Now and Then in Tuscany: Italian journeys

by Angela Petch

  ‘They said I had talent, that they’d use me again in their team,’ he told us again. We let him repeat the details of his adventure, although we’d heard them already half a dozen times.

  ‘One day I’ll have a market stall in Orbetello, in the big square next to the cathedral,’ said Nello, ‘and I’ll sell my cheeses to rich people and tourists on their travels and they’ll talk about my products when they go back to America and invite me over there.’

  I laughed at him but Settimio was full of enthusiasm. ‘I could be your assistant, Nello,’ he said. ‘If you gave me some space on your stall, I could sell my frogs to the French tourists. I’ve heard they love them.’

  The wind picked up, stirring the waves. The tide was coming in and our fire would soon be engulfed in water.

  ‘What’s that?’ Nello said, pointing to the sea’s edge where a large black mass had been washed up.

  ‘It’s driftwood, a tree trunk,’ I said, ‘let’s drag it up for next time we come to the beach.’

  His hand floating, white in the moonlight, fingers spread as if he’d just cast something away, that was what I noticed first. Then his mouth wide open, as if half way through a blasphemous story. His eyes closed, as if asleep.

  ‘It’s Fausto,’ whispered Settimio. ‘Pull him out. Maybe he’s still alive.’

  He’d lost his trousers to the sea and the sea had uncovered a secret. Where his genitals should have been, there was only a scar. For some reason we would never know, he had suffered a terrible deformity that he had tried to compensate for by bullying and blustering.

  We turned him over on the sand and Settimio worked frantically to bring him back to life, pressing hard on his chest in an effort to expel the sea from his lungs. We all took turns. We did our best but Fausto was gone.

  Before we left him alone on the beach to fetch help, I took off my trousers and put them on him. His legs were wet and heavy and I struggled, but it felt the right thing to do.

  And we attended his funeral the next day in the little chapel with the statue of St Anthony Abbot bending over his crook. Severo had urged everybody to attend. ‘We are a family, we mountain people. In work and rest and death,’ he had said.

  We learned later from Fausto’s friends that, full of wine, he had joked about being able to walk on water. They’d watched him stumble off down the lane towards the sea but thought nothing of it.

  But I thought about it a lot, about how a single day or moment can change our lives for ever, how our destiny is shaped. I was grateful he hadn’t consumed my ricotta recipe before he died. It would have only added to his misery. His death has weighed upon my conscience ever since.

  NOW

  Chapter 13

  2010 - Davide

  Every minute in the gym, where they had to change into their costumes before the Palio procession, had been awful. Several of Davide’s classmates whispered about him behind their hands, loud enough for him to hear what they were saying.

  ‘What’s an English boy doing dressed as an Italian page? He doesn’t even look Italian with his Harry Potter glasses and blue eyes.’

  The fact that his mother spoke Italian with an English accent and dressed in a different way from their own mothers was enough for them to bully him unmercifully.

  He couldn’t find the brown tights he was supposed to put on and Signorina Grazia only had a pink pair left. He told her they were too small but she snapped, telling him he was holding everybody up and to stop making a fuss. Later on, while he and the others baked in their tights and heavy velvet cloaks as they processed to the field where the mediaeval jousting took place, he was tripped up. He didn’t see who it was, but he had a good idea. It was most likely Loredano, who was probably also guilty of hiding the brown tights. Davide was playing the role of page to the Lord of Montebotolino, holding up his long cloak. He stumbled as he was pushed and then tripped, yanking the heavy cloak from his Lord’s shoulders and receiving a glare and later on a sound telling off, but he couldn’t explain he hadn’t done it on purpose. Nobody liked a snitch and it would only cause more trouble in the end. At the end of the embarrassing three-hour ordeal when he was changing back into his own clothes in the gym, his foot made painful contact with a drawing pin that somebody, probably Loredano again, had left in his trainers.

  He’d had enough. If Davide heard one more stupid remark about Mamma being the sister of Camilla Parker-Bowles, he swore he would borrow a gun from Mirko the gamekeeper, and shoot his classmates – just like the teenager in Minneapolis he’d seen on the news last week. He wouldn’t kill them all. On the whole the girls in his class were fine – especially Celeste, the daughter of the bee-keeper in Rofelle. But he could do without Loredano. He was the pits and next to be in the firing line was his stupid, weedy friend, Gianfranco, who tagged along behind him doing everything Loredano ordered.

  It was all bravado, of course, this desire to kill. Davide couldn’t even bear to kill a scorpion. He’d scoop one off the wall in the house and take it outside sooner than swat it to death.

  ‘So it can come back in again tomorrow,’ Mamma would say, laughing. She hated them; there were no scorpions in England apparently and she couldn’t rid herself of the notion of horror movie scorpions.

  Of course he wouldn’t murder his classmates but he was fed up. He had to get away. Not for ever. He couldn’t imagine running away for ever, or for more than a couple of nights. It would take real courage to do that. He just needed a little space to sort stuff out in his head. And he didn’t want to go back to school next term. Not to his stupid school in Badia Tedalda, at any rate.

  He stuffed a fleece and a pair of ski socks into his sports bag. Although it was summer, where he was planning to go to was 1,000 metres above sea level and cool at night. Mamma was busy over at Il Mulino chatting to holiday makers from stupid England, as usual, so she didn’t notice him taking the end of a loaf, a hunk of cheese and a packet of chocolate biscuits from the pantry cupboard. Feeling virtuous, he also took an apple and two bananas from the fruit bowl as he went past. He shouted over to her from the terrace, ‘See you later, Mamma,’ and made up a story about his tennis coach picking him up at the end of the lane for extra practice. Occasionally this happened – especially if a regional tournament was coming up. There was an old court in the grounds of the Guest House up at Cocchiola, on the way to Viamaggio. The owner let them use it whenever they wanted and made jokes about free tickets for Wimbledon in the future when Davide was a famous champion.

  That was another thing that was getting to him. He wasn’t at all sure anymore how much he wanted to play tennis but Mamma and Babbo kept saying what a shame it would be to give up now. ‘You’re so talented, Davi. Wait another year and then see.’

  But it was hard entering tournaments twice a month. They should try getting up extra early at weekends, he thought. How would they like to miss out on other stuff they’d prefer to do? Like nothing in particular. It would be so wicked to do nothing much at weekends for a change.

  He started to walk up the hill to Badia. His rucksack was heavier than he’d thought and the apple he’d stuffed in at the last minute dug into his back. He should have packed more carefully instead of shoving everything in any old how.

  With perfect timing, Lorenzo came by with his tractor full of sheep manure and Davide stuck out a thumb to hitch a lift. Another fib came easily to his lips.

  ‘My coach has forgotten to pick me up and I need to get to Cocchiola,’ he lied.

  ‘No problem. I’m going right past the entrance, as it happens.’ Lorenzo glanced at the boy and asked how he was going to play without a racket.

  ‘Oh, it’s just fitness training this afternoon. You know - speed training, upper body strength exercises. All that stuff.’

  He was amazed how easily he could make up stories when necessary.

  At the end of the drive leading to Cocchiola Guest House, Davide waved goodbye to Lorenzo and, after the tractor had disappeared round the bend towards Caprile, he t
urned in the opposite direction to make his way up a steep, stony track leading to Viamaggio Pass. He knew the path well as it was a favourite destination for his father’s mushroom forages. There was a spot where they had been together in early August after rain to find porcini mushrooms, which Mamma adored. Davide had been sworn to secrecy about the location. But this was the first time he had been here on his own.

  He stopped to catch his breath after a steep climb and sat down on a boulder. A large Western Green lizard, a ramarra, scuttled off into the undergrowth, making a lot of noise as it ran over dried beech leaves. Davide jumped but he wasn’t scared. His father had taught him lizards were noisy but it was vipers he had to be wary of. If he were to step on one, its bite could be fatal. The two of them always wore thick socks and walking boots when they went mushroom collecting. He only had on his tennis trainers and thin socks this afternoon, so he rummaged in his bag for his ski socks. As he was already starving, he ate six chocolate biscuits as well.

  It was cooler in the woods and gloomy. Wind wooshed through the pines making a noise like the sea down at Rimini, where his family sometimes went for days out in summer. The hut he was making for was about one kilometre further up the track and he needed to arrive before dark because he’d forgotten to pack a torch.

  An owl hooted and he called back, trying to imitate its cry. He loved Harry Potter stories, even though he was teased for looking like him. And owls, like Hedwig, were friendly creatures and not to be feared. Further up on the wooded slopes of Viamaggio, a chitter-chattering started up in the trees. He knew this would be glis glis calling to each other. In English they were called edible dormice and looked more like black squirrels than mice. They made him laugh. One evening last summer two of them had kept the family entertained, dashing to and fro along a power line connecting Il mulino with La Stalla. They were like noisy trapeze artists, keeping up a grumbling and a wittering as they crisscrossed each other on the cable. It was as if they were complaining about the presence of humans in their space.

  Davide wasn’t scared of animals or birds or reptiles. He hated when hunting season began. Big men dressed in camouflage congregating in their 4 x 4’s in the parking space near Il Mulino; the howls and shrieks of the beaters as they drove boar out into the open; the eerie silence before the volley of gunfire and then, a frenzied barking of hunting dogs as they chased the outnumbered prey. He couldn’t understand how grown men could enjoy being so cruel and he’d asked Mamma to stop serving him meat at meal times. He wasn’t frightened of animals but certain people and schoolmates bothered him a lot.

  The hut he was making for was in the woods near the peak of Viamaggio. He had only ever passed it with Babbo. His father wasn’t sure what it was used for, but told him it belonged to the elderly lady who lived nearby in an enormous house on the road to Sansepolcro.

  To pass through its open door, he had to bend down like Alice in Wonderland when she grew tall but, once through, he could straighten up to his full height. His head brushed against something spiky and, startled, he backed off and immediately fell over a metal bucket which made such a clatter he was sure he must have alerted the whole valley of his presence. As his eyes adjusted to the shadows, he made out bundles of plants hanging from hooks in the ceiling and containers on the floor holding seeds and stones. The bucket he had knocked over had spilled acorns all over the tiled floor and he collected a few by hand, before noticing a broom leaning against the fireplace. It was exactly like the twiggy type ridden by old Befana across the skies after Christmas to catch up the Three Wise Men. Or like Harry Potter’s broom in the Quidditch game.

  A fire had been laid with pine cones and sticks, a pile of logs stacked neatly to one side. On the hearth a box of matches on a metal plate invited Davide to set fire to the kindling. After lighting the twigs, he shut the little wooden door and sat down to watch the blaze while he munched on the remains of his picnic. In the light cast by the fire, the hut grew cosier, less of a place of sorcery and spells. It was like being invited into a story. Pulling a piece of sacking over his body, he lay down and was soon fast asleep in the warmth.

  The windows of the old lady’s sitting room in the big house looked out over the ridge. She liked to sit in her sagging armchair every evening after dinner to sip black coffee with a dash of aniseed liqueur, her daily tipple. She saw light flicker at the window of her hut down below and, grabbing her thick green Loden cape and stout walking stick, went to investigate.

  A young boy was fast asleep by the hearth. He was wearing glasses and she tiptoed over to him and gently removed them. She gazed at his long eyelashes and curly hair. He looked like one of Raffaelo’s angels in the museum in Urbino. After placing another couple of logs on the fire she watched him for a while before returning to her house.

  At six o’clock the following morning she took him breakfast. A thermos of hot chocolate, a handful of cantuccini biscuits and a slab of sticky Torrone left over from Christmas. It was a little stale but she imagined a small boy would enjoy it.

  Pushing open the little door, she sang out, ‘Breakfast’s ready!’

  Davide sat up, terrified. An old lady, as thin as a strand of spaghetti, grey hair in two long plaits falling below the waistband of her baggy trousers, was looking at him from the doorway. She was carrying a tray of food.

  ‘Relax! I won’t eat you,’ she said. ‘Get this down you and then you can tell me what you’re doing in my workshop. Did you sleep well?’

  He was hungry but, remembering his manners, offered her a biscuit first.

  ‘No thank you. Very kind but I’m on a diet,’ she said.

  To Davide she looked like a stringy scarecrow already.

  As if reading his mind she laughed a high, tinny sound. ‘Not the faddy, slimming kind. I’m on a medical diet, my dear. I have to avoid sugar at all costs.’

  He dunked biscuits in the scrumptious hot chocolate and watched her as she moved about the hut fingering plants, stirring seeds laid out on a tray to dry, tutting as she threw a handful of roots onto the ashes in the fireplace.

  ‘Mouldy. No good for anything,’ she muttered. Then, sitting down on a bench made from a large, flat stone, she said, ‘Well I can see you’re not going to enlighten me as to why you’ve decided to squat in my little hut, so I’ll do the talking first.’

  She extended her bird-like hand to his grubby one. ‘My name is Giselda and I’m very old. I live in that big house on the hill all by myself except for seventeen cats and a very rude parrot called Pasquale. When you meet him, don’t be shocked at his language. One of the builders who constructed this marvellous hut for me suffered from Tourette’s Syndrome and he couldn’t help uttering swear words from time to time, poor chap. Well, I’m afraid Pasquale picked up some of the filthiest words.’

  Davide laughed.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said, clapping her hands together. ‘I thought you were going to turn out to be one of those tragic children too traumatised to smile.’

  She continued her introduction. ‘I’m the last of the Chiozzi family. You’re probably too young to know who we were but my grandfather was the richest landowner of this area. Unfortunately my father was only interested in playing cards and drinking red wine and everything has gone downhill since then. He’s dead now. I’m not boring you, am I? It’s no use talking to Pasquale or the cats about these things, so it’s nice to be able to chat with you. I don’t see many people nowadays, except for the tiresome doctor.’

  Davide liked her. She was different from other adults he knew. He pointed with a half-eaten biscuit to the plants hanging from the hooks and asked, ‘Are you a witch? Are these all for your spells?’

  ‘Not a witch exactly – although some might have described me as a white witch in the past. No, dear boy, I’m what is known as a plantswoman.’

  She wandered round her hut, touching everything. ‘This is all part of my research. I’m carrying out experiments for Aboca, the cosmetic company near Sansepolcro. They use plants to make med
icines, creams, shampoos, that kind of thing…’

  ‘…I know where you mean,’ he said. ‘We drive past it when we go down to the big supermarket.’

  ‘In the past,’ she continued, ‘people who lived and worked up in these mountains couldn’t afford to visit the doctor. When they went on the annual trek to the coast, they had to take their own remedies and cures along with them. I’ve come across some really interesting papers in grandfather’s desk and I’ve been studying them carefully and even trying out some of his recipes.’

  She picked up a withered piece of what looked like dried wood. ‘This, for example, is known in our dialect as erba nocca. Do you know any Latin? Do children study Latin at your school?’

  He shook his head and said, ‘Not yet. We will in a couple of years.’

  ‘No matter. Anyway, helleborus viridis, as it is known by botanists, is quite, quite poisonous and when I was a little girl I was always warned not to pick it up in case all my teeth fell out.’ She grinned, showing gaps where some of her front teeth were missing.

  Davide thought she looked like a mischievous pixie from the pages of one of the Enid Blyton books Mamma had brought back from England.

  ‘Losing these, however,’ she said, ‘has nothing whatsoever to do with this special plant. Erba nocca was used by shepherds who went down with the transumanza to cure their sheep from fevers. They inserted a piece of this in the animal’s skin.’

  Davide’s eyes widened as he picked up the word transumanza. ‘I’ve been trying to do a project for school about that.’

  ‘Splendid!’ she said. ‘I shall help you and you’ll get top marks.’ She clapped her hands again then sat down, flicking her plaits behind her shoulders. ‘Your turn now. Tell me, what are you doing here?’