Arianna had been lying down, trying to distract herself with a book. She heard the taxi’s engine and got up, thinking it was Alfredo returning with news, but when she looked out the window she saw Fergal’s sorry silhouette. Although she wanted to go straight to him, she found herself watching him momentarily, almost like a mother learning to let go. He sat down on a bench with his head in his hands. For a moment Arianna thought he was praying, then she realised he was crying, and she pulled her dressing gown about her and ran to see what was wrong.
Fergal looked up when he heard the door open.
‘Fergal, where have you been? Alfredo has been looking all over for you. Are you okay?’ she said softly.
‘Oh, God, I’m sorry. Has he?’
‘Why are you crying?’
‘I’m not,’ he said pointlessly, wiping the tears off his wet face. ‘I feel awful, Arianna. I didn’t mean to upset you or anybody. You’ve all been so good to me, better than...well, better than my own family.’
He dropped his head again. Arianna put her arms around him. ‘Come inside,’ she said, leading him towards the restaurant. ‘It’s cold out here. Tell me, Fergal, what happened?’
Fergal shook his head. ‘I don’t...I just want to go to bed, Arianna. I’m so tired.’
Arianna poured him a large glass of water and helped him upstairs and into his room. As she closed his door, she said, ‘Fergal, it’s all right to let people be concerned about you. I’m not angry. I remember what it is to be young. Things happen, but I promise you this - whatever it is won’t seem quite so bad in the morning. Or maybe it’ll take a few mornings, who knows? You’ve had too much to drink, which is only natural on your eighteenth birthday. Drink as much of that water as you can, and sleep as long as you want, I won’t wake you. Goodnight.’
Fergal managed a weary ‘Thanks’ before gulping down the cold water, sliding out of his shoes and clothes and pulling the blankets up over his head.
10
Alfredo had driven around the city, checking the haunts that he guessed Antonio and Rocco frequented to meet girls. Every club was getting ready to close and young people spilled out onto the streets, trying to wave down cabs and coax lifts from their mates, but there was no sign of Fergal. After half an hour Alfredo found himself taking the road that led out to the hills, just to calm down. Had he known that Fergal was only yards away, he would have stopped at Antonio’s uncle’s house, but he had no idea, and finally he forced himself to drive home, defeated, and tried his best to sleep, praying that Fergal had the sense not to get into anything too foolish.
Fergal woke the next morning to the sound of his bedroom door closing. A large glass of orange juice and a cup of steaming black coffee stood on the little bedside cabinet. He guessed that Arianna had been trying not to wake him.
He sat up to reach for the juice and his head almost rolled off his shoulders with dizziness. His mouth felt like someone had upholstered it with second-hand carpet and his head hurt so much that he almost panicked, convincing himself that he had somehow permanently damaged his brain with the unwise combination of drinks. The church bells insisted on telling him it was eleven o’clock - he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so late. Slowly, the details of the previous evening returned like homing pigeons coming through fog, one by one, each carrying a snippet of vital information. Then, suddenly, a whole flock of images crashed on top of him, and he felt awful.
This time he made sure no one was in the bathroom. He stood under the shower, letting the cool jets of water massage his throbbing head. He couldn’t help thinking about what had happened with Riccardo, and he -began to get aroused - until Sofia’s face floated into his mind’s eye. He wanted more than anything to talk to Father Mac. He was sure that just hearing that calm voice would, make him feel better.
Fergal hurried back to his room and dressed quickly. He had to get outside, into the fresh air. Out on the street, though, the sun was too much for his eyes. He kept having to shield them with his hand. He thought he might look for a cheap pair of sunglasses. Everyone else wore them, but he had always been too self-conscious - he didn’t want anybody to think he was a poser. And then, too, they reminded him Of the IRA men and women in Belfast who wore the darkest sunglasses invented, even in the worst weather - at marches, or at the graveside of dead volunteers as they tilted their rifles up to God and fired over the tricolour-draped coffin.. .Fergal suddenly shook all over, as if his body was trying to reclaim him back to Rome.
The bustling afternoon was just getting warmed up, to the usual symphony of mopeds and car horns. Fergal found himself outside the little Chapel of Regret. He stepped out of the current of tourists and shoppers and into the kinder, filtered light that soothed him immediately. Before his eyes had fully adjusted, he took the nearest seat. He only gradually realised that he had joined the growing queue for confession.
As he looked around, he saw that the building was much older than St Bridget’s Church. There were ancient statues in every corner, their expressions almost worn away by the careless caresses of the centuries.
He heard the little wooden box open and realised it was his turn to go to confession. He almost changed his mind, but in the end he took a deep breath and went into the upright, oblong darkness.
When the grille slid back, Fergal started softly, ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned...’
He hesitated, but the old priest reassured him. Fergal couldn’t focus on anything except the purple darkness, broken now and again by the merest outline of the priest’s head, and he found this strangely comforting. He told the priest how he had got drunk, how he had been with Sofia - he left out the details - how much he had worried Alfredo, how worried he was that everyone would find out the mortifying truth...There was no way he was going to tell the old priest about his encounter with Riccardo. ‘How am I going to face Alfredo?’ he asked the darkness. ‘He’s been so good to me.’
The old priest listened intently until the last echo of Fergal’s story was gone from the confines of the box. Then he cleared his throat and said quietly, ‘In God’s eyes, confessing is the best thing you could have done. Say three Hail Marys and three Our Fathers every night this week, as penance. And go to your teacher, before the day is done. If he is truly your friend, which I believe he is, and he sees that you are genuinely sorry, then his heart will soften and he will forgive you. You will even find that, in time, your friendship will be stronger and deeper for this. Go now.’
Fergal sighed deeply. ‘Yes, Father, I will. And thank you.’
*
Alfredo had telephoned his sister early that morning to find out whether Fergal had come home. When Arianna told him what state poor Fergal had appeared in he wanted to come over immediately, but she had managed to persuade him not to. ‘Alfredo, the best thing we can do is let the boy sleep.’
Alfredo had barked angrily in reply, ‘Oh, he’s not a boy any longer, Arianna. I’m sure Antonio and Rocco have done their best to take care of that!’
‘Don’t talk that way,’ Arianna had told him firmly, and Alfredo was instantly silenced. She sounded so much like their mother when she got impatient. ‘I have to go, I’ve got a business to run. Come round later for coffee.’
It was almost one o’clock when she took Fergal up some food and a bottle of water. When he didn’t answer her knock, she put the tray down and opened the door, expecting to see him still tangled up in the bedlinen. She was surprised to see that the room was empty. The bed had been roughly made and Fergal’s suit was folded, albeit haphazardly, on the chair. She listened for any sound from the bathroom and called his name, but there was no answer. Not much got past Arianna’s radar, and she was amazed and annoyed that Fergal had managed to leave the restaurant without her noticing.
Fergal knew he couldn’t put off seeing Alfredo for much longer, but he wanted to keep walking. He had finally found a cheap pair of sunglasses that actually fit him, so the glare of the sunshine was more bearable. When he caught sight of h
imself in a shop window, he saw that his hair was a mess. He decided to visit the nearby barber for a decent cut. Maybe it would make his head feel cooler, too.
He felt about five years old as the barber put a nylon robe around him, whistling a tune through the gap between his front teeth. Fergal told him to clip it close, and shut his eyes as the barber sprayed his head with a water bottle like the one Arianna used for her hanging plants. Then he went to work with his scissors and comb. Finally he rubbed some kind of liniment into Fergal’s head, and his scalp suddenly felt as if it had been in the fridge. It was exactly what he’d needed.
Just as he was paying and trying not to admire himself too much in the mirror, he froze. Behind his reflection in the mirrored wall was Riccardo, just opening the door, holding the hand of a little boy. Fergal thanked the barber and tried to leave as quickly as he could, but he had to pass Riccardo.
‘Hello,’ Fergal muttered. Riccardo nodded his head without looking at him.
At that moment the little boy started pulling at Riccardo’s shirt, pointing at the selection of children’s comics in a pile on the table. ‘Papa, Papa, I want to look at the comics!’
Fergal couldn’t get out of the shop quickly enough. Outside, he leaned against a wall, feeling dizzy. It had never occurred to him that Riccardo might be married - and with a child, too. He couldn’t help wondering what, if anything, he would have done in the bathroom with Riccardo if he had known. Probably everything, he thought, but he promised himself that they could never do it again. He knew the promise wouldn’t be difficult to keep. Judging by the look on Riccardo’s face, he would be doing his best to avoid Fergal.
His self-loathing was heightened by his hangover - his whole body felt poisoned - but just being in the city, surrounded by so much energy, made him feel better. It was hard not to keep making comparisons with Belfast. He thought about how everyone in the streets of Belfast, even Dermot, looked worried all the time. They’d got used to it. Here, everyone looked happy, and
Fergal wondered if it was contagious. There seemed to be so many couples of all ages, sitting at tables and drinking and talking, so many groups of breathtakingly handsome fellas on mopeds, flying past hordes of girls and broadcasting high-speed details about next weekend’s parties. Fergal couldn’t help feeling jealous of the freedom they seemed to have compared to the life from which he had miraculously managed to escape. Their confidence was incredible and effortless, second nature. And every single one of them seemed to have a moped. At that moment, Fergal decided that the minute he made any money he was going to buy a shiny Vespa that he’d admired in the one of the local shops. He imagined driving it up the road to St Bridget’s, and in spite of everything, the image made him smile.
As Fergal wandered along, daydreaming, he unwittingly passed the very clothes shop where Sofia worked. He nearly fainted when he glanced into the window and saw her. Luckily, she was so busy serving a group of women that he managed to back away undetected. Every disastrous detail of their evening flashed through his mind, no matter how hard he tried to distract himself. He felt sick with embarrassment. Why couldn’t he have just pretended with Sofia for a bit longer? Then no one would know what he didn’t completely understand himself. Fellas had one-night stands all the time; Antonio and Rocco certainly bragged about theirs often enough. Fergal wondered if Sofia had told her mates exactly what had happened. Surely they would have kept asking her till she told them every mortifying detail. He shuddered with embarrassment at the thought of the three girls going over every single clue to his gayness.
When he was a safe distance away, he sat down at a café and ordered coffee. He thought about how Sofia had given herself to him. He thought about Riccardo, and about how their clumsy sex had made him feel dirty and worthless and certainly unloved.
There had been no tenderness, as there had been with Dermot. Fergal suddenly understood that his bad experience with Riccardo had a lot to do with why he had allowed things to go so far with Sofia. He had just wanted someone to want him, to need him, to make him feel loved. He knew he had been lonely for a long time.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, he remembered something Alfredo had said to him, back in Father Mac’s parlour, when Fergal sang for him for the first time. ‘There are notes that you don’t yet know exist, but they are only sleeping because you haven’t woken them - and I feel I could...’ Fergal hadn’t really understood at the time, but now he began to realise how wise Alfredo was. And he came to the sobering conclusion that some deep part of him had wanted to see if Sofia could awaken new notes inside his soul, as Alfredo and Father Mac both had, in different ways, if she could awaken a new person, someone other than the Fergal he knew he truly was. He had never been with a girl before, and he had allowed himself to go along with Sofia because a part of him had wanted to see if it would mean something. But it hadn’t. He couldn’t have been surer about that.
The experience had been the only way to find out, but Fergal regretted hurting Sofia so much. He felt so bad about it that he almost retraced his steps back to her shop to say how sorry he was, but he was sure she must be exhausted and eager to forget he even existed.
He finished his coffee and strolled back to Moretti’s, feeling much better able to take on the rest of the day.
11
Arianna had been watching the door like a hawk. When Fergal finally appeared, she was more relieved than anything. He looked much more like himself. He smiled shyly at her and she gave him a careful hug.
‘Arianna, I’m so sorry. Thanks for taking care of me last night, and this morning, when you left the food and all, and let me sleep so late...’
‘That’s okay. You still look pale, though.’
‘Ah, sure, my head was killing me for ages, and I felt so bad about everything - and sick, too. But I went for a really long walk and I feel better.’
‘Good. You certainly seem better than you did last night, anyway. Where did you go?’
‘I’m not sure. I walked for miles, and I even ended up in confession. Can I use the phone? I need to talk to Alfredo as soon as I can, and to Father MacManus in Belfast, if that’s okay? He said I could reverse the charges or he’d call me straight back.’
‘Of course you can. I know my brother is anxious to talk with you, so you might try him first, yes?’
‘Yes, I promise. I need to see him and - and try to sort things out, if he’ll let me.’
Arianna smiled. ‘Fergal, don’t worry so much. My brother will be only too glad to hear you’re safe and feeling better.’
Alfredo was in the middle of a lesson with a butcher who sang in a booming, sonorous voice and paid a small fortune to learn the most popular love songs of the twentieth century. He was good, too. Normally Alfredo never took calls during lessons, but today Daniela was under strict instructions to answer the phone if it rang and to interrupt him if it was Fergal. When she rapped lightly on the door of his music room, Alfredo nearly pulled the door off its hinges. ‘Is it him?’ he demanded, rushing past her without waiting for an answer.
At the phone, he straightened his waistcoat to compose himself. ‘Hello? Alfredo Moretti speaking.’
Fergal was unnerved by the formality. ‘Alfredo? Look, it’s me, Fergal.’ Out of nowhere, he burst into a coughing fit.
Alfredo was horrified. ‘Oh my God, Fergal, your voice! Are you all right? We have an exam in only a few days! What have those fucking waiters done to you? They didn’t encourage you to smoke, did they? I’ll fucking kill them.’
Fergal had never heard Alfredo swear so much, and it was enough to stop the coughing. ‘No, Alfredo, no, of course I wasn’t smoking - I’m not mad, I know I have an exam. I’m so sorry about last night. I don’t really know what got into me. With all that champagne and all, I wasn’t thinking. The fellas only wanted me to have a good time. Alfredo, I’m sorry I went off with them instead of waiting for you - it all happened so fast. I’m sorry. My birthday was great up until...up until...’ Fergal burst into tears.
&
nbsp; Alfredo’s heart sank. ‘Fergal - oh, Fergal, don’t cry, we can fix everything. You’ll make yourself more hoarse. Have you got a sore throat?’
Fergal’s throat did still feel a bit raw, but he tried to play it down. ‘No, no. I’m fine.’
Alfredo’s anger was all but gone. He was just relieved that Fergal seemed unharmed. ‘Listen to me, Fergal. I was worried out of my mind when I couldn’t find you anywhere. But Antonio and Rocco took advantage of your drunken state. They dragged you off with those...girls.’
Fergal said nothing. He wondered how much Alfredo actually knew. He must have gone round to the restaurant and talked to Antonio and Rocco...
‘Fergal, I take it you have no plans for this evening?’
‘No, Alfredo, none at all. I wanted to come and see you and, well, explain.’
‘Good. Come - but not for a lesson. You must rest that voice at all costs. The hoarseness should go if you stop talking for a few hours and give it a chance to heal. Giovanni and Luigi are coming over for supper, so come earlier - say seven o’clock? Then we can talk properly before they arrive. I want to hear every detail about last night, and then I’ll tell you my plan.’
‘Your plan? Okay,’ Fergal said uncertainly. ‘Do you need me to bring anything?’
‘Only yourself, young man, and the truth. Don’t bring anything but the truth. Drink gallons of water today and tomorrow, won’t you? Hydrate your voice.’
‘I will. See you at seven.’
Fergal put the receiver down, then he took a deep breath, lifted it again and dialled the number of St Bridget’s House.
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