‘For God’s sake, Gordon.’ Her voice was shaking. He looked more closely.
About a third of the dog was visible, its front paws and shoulder, its head. Its mouth was gaping open, the skin of the lips drawn back from the teeth in a rictus grin. There was blood on the teeth, as though it had bitten its tongue. Gordon stepped closer. It was too high for him to reach, but he could see now that the fur on the legs of the dog had been shredded, by rats, he thought, the same rats that had ripped off half an ear. One of its eyes had been eaten away. The other stared towards the house.
The dog must have got stuck between the tightly packed bales as it tried to get out of the stack. Perhaps it had been chasing a rat and its back legs had been caught by the wire around a bale. It must have barked, for hours, days even, and not been heard. But that was impossible. Someone surely would have heard the dog bark, or cry. Frightened dogs make the most awful noise, thought Gordon. There was a sound behind him of a throat being cleared. Gordon turned and saw the four brothers standing in a half-circle between them and the house.
*
The next time Cees arrived alone. When Gordon asked about Jenny, he shrugged. ‘She’s busy,’ he said, adding a moment later: ‘This house is my baby.’ Jenny had been right about him, thought Gordon; once his mind was set on something nothing would deter him. He wondered what it must be like to sleep with him, have sex with him. It was summer by now and Cees was wearing cargo shorts. His legs were unexpectedly thin and smooth, like the legs of a boy. Gordon caught Omar glancing down at them as they sat in the car, Omar in front beside Cees, Gordon in the back with Flea.
They had keys to the house by now. Cees had made an appointment with a Dutch architect, based in Rome, that he’d found on the net. He was waiting for them on the Via Appia, by the turning that led to the cork forest. He was short, bald, with a large, unkempt beard – like a cartoon figure, thought Gordon. They didn’t catch the man’s name, but that didn’t matter. He and Cees examined the house while Gordon, Omar and Flea sat on some plastic crates in the sun. Flea was talking about money, and booking the notary for the sale. Flea wanted cash for the work he’d done. Cees wouldn’t be needing a mortgage, which made things simpler. He asked them the English for assegno circolare, but neither of them knew. ‘Circular cheque?’ suggested Omar. ‘I doubt it,’ said Gordon. Cees had promised them their own cut just as soon as the date for the sale was fixed. How odd, he thought, to make money for driving around with a man he’d grown to dislike, catering to his demands, bending the truth whenever it might have got in the way. How humiliating, really, although Omar didn’t seem to think so. He was chatting away with Flea as though the two of them had been friends since school, talking about other houses that might be for sale. At one point, Flea described Cees as a chicken to be plucked, and Gordon felt a wave of shame pass over him. He stood up, stretched his legs, tugged the jeans away from his sweaty thighs. ‘Where’s the water?’ he said. ‘I didn’t bring any,’ said Omar. ‘I thought you had.’ Flea squinted in Gordon’s direction, then cocked his head towards the cistern. Gordon turned his head to look across. It’s like a burial mound, he thought. A what-do-you-call-it? A tumulus? ‘Is good, the water here,’ Flea said, in his irritating English. When Gordon made a gesture of refusal, the little man sprang to his feet and took Gordon’s elbow. ‘Come, come,’ he insisted, and Gordon let himself be dragged towards the curved terracotta roof, bulging up from the carpet of rough grass to their left. There was a bucket by the hole. Flea, squirming with self-satisfaction, produced a crumpled plastic cup from his briefcase, then pointed to the bucket. ‘You,’ he said, looking at Gordon, poking him in the back. ‘You take the water.’ And Gordon, half amused, half angry, picked up the bucket and stared down into the hole.
After the brightness of the day, the cistern’s interior was pitch-black. It might have been bottomless. It was only when Gordon moved a little to the left, to let the light of the outside world shine in and reflect on the surface of the water, that he saw the snake move, and then another snake. He sank to his knees, to watch. There were too many snakes to count.
Jenny didn’t come for the sale. This time, Gordon didn’t ask where she was and Cees didn’t mention her. They were gathered in a ground-floor flat in Gaeta, seated around a long, highly polished table, with bundles of legal documents in grey cardboard files stacked at one end. Cees sat between Omar and Gordon, with Flea to Gordon’s right. Opposite them were the four brothers and, behind the brothers, their wives, seated in a row in their best dresses. Three of the brothers were wearing suits, the fourth – Stubborn – was dressed in the same wine-stained beige pullover and jeans he always wore. He was the happiest of the lot, oddly, as though he’d managed to pull a fast one over his brothers and the rest of the world. Cees kept asking them what was going on as the notary read from his computer screen. ‘Tell him to print it out so that I can follow it,’ he said, but Omar shook his head. ‘He can’t until it’s all been read out and is ready to sign.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘It’s an oral culture,’ said Omar. Cees gave an exasperated sigh. The notary’s voice droned on as Gordon whispered a translated version to Cees. Now and again, Cees had a question, and Gordon would interrupt the notary, who listened in an impatient way, snapped out an answer, and returned to the screen. On three occasions, one of the brothers corrected a detail, and Cees refused to let the reading continue until he’d been told what it was. They were there for two and a half hours, at the end of which the document was printed in numerous copies and signed, on every page, by Cees, the brothers and their wives. Cees handed over a cheque to the oldest of the four brothers, and a second cheque to the notary. The notary folded his cheque in half and shook hands with everyone. Moments later, they were standing outside the building, a modern residential block with a view of the sea. Flea, with a hurried wave, darted off down the hill. The brothers, followed by their wives, shook everyone’s hand a second time and crossed the road to four large powerful cars, illegally parked on the pavement opposite. Cees looked down at his hand as though he expected to find something in it.
‘Is that it?’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ said Omar.
‘Don’t I get a receipt?’
‘The sale has to be registered first, I think. Then you can pick it up from the notary.’
‘You think?’
‘Well, yes,’ said Omar. Gordon deliberately looked away. ‘That’s how it works here.’
‘I’ve just paid a fucking fortune for a house and I don’t get a receipt? I don’t even get a piece of fucking paper?’ Cees groped in his pocket and pulled out a key. ‘This is it?’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Omar. ‘The notary guarantees everything. That’s his job.’
Cees shook his head in disbelief. ‘I don’t even get his business card,’ he said. He looked at the brass plate of names beside the door, ran his finger down the list. ‘Notaio. Is that him? Not even a name?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t believe this.’ He pressed the bell.
‘Omar’s right,’ said Gordon. ‘It’s weird, I know, but that’s the way it works here. You just have to trust people.’
Cees had his finger on the bell. ‘Where the fuck,’ he said.
Omar touched his shoulder, as if to say, you’re wasting your time, they’ll come when they’re ready. ‘Welcome to Italy.’
*
That night in bed, Omar turned to Gordon, who was lying on his back, his open eyes fixed on the ceiling. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we got our money.’
‘For nothing, really,’ said Gordon.
‘Come on, we had to put up with Cees.’
‘And Flea.’
‘Flea isn’t so bad.’
‘You didn’t seem to find Cees that hard to be with either.’
Omar kissed his cheek. ‘Don’t be jealous. He’s not my type.’ He kissed him again, a longer kiss this time. ‘I know we’ve had a bit of a rough time recently.’
‘I suppose we have.’
> Omar kissed him a third time, then put his arm across Gordon’s chest and pulled him closer. ‘He was right to be worried, you know. No proof, nothing to show for all that money. I’d never thought about it before, but it would be so easy.’
‘What would?’
‘Oh, nothing. I’m just dreaming.’ He hugged him. ‘I love you,’ he said.
‘I love you too,’ said Gordon.
2
The second house was a few miles away in the other direction from the cork forest, heading inland. They saw it one afternoon driving back from a village that boasted the longest-living people in Italy, a swirl of pale stone houses on a hilltop, old men and women preening themselves in the sun at every corner. They’d eaten snails in tomato sauce at a trattoria called La Longevità and drunk too much wine, both wine and snails recommended as aids to reaching a century by the waiter, who was young enough to be their son. They’d argued briefly about money during the meal, but the moment passed, as such moments did, and Gordon, who was slightly less drunk than Omar, began to talk about moving.
‘We could go back to Rome,’ he said, ‘and get a little flat somewhere. The rent wouldn’t be any more than what we pay here. We don’t need all the space we have. We were mad to take the place on. You haven’t been upstairs in weeks.’
Omar nodded, refilled his glass.
‘Or London, even,’ said Gordon, as much to himself as to Omar. ‘Well, near London. Anywhere I could find work, really. We could afford something decent if I was working. Or why not France? Not Paris. Somewhere in the country but not like this, not this far from anywhere. I wish your French was better. You’re half-Canadian, for God’s sake.’
‘My French is good enough,’ said Omar, with a touch of belligerence.
‘For cruising waiters,’ said Gordon, half joking.
‘You don’t need French for that,’ said Omar, which made them both laugh. They were in a rare shared good mood as they walked to the car, and the mood stayed good as Gordon drove them along the narrow, deserted hill roads that led back to the town they lived in. The weather was hot, the air still; unidentified herbal scents drifted in through the open windows. When they saw a hawk rise suddenly above the car and hover, Gordon pulled over.
‘Why have you stopped?’
‘We need to do something,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure what, but I can’t go on like this, just spending your money.’ He waited for Omar to say our money, and he did, but not as fast as Gordon would have liked. The hawk was perfectly, impossibly still, hanging above the valley beside the verge like a mote in the corner of the eye.
‘Maybe we could sell another house,’ said Omar. ‘There was that American woman I did the site for a few months ago. She was looking for somewhere.’
‘What, the born-again Catholic?’
‘That’s the one. The Mother Teresa nutter. Angela something.’
Gordon shuddered. ‘I thought we’d decided not to bother,’ he said. ‘All that work and for what? Two, three thousand.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Omar after a moment had passed. Gordon was about to ask him what he meant when the hawk fell from the sky.
‘Did you see that? It must have caught something. Nature, red in tooth and claw.’
‘It’s the only way,’ said Omar.
They saw the house because Omar had needed to pee and didn’t want to do it at the side of the road. When Gordon spotted a wall, stones spilling onto the grass, with untended olive trees behind it, he stopped the car. ‘This looks OK,’ he said while Omar fiddled with his seat belt. He got out of the car. ‘Come on, I need one too.’
The house was larger than either of them might have imagined, the kind of house more easily found in Tuscany than south of Rome, stone-built, imposing despite having only two floors. A staircase ran up one side of it, giving access to the upper floor. The house looked unlived-in but habitable, neglected rather than derelict. After pissing behind the wall, they walked across a gravelled area towards it, half expecting someone to call them off, a dog to bark perhaps. But the house was empty. Peering in through the ground-floor windows, blinkering hands holding the sunlight out, they saw chairs and sofas and dressers covered in dust sheets, paintings still hanging on the walls. They walked from window to unshuttered window, from room to room. A kitchen, square table in the centre, a majolica-tiled stove occupying one wall. A fireplace large enough to roast a boar. Beams. Pale flagstone floors, as far as they could see. When they’d circled the house and arrived at what turned out to be the only door at ground level, Omar tried the handle.
‘Leave it alone,’ said Gordon.
‘It’s obviously not lived in,’ said Omar, turning the handle a second time. But the door stayed shut. He stood there, frustrated. ‘She’d love this place,’ he said.
‘Who would?’
‘Angela Frump.’
‘Frump? Her surname’s Frump?’
Omar grinned. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Fabulous, isn’t it?’
The phone rang that weekend. Gordon waited to see if Omar would answer it, but Omar didn’t move from his laptop, just waved his hand in an irritated way towards the general source of the ringing. ‘I’m busy,’ he said, when Gordon showed no sign of moving. And I’m not, thought Gordon, leaving his book open, face down on the floor, and crossing the room towards the phone. I never am.
‘Hello,’ said a woman. ‘It’s me. Is that you, Gordon?’
‘Jenny?’ Gordon said, surprised.
‘You remember me,’ she said.
‘Of course I do. How are you?’
‘Oh, I’m fine. You two?’
‘Fine,’ said Gordon, thinking, What the hell is this about? ‘And Cees?’
‘We’re not together any longer,’ she said.
‘I guessed that. When you didn’t show at the sale. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. Not for me, anyway. It was my decision in the end. I’m happier without him, I really am.’
‘So,’ said Gordon, after a moment.
‘Oh yes, right,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I wondered if you’d seen him around or anything?’
‘Not since the sale,’ said Gordon.
‘Really? It was that bad? Only he called me a few nights ago and, well, I’m worried about him, to tell you the truth.’
‘Worried?’
‘He was drunk. I mean, that’s not what I’m worried about, although he should be: he drinks too much. It’s just that he started saying some really strange stuff.’
‘Where was he?’
‘He was at the house.’
‘But there’s no way he could be living there. Not until they’ve finished the work.’
‘He’s put a tent up, he said. I think he wants to keep an eye on what they’re doing. Only they don’t seem to have started. There have been problems, apparently.’
‘Well, you needn’t worry about that,’ said Gordon, relieved. ‘There are always problems in Italy. Things always take longer than expected.’
‘That’s not what I’m worried about. He just kept saying that he was all right so long as he wasn’t alone, and that he was lucky the pilot was there.’
‘The pilot?’
‘That’s what he said.’
‘What pilot?’
‘Do you remember that story, about the wounded pilot in the cave?’
‘Come on, Jenny. He can’t mean that pilot.’
Jenny didn’t answer.
Gordon said, ‘Jenny?’ It took him a moment to realise she was crying.
‘I think he’s gone mad,’ she said eventually. ‘He’s sitting there, drinking himself stupid in that horrible fucking house, and he thinks he’s talking to a dead pilot from the Second fucking World War.’
‘Maybe he was just taking the piss,’ said Gordon.
‘I know him,’ Jenny said, her voice breaking. ‘He has no sense of humour at all. He said the two of them had been talking about the house and the pilot wasn’t happy about the plans Cees had. He said he’d need to change
them. The pilot didn’t want the rooms connected; they had to stay the way they were or there’d be blood. He was just so logical. It was horrible. I started laughing at one point, but I was shitting myself, I really was. His voice sounded so weird, like it was echoing. He was inside the house, I’m sure of it. Every now and again he’d say something to someone else, and I’d think, oh my God, he’s talking to the pilot. Do you know, I actually thought I heard the pilot talk back to him at one point. I thought I was going mad as well.’
‘Is he there now?’
‘I don’t know. He’s not answering his phone. That’s why I’m calling. Can you drive up to the place and see? I wouldn’t ask, but I can’t get over there myself, can I? Anyway, that place creeps me out. I had a dream about that dog, you know? The one in the haystack?’ She paused. ‘Cees said it was all my fault, that I’d jinxed him. I know I’d only make things worse.’
‘I’m not sure he’d want to see us either,’ said Gordon. ‘I suppose we could send Flea.’
‘Oh God, no,’ she said. ‘Cees can’t stand him. He’d much rather have you two.’
In the end, Gordon agreed that they would drive over the following day.
It took him a while to persuade Omar. He didn’t tell him about the pilot, just that Jenny was worried. They could check out the pilot story after they’d seen him, he thought, or not at all. ‘We do have a sort of responsibility,’ he said.
‘I suppose so. It won’t be tomorrow though,’ Omar said. ‘I’ve got Angela coming to talk about the new site.’
‘Angela? The religious nutter? I thought you’d finished it ages ago.’
Two Dark Tales Page 3