by Paul Hoffman
The Materazzi lived on like a great family fallen on the worst of times. They had no money but they did have capital of sorts: the brains of Vipond and IdrisPukke and the always reliable gold standard of snobbery. Even the surliest barrowboy-done-good, having made his fortune in bacon or horse-glue, discovered when confronted by the supercilious hauteur of the Materazzi women that something was lacking in their lives: they were as common as muck and only a Materrazi beauty could begin to remove that taint. Imagine the thought of having a wife with a thousand-year-old-name, one that could be passed on to the children. What a triumph! Underneath the stroppy bluster your barrowboy soul would no longer ping an imperfect note. And all you needed to become one of the who whom was the most fair-minded egalitarian of all: buckets of cash.
The Materazzi men may have been shits but they were not snobs in the way their wives and daughters were. They treated the rich common-persons of Spanish Leeds with the affection they gave to their horses and dogs. So well were these horses and dogs beloved that they imagined they were equals. It must be said, though, that the Materazzienne, as the women came to be called in Spanish Leeds, were not always prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice and marry into a family who’d made their money in glue or marmalade. But in time, the reality of what was required when you were special but had no special abilities meant that many were forced to make their way, weeping, down the aisle to a future husband who had made his money in rendered fat or pork scratchings. Vipond had strong-armed a tax on these unions but the flow of money was nothing like as much as he needed, for all his furious urgings to the heads of the Ten Families to ‘beat some sense’ into their daughters. His old policy of adding his brains to Materazzi money now had to bend to the former. In this, IdrisPukke and Thomas Cale were what he had instead of a treasury. IdrisPukke’s return from the Priory with news of what had happened was a disappointment, if for less personal reasons than those of his half-brother. He admired Cale and was fascinated by him but there was no personal affection. Still, he’d hoped that the boy would be nearly better by now.
‘Is Cale worth pursuing?’ he asked IdrisPukke. ‘Be frank with me. There’s too much at stake not to be.’
‘What are you asking me to be honest with you for?’ came the bad-tempered reply. ‘You don’t have the right to make a demand like that from me. He is what he is.’
‘There’s no arguing with that.’
‘If you want to drop him then you can drop me, too.’
‘Don’t be so dramatic – you’ll burst into an aria next. I misspoke. Let’s imagine I never said anything.’
So, strapped for cash though he was, Vipond sent a messenger to Cyprus every two weeks to meet Cale’s requests for information: maps, books, rumours, such reports as Vipond and IdrisPukke could borrow or steal. In return, but slowly, came his maps and his guesses and certainties about what Bosco would do, and how he could be frustrated, and the minimum number of troops and resources it would take. It was slow for one reason: Cale was sick and he was not improving. There were times when it seemed he was on the mend, sleeping for twelve hours a day instead of fourteen, being able to walk for half an hour a day and work for the same. But then the attacks, the retching and terrible weariness came back. For no reason that he or Sister Wray could determine, the illness ebbed and flowed according to laws entirely of its own.
‘Perhaps it’s the moon,’ said Cale.
‘It’s not,’ replied Sister Wray. ‘I checked.’
Poll was sure what was wrong. ‘You’re a very naughty boy and all shagged out by wickedness.’
‘P’raps Woodentop is right,’ said Cale.
‘Perhaps she is, though she has a nerve calling anyone else naughty. You are worn out by the wickedness of others. The Redeemers poured it into you and now your soul is trying to spit it out.’
‘There can’t be much left.’
‘You haven’t swallowed a bad pork chop – you’ve swallowed a mill.’
‘One of those things that blow round with the wind?’
‘No – like a salt mill. A magic salt mill, like in the fairy tale.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘Once upon a time the sea was filled with fresh water. One day a fisherman pulled up an old lamp in his nets. When he started to polish it up a genie came out who’d been imprisoned in the lamp by an evil magician. As a reward, the genie gave him a salt mill that produced salt for ever and ever. Then the genie flew away but the old fisherman was so exhausted that he dropped the mill and it fell to the bottom of the sea where the salt just came pouring out, never stopping. That’s why the sea is salty.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘We must stop the mill from grinding. We need to find some medicine.’
‘About time.’
Sister Wray did not react. Poll was not so reticent.
‘You ungrateful hooligan.’
‘Grateful for what?’ he said, still looking at Sister Wray who turned to the puppet.
‘He has a point. We must do better.’
‘Is that dummy part of your religion?’
‘No. Poll is just Poll.’
This made it all seem stranger than it had at first sight. It was true that he’d been startled on first meeting them. On the other hand he was used to, expected even, anyone dressed as a priest or nun to proclaim abnormal beliefs and behave in an outlandish manner.
The Redeemers’ prayer before breakfast stated their firm belief in the Eight Impossible Things. Almost every minute of every day for his entire life they had told him something about devils flying above him in the air or angels at his shoulder weeping when he sinned. Deranged behaviour and mad beliefs were normal to him. He was not even very impressed by Sister Wray’s talent for the different voice that seemed to come from Poll – he had seen voice-throwers outside the Red Opera on bullfight days.
One day he knocked on Sister Wray’s door but there was no answer. He was perfectly aware that he should knock once more but he opened the door after the shortest pause possible. He hoped, of course, to find Sister Wray without her obnubilate (she had told him what her veil was called when he asked). Surely she wouldn’t wear it when she was on her own? He might even enter to find her naked. Would she be big-breasted and with red nipples the size of the dainty saucers they used at Materazzi tea parties? He had dreamt of her like this. Or would she be ugly and old with the skin hanging from her chest like damp washing on a clothesline? Or something else he hadn’t thought of? His distant hopes were to be disappointed. He entered quietly – cats would have begrudged him. She was in her chair but asleep and lightly snoring, as was Poll – though in a completely different tone and rhythm. Sister Wray’s snoring was like that of a small child, soft and low. Poll’s was like an old man dreaming of grudges.
He sat down and listened to them phewing, susurrating and wheezing for a while, and considered searching her bedroom. He stood up, decided against it, and instead moved to her side and began lifting her veil.
‘What are you doing, thou wretched thing of blood?’
‘Looking for something I lost,’ said Cale.
‘Well, you won’t find it there,’ replied Poll.
Cale dropped the lower edge of the veil as carefully as he had picked it up, then went and sat down as guiltless as a bad cat. Cale sat for a full minute while Poll stared at him.
‘Are you going to wake her up?’ he said to Poll.
‘No.’
‘We could talk,’ said Cale, affably.
‘Why?’
‘Get to know each other.’
‘I know,’ said Poll, ‘as much about you as I want to.’
‘I’m all right when you get to know me.’
‘No, you aren’t.’
‘You think you understand what I’m really like?’
‘You think I don’t?’
Sister Wray slept on.
‘What have I ever done to you?’
It wasn’t an aggrieved question, just a m
atter of curiosity.
‘You know very well.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘She,’ said Poll, looking up at Sister Wray, ‘is all nobility and grace and generosity.’
‘So?’
‘Her weakness, though I love her for it, is that these great gifts that she passes on to others smother her proper fear of you.’
Though he tried not to show it, Cale was rattled by this. ‘She’s got no reason to be afraid of me.’
There was a gasp of impatience from Poll.
‘You think that the only thing people should be afraid of is what you can do to them – that you could punch them on the nose or cut their head off? She’s afraid of what you are – of what your soul can do to hers.’
‘What’s that strange buzzing noise in my ears?’ said Cale. ‘It sounds like words but they don’t make any sense.’
‘You understand what I’m talking about. You think it just as much as I do.’
‘No, I don’t, because everything you say is camel-shit.’
‘You know … you infect other people … you know exactly, you snivelling little chisler.’
‘I don’t snivel. No one’s ever heard me snivel. And it’s lucky for you I don’t know what a chisler is.’
‘Or what?’ said a triumphant Poll. ‘You’d cut my head off?’
‘You don’t have a head. You’re made of wool.’
‘I am not,’ said an indignant Poll, quickly. ‘But at least I don’t suffer from soul murder.’
Then for the first time he heard Poll gasp – a guilty sigh of someone who’s let the cat out of the bag.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Nothing,’ said Poll.
‘It’s not nothing. Why so guilty? What are you afraid of?’
‘Not you, anyway.’
‘Then tell me, wool-for-brains.’
‘You deserve to be told.’ Poll looked away at the sleeping Sister Wray, still snoring like a two-year-old. A pause. Making up her mind. Then Poll looked back at Cale with all the kindness, it seemed to the boy, in the eyes of a weasel he had once come across while it was eating a rabbit. It had raised its head and looked at him for a moment, utterly indifferent, and then gone back to its meal.
‘I heard her talking to the Director when she thought I was asleep.’
‘I thought you two knew everything about each other – little heart-pals.’
‘You don’t see anything about the two of us. You think you do but you don’t.’
‘Get on with it. I can feel my left leg going to sleep.’
‘You asked for it.’
‘Now I can feel my other leg wants forty winks.’
‘Soul murder is the worst thing that can happen to you.’
‘Worse than death? Worse than five hours dying with your giblets hanging out of your tum? Your liver dribbling out of your bread basket?’ Cale was laying it on thick but not thicker than it was.
‘Soul murder,’ said Poll, ‘is living death.’
‘Get on with it, I’ve got fish to fry.’
But the truth was he didn’t much like the sound of it, nor, even if Poll did have wool between the ears, the look in her eyes.
‘Soul murder is what happens to children who take more than forty blows to the heart.’
‘Do blows to the head count? Never had one to the heart.’
‘They killed your joy – that’s what she said.’
‘You wouldn’t be lying at all? I was wrong about the wool – that nasty tongue of yours sounds like it’s made from the arse hairs of a sheep-shagger – most likely I should think that was a considerable possibility.’
‘I don’t think your joy is dead.’
‘I don’t care what you think.’
‘Your joy is all in laying waste to things – blight and desolation is what makes your soul glad.’
‘That’s a bloody lie – you were here when I told Wray …’
‘Sister Wray!’
‘… when I told her about the girl I saved in the Sanctuary. I didn’t even know her.’
‘And you’ve regretted it ever since.’
‘I was joking.’
‘Nobody’s laughing – nobody does when you’re around, not for long.’
‘I got rid of Kevin Meatyard.’
‘Says you.’
‘I saved Arbell Materazzi.’
‘It wasn’t your soul doing the thinking, was it? It was your prick.’
‘And I saved her brother.’
‘That’s true,’ said Poll. ‘I agree that you did good there.’
‘So you’re wrong – you said it yourself,’ said Cale suspiciously.
‘I didn’t say your heart was dead, lots of soul-dead people have a heart, a good heart. I bet you were a lovely little boy. I bet you would have grown up a real goody-goody. But the Redeemers got you and murdered your soul and that was that. Not everybody can be saved. Some wounds go too deep’
‘Drop dead.’ He was rattled.
‘It’s not your fault,’ said a delighted Poll. ‘You can’t help yourself. You weren’t born bad but you’re bad all the same. Nothing can be done. Poor Cale. Nothing can be done.’
‘That’s not what she believes,’ he said, looking at Sister Wray.
‘Yes, it is.’
‘She never said that.’
‘She didn’t have to. I know what she thinks even before she thinks it. You’re going to make her suffer, aren’t you?’
‘Sister Wray?’
‘Not Sister Wray, you idiot – that treacherous slut you’re always whingeing about.’
‘I never hurt her.’
‘Not yet, you haven’t. But you will. And when you cross that river we’re all going to suffer – because once she’s dead there’ll be nothing to stop you. You know the river I’m talking about, don’t you?’
‘There’s that buzzing sound in my ears again.’
‘It’s the river of no return – THE WATERS OF DEATH – and over that river is the MEADOW OF DESOLATION. That’s where you’re heading, young man, despair’s your destination. You’re the salt in our wound, that’s what you are. You stink of misery and pretty soon the smell is going to fill the whole world.’
Poll was beginning to shout.
‘I’d be sorry for you if we all weren’t going to get it in the neck as a result. You’re the angel of death all right – you stink of it. Cross over the river of no return into the land of lost content, the valley of the shadow of death …’
Poll had raised her voice so much that Sister Wray came to with a loud snort.
‘What?’ she said.
There was only silence. ‘Oh, Thomas, it’s you. I fell asleep. Have you been here long?’
‘No,’ said Cale. ‘Just got here.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m not feeling very well. We could continue tomorrow if you wouldn’t mind.’
Cale nodded.
Sister Wray stood up and walked him to the door. As he was about to leave she said, ‘Thomas, Poll didn’t say anything to you while I was asleep?’
‘Don’t believe a thing that snivelling little chisler tells you!’ squawked an alarmed Poll.
‘Be quiet,’ said Sister Wray.
Cale looked at her. This was odd stuff to grasp even for a boy who had drunk deeply and at a very early age from the fountain of the strangeness of others.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It didn’t say anything and I wouldn’t have paid any attention even if it had.’
9
‘That’s easy for you to say. Have you ever allowed another man to fondle you?’
‘Not as far as I can remember.’
Conn was arguing with Lord Vipond, watched by Arbell and a fascinated IdrisPukke.
‘Has the King ever touched you?’ asked Arbell, not altogether patiently.
‘No.’
‘Then why all this fuss?’
‘Every philosopher can stand the toothache,’ said Conn to his wife, ‘except for the one who has it.’
>
This was a reference to one of IdrisPukke’s most carefully polished sayings.
‘Well,’ said Vipond, ‘if you’d like to swap banalities …’ this was aimed at his brother … ‘why don’t you consider this one: every problem is an opportunity.’
The difficulty and the golden chance they were discussing involved King Zog of Switzerland and Albania, who’d taken a very particular shine to Conn Materazzi. Many, of course, felt the same about the tall and beautiful blond young man, so strong and graceful with his easy manners and openness to all. The cocky little shit of less than a year before had needed to grow up and had done so in such an appealing way that he surprised even his admirers. Arbell, who had once had a crush upon the spoilt young boy – though she treated him with coolness and even disdain as a result – now found that she was falling in love with him. A little late perhaps, given that they had been married for more than seven months and had a son whose early arrival, yet plump size, had been the subject of some ungenerous rumours. Though certainly more biddable than before, and considerably so, he had his limits, one of them being his aversion to everything about his royal admirer: his stained clothes (‘I can tell you everything he has eaten in the last month’), his tongue (‘It flaps about in his mouth like a wet sheet on a washing line’), his hands (‘Always fidgeting with himself and his favourite’s trousers’). His eyes (‘watery’). His feet (‘enormous’). Even the way he stood (‘Repulsive!’).
‘The King,’ said Vipond, ‘holds all of us in his hands – and more besides. Every country nervous about the Redeemers looks to him for a sign of what they might do. Without him, the Materazzi will descend into a kind of nothing – that’s to say your wife, your child and you.’
‘So you want me to lick his arse?’
‘Conn!’ A sharp rebuke from his wife.
There was an unpleasant pause.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Conn at last.
‘I’ve heard worse,’ replied Vipond.