They walk for a while, together but each alone with their thoughts, and come upon a broad pedestrianised avenue. Crowds are milling about, gazing down at a collage that runs the length of the street; a carpet of vibrant yellow, gaudy red, purple, green and white.
“It’s very beautiful, isn’t it?” she says. “The pattern, it reminds me of the flower arrangements I saw in the cemetery this morning. How do they do it? What is it made of?”
“Coloured sawdust; they spray it with a fixative so that it will not blow away. They are clever, no?”
“Papà!” It is Enzo: he is standing with Paola; they are chatting to an old man and an old woman in a wheelchair.
The man looks up: it is Beppe. “Antonio, Alberto, Angelica, how are you? Come, Maria is here. Please, say hello, she will be happy to know you are with us this evening.”
Caterina hangs back as the others walk over and bend to speak to the woman who, judging by the way she inclines her head, appears to be both blind and hard of hearing. She leans forward and Antonio pats her hand and whispers into her ear. The woman smiles, exposing the few irregular teeth she has held onto in her old age.
“Who is she?” Caterina asks Paola. “She looks to be very old.”
“Sorbello, Maria Assunta. Beppe’s sister. As to how old she is, Enzo says she was born before the second war and that she can remember so much about it that eminent historians sometimes come to ask her questions.”
“She certainly seems to be lifted by whatever it is Antonio is saying to her.”
“Yes, the Sorbello and the Ruggeri families have been as close as any for many years; Beppe’s father and Antonio’s father used to fish together. My Enzo told me that Beppe and Maria had three older brothers, all of whom were at one time fishermen, but none of whom returned from North Africa when the second war ended. By then, their father was too old to provide for Beppe and Maria, so Antonio’s father looked after them. Now, Beppe is too old to fish and Maria… well, you can see. They don’t have family to look after them, so Antonio is their main provider: he gives them money when they have need of it and he ensures they have enough food.”
“That is very benevolent of him,” Caterina says.
“Yes,” Paola agrees, “and yet that is the way it is here. When families are close, there is no one closer.”
“Paola, Enzo’s mother…” she begins, but then loses her way for a minute. “Angelica doesn’t like her.”
“Yes, that is only natural. She is very protective of Antonio. Us women get this way when we see a man we love hurt. But Enzo’s mother is not a bad person; she was young when she married – younger than Antonio – and he is not the kind of man to have second thoughts about wanting to live the way he wants. I sometimes wonder if it wasn’t his will that seduced her as much as his good looks.” She grins, sheepishly, even a little cheekily. “Many young women are drawn to strong, older men in the same way that some young men are drawn to strong, older women. I think that when Enzo’s mother grew older, perhaps when she grew up, I don’t know… but when she did, she realised that being married to a fisherman was not going to bring her the fine clothes, fine food and fine wine she wanted, so…”
“Does Enzo talk about her?”
“Not very often,” Paola says, as though she wishes he would. “Men, eh? Who knows what they are thinking? And you would have more chance getting conversation out of a clam than asking his father how he feels. And you, Caterina? Are you and Antonio on a date?”
“A date?” she chuckles. “Strange isn’t it? If you’d asked me that yesterday, I would have said you were barmy; I’d probably even have lost my temper and stormed off in a huff. But now, here, this evening, and I don’t really understand why, but I don’t find the idea of being on a date so completely ridiculous; a bit silly perhaps, but not completely ridiculous. Not that we are… on a date, that is.”
Paola laughs, widening her eyes at the thought. “Why not? Antonio is an attractive man, eh?”
“Yes,” she murmurs, allowing her gaze to settle on him. “Yes, I suppose he is in a strong sort of rugged kind of way.”
And as she is thinking it, Antonio walks over and extends his right hand to her. “Caterina, please come and say hello to Maria. After spending all her time with people she knows well, she will be pleased to have someone new to talk to.”
“Of course, I’d be happy to.” She glances at Paola, who grins a little sheepishly.
He takes her by the hand and leads her to the old woman. “Maria,” he says, “this is Caterina, a friend from England. This is her first time at the Festa Sant’Antonio; she is Angelica’s guest.”
Caterina squats and as though handling some rare and very delicate porcelain, she takes hold of Maria’s hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
The old woman turns her head in the direction of the voice and appraises her through beady eyes. “And to meet you, young lady. So, you are a guest of Angelica and yet Antonio presents you.” She pauses, wrapping her free hand on top of Caterina’s, allowing her fingertips to feel the texture of her skin. “These fools” she whispers, “they think I am blind simply because I cannot see much further than the end of my nose, but I see perfectly well when there is something to look at.”
Lost for words, Caterina stutters.
“Ah,” Maria says, softly, so that those standing around them cannot overhear, “you have not yet found your place in this world of ours. Don’t worry, you will: everyone does given time.”
“Thank you, Maria. I’m not sure I know what you mean. I’ll think on it though.”
“Good. You do that, young lady. And you have good hands; they speak well of you. Now, go. Go and enjoy your evening.”
*
“Young lady,” Caterina repeats, as they stroll away.
“What was that?” Antonio asks.
“I was just thinking: your friend, Beppe’s sister, she called me young lady. I suppose I should be flattered.”
“Flattered? No. When you are as old as Maria, everyone is young, except her brother of course.”
She chuckles. “Yes, Paola said something like that. I gather no one knows how old she really is, not even Beppe.”
Antonio bridles his lips, arches an eyebrow and sticks his chin out. “I remember my mother saying that during the second war Maria used to help out in her café at Torre Faro. She was very attractive, as was my mother, the soldiers used to flirt with them and my mother would drive them away with her broom.”
In the round of the Piazza del Popolo, a raised stage is alive to the sights and sounds of a folk–dancing troupe.
“Peloritani,” he says. “From the mountains.”
The women, their hair plaited, their white blouses billowing, their skirts and waistcoats hand–stitched and patterned in rich greens, reds and yellows, whirl and twirl and stamp their feet. The men, black knee–length pants and waistcoats, white shirts and socks and red sash belts, dance and whoop in time to the accordion, the drums and the zampugnaru pipes. The audience is swept along with the tempo and many link arms and form circles in which to perform their own imitations and interpretations.
They pass a stall.
“Would you like an ice cream?” he asks.
She nods. “Lovely. Yes. Strawberry, please. Where are Alberto and Angelica?”
Antonio smiles. “As is their way, they are discussing which fridge magnets to buy. You’ve seen their fridge?”
“Yes, quite a collection. There must be one for every fruit and vegetable.”
“It’s true; they buy another every Festa Sant’Antonio and soon they will have no more space. Either that or the door will fall off because of all the extra weight.”
“I’ll be over there.” She points towards the stage.
“I’ll find you,” he says, turning back to the stall.
Now that it is dark, the mood of the people is both ha
ppy and benign: elders chat, husbands debate, mothers agree, and teenage girls crowd round prams to fuss over their new nephew or niece, just as older nephews and nieces play hide and seek behind forests of legs.
Caterina finds a spot from which she can see the stage.
The speed with which the women pirouette between partners and the precision and intricacy of the choreography is mesmerising: they smile as they skip, their arms raised, and their poise and the joy with which they bring to life the traditional dances of their village is infectious and soon enough Caterina is once more lost to the moment.
A man moves in front of her, blocking her view, so she in turn steps to the side. Her view now, though, is not clear to the stage, so she has to stand on tiptoe and peer over a sea of heads. She steps again to the side and somehow, she finds herself on the periphery of the crowd and much further away than before.
“Signorina?” A man is standing next to her; a short man, late–middle–aged, his hair sparse and untidy, his heavily–lidded eyes those of a lizard. “You are far too beautiful to be alone, permit me to–”
“I’m not alone,” she states flatly, granting him only a flash of eye contact.
He makes the kind of play of looking round that one might expect from a mime artist. “Forgive me for my foolish intrusion, but a woman of such beauty should not remain unattended on an evening such as this, may I–”
“No,” she says, this time very directly ignoring him.
“But, signorina, surely I–”
Now, she does turn; and she fixes him with a stare into which she pours all the hate and pain she has stored and locked away over the previous years.
“Now, signor, I’m not going to tell you again, so–”
“Is everything all right, Caterina? Here,” Antonio says, “strawberry, isn’t that what you asked for?”
However, she is so riled that she cannot at once alter the direction in which the heat of her anger is focussed.
Antonio is slow to catch on but when he does, he steps forward and the look on his face suggests he is not about to make a gift of either of his ice cream cones.
“You have me at a disadvantage, signor,” he says, his tone half mocking, half threatening, “we have not been introduced.” He turns and glances at Caterina, just to be certain that she does not know the man and he isn’t, therefore, making some terrible mistake.
The lack of movement in her expression provides him with the answer.
He turns back to the man. “And please don’t think me ungenerous, but it is not in my nature to buy strangers ice creams, so please leave us in peace to enjoy them.”
The manner and measure of Antonio’s politeness are not replicated or extended in the hardness of his look, for his eyes are wild with the promise of violence, so much so that even Caterina is intimidated.
“Big man, eh?” the little man hisses. “Big man in front of the woman.” Slowly, he looks Antonio up and down. “I see you have bought her only a small ice cream cone, what’s the matter, couldn’t you afford a second scoop?”
Antonio turns and hands both the ice creams to Caterina.
People around them have taken notice of the change in the body language of the two men and they stand back to allow them room.
“Now, you listen to me,” Antonio begins, balling his fists, “you know you can only fuck a cat once.”
The little man glowers at him.
“Such language!” a new voice says. “And in front of women. Is there a problem here?”
Alberto has arrived, his whites still pin clean, and at his side, a member of the Policia Local so tall that it is not simply his uniform that lends him authority.
Outnumbered, the little man blanches and does not answer. He simply snarls, turns and disappears into the crowd.
“Antonio,” the policeman says, his white teeth shining beneath his cap, his tone sprinkled with a mischievous levity, “causing trouble again?”
Before he can open his mouth, though, Caterina jumps in ahead of him.
“No, it wasn’t Antonio’s fault. It was that man: he wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“So,” the policeman replies, “your prince charming came to your rescue. Good choice: that man would have been a fool to make anything more of it.” He turns from her. “He must have come in from Catania, otherwise he would have known who he was dealing with, eh Antonio?” He turns back and looms over Caterina, “Oh, and by the way signora, I should hurry up and eat your ice cream before it melts.”
*
Their evening had finished on a pleasant, promising note. Once the unfortunate incident had been allowed time to disperse like a cloud that had on appearance promised rain, they had wandered casually amongst the festival revellers. In a side street, firecrackers had exploded in sporadic and sharp strings of percussion, street–sellers had lofted curiously fluorescent whirlybirds up into the night sky, magicians had picked coins from children’s ears and in a small piazza a band playing live rock music had provoked the young and old to gyrate and swing. And when the smell of roasting almonds and caramel had drawn her to a stall, Antonio had insisted he buy her a cornet of torrente, warning her, as he probably must have warned Enzo when he was younger, to suck them until they had softened, lest she break her teeth.
In the car on the way home, Caterina and Antonio had sat in the back, and crammed as they were, with thigh touching thigh and shoulder pressed against shoulder, he had taken her hand and held it in his.
Caterina had not known quite how to react, for no one, absolutely no one, had held her hand for a very long time. And although his show of affection was a comfort; his proximity and his familiarity had represented a threshold that Caterina was aware she needed either to cross or stand back from. To leave her hand where it was, to squeeze his hand in return or just to look at him, would mean stepping over that threshold; an affirmation it would be difficult later to reverse, should she want to.
And Antonio had, through the hesitancy of her fingers and the tension in her knuckles and the tightness of her palm, sensed her confusion. So, in the slow stroboscope of the streetlights, he had smiled apologetically, let go of her hand and whispered that she might like to eat with him the next evening.
“Yes,” she had heard herself reply, “I’d like that.”
They’d dropped Antonio off at his place, a modest, middle–of–terrace house on the front near the breakwater in which the feluca is moored, and Alberto, moaning about how tired he was because he was no longer young enough to contend with two late nights in a row, had gone to bed.
“What did that policeman mean when he said the man must have come from out of town or he would have known who he was dealing with?” Caterina asks Angelica as, later, they sit in the kitchen drinking coffee.
“Nothing much. It is a figure of speech. Everything bad comes from either Catania or Palermo or any place that isn’t Messina.”
“A figure of speech,” Caterina says, turning the clear and obvious deflection of an answer over in her mind. “No, I think he meant Antonio has something of a reputation. Does he?”
Angelica raises her hands, imploring. “Many of the fishermen have reputations for being tough; it is a tough business and not only because of the weather; they have to stand up to others who want a part or all of their business. The market is not a world for the timid, eh? And with Antonio? He has had his fair share of fools to deal with and many of the fishermen come to him for advice and help; he is good to people and for that reason some try to take advantage of him.”
“Yes, so I gather. Paola told me he looks after Beppe and his sister. What a lovely lady Maria is.”
“It is true: she knew our mother very well. The Sorbello family are our family through good times and bad.”
“Angelica, what did Antonio mean when he said you can only fuck a cat once?”
She bursts out laughing, a long
unrestricted and giggly laugh that infects Caterina and causes her to join in.
“Ah yes, a strange expression and one that should only be used as a last resort. It means that you can only make me look foolish once and after that, you will go where I send you.”
“Send you?”
“Yes, most probably to your grave or, if you are lucky, to the hospital.” She chuckles, then begins to laugh again, as though some second thought has occurred to her. “Your prince charming, wasn’t that what the policeman called Antonio? Your prince charming.” And they both split their sides and cover their mouths, concerned that they might wake the cockerel snoring upstairs.
Chapter 12
“What do you mean, where am I? I’m in Sicily, you know that.” Caterina had woken and called Lucy.
“Yes, mum, I knew that. But where, where exactly in Sicily?” Her tone is that of a daughter exasperated.
The question, though, stops Caterina in her tracks; for the last time she’d spoken to Lucy, she’d avoided mentioning where she was. Then, she’d had no plans; now… “Well, I’m no longer in Taormina, if that’s what you mean. I left. Felt I’d done the place. Loved it. Really, very beautiful. Just needed to move on, that was all.”
“So I gather.”
“What do you mean, so you gather?”
“Mum?” A daughter now offended.
“Yes, darling?” Caterina adopts an ignorance carefully positioned halfway between hauteur and plain deaf.
“I gather, because your phone has been off and I had to ring the hotel.”
A lightly pregnant silence ensues until: “Casa Cuseni is not a hotel, darling; it’s a B&B. And not only a B&B, a National Monument and museum, too.”
“Mother?” Lucy’s annoyance is rapidly developing into full–blown indignation.
“Thought you ought to know, that’s all. Wouldn’t want your friends thinking I was on the Grand Tour like some dowager duchess. Just saying, as you used to say.”
“If only,” Lucy scoffs. “Getting you to spend money on yourself, now that would be a first. No, what I meant was, when I phoned the B&B,” she emphasizes both Bs, “they said you’d checked out and it would’ve been nice if you’d let me know when and where you were going. And another thing, mother–”
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