by Babs Horton
So at some point one of the cherubs had been removed. But why?
Deep in thought she closed the books, slipped Recipes for Cherubs back inside her cardigan and left the library. She looked up and down Cockle Lane, but it was dark and deserted except for a light burning dimly in Meredith Evans’s shop. She scurried across the road and through the archway into the Italian garden.
The scent of roses was heady in the night air and the little cherub, silvered by moonlight, stood alone in his waterless fountain, staring up at the stars. She touched his outstretched arm, traced the outline of the tiny, splayed fingers and thought how extraordinary it was that this little fellow should end up in Kilvenny, hundreds of miles from Santa Rosa. She was sure that Alice had realised this was the missing fourth Santa Rosa cherub. She wished there was a way of knowing how much Alice had found out and how far she had got in unravelling the clues.
Meredith had said that Alice’s mother, Hester, had burnt the book. But of course she hadn’t. Alice and her family had gone to live up at Shrimp’s, and Alice was afraid of Hester and didn’t come down to the castle after that.
The man who was going to marry Aunt Alice had started raking all the business about the book up again and had been probing and prodding her like a specimen. And that man was Arthur Campbell!
Catrin sat down abruptly on the bench, her thoughts racing. Arthur Campbell would never have married someone like Alice unless…unless he wanted something, and maybe that something was the secret that Alice knew about Kilvenny. If Arthur Campbell wanted something badly enough, he usually got it. He wasn’t a man to suffer fools gladly, and he wouldn’t have been able to cope with someone like Alice as his wife, but did marrying her mean that he would get something? Only he hadn’t married Alice, because for some reason she’d run away and left him standing at the altar.
She stood up, went across to the chapel and stepped nervously inside. It was dark, a pool of moonlight shining on the altar, the faint smell of incense and burnt-down candles hanging on the air.
It was here that Arthur Campbell had stood waiting for Alice to arrive. Kizzy was here, too, wearing the expensive poppy-red dress that she was to discard later before she left Shrimp’s for ever. Kizzy who had done something terrible to Alice, something that Ella had never forgiven her for. Kizzy Grieve, her mother, not long arrived back from school but already pregnant. Arthur’s so-called sister would have been here, too. Everyone had been waiting for Alice…
As she tried to think, snatches of the song Meredith Evans had been playing at Shrimp’s kept reverberating inside her head, “Oh, soldier, soldier, won’t you marry me…?”
If Alice had found out something that made her change her mind about marrying Arthur, why hadn’t she just cancelled the wedding? Why let everyone turn up? Unless something had happened at the very last minute.
“Oh no, sweet maid, I cannot marry thee for I have a wife of my own.”
A rustling near the back of the chapel startled her, and she was sure there was someone hiding in the shadows, watching her. She tiptoed back down the aisle, paused halfway; there was definitely someone there, someone who didn’t want to be seen. She slipped thankfully outside and looked around for a hiding place, because whoever was in there would have to come out soon, and there was no other way out of the chapel.
She wriggled in among the ivy until she was hidden from view but could still see the chapel door. An owl called in Gwartney’s Wood and a bat swooped down into the Italian garden. She could hear the wireless in the kitchen and for a moment she longed to be inside with Aunt Ella and not hiding, quivering with fright out here in the garden.
The chapel door opened slowly and a head looked out cautiously. Then a cloud drifted across the moon and, though she strained her eyes, she could not see who it was.
The cloud moved on and there in the moonlight was a man stealthily crossing the courtyard. She wriggled further into the ivy and almost cried out when her back pressed against something hard.
There was a clanking in the distance and a low rumbling nearby.
The man stopped, startled by the noise, and as if on cue a lazy spurt of water gurgled out of the cherub’s mouth and splashed down on the dried leaves and rubbish.
Catrin held her breath, felt behind her and realised that she’d leant against a lever which had turned on the water. The man stood quite still, silhouetted in the moonlight. A faceless man wearing a wide-brimmed hat who reminded her of the painting of the ugly Father Rimaldi.
“Jesus!” the man muttered, staring in alarm at the fountain.
The voice was strangely familiar and yet she couldn’t put a name to it. The shadowy figure disappeared soundlessly through the archway, looking over his shoulder nervously.
When she was sure he’d gone she slid out of her hiding place and tiptoed across to the fountain. The cherub glistened with water in the moonlight, a steady spume of water rising from his long-parched mouth. Maybe it was a sign that she was on the right track. If only he could talk and tell her his story!
She made her way through the gardens and peered around the wall just in time to see the door of Meredith Evans’s shop closing quietly.
A cough nearby made her jump until she saw with relief that it was only Dan Gwartney.
“Sorry, girl, I didn’t mean to startle you like that. There’s a bag of nerves you are.”
“I’m okay. I just had a fright, and I didn’t see you coming.”
“What frightened you?”
She could hardly say she’d been hiding in the ivy, watching a man creeping through the garden, so she said, “I was walking through the Italian garden and the fountain suddenly started working. It scared me, that’s all.”
“Well, well. It’s a sign, maybe.”
“What sort of sign?”
“That you’ve come home and that you’re welcome in the castle. I see you were over in the library earlier. Did you find what you wanted?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“And what was it you wanted to know?”
“Er, I just wanted to read about Santa Rosa again.”
“Well, any time you need something, just pop over. I’m off up to Shrimp’s to check that everything’s all right.”
She was about to tell him that Meredith had been up at Shrimp’s but Pedro the cat came running up from the beach, wailing like a stuck pig, and seeing Dan, leapt into his arms, almost knocking him backwards.
“There, there, Pedro. I expect the daft old devil’s been stalking crabs again and got a pinch on the nose for his trouble.”
The cat was purring in Dan’s arms, its eyes blazing like meteors in the darkness.
“Goodnight, Dan.”
“Night.”
He walked away towards the beach, talking to the cat as he went.
38
In the garden, Ismelda took out the tin box she kept hidden behind the peelings bin. She stuffed it down the bodice of her dress and climbed lithely up into the pomegranate tree. Hidden from view among the branches, she opened the box and surveyed her treasures. The sun broke through the branches, and the silver ring flashed with a blinding brilliance. She held it in the palm of her hand and shivered with pleasure. Then she put it carefully into the pocket of her baggy drawers. Next she picked out a seashell and held it to her nose. She’d heard tales of the sea from Maria, who had an uncle who lived in Napoli. He had told Maria that in Napoli there was always the wonderful smell of salt and freshly caughtfish.
She pressed the shell to her ear and listened intently. At first she heard only a faint hissing, then the magic began: the music of waves lapping against the shore and the screaming of sea birds wheeling in a blue sky. She closed her eyes. Oh, one day maybe she’d escape from the Villa Rosso. She imagined walking across the piazza hand in hand with Maria and Bindo, climbing into a donkey cart and riding away down the steep road that led to the faraway sea and the rest of the world. One day, please God…
There was a noise, a soft footfall in the grass, and
Ismelda stiffened. She peered through the branches and saw with dismay Papa’s fat white cat, Pipi, slinking through the garden towards the tree. The bloody thing would give her away if it saw her. The cat hated her, and whenever it came across her it growled and spat, curling those razor-sharp claws. She had scars on her legs from their past encounters.
The cat ambled towards the tree and looked up at Ismelda with its curious yellow-green eyes. It sat down, meowed and stared at her with interest.
“Pipi. Pipi! Where are you? Come to Papa. I have your fishy here waiting,” called Signor Bisottifrom inside the villa.
“I’ve just seen him go into the garden,” Maria shouted from the kitchen.
Holy Saint Agnes’s drawers! If Papa came and found the cat and looked up into the tree and saw her there, she would be dead, too.
“Pipi! Pipi! Come to Papa!”
Ismelda waved her one free arm at the cat, hissed and said, “Shoo!” but the cat was unperturbed.
“Pipi!”
Just then a pomegranate broke away from the branch and hurtled towards the ground. It hit the cat with a thud between the eyes.
The cat keeled over on to its back. Its legs pointed towards heaven and they were as stiff as if they’d been washed and starched by the good nuns of the Santa Rosa Convent. The cat’s eyes rolled, then flickered shut. The pink tongue lolled out of his mouth, his fat belly shuddered, and then he lay still.
Suffering Jesus! Papa loved that cat more than anything in the world. Maria had said that when the cat died, Papa would take him to the man in Terrini who stuffed dead animals.
Ismelda pushed her box of treasures into a cavity between the branches, dropped out of the tree, and pulled the cat into the bushes. Then she sat down hastily beneath the tree, folded her hands in the lap of her frock and assumed as angelic a pose as she could.
Signor Bisotti came out into the garden, squinting against the bright sunlight. “Have you seen Pipi this morning, Ismelda?”
“Ah, si, Papa; earlier on he was here in the garden.”
“How did he look?”
“Full of life, Papa. So happy he almost smiled at me.”
“That’s good, for the widow Zanelli was telling me at mass that her daughters saw the dwarf pelting him with lemons last night.”
“Why would he want to hurt Pipi, Papa?”
“God knows. He’s a law unto himself, that dwarf. It’s about time he was run out of Santa Rosa. We don’t need the likes of him here.”
“What do you mean, Papa, ‘the likes of him’?” she asked sweetly.
“He is an insult to the eye of a good Christian.”
“But, Papa, Father Rimaldi says that we must love all God’s creatures, whatever they look like.”
“You might love the scorpion because God in His infinite wisdom made him, but you still wouldn’t get too close. If you ask me, it’s a pity the good nuns didn’t put Bindo out of his misery at birth.”
“But I didn’t ask you, Papa.”
“Why, girl, do you have to be so literal? You know even his own mother didn’t want him.”
“But Maria says that all mothers love their children, whatever they’re like.”
“Does she now? That woman says too much; she has a bell on every tooth.”
“She says that even a hard-faced old bint like the widow Zanelli loves her children, even though they are the biggest prudes God allowed to walk the earth.”
“Well, she had better mind that peasant’s tongue of hers or she will be looking for work elsewhere.”
Ismelda bit her lip. She had been about to say that once, when Maria had drunk three glasses oflimoncello straight off, she’d said the widow Zanelli was a calculating old bitch and that everyone in Santa Rosa knew that she and Father Rimaldi were as thick as thieves. Hadn’t Maria seen with her own eyes Father Rimaldi sneaking out of the widow’s house in the early hours? Signor Zanelli, God rest his soul, had gone to his grave as a dead husband but not as a father. Anyone with eyes in their head could see who those two Zanelli girls looked like.
Signor Bisotti sniffed suspiciously. “I’m sure that dwarf is somewhere about this morning – I can smell him at ten paces. I shall sit in the shade of the pomegranate tree, and if he has the cheek to try and climb my walls and set his dirty feet in my garden, there’ll be trouble with a big T.”
“But, Papa, how could a little dwarf climb over these high walls?”
“He may be little but he is cunning, as sly as a low-bellied snake, that one is. The church walls are thick and the windows narrow, but it didn’t stop him getting in there. Father Rimaldi caught him with his feet up on the altar rail, swigging the communion wine.”
Ismelda coughed to stifle a giggle. “Would you like me to fetch your hat and bring you a drink, Papa?”
“Are you well, Ismelda? Never before have you asked me if I want a drink.”
“I am quite well, Papa.”
She smiled up at his suspicious face. Hell’s teeth! If he found the cat he’d be sure to blame its death on Bindo. He’d have the dwarf plucked and trussed like a market-day chicken and throw his gizzards to the crows.
Ismelda hurried into the villa and soon reappeared, carrying a large hat and a glass of water.
Signor Bisotti made himself comfortable, pulled his hat down over his eyes and settled down for a pleasant doze.
Ismelda sidled over to where she had hidden the cat in the bushes.
The cat lay still, a bubble of snot oozing out of his pink nose.
Behind her she heard soft snoring as Papa slept.
She knelt down and stared at the cat.
The pink nostrils quivered.
The bubble of snot grew larger. One malevolent eye opened and settled on Ismelda.
Sheflinched.
The cat snorted. The bubble burst. The cat got unsteadily to its feet and stumbled across the parched grass.
Ismelda glanced back at Papa. Still sleeping.
The cat stopped unsteadily and then slumped, legs splayed out. She must do something.
She raced into the villa and raced back. With some difficulty she lifted the cat to a sitting position.
She rubbed her fingers in front of its nose.
The cat snuffled, whiskers twitching, then it gave an ear-piercing wail.
Signor Bisotti threw off his hat and got to his feet just as the cat took off. With astonishing speed it ran in ever-decreasing circles round the garden, then shot up into the pomegranate tree, causing a shower of fruit to fall all around a startled Signor Bisotti.
Ismelda watched, her blue eyes wide with innocent wonder.
Finally the cat tired and sat down on the wall of the fountain, eyeing them both malevolently.
“It’s a miracle!” Signor Bisotti shouted. “He has a new lease of life.”
Ismelda wiped the snuff off her fingers, and smiled up at Papa. “All those candles you have been lighting for him must have worked.” She grinned – and she sneezed loudly, twice.
The cat blinked and yawned.
Signor Bisotti and Ismelda stared in amazement at his mouth. His four large yellow teeth were gone.
“It’s that bloody dwarf! Maria, fetch me my stick. I’ll flay the skin off Bindo’s wizened back when I get my hands on him.”
39
Catrin was sitting on the window seat when Ella went into the kitchen.
“Something smells good in here,” said Ella.
“I made a new recipe, some biscuits called brutti ma buoni.”
“Brutti ma buoni?”
“In English it means ‘ugly but good’. Ugly but good biscuits.”
“Well, I never. Luigi Agosti used to make them for Alice and me when we were small.” Ella took a biscuit from the plate Catrin held out to her, bit into it and sat down next to her niece.
Catrin picked up a biscuit tentatively. She’d followed the recipe to the letter. It was Bindo’s recipe. Bindo the green-eyed dwarf.
“You looked upset yesterday, and I’ve hardly
had a chance to speak to you,” Ella said hesitantly.
“I was very upset. I still am.”
“Anything I can help with?”
“I don’t know.” Catrin fell silent and fiddled with biscuit crumbs in her lap.
“Aunt Ella, I found out something about me that probably everyone else already knows and it was a bit of a shock.”
Ella swallowed hard, dreading what was coming.
“You see, Aunt Ella, I’m a bastard – but I expect you know that, don’t you?” Catrin said it so matter-of-factly that Ella flinched and put her hand on Catrin’s arm, but the girl brushed it away.
“I’ve always believed all the rubbish that my mother told me about my father dying when I was small. That’s a lie, isn’t it?”
Ella nodded and fiddled with a loose strand of her wild hair.
“My mother wasn’t married when she had me, was she?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“She was pregnant the last summer she was here?”
“Yes, she was.”
“But you don’t know who my father is?”
Struggling with her conscience, Ella got up and wandered over to the window. It wasn’t her place to tell the girl the truth; Kizzy needed to do that – and pretty damn soon.
“I’m afraid only your mother can tell you that.”
“I don’t want to see her ever again, for as long as I live.”
“Come on, now. I expect she thought it was for the best. I don’t suppose she meant to hurt you.”
“Well, she has! Everyone at school must know, and they’ve been laughing at me behind my back so I’m never going back there again.”
“I doubt if everyone knows.”
“Well, I know. I know that everything I’ve believed is a pack of lies. How could she be so spiteful, and why did she have to lie to me like that?”
“She was young, Catrin. She probably didn’t know what to tell you.”