Last Train from Liguria

by Christine Dwyer Hickey

He swings him harder. 'Oh, come on now, you can't be serious, there must be some time, somewhere down there.'

  'Yes… I find it. L'ho trovato, l'ho trovato.'

  'Bravo. Allora – uno, due, tre.' Edward turns Alec the right way up, and lets him slide down on the ground. 'You will make out a timetable with your woman – what's she called? Miss Stuart – anyway she sees fit. Is that understood?'

  Alec gives a slight stagger and breathlessly laughs. 'Yes, Maestro.'

  'And we will work our piano lessons to suit that timetable?'

  'Yes.'

  'And you will not use your asthma as an excuse again. Especially as it's the wrong season for it. At least wait till September to chance it. D'accordo?'

  'Sì, d'accordo.'

  'Bene. Bravo. Now come on, what are we waiting for? Let's rip open the parcel and see what Nollie has sent.'

  *

  A few weeks later, Signor Lami is dead. Bella is the first to be informed, a privilege which surprises her, as much as it irritates the American cousins.

  She is out on the terrace with Alec, one as bored as the other as they struggle with Signora Lami's supplementary and somewhat random curriculum. Today's suggestion in her Topic for Vocabulary Expansion Programme is the architecture of Sir Christopher Wren. Born in 1632. Son of the Dean of Windsor. Built St Paul's – after twenty minutes over a fat old-fashioned textbook stinking of book must, this is about all they've been able to establish.

  The instant she hears Elida's croak – 'Signora Stu-arteh, al telefono, prego', – coming up from the garden, Bella knows it has to be bad news. But she presumes it will be for her. My father, she thinks. In the time it takes her to go down the corridor, the three flights of stairs, she has forgiven him everything. He is dead, she keeps thinking all the way. My father is dead. That's all.

  As she comes in sight of the telephone table, she slows up her step and begins to consider. But supposing he's not dead? Supposing he is merely ill, infirm even? What then – back to Chelsea? To be his nurse? She realizes then that she does not want to leave Alec. Nor this house, nor Bordighera. She does not want to leave Elida or Rosa the daily help who has started to become her friend. Nor the deaf mute kitchen maid with her constant head cold and violent mannerisms. Nor Cesare, the bandy gardener with his halitosis breath. Not even the American cousins, who have in their own peculiar way been keeping her entertained, or at least on her toes. Nor Edward. All of those people, who after a few short weeks have made her feel more at home than she has ever done in Chelsea or even as a child in Dublin. She does not want to go back to London to nurse a stranger.

  But it isn't her father's housekeeper on the phone, nor, for that matter, Mrs Jenkins. Not even his secretary or one of his hospital colleagues.

  'Signora Lami? Have you bad news for me?' Bella asks, surprised to hear her employer's voice, but still convinced that the news has come from London via Palermo.

  The Signora is to the point. 'My husband is dead.'

  'Your husband?'

  'In fact. This morning.'

  'Oh I see. Of course. Your husband. I'm very sorry to hear it.'

  'Thank you. Now, Miss Stuart, I'm afraid I will have to ask you to give the news to Alec. I don't think he should hear it on the telephone and it would not be good for him to come all the way to Sicily expecting to see his father alive and then to see him not so, but quite dead in a coffin. To arrive to a father's funeral – a terrible thing for a boy. So. If you wouldn't mind?'

  'Me? You want me to?'

  'Yes. Unless you think it would be appropriate to wait until you arrive here? Then I could tell him in person, I suppose. But how would you feel about that, Signora Stuart, the journey here, Alec looking forward so to seeing his father, talking about him all the way, on the train, on the ship, in the car. How would you honestly feel?'

  'Well, I don't know what to say to you, Signora Lami.'

  'The funeral will be in a few days. So it would be best if you start as soon as possible. I apologize that I am not in a position to organize your schedule – you will have to make your own details, I'm afraid.'

  'Please. Think nothing of it.'

  'When you board the ship at Genoa you may ask the purser to send a telegram and Pino will meet you in Palermo. But? Very well. Perhaps?'

  'Yes, Signora Lami?'

  'Perhaps I should prepare him. But it would mean asking you to look after his grief on the journey.'

  'Yes. Of course. I will do that, of course.'

  There is silence for a moment, then the Signora speaks again. 'I have made my decision now, Signora Stuart. I will tell him myself. I'm quite sure that's the right thing to do.'

  'Yes, Signora Lami, of course. He's in the library, I'll just go and—' But when she turns around Alec is standing behind her. Bella holds the receiver towards him. 'Your Mamma wants to speak to you, Alec.'

  He takes the phone slowly and looks into Bella's eyes as he speaks to his mother. 'Hello, Mamma… I'm very well, Mamma… Yes, I can be brave… Yes, Mamma, I'm listening.'

  His eyes bulge with tears. His bottom lip begins to give. She sees his leg shake and the tic she had noticed the first evening begin to jitter on his eyelid. Bella steps nearer. He turns his back sharply on her and begins pushing his voice down into the receiver.

  'No, Mamma. I want Edward… Mamma please, yes, I know she is. I do. But—'

  Bella moves out to the front steps. Elida has come round from the kitchen garden, a bouquet of basil held to her stomach, the green juices staining the grip of her fingers. They look at each other, then Elida, bowing her head, makes a sign of the cross. The echo in the hall lifts Alec's whisper. They can hear him inside pleading, crying – heartbreakingly trying to do neither. Bella knows he is worried about hurting her feelings or indeed disappointing her in some way because he would prefer Edward to go with him. If only the poor child knew how glad she would be not to have to go all the way back to Sicily.

  By now Amelia and Grace have turned up, in their large foolish hats, backless tops and wide-legged trousers which they called pants, flapping like banners anytime they take a few steps.

  'What's happened?' Amelia asks. 'Oh my God – is it?'

  Alec comes out to the steps. He lifts his sleeve to wipe his eyes, then leaves it there to cover his face. 'Mamma wants to speak to you.'

  'To me, dear?' Grace asks.

  He shakes his head behind his arm.

  'To me then?' Amelia suggests.

  'To Signora Stuart.'

  'To Signora Stuart?' Amelia repeats.

  Alec nods and Grace moves to put her arm around him. 'Poor old Alec,' she says. 'Poor little sausage.'

  'I am not a sausage,' he shouts, elbowing her out of the way, then running down the steps through the garden towards Edward's mews.

  When Bella picks up the receiver the Signora is already speaking. 'And so in this case Edward may take him.'

  'Yes, Signora Lami.'

  'I think it will make much more sense. In fact I've decided now that would be best. Will you make the necessary arrangements, Miss Stuart? And please write everything down carefully, in case Edward forgets. May I please ask you to at least do that?'

  *

  Grace goes with them to the funeral in Sicily. Invited or not – Bella doesn't know, nor does she ask. 'It has,' Grace says, 'been decided that the Nelson family really ought to be represented and as such a journey is obviously out of the question for poor, indisposed Amelia, naturally, it falls upon me.'

  A last-minute announcement, leaving time for neither discussion nor deterrent, Grace simply arrives in the hall with her baggage just as Edward and Alec are about to leave for the station. Clearly disgusted to be left behind, poor, indisposed Amelia decides not to come along to the station to see them off, 'seeing as how I'm such an invalid and all'. Then she huffs off to her room.

  Alec seems to be holding up well enough, although his face is so pale the freckles seem to hover over rather than rest upon his skin. All morning he has been compla
ining of feeling cold, in spite of a heat so solid you could take a bite out of it, and in the end Bella has to put a coat on him. At the station Edward goes to buy the tickets, and Grace goes to buy a magazine and 'candies'. Bella steers Alec into the waiting room.

  There is only one other person inside, a middle-aged woman fussily knitting in the corner. Bella, without quite knowing how, instantly identifies her as one of the dotty English brigade. Or 'the English Dots', as Edward calls them. She sits on the far end of the bench. Alec, kneeling on the opposite bench, begins to study a poster on the wall. The poster is for the Balilla, an organization for boys which, as far as Bella can make out, involves uniforms, badge-earning and outdoor adventure. Not unlike Powell's Boy Scout Movement in fact, except the Italian version seems to demand constant praise and gratitude to Mussolini. I Figli della Lupa, or the sons of the she-wolf, advertised here look to be about the same age as Alec. A camping holiday is to take place next month, enrolling in a few days' time at the Casa Fascista. Anyone who loves their country as much as they love their Duce is invited to enrol with the squadron leader.

  She watches as Alec traces one finger over the outline of each boy, as if he were drawing them, their faces and hands, the pots and pans sticking out of their knapsacks, the cleavage of a lake between two mountains behind them, the tepee of sticks blazing in the campfire to one side. He is bored, she thinks. He should have more to occupy his life than Christopher Wren and tennis with ageing ex-pats. Worse, he is lonely. He should have friends his own age. Proper company. Not just Edward and Elida and me.

  Out on the platform, two men are easing a floral tribute up against a wall. It is jammed with scarlet chrysanthemums and is as big as a tractor wheel. Another hefty garland appears at the waiting-room door, a man's voice behind it shouting, 'Permesso.'

  It passes right under her nose, the destination clearly marked on a label trimmed with black ribbon, along with Signor Lami's name, many titles and honours. A third tribute in the shape of a globe brushes the outside window. The woman knitting in the corner sighs. 'This country.'

  'I'm sorry?' Bella says.

  'Everything has to be an exaggeration. I mean, everything. Even death. Honestly!' she finishes with a roll of her eyes.

  The waiting room starts to fill up. An old woman first, dressed in a black serge suit and a black silk turban hat. Tall and thin as an anchovy, a gold-tipped walking stick in her hand which glints and taps over to Alec. The woman speaks slowly, her words stretched and dry, so Bella can translate almost every one of them. She says she can remember Alec's grandmother. Remember, in fact, when his grandfather built the villa on via Romano in her honour and name: Marcia Lami. A wonderful woman. Beautiful inside and out. A personal friend of the late Queen Margherita no less. They used to call on each other regularly when Her Highness was in residence at her summer villa on via Romana. 'I hope you know that, young man,' the old woman concludes. 'I hope you realize that you have this blood in your veins, as well as any other.'

  By now Alec has climbed down off the bench. The old lady steps back and others come forward speaking in the careful manner of sympathizers. A man with an attaché case who works in the bank. A woman who says her grandmother used to own the ice-cream shop across the road when his father was a boy. A nun from the local orphanage, who first praises the family's kindness, then pats out a prayer on the back of his hand. They continue to come and go with their condolences, until Bella can no longer tell one from the other, and the English woman, somewhat alarmed, stands up and begins stuffing her knitting into a bag. She fumbles her way over to Bella like someone being chased by a dog. 'I'm most terribly sorry,' she mutters. 'I had no way of knowing, the poor child. I'm so ashamed. My name is Mrs Cardiff, by the way. Please do forgive me. I mean, had I only known.' Then she is gone.

  Bella watches the circle of sympathizers close in on Alec like a gate; throwing hugs on him, lavishing his face with kisses. When there is a shift in the crowd she catches sight of him, his shoulders twisting this way and that. She sees his eyes flutter like butterflies, thinks for a moment that she hears him call out her name. 'That's enough!' she shouts then. 'I mean – basta!'

  She breaks through and pulls him away, then, pushing him ahead of her, brings him out to the ticket office to look for Edward. The queue is long. A woman at the top is holding the ticket-seller in some sort of a heated dispute. Edward stands behind her reading a paper, while behind him again the rest of the queue begins to fidget and groan. Then all eyes seem to turn to Alec. Here and there a hat is pulled off, a head bowed, a sign of the cross made. The boy is shaking all over. She pushes him on, until the queue is behind them and they are in the far corner, near the news-stand.

  Bella doesn't know how to comfort him. She wonders if she should risk touching him. He allows Edward to rough and tumble him, and Elida, as long as it's in a functional way, to comb his hair or tidy him up before he goes out. He allows any of them to hold his hand to cross the road, help him on or off the tram, undress or dress him at the beach. But any needless contact, anything approaching affection, and he always pulls away, if not exactly upset, then certainly irritated. She has noticed this about him.

  She kneels down on the floor beside him and, with Elida's method in mind, takes to fussing. Hair, collar, coat, jacket, anything that is attached to him. She remembers the English woman then, and, removing his arm from his coat, reaches in and slips the black band off the sleeve of his jacket. She puts the coat back on, fixing the band on its sleeve where it could be seen and understood by all. At last his shoes. Lifting one of his feet onto her lap, Bella unties and reties his shoelace. Then, patting her thigh, invites him to place the other foot up. All the while she mumbles a few sensible words. 'Now you be a good boy, and make sure you eat something on the train, give it time to settle before the boat, you know, in case the sea is rough, and let Edward know if you feel in any way sick, and I've packed your new crayons and some copybooks, a story book too in case you want to read. And cards, Edward and Grace will play with you. Snap. You like Snap – what do you call it again, Rubamazzo, isn't it?'

  He nods vigorously, his hand for balance pressed on her shoulder. She can smell the cologne Elida has used to plaster his hair into place, the lemon soap on his face and neck, his vanilla-flavoured breath. She can hardly look him in the face, but notices just the same that his lips are tightened as if he is trying to swallow everything back, but that his eyes at least are steady. She reties the second lace and says, 'There now. We're all set.'

  He seems to pounce on her then, throwing his arms around her so that Bella has to steady herself to prevent them both from toppling over. She can feel the squeeze of his thin arms on her neck, a few sobs stirring in his chest, the thump of his heart against her arm, the pulse of his warm little body forceful yet fragile in her arms.

  After a while, she opens her eyes to Edward's hand on Alec's arm. 'We better get going, Allo,' he is saying. But Alec clings on, shaking his head and sobbing into her neck. Edward gets down on one knee and leans closer to Alec's ear – 'Don't want to miss the train now, do we?' he says. 'You won't let me down now, will you? There's a good chap – I'm relying on you now, you know I am.'

  They stay for a moment, the three of them hunkered and leaning into each other. When Edward finally coaxes Alec away and lifts the child, openly sobbing now, up into his arms, Bella stays on her knees. She starts to her feet then, dizzy-legged, confused, hardly able to see a thing. Until Edward's hand again leans down to take her by the arm and help her up. Faces everywhere, a woman crying to herself. A man with his hat held to his chest. Grace in there somewhere, mouth agog.

  Out on the platform, the sounds of a station: whistles, bells, doors clapping into the distance. A woman with a hamper of squabbling chickens pushes her aside and asks Edward for help in boarding the train. He puts Alec down, who immediately takes Bella's hand.

  They walk further down the platform, searching for the first-class carriages. By now the wreaths have grown into what am
ounts to a small hill of funeral flowers. A priest splashes them with holy water as the porters pass backwards and forwards, loading them onto the train. A group of young Blackshirts come trick-acting down the platform. They stop when they see the priest, the flowers, the black band on the arm of Alec's coat. Then, one by one, they drop down into a genuflection.

  Bella helps Alec board the train and stands for a while on the platform looking up at the window at their three faces: Edward, inscrutable; Alec, dry-eyed now but still pale and stunned with incomprehensible grief; Grace, the cat who got the cream.

  *

  When she gets back Amelia is still in her room and has quite needlessly – as far as Bella is concerned anyway – left word not to be disturbed.

  Bella goes up to the library; a room she has come to regard as her own. She has brought her few bits to it – three framed photographs, a shell-covered box, a silver Indian message holder on a stand, found years ago in a Hampstead antique shop.

  She has made some adjustments. At first just a here-and-there tweak, a mirror removed, a few cushions brought in. But since Cesare has shifted all the unwanted furniture to another room, she has gradually rearranged the remainder into sections – one for schoolwork; another for sitting; one for her own private office; another close to the view, where she sometimes eats meals, alone or with Alec. And a day bed she keeps by the terrace door, for snoozes on hot afternoons. It has come to feel like her own apartment.

  The photographs are of her family; her mother, plumpish in the first stage of pregnancy, making her look younger and prettier than she really would have been. Another of her parents, standing at a monument near the hospital where her father used to work in Dublin. He, matinee-idol handsome, her mother, by comparison, pinched and plain. Although both seem happy enough. The last picture shows all three of them, outside the tearooms in the Phoenix Park. It isn't a good photograph, but the only she had been able to find of them as a family. Her mother and herself seated on a bench, her father standing behind them. In all, a surly over-dressed trio, recalling any other vaguely unhappy Sunday afternoon.