fountain was so soothing and the cat was purring contentedly…

  She opened her eyes and let out a cry of surprise. Alice Grieve might have been simple but not that bloody simple. She opened the book again and found the painting of Santa Rosa in the snow, the four naked cherubs in the fountain in the piazza looking up through cascades of frozen water.

  Bloody Nora! No wonder Alice had always had her head stuck in Theodora Sprenker’s book.

  She leapt off the bed, tucked the book inside her cardigan, unlocked the door and raced headlong down the stairs, almost colliding with Aunt Ella, who
had been hovering nervously about waiting to see how Catrin was.

  “I was just coming up to see if you were all right,” Ella said, her face etched with concern.

  “Oh, I’m fine. I can’t stop now. I need to go over to the library. I won’t be long.” She gave Ella a brief smile and was gone.

  Ella watched her, dumbfounded. An hour ago she had been breaking her heart, sobbing fit to bust, and now her eyes, though still swollen, were bright with excitement, and her cheeks unusually flushed.

  The door of the library was open but there was no sign of Dan Gwartney, although the fire was lit and the gas lamps turned on. The book by Theodora Sprenker was still on the table near the window and she turned the pages excitedly until she came to the section on Santa Rosa. “It is a charming if dilapidated medieval place with narrow streets and a pretty cobbled piazza with a fountain graced by a trio of splendid cherubs.”

  “A trio of splendid cherubs!” When Theodora Sprenker visited Santa Rosa there had been only three in the fountain, but in the painting in Recipes for Cherubs there were four. She opened the book and looked again at the winter painting, and there, sure enough, were four cherubs standing beneath the cascades of frozen water.