by Maggie Craig
‘Stop biting your lip,’ came an amused voice. It was Adam. He seemed to have regained his usual amiable disposition.
‘Am I glad to see you!’ said Liz. She was too, despite their recent encounter. A medical student would know the word for sure.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘I’ve been sent on this message and I can’t remember what for.’
‘Short-term memory loss? At your age? Probably the first signs of madness, MacMillan. Do you think you should see a doctor?’
She scowled at him. ‘I can’t remember the word. It’s the thing that measures blood pressure.’
‘Oh, the sphygmomanometer?’
Liz put her hands on her hips. ‘That’s easy for you to say.’
He laughed again. ‘For you too, MacMillan. If you split the word up. Like this: sphyg-mo-man-ometer. Easy.’
He made her repeat it two or three times. Then, before she could screw up the courage to offer him an apology, he spoke again.
‘And MacMillan, by the way... I’m sorry I had a bit of a go at you earlier on. About Cordelia. I went over the score and I shouldn’t have. I apologize.’
‘No,’ said Liz, the butterfly wings of her cap dancing as she shook her head. ‘You were absolutely right. I’ll mend my ways. I promise. I intend to become a reformed character.’
Adam’s lips twitched. ‘Don’t change too much, MacMillan. I rather like you the way you are.’
Liz took Mario to visit her grandfather and was secretly amused to see how Peter MacMillan, prepared to do the stern patriarch act in the absence of her father, was so quickly won over by the Italian charm. Also, to be fair, by Mario’s warm personality and genuine sincerity. She’d already observed that he was one of those men who got on as well with his own sex as with the opposite gender.
He was at home in any company too. From her grandfather’s house, Liz took him down the road to visit the Gallaghers. He walked into the room, saw the picture of the Pope and immediately crossed himself. Helen introduced him to a beaming Marie Gallagher.
‘Ma, this is Mario Rossi. He’s a friend of Liz’s.’
‘You’re Italian? A Catholic boy?’
Out of sight of her mother, Helen rolled her eyes at Liz. The Gallagher parents hadn’t been exactly delirious when they’d found out that Eddie had metamorphosed from being the brother of their only daughter’s friend into her steady boyfriend. Helen’s father was barely managing to tolerate the mixed-religion romance.
‘Yes, Mrs Gallagher,’ said Mario, ‘but I’m proud to say that my mother was Irish. Her family came from Cork.’
After that he could do no wrong. He charmed Marie, was respectful to Brendan, patted Finn on the head and told him what a handsome fellow he was, joshed about with the boys and taught Helen to sing an Italian song, insisting that Liz join her and make it a duet. A good time was had by all and, like Liz, he was given an open invitation to the tenement home in the Holy City.
‘Well,’ she said, as she walked him to the station, ‘you were a big success. They really took you to their bosom, didn’t they?’
As usual, she realised a split second too late that she had said the wrong thing. The look he gave her took her breath away.
‘Perhaps you could consider taking a leaf out of their book, Liz. Patience has its limits, you know.’
She looked away guiltily.
Mario’s limits were reached one snowy Sunday in January. They were spending the afternoon in the flat above the café playing records of Italian songs on the wind-up gramophone. Watching the snowflakes floating down past the big bay window, Liz was feeling warm and relaxed, enjoying the music and thinking happily that she wasn’t expected home for a good few hours yet.
She turned from gazing out at the snow and looked indulgently at Mario. He was amusing himself by giving her extravagant translations of the words of the songs they were listening to, complete with theatrical - and very Italian - gestures.
‘Mario, if I cut your hands off you wouldn’t be able to speak.’
He pretended to take offence, slipping into an exaggerated Italian accent.
‘Huh! Ze lady, she think-a I use-a my hands-a too much. Tell me, bella scozzese, how you describe a spiral staircase without-a you use-a your hands? Eh?’ He reverted to his real accent, cocked his head to one side and folded his arms over his chest. ‘Tell me that, my inhibited little Scotswoman.’
Chuckling at their antics, Aldo Rossi went back downstairs to attend to his customers. Liz was replacing one disc in its sleeve a minute or two later when she felt warm arms slide round her from behind, under her jumper. And the memories she tried so hard to suppress came shooting to the surface.
Spinning round in panic-stricken reaction, she saw Mario’s face inches from her own.
‘I can think of much better ways of using my hands than describing a spiral staircase,’ he murmured. ‘You have such a neat little waist - not to mention other parts of your anatomy which leave me cold when I see them illustrated in the textbooks, but look very different when they come packaged as you. Kiss me, Liz.’
His voice husky with desire, he dipped his dark head towards her, one hand sliding up her body. Liz couldn’t fight the urge to thrust him away. She did so with some force.
‘Liz! For God’s sake!’ He stood where she had pushed him, in the middle of the room, and glowered at her, his dark eyebrows drawn angrily together.
‘What is the matter with you? How many times do I have to tell you that I won’t try to make you go too far? Can’t you trust me by now? God, I’ve been so patient! Och, bloody hell, Liz!’
English obviously wasn’t sufficient to express his irritation. He muttered an angry imprecation in Italian. It disconcerted her, reminding her of his foreignness, of the passionate nature usually hidden beneath the wisecracking Glaswegian side of his personality.
‘You tell me you like me,’ he said, beginning to pace about the room. ‘You know that I like you. I like you a lot. We get on great together. And you’re so lovely,’ he said, wheeling round and coming to a halt in front of her.
The anger in his voice melted away as he stood gazing at her. ‘And I don’t want to do anything too naughty.’ He smiled the smile which did indeed turn Liz’s insides to melted butter. ‘Well... maybe just a wee bit naughty...’
Deep inside her, something stirred into life. She ached to be able to relax into his arms, to let him touch her. She wanted to kiss him deeply and to be kissed passionately in return. She knew why there was a problem about that. He didn’t.
She looked at him and saw the irritation fade once more. He never stayed angry with her for long. He took a step or two towards her.
‘You look as though you’re about to face a firing squad, Elisabetta.’
She could understand why he got annoyed with her, the way she seemed to welcome his touch, then suddenly started fending him off. Her behaviour would confuse anybody. Could she possibly tell him the truth?
‘Trust me,’ he said softly. ‘I’m a doctor. Well, almost.’
Funny. Adam had said that once.
Mario moved closer. ‘Och, Liz,’ he breathed. ‘I could make it so nice for you. We could make it so nice for each other.’
She knew that. She knew there were delights. If she couldn’t get over her problem they must remain forbidden fruit. She liked him so much. She thought, maybe, that she loved him...She cleared her throat and began. ‘There’s this chap where I work...’
‘But why on earth would I think badly of you?’ Mario asked fifteen minutes later as they sat together on the settee, separate but holding hands. She had told him the whole story: the way Eric Mitchell had pounced on her almost as soon as she had started at Murray’s; the impossibility for a shy sixteen-year-old of knowing how to cope with such unwanted attentions; her fear of telling other people about his behaviour; how she had finally stopped it from happening.
‘I tried telling Miss Gilchrist once,’ she explained, ‘but she more or less suggeste
d that I was to blame in some way, had led him on...’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ snapped Mario. His brows were drawn together again, but Liz understood that he was angry not at her, but on her behalf. ‘Anyone who knows you at all would see at once that you’re the last woman in the world to lead a man on like that. I know that better than anybody,’ he said ruefully, lifting the hand he held and giving it a little shake.
‘So, Doctor,’ she asked, ‘is there a remedy for my condition, or am I a hopeless case?’
‘Well, if the patient wants to be cured, that’s half the battle.’ He tugged on her hand, but gently. She got the message. He wanted her to come closer, but it would be her decision if she did so. Not his.
She looked at him hungrily. He was so handsome, so funny, so nice ... and he was all hers. He’d made that plain. She shuffled along the settee towards him. That got her the long, slow smile, the one that lit a tiny candle gleam in his brown eyes.
‘A bit more,’ he murmured.
She moved closer. He lifted one long finger and gently touched her mouth, his voice a throaty whisper. ‘Does the patient want to be cured?’
‘Yes,’ said Liz, looking into his face, ‘oh, yes!’
‘Well,’ said Mario, ‘we have to take things very, very slowly, so that you get used to them very, very slowly. Shall we start with me putting my hand here?’ He laid the lightest of hands on her neck, his fingers warm against her skin.
‘How about that?’ he asked. ‘Is that all right?’
‘It’s fine.’ She sounded like Minnie Mouse.
‘Liar. Beautiful wee liar.’
‘I’m not beautiful. You must need your eyes tested, Mr Rossi.’
‘My eyes are perfect, Nurse MacMillan - and so are you.’ He leaned towards her, murmuring softly in his dark brown voice. ‘Don’t close your mouth.’
That devastating instruction set Liz’s insides all of a flutter, but his kiss was not invasive, a gentle nuzzling of his slightly parted lips against her own.
‘I love you,’ he whispered.
She gave the words back to him. ‘I love you.’ She felt his mouth curve into a smile.
‘Say that again.’
‘I love you. What is it in Italian?’
‘Ti amo. Repeat after me, class.’
‘Ti amo,’ she said. ‘Kiss me again.’
This time it was deeper and more passionate. Liz could feel herself beginning to respond, kissing him back.
‘Am I cured, Doctor?’ she murmured.
‘Almost, but I feel we need to keep practising, continue the treatment, I mean.’ His lips were very close to her mouth. ‘Now, don’t you worry about a thing,’ he murmured. ‘Leave it all to your Uncle Mario.’
‘Mr Eric Mitchell?’
‘Who wants him?’
He turned, and felt a fist go into his face. Stunned by the speed of the attack, he was also unprepared for the fact that there was more than one assailant. In a few seconds they had him pinned up against the wall of the lane. Christ, there were four of them! And a huge bloody big dog.
No sooner had he registered that fact than one of the men who wasn’t holding him against the wall drew his hand back and punched him in the stomach. Once. Twice. Winded, he slumped forward, stopped from falling to the ground only because he was being held up. His arms felt as though they were being ripped out of their sockets.
‘That’s enough,’ came a voice he vaguely recognized. Then a mouth was against his ear. ‘I hope it hurts,’ the voice said pleasantly. ‘And you might like to know there’s plenty more where that came from.’ The speaker paused for effect. ‘Especially for people who use positions of authority to molest young ladies who’re not interested in them. Tell anyone about this and I’ll make sure Alasdair Murray knows how you pestered her. Do we understand each other? Now, we’ll bid you goodnight.’
He was dropped like a sack of rubbish, left to sprawl on the rough and icy ground. As they sauntered off, he heard a couple of them start to sing.
‘Oh, we’re all off to, Dublin in the green, in the green...’
Paddies. Micks. Fenians. And he remembered where he knew the other voice from. It was that Eyetie who had collected her from the office one night last autumn, just before the war broke out. With a shaking hand, Eric Mitchell wiped the blood from his mouth and scrambled to his feet.
‘Dear me, Mr Mitchell, what have you done to your face? You seem to be walking rather gingerly too. Have you hurt yourself?’
‘I slipped and fell on the ice,’ he said, ‘on my way home last night.’
Only half listening to the conversation, Liz lifted her head from her typewriter. Miss Gilchrist was clucking over Eric Mitchell, asking him if he’d been to the doctor, if she could get anything to make him more comfortable. He had an ugly purple bruise on his jaw, but the rest of his face was unmarked. It looked more like the after-effects of a punch, rather than a fall.
Liz froze. Once I’d worked out what my fists were for. Surely not. She gave herself a little shake. No. Mario would never do a thing like that. That had been when he was a wee daft laddie. He was a grown man now. She smiled.
Watching her, Eric Mitchell saw that smile, put two and two together and made five. So she hadn’t been bluffing when she’d threatened him with a beating. No doubt she was spreading her legs for the wop. That would be how she’d have got him and his Paddy friends to do this to him.
He would get even with the fucking little bitch for this. This was going to be repaid with interest. However long it took.
Twenty-seven
‘No! I don’t believe it.’
‘It’s true,’ said Helen, her eyes sparkling. ‘As I live and breathe.’
She was telling Liz about an incident at the first-aid post in Clydebank, set up in one of the local Church of Scotland halls - ‘and me a good Catholic girl, too’ - where she was a volunteer. Most of the incidents they were dealing with were casualties of the blackout: skinned noses and sore knees from walking into walls and other obstacles no longer visible during the dark winter nights. Tam Simpson had fallen foul of the lethal combination.
Determined, according to Helen, that the minor matter of being at war with Germany wasn’t going to change his way of life, he had been wending his way homeward one Saturday night when the baffle wall in front of his own close - designed to stop flying debris from an explosion penetrating into the building - had decided to teach him a lesson.
‘He’d had his usual wee refreshment, I take it?’
‘He was refreshed out of his mind,’ Helen said cheerfully, ‘but you haven’t heard the best bit yet.’
To Nan Simpson’s eternal joy, she had been on duty when her husband - or, as she preferred to describe him, the wounded soldier - had been brought in. Blood gushing from his battered nose, he had decided there and then to take the pledge.
‘He never did!’ breathed Liz.
‘He did,’ Helen assured her. ‘There he stands - well, he was actually sitting - and he looks up at Mrs S and he says, “Nan, this has been a lesson to me. I’m never touching the demon drink again.” ’
‘And what did she say?’
‘She didn’t crack a smile,’ said Helen. ‘She just looked at him and she said, “I’ll believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.” They went off home arm in arm. It was hilarious, it really was.’
‘She was probably holding him up. Trying to avoid any more baffle walls unexpectedly jumping up and hitting him in the face.’
‘Probably,’ agreed Helen with a smile.
The two girls were as close as they’d ever been. There had been a moment when Liz had feared that Helen would want to spend all of her time with Eddie, but that hadn’t happened. Their friendship was important to both of them.
‘Imagine me doing my bit in a Proddy church,’ said Helen, turning her mouth down in mock dismay.
‘Aye, right enough,’ said Liz drily. ‘I’m sure that priest of yours must be fearing for your immortal soul.’
She
’d been visiting the Gallaghers one evening when their parish priest had called round. To say she hadn’t taken to the man would have been putting it mildly. Once he found out that Liz was not of his own flock, it became clear that the feeling was entirely mutual. There was more to it than that. He made it obvious that he disapproved of Helen having such a close friend who was a Protestant.
‘They’re not all like that, Liz,’ said Helen uncomfortably. ‘We just happen to have got one who’s a bit strict.’
‘A bit strict? I got the distinct impression he was sizing me up for a nice burning at the stake.’
‘Well, you did argue with him a bit,’ Helen pointed out.
‘I stood up to him. The man’s a bully, clergyman or not.’
Helen grinned. ‘You and Eddie have a lot in common, you know. Anyway, haven’t you got some hellfire-and-brimstone ministers yourselves?’
Liz held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I’ll give you that one. At least your lot don’t think there’s anything wrong with enjoying yourself on a Sunday. Although it’s a good job your Father Whatsisname didn’t call round on Sunday when Eddie was there. Can you imagine?’
‘Only too well,’ said Helen drily. ‘He’d want to burn him at the stake as well. Me too, for consorting with him.’
‘No doubt he’d think an atheist like Eddie is doomed to burn in hell forever anyway.’
‘Eddie’ll go to heaven,’ said Helen definitely.
Liz looked at her in amazement. ‘How do you make that out? How can an atheist go to heaven? Won’t he have to go through Purgatory or something?’
‘He’s misguided,’ said Helen confidently. ‘Our Father in Heaven understands that, and I don’t believe He’s vengeful. Eddie’s a good person. He’s mistaken about religion, but it’s out of good motives - because he’s always questioning things.’