Roman Song

by Brian Kennedy

  Fergal, I hope you don't mind me writing to you, you used to help me with my spelling and all. I passed by your granny's door the other day and there was a wee girl in the hallway with her ma. They'd just moved in I think. I felt so sad, Fergal. I have to go. You’re probably too busy to write back. I won’t forget our wee cup of tea before you left.

  From Mammy

  Fergal wasn’t sure what to think. He read the letter over and over. Why was she writing to him? The few lines must have taken her most of an afternoon, and he was amazed that she’d bothered. He was mistrustful of any contact with his family - his mother was like an old-fashioned tap that could spout hot and cold water at the same time - but as he lay in bed that night, he couldn’t help feeling moved. She didn’t sound angry at him, and maybe her opinion of him, which he had always thought was bad, was beginning to change.

  Alfredo kept his promise and soon took Fergal to see his first opera, Tristan and Isolde, at the Teatro degli Artisti. Fergal loved the inside of the building, and although he didn’t quite understand what was happening for most of the performance, he enjoyed the singing. At the interval, Alfredo was less than complimentary about the lead tenor’s tone, but he was glad Fergal had been so keen.

  The week before Fergal’s eighteenth birthday and his first voice exam, there was a birthday party for a customer in the restaurant. Arianna carried in the cake and the entire staff followed, singing ‘Happy Birthday’. The other diners joined in, clapping and cheering. Back in the kitchen, one of the cooks mentioned that it was his birthday soon, and naturally they eventually asked Fergal when his was. When he told them, they thought he was joking. They had assumed he was much older - he was so tall, for one thing. Riccardo told him he looked at least twenty-five. Fergal thought that was great. Antonio and Rocco urged him again to come to the club with them (his right hand must be exhausted, they said, and they knew a girl who loved musical men), but Fergal said he was too busy, what with the exam coming up.

  It was true that Alfredo’s lessons had intensified further, and Fergal ate, slept and drank all the music he could get. Alfredo had sensed a change in him, but he put it down to nerves. After a long session that Saturday afternoon, he asked him to stay for a special dinner of pasta with a sauce made from a very old family recipe that was believed to bring good luck and was only used on very specific occasions.

  The sauce was incredible and singing always made Fergal hungry, but he ate slowly, pausing to sip the heavenly contents of the crystal glasses. He was surprised at how quickly he had grown accustomed to the strength of the wine. At first it had made him light-headed, but now he was able to enjoy it without feeling too sleepy too quickly.

  ‘I appreciate the way you’ve thrown yourself so deeply into your studies,’ Alfredo told him. ‘Your Italian pronunciation has improved immeasurably, and you really are a different singer -and all this in less than a year. If you aren’t ready for this exam, I’ll eat a flower from my garden!’

  Alfredo laughed, but Fergal didn’t know how to reply.

  ‘Oh, Fergal, why so serious? I’m joking with you a little. Listen, my faith in you is stronger than ever. Your natural ear for melody is wonderful - that’s one of the hardest things to learn - and you like to work hard. You like a challenge. I knew that the moment I heard your voice at that monastery. I’m rarely wrong.’

  This managed to make Fergal lower his tense shoulders for a second and attempt a smile.

  Eventually, after dessert, he did begin to yawn and stretch out on the sofa, and Alfredo caught the bug and couldn’t stop yawning himself. He suggested that Fergal stay the night in the spare room, which was always made up, and Fergal was too comfortable to argue.

  ‘Believe me, Fergal,’ Alfredo told him, ‘everything will be fine. Just one thing, though. When were you going to tell me that tomorrow is your eighteenth birthday?’

  ‘What...how...?’ Fergal reddened with embarrassment. ‘Sorry, Alfredo. It’s just that, well, birthdays aren’t really a big deal for me, you know?’

  ‘What do you mean, not a big deal? That’s what old people say! Eighteen is a very big deal.’

  ‘Did someone at the restaurant tell you?’

  ‘No, it was Father MacManus.’

  Fergal was a bit taken aback.

  ‘You know we talk from time to time about how things are going. I was speaking to him today, and he told me about your birthday. Fergal, you must celebrate the fact that you are in the world, with people who love you.’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘If I want? Fergal Flynn, you are a strange one!’

  All Fergal could do was nod in a half-hearted way.

  ‘You know which room is yours, don’t you? Up one flight of stairs. Sleep well.’

  Alfredo opened his arms and hugged Fergal for all he was worth, then he kissed him on the forehead, playfully ruffling his hair. Fergal felt awkward about being touched by anyone other than Father Mac, and he wondered again if Alfredo was gay, but his teacher gave very little away.

  The spare room was full of more framed memories of Alfredo’s illustrious career and pictures of his favourite singers, Tito Schipa and Jussi Bjorling, looking into the black-and-white distance. Fergal surrendered to the warm, soft bed, but he couldn’t sleep, his throat was too dry. Finally he stumbled out of bed, put on a T-shirt and made his way towards the kitchen in the darkness.

  As he descended the thickly carpeted stairs, he began to make out the rhythm of Alfredo’s lilting voice talking quickly behind his office door: he was on the phone. Fergal was about to move on when he heard his own name. He stopped in his tracks and listened, trying to translate what he heard.

  Alfredo was laughing. ‘Giovanni, you’re outrageous! Just because Fergal’s asleep upstairs doesn’t mean I’m going to go up there and jump in beside him! I know he’s officially eighteen now that it’s after midnight, but keep your fantasies to yourself. I’m thirty years older than him - yes, I can hardly believe it either -and there’s no way I would waste any more of my life being unrealistic about love. Of course I think he’s gay...Yes, I do think he’s sexy, but you know I prefer older men...Giovanni, stop it now...Of course I’ll wish him a happy birthday, but not the way you want me to!’

  The hallway floorboards creaked as Fergal leaned his weight on one leg to creep away and the conversation stopped dead. Fergal wasn’t sure what to do, so he just carried on down to the kitchen, found a glass and filled it with water. Then he headed back up the stairs, pretending to be half-sleepwalking.

  Alfredo opened his office door. ‘Are you okay?’

  Fergal blinked in an exaggerated display of exhaustion and showed him the glass of water. ‘I was thirsty,’ he mumbled, and continued his journey towards the sanctuary of the spare room.

  ‘Happy birthday, Fergal!’ Alfredo called after him.

  ‘Thanks,’ Fergal muttered sleepily. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  He closed the thickly painted door and leaned against the back of it. At least his question had been answered without having to be asked: Alfredo was definitely gay. That was what he’d meant when he’d said that they had more in common than Fergal thought. He wondered how Alfredo knew that he was gay, though. He had never told him, and Father Mac surely would have stayed as far away from that subject as he could. It also had never occurred to Fergal that Alfredo might find him fanciable, and it made him feel a little odd, because he could never fancy him back. He was glad that Alfredo seemed to be - what had he said? - realistic about love.

  Fergal gulped down the cold water in one feverish swallow and tried his best to sleep. As he drifted off, he felt a little easier about being gay, although he wasn’t sure why.

  7

  The sun rose early on another fine Italian Sunday morning, filling the spare room with warm light. Fergal sat up on the strange pillows, scratching his body awake. It was nearly ten minutes before he remembered it was his birthday. He was eighteen.

  He dressed quickly, listening for any sound, but the ho
use was quiet. He decided he must have overslept and everyone had gone to mass. He left Alfredo a note on the hall table before closing the front door behind him. It was a beautiful walk back to Moretti’s, but when he got there Fergal was surprised to find the restaurant closed. For a second he thought something bad had happened, but then the chime from the city clock made him realise it was only half past six. He had thought it was much later. He didn’t want to wake anyone up, so he rummaged about for the key to the side door that was kept in one of the hanging plant pots and managed to let himself in.

  He took off his shoes at the bottom of the stairs and tried not to giggle as he stole silently to his room. Without thinking, he continued to undress and climbed under the undisturbed sheets.

  As he began to drift off to sleep, he thought of his mother and wondered if she was remembering his birth. She had once told him that he had been born in the wee back room of their tiny house while Granny Noreen tried to keep the twins, who had just learned to run, from wrecking the place. Fergal remembered his mother’s far-off expression as she told him how her sisters had roared at her to cry out, but she had been unable to make a sound; she had pushed him out of her swollen body in silent agony. It struck Fergal how strange it was that although he had been born in silence, it was his voice that had saved him, that had brought him to this very bed where he was drifting back into sleep.

  The previous morning, Arianna had sighed with relief when she saw that the post included two letters for Fergal. She’d kept them in her bag overnight so he wouldn’t get them until it was actually his birthday. She remembered her own mother pretending the postman had been if her birthday fell on a Sunday.

  She couldn’t help wanting to mother Fergal, on this day of all days, so she set about cooking him a special breakfast: an omelette, fresh toast and coffee. She loaded up a tray with the breakfast, the cards and a single flower in a tiny vase of water, then headed up the stairs, humming ‘Happy Birthday’, to put the tray on the end of Fergal’s bed.

  Fergal ate with one hand and opened the cards, a bit the worse for wear, with the other. He recognised the broad, old-fashioned sweep of Father Mac’s favourite fountain pen immediately. Inside the stiff paper was a twenty-pound note and a card: ‘I’m sorry I can’t deliver this personally on your special day, but I’m thinking of you. All my love, D!

  For a moment, Fergal thought he could see lip imprints as he held the paper up to the light of the window. In his mind he was instantly transported back exactly one year, to the night on Sligo strand when he and Dermot had first been truly intimate in the hollow of a sand dune. It had been the first time Fergal had ever felt so loved, and he hadn’t wanted it to end. He closed his eyes, caressing the embossed insignia of St Bridget’s official stationery as if it were Father Mac’s secret mark.

  He poured the rest of the coffee and stared at his mother’s awkward handwriting on the second envelope. Fergal sliced it open with his greasy knife, and he was sure he got a whiff of rainy Belfast as he pulled out the card. As he opened it, something fell onto the floor: a tiny remembrance card with a faded picture of Granny Noreen, wearing her good coat and half a borrowed smile. His eyes began to water.

  The printed card proclaimed, ‘TO OUR DEAR SON... 18 TODAY!’ in loud gold letters on the front. Inside, his mother’s tiny handwriting whispered, ‘Happy birthday, our Fergal. You’re a man now. You know it would have been my daddy’s birthday too. Here’s your Granny Noreen’s mass card for you to keep. Rome sounds lovely but it’s going to rain here. From Mammy’

  There was a Child of Prague medal on the end of a red ribbon sellotaped in the corner. Fergal freed it and put it next to the mass card. He wasn’t surprised that the card was only from his mother, not from his father or brothers, but he was genuinely touched that she had gone to the effort.

  He put his birthday cards on the windowsill and headed downstairs. Alfredo had arrived and was just being handed a double espresso by his sister. When he saw Fergal, his face relaxed into a smile. He hugged him and kissed him gently. ‘Happy birthday, dearest Fergal! I thought the Martians had landed and taken you up into their spaceship during the night! Or was that old bed too uncomfortable?’

  Arianna laughed, and Fergal got a bit embarrassed. ‘No, no, the bed was great. Sorry, Alfredo, I just woke up and thought it was much later than it was. It was very bright in that room. Sure, I left you a note.’

  ‘Yes, I finally found it. I think my eyesight is getting worse. It’s fine, I just wanted to give you your card.’ Alfredo handed him a beautiful silver envelope with his name written on the front in wide black strokes, and Arianna handed him another.

  ‘I didn’t know what to get you,’ Alfredo said as Fergal opened the cards, ‘so I thought we might go shopping in town, after church? How about some shoes?’

  ‘No, Alfredo, the card’s enough, more than enough.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Look, Fergal, after singing, shopping -especially for other people - is my greatest passion. And you’ve been working so hard of late. Arianna has given you the day off— haven’t you, my dear sister?’

  Arianna nodded enthusiastically. She was glad to get them out of the way - she had a cake to make. After a bit of investigation she had managed to discover that Fergal was very partial to dark chocolate. Sometimes, if the chefs had any profiterole sauce left over, the craving got the better of him. Arianna had begun her preparations the night before and she had carefully hidden her efforts at the back of the enormous fridge.

  ‘Well then, what are we waiting for? We go to mass, and then we go shopping!’

  As they drove along the busy roads towards Alfredo’s favourite shops, he was so excited that anyone would have thought it was his birthday, not Fergal’s.

  ‘You’re eighteen now, my boy - I’m sorry: young man! And you’re about to take your first step on the ladder of success. For that step, you need better shoes - Italian shoes, the best in the world. My gift to you.’

  ‘Alfredo, you don’t have to. You’ve given me so much already, and I’ve been saving a bit of money.’

  Alfredo realised he would have to be careful not to embarrass his pupil. ‘Fergal, please allow me to buy you your first handmade pair of shoes. If you treat them well; you may have them for the rest of your life. That is how good they will be.’

  Fergal could only nod his head. He looked at Alfredo and remembered that he’d said on the phone that he was almost fifty. He could have been any age. His hair was expensively Elvis-black and slightly wavy, like a 1930s Broadway star’s, and his skin looked almost tea-stained. It made Fergal think of a story his granny had told him of how during the war, when the women had no way of getting tights, they would rub used tea leaves on their bare legs and dry them by the fire. Then they would get a pen or a lump of coal and draw a line up the back of each leg, to just above the hemline of their skirts. Only then would they be ready to head out for the night. Everywhere they went was so badly lit, Granny Noreen had said, that nobody could tell the difference.

  ‘What’s occupying your mind so much?’ Alfredo asked, breaking his reverie.

  ‘I was just thinking about my grandmother.’ Fergal looked out the window of the car. There seemed to be posters of Padre Pio everywhere; Granny Noreen would have approved of that. ‘Alfredo,’ he asked, ‘how old were you when you took your first vocal exam?’

  Alfredo smiled. ‘Almost exactly the same age as you are now. And I passed - just as I’m sure you will.’

  Fergal wished he hadn’t asked the question. The old voice of doubt returned to his head, whispering that he just wasn’t good enough.

  Alfredo’s walking stick tested the cobbled laneways, pausing every now and then outside the exquisite shoe shops near the Trevi Fountain. A few of them were closed because it was a Sunday, but this didn’t seem to bother Alfredo - he simply asked Fergal to point at any pair he liked. Without warning, he turned up a tiny, dark side street, and Fergal followed him into a shop that sold nothing but handmade shoes. It o
nly had a number above the door, no sign; its reputation was all it needed. It was the kind of place that spoke softly amid the noisier shops, drawing you to come closer.

  Emilio, the manager, clearly knew Alfredo of old - they hugged and kissed before getting down to business. Alfredo motioned to Fergal, who was shifting his weight from foot to foot, and explained grandly that his Irish protégé had become a man that very day and needed a pair of shoes that would tell not only his vocal examiner but ‘the entire world’ that he meant business.

  Emilio’s young assistant gently removed Fergal’s tired, cheap shoes and measured his feet. They turned out to be a size ten; he certainly had grown. Box after perfect shoebox was unearthed from a secret room. The legendary contents were tenderly unwrapped from their protective tissue paper and presented to him like some kind of award. Fergal imagined a legion of elves behind the scenes, tapping away all through the night with little hammers and nails, carefully stitching together pieces of leather, then passing them on to the younger elves to be polished to a spit-shine.

  As he eased his foot into the mouth of the first shoe with the help of a shoehorn, he felt as if he was in a strange film, the kind he might have seen when he was off school sick. He was relieved that he was wearing his best socks, even though they were beginning to get thin at the heels. Emilio asked him to walk up and down the marble floor, which had long, thin mirrors instead of wooden skirting boards, to see how they fit. Fergal would have been happy with anything, but Emilio and Alfredo insisted that he try On ten different pairs. The list was then reduced to five, then three, and at last they settled on a dark brown leather pair that fit Fergal like gloves.

  Alfredo handed over a considerable amount of money, which he made sure Fergal didn’t see. As the shoes were returned to their box and expertly wrapped, Emilio explained how his family had been shoemakers for centuries and had shod many of the finest people in all of Italy, including some of its most famous tenors. He winked in Fergal’s direction, and Fergal blushed like a bride.