From Humble Beginnings (Joe Steel)

by Ian Harwood

  The sounds come from the kitchen, the strange sing-song melody that is the Italian language is sharp and staccato with the fury of people engaged in the fight. And it’s only as I move into the dining room and step towards the adjoining kitchen door, that I realize the man involved isn’t actually Marco.

  Marco sounds like he’s smoked eighty cigarettes a day since birth. There’s a coarseness to his words that even I, a non-speaker of Italian can recognize. But this is different. Younger. I frown, trying to place the voice and eventually piece together the few Italians in my actual ken.

  While I’m the manager of the plant, I come into little contact with the workers. I deal with them through Monica who passes on the orders, either that, or if Cass has decided to work, she handles that side of things.

  For me, I’ve met few and as far as I can recall, the voice is one of the very first ones I heard upon touching Italian soil.

  Angelo.

  I could be wrong; but I doubt it. While I’m not aware of a connection between him and Brigida save his employment at the villa and surely that wouldn’t the catalyst for such a row, I truly think it’s him. And on some unknown instinct, I dig around in my pocket and pull out my phone. Turning on the voice recorder, I hold it to the door and hope the quality will be good enough for Juliet or Monica to eventually translate.

  I’ve got a funny feeling about this argument. Especially as it coincides with my request for Monica to dig deep into Brigida’s past.

  I’ve no evidence that Brigida is anything but a housekeeper; nothing save a feeling. A reflex, an impulse that tells me all is not right with her and her position here.

  For ten minutes, I stand there. Feeling like a dick for hovering and for eavesdropping. But knowing that I’m doing something important. My patience is rewarded, when the argument abruptly dies down. I manage to leap towards the doorway that leads on to the terrace and hide behind one of the heavy red velvet drapes.

  Peering out, hoping that rage will have the protagonists in question keeping their eyes turned away from me, I spot Angelo.

  I was right. It was him.

  Following his path with my gaze, I grimace at the sound of something in the kitchen crashing to the ground. Tumbling along with that is the sound of sobbing.

  Deciding to get the hell out of dodge, I rush out of the room after waiting enough time to hear the front door bang shut and run up the stairs towards my bedroom, knowing that Juliet is there and that she’ll be able to translate.

  She’s lying on the bed watching a movie. Wearing a bikini and very little else. Picking up my tongue from the floor, I shut the door behind me as carefully as I can so that Brigida won’t hear it and as soon as Juliet claps eyes on me, she laughs. “Why the clandestine entry? Are we James Bond now? ”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute. Why did you call me?” I ask, rushing over to the window to peer out and look down into the grounds. A few minutes after I ran up the stairs and entered the first floor, I heard another door slam and want to see if it was to the terrace or to Brigida’s apartment.

  As I can’t see anyone outside, I can only presume it’s the latter so I turn to her with a questioning frown.

  “Monica called in and left me a letter for you. She said it was urgent and she looked under the cosh.”

  “Where is it?”

  Juliet reached under her pillow and pulled out an envelope. “She told me that Brigida -the housekeeper? - mustn’t see it so I’ve kept it with me since she dropped it off.”

  Handing it to me, I pass her the phone. “Listen to this argument, would you, Jules? Tell me what’s going on?”

  Looking a little perplexed, she began to play the recording as I absorbed:

  You were right. Brigida is more than she seems. Her name is false and I managed to speak with an old woman in the infirmary who remembered her arrival. She came from Sicily, originally, the woman told me. She gave me more information, but it’s too dangerous to leave you in a note.

  I’m going to Sicily. There are more facts to be had there and I’ll contact you as soon as I know more.

  The old woman was frightened of her, she seemed to think Brigida was more than a housekeeper and I’m wondering why that is. What’s happened in the past that most people have forgotten or tried to forget and succeeded?

  Something isn’t right. Whatever you do, watch your step.

  I’ll be back soon.

  Monica

  Shit. This situation is rapidly deteriorating.

  Sinking down to the side of the bed, I close my eyes and press my spine to the mattress. I wait there until Juliet has heard the entire conversation and even then, I don’t open my eyes. Whatever she’s about to say, won’t be good news. I can feel it in my waters.

  And I don’t care if only women have waters. I’m starting to wonder if I’m psychic or something, because it’s uncanny how I’m picking up on situations where everyone else is blind.

  “It’s between a mother and a son. A man named Angelo? He’s raging at his mother; he’s furious. ”

  “Mother and son?” I huff out an annoyed laugh. “Great.”

  That means Brigida is Angelo’s mother.

  Why do I get the feeling that that fact is little known?

  “She’s saying that he’s jeopardized everything. Everything she’s built, everything she’s done, it was all for him and now, because of his reckless behaviour, he’s destroyed it all. Their life is about to crumble down and he’s too arrogant to prepare himself for the fallout.

  “Sounds like a bad Italian soap! Talk about melodrama.”

  “More like reality,” I mutter. “What does he say?”

  “He’s very arrogant. He just won’t listen to her; everything she says, he denies it. She mentions a slut; her words, not mine. Says that he’s jeopardized it all for a slapper and that he’s too blind to see that she’s having it off with the entire town.

  “He told her to watch herself. What happened to Luigi could happen to her. After all, who would be suspicious of the death of an old woman?”

  A part of me wonders if the mutilated hand once belonged to a man named Giuseppe.

  And if that Giuseppe was a member of Gianni Ali’s taskforce.

  If so, my one-time chauffeur is a murderer and he did it out of jealousy.

  He wouldn’t be the first, nor will he be the last to act on such motivation. I just wish he hadn’t done it on my doorstep.

  Chapter Eleven

  “You know, you never did tell me how it went with Cass.”

  I’ve been broaching this subject for the last fortnight. In fairness, things have been getting on top of me and the little time I’ve had with Juliet, well, to be honest, it hasn’t been spent chatting.

  For a virgin, she has a creative imagination. I’ll give her that and I’m one happy bunny. Imagine tapping into an undiscovered oil well… I’m feeling like an oil baron! A billionaire at that! J.R eat your heart out.

  For the first time in two weeks, I feel like I can sit down and breathe. We’re sat outside on the terrace, enjoying a rather fruity Chianti with a spaghetti marinara that Brigida prepared. Psychotic, she might be. Potentially a drug runner to boot, but she’s a damned good cook. And I don’t say that lightly. I’ve dined in a lot of restaurants over the years; mostly for networking purposes, but she’s on par with some of the best chefs in Britain’s capital. Where taste is concerned at any rate. She doesn’t do micro-portions; just good hearty dishes that fill the belly.

  The evening is warm, sultry. Overhead, stars twinkle and glitter away and Marco, with his all-pervading odour, hasn’t appeared to ruin the pleasantly perfumed night air; flowers I can’t name and don’t want to, add to the sultriness and generally put me in a good frame of mind.

  It’s probably not the wisest time to touch upon such a topic. The first chance I’ve had to relax in too long and I mention something like this; I could be considered as being slightly crazy. But I’m a firm believer in tugging off the plaster rather than delaying
the torture.

  Juliet leans back and lifts her glass, taking a sip of her wine and obviously deliberating over her words.

  Fuck, that doesn’t bode well, does it?

  Eventually, she murmurs, “Interesting.”

  “Interesting?” I ask, my voice laden with surprise. As a choice of adjective, that was the last one I’d have ever expected.

  “Yes. I don’t think she meant to, but she told me something about her past. It was enlightening, although that sounds mean considering what happened to her.”

  “What did happen to her?” Curiosity urges me to ask. After all, for the last three months, the woman has been worse than useless.

  “About twenty years ago, when I was a child and she was a teenager, we had a foreman at the stables. I didn’t really know him, I was too young. Father used to let Cass ride the horses; he was never strict with her and let her use the pool and have the run of the gardens. Apparently, Erikson molested her and did so for about two years until dad discovered what was going on.”

  “Shit.”

  To say I’m speechless is an understatement.

  “Yeah.” I watch Juliet take another sip of her wine. She sighs and rests her head against the high-backed chair, tilting it upwards to look up at the stars. “That’s why she’s pissed off with dad. Ever since, she freezes up where violence is concerned. He sexually and physically abused her; threatened to, well, cut her up if she told anyone and generally terrified her to death.”

  “Shit,” I mutter, resting an elbow on the table and pushing my head on to it.

  “Feeling guilty?”

  I grimace. “Yeah. Something like that.”

  She shrugs. “You weren’t to know and in fairness, dad wasn’t to know some psycho was going to cut off some policeman’s hand and send it to you, was he? But at the same time, she isn’t reacting like an adult. She’s reacting like the child she was to the threat of violence. None of this is anyone’s fault save the person who sent the hand.”

  “No, but I should have realized there was something really wrong. She’s been pretty vacant during her time here and I’ve never known her to be like that; I should have asked.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up over it, Joe. Let’s face it, she’s a colleague. I’m sure she doesn’t know that you were married once upon a time.”

  Grinning at the throw-away comment, I cock my head to the side and ask, “Is that your way of requesting information about my marital status?”

  Her cheeks flush and give me her answer without her even muttering a word.

  “The decree nisi came through, I don’t know, a month ago? I should be divorced soon.”

  “Good. I didn’t like the idea of fooling around with a married guy.”

  Snorting at her words, I sit back in my seat and twirl some spaghetti around my fork. Once chewed, I retort, “More single than married; Christ, I haven’t seen Brook in ages. We’re hardly bosom buddies.”

  “Call me traditional, but I didn’t appreciate the idea of it. Now you’re dealing with it, I don’t have to pester you about it.”

  “Thanks! Have I inherited a nagging girlfriend?”

  “Is that what I am?”

  Smiling a little, I nod. “Yeah, even though it makes me feel like I’m a kid again; I’m too old for boyfriends and girlfriends.” With a sigh, I open my palm and reach for hers and as she accepts it, I rest our now-joined hands on the table. It seems an optimal time to ask the next question, “Is that bastard still hanging around?”

  Juliet rolls her eyes. “I know he’s not harmless, especially not if your suspicions about him are correct, but I’m not a moron, Joe. I know to stay away from him.”

  “It just concerns me that he’s been… I don’t know, following you.”

  “He hasn’t been following me. You don’t have to worry.”

  “Don’t worry about you? You have to be kidding me! The man hit his mother; I don’t want the bastard anywhere near you! And potentially killed a copper and lopped off his hand and sent it to us!”

  “You don’t know that for certain but it’s made me cautious and look, I couldn’t turn down his offer to chauffeur me about the place, not without drawing attention to what’s going on here. It’s not like Angelo made a pass or whatever; he’s just keeping an eye on me.”

  “Which part of that sentence doesn’t make me uncomfortable?” I grouch and tangle my fingers with hers. “If anything happens to you Juliet…” My words trickle away, uncomfortable with the line of thought as well as discomforted by the break in my voice.

  I have a nasty feeling in my gut where this situation is concerned; and my worry has been increasing ever since I was about to leave one morning and that smug, smarmy, too-handsome-for-his-own-good bastard was on the doorstep.

  Juliet doesn’t seem to have fallen for his charm; there’s no giddiness whenever she mentions his name or blushing, so I don’t think I’m jealous of the shithead. That useless emotion isn’t clouding my judgment or blinding me to the reality of the situation. The inherent danger in associating with the bastard is doing it all for me.

  In a way, she’s right. How could she refuse to be chauffeured about by him, when according to Brigida, if not Marco, he’s the driver?

  That doesn’t mean I have to like it.

  And the next morning, when he’s stood there, as punctual as always, as smarmy and shit-eating as ever, my feelings haven’t eased.

  I’m still discomforted by the idea that one of the most important people in my life is in this mother-beating bastard’s care on a daily basis.

  I don’t care that according to Juliet, he acts the gentleman.

  I’m feeling futile and I don’t like it. In fact, I hate this entire situation; this fucking factory is more trouble than it’s worth and I can’t walk away from it without Bernard losing face and myself looking like a schmuck at the next board meeting.

  This deal has to be a success; I can’t afford for it to be anything but.

  That potentially, I’m putting Juliet in danger for my own ends, pisses me off even more. It doesn’t matter that she’s an adult and that she can and will do whatever the she wants. I want to feel responsible for her; I want her to answer to me, just like I want to answer to her.

  And the psychologists can make of that what they will; I can’t help how I feel.

  “Angelo,” I struggle with my words in an attempt to be pleasant. One that fails.

  Juliet doesn’t have to tell me that he flirts with her; charm oozes out of the bastard’s sweat. And that he’s chatting her up has my blood boiling.

  “Juliet,” I call out, knowing that she’s still in the dining room. “Angelo’s here.”

  It isn’t my girlfriend who comes out, but Angelo’s mother. And the expression on Brigida’s face doesn’t soothe my nerves at all. She’s wringing the dishcloth in her hands like she’d wring a chicken’s neck. Her nervousness is so cloying, I can almost feel it.

  If the man’s mother is frightened, then what should I be?

  Petrified?

  What concerns me is why Angelo has decided to start driving Juliet about. After he’d dropped us off that first day, he’d disappeared and I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him until I’d heard the argument between him and his mother.

  Now, he’s here every day. And I can only believe that he’s watching Juliet; summing up a way to use her for some nefarious purpose.

  Paranoid?

  Maybe.

  But I’m learning, slowly but surely, that love does that to you. Knocks a mile-wide hole in your defences and leaves you open to attack.

  The thought prompts me into action and rather than leave for work, I return to the dining room and leave Brigida and Angelo to the uncomfortable atmosphere settling like a lead blanket over the hallway.

  “I’d really prefer it if you didn’t go out with him, Juliet,” I tell her as soon as the door swings shut behind me. The faint tap of the door hitting the jamb has her looking up at me with a cocked brow.

/>   Her teeth biting into a slice of toast, I wait for her to swallow but know from the frown that she won’t listen to me. Why she won’t is what’s concerning me.

  “I don’t want to be stuck in here all day. You know I can’t drive and you’re too busy.” What makes her complaint worse is that she isn’t really whining. Simply stating facts.

  Shit.

  “What would you prefer to be doing?”

  For a moment, she purses her lips, then looking at me from under her lashes, smiles. It’s then, right at that damn moment, I know I’ve been played. And by a pro.

  “I’d like to work with you at the factory; learn the layout of the land, maybe even help you; after all, you can’t speak the language and your translator is still AWOL, isn’t she?”

  She wasn’t wrong. Monica is still on her reconnaissance mission and without a word from her in the last fortnight, I’ll admit to feeling slightly concerned.

  This is hardly the safest place in the world. A policeman has just been murdered, so why not a lawyer? Especially if that lawyer is sticking her nose into business that doesn’t concern her.

  “Yes, Monica is still away.” I shoot her a look, telling her that I’m on to her game. She has the decency to look down at her toast for a second, but then perks up and smiles brilliantly at me; all gleaming teeth that probably cost Bernard a small fortune. Her grin is almost as bright as the steadily brightening sun!

  “Well, I can help you then and it will get me away from Angelo.”

  “And it will also help convince your father that you’re ready to take a role in the company. Are you after his spot, when he retires?”

  “I’m hurt that you’d think that of me.”

  Knowing that she’s going to tag along and her aid will shave off a good hour or so from my own workload, I pour myself a glass of orange juice and take a seat opposite her. “Pull the other one. That angelic act might fool your father, but I know how your mind works.”