2008 - Recipes for Cherubs (19 page)

“Do you mean she was a lunatic?” Catrin said in a shocked voice.

Norma shook her head. “Oh, she not raving mad, she just not quite that full shilling as they says.”

“Is Aunt Ella all right in the head?” Catrin asked.

“Oh, there no flies on Ella. She very clever but she has trouble with the truth.”

“You mean she tells lies?”

“No. No. She too fond of the truth for her own good.”

“How can you be too fond of the truth?”

“She always say the truth. If someone have a big nose, Ella, she will say, “Hey, you got a big nose.” Can’t keep her tongue shut up. Lot of people don’t like it, especially the ones with big noses, if you knows what I’m saying.”

Catrin giggled. “Maybe the man she was going to marry had a big nose and she told him and he cancelled the wedding,” she blurted out.

“She never going to marry no man.” Nonna laughed loudly, displaying a handful of wobbly teeth.

“No man be able to cope with Ella. She like to be free and not doing the cookings and the washings of dirty underpants for no man.”

Catrin slapped her hand over her mouth. People here in Kilvenny said really rude things. ‘Underpants’ was a filthy word.

“Well, Aunt Ella
was
going to marry someone, you know,” she muttered stubbornly.

“No, never. I tell you is not possible.”

“Can you keep a secret, Norma?”

Nonna nodded.

“There’s a wedding dress in a wardrobe up at Shrimp’s and it has Aunt Ella’s name on the box. I know because I looked, even though I shouldn’t have.”

Nonna threw back her head and cackled. “It is a dress with diamonds sewn on all over and gold stitchings here on the front?” she asked, indicating her sunken chest.

Catrin nodded.

“That not Ella’s dress. Dress belong to Alice. It cost lot of money. I remember day Ella shows it to me. Right here in this room.”

“Oh, I thought it was Aunt Ella’s because it has her name on the box.”

“Alice always want a fairy-tale wedding dress and Ella buys her most beautiful dress from London.”

“Did you go to the wedding?” Catrin interrupted.

“Ah, that wedding is one I never forget. The chapel in the castle is full of flowers and all the peoples is waiting. Me and my husband, Luigi, God rest his soul, was wearing us best clothes, he’s wearing new suit we bury him in two weeks later.”

She paused and wiped a tear from her eye and Catrin looked away in embarrassment.

“Only trouble is, there one person who didn’t come to wedding.”

“Who was that?”

“Alice.”

Catrin looked at Norma in astonishment. “What? You mean she didn’t turn up for her own wedding?”

Nonna nodded and let out a long sigh.

“The bridegroom, he is there waiting. Your mother is dressed all in her best and the priest is going up the bananas because Alice don’t come.”

“Why not?”

“Nobody know. Ella goes looking for her but Alice is gone.”

“So the bridegroom just went away and the wedding was cancelled?”

“
St
. We never see him no more.”

“Poor man.”

“He will have survived, I think. I don’t like him much. Me and Luigi think he got his eye on more than just Alice.”

“What do you mean?”

Norma hesitated. “Well, she was quite wealthy woman and I thinks he maybe after her money.”

“Who was he?”

“Let me see, Mister…No, is no good. I can’t remember name. He looks like rat and his eyes like the vulture. I remember his face, but is funny, when you gets old you forgets the names but I can remember things from when I a child in Italy very good.”

“Was that the last time my mother was here in Kilvenny?”

“I think so. She very beautiful girl, your mother. I can see her now in lovely silk dress the colour of red poppies and her hair black as coal.”

Catrin bit her lip and said nothing.

“You don’t like to hear talk of her beauty?”

Catrin looked hard at Norma. She looked almost witchlike in her black clothes; perhaps she had strange powers and could tell what Catrin was thinking.

“It gets on my nerves, if you must know. Looks are all that people seem to care about and it’s not fair.”

“No, is not fair. Me, when I young I no beauty. I look like a frog who been trod on and my Luigi, he is very handsome, I never think he look at me twice but he does and we falls in love. Is not just outside of a person is important, eh?”

“No.”

“My Antonio is telling me your mother on holiday.”

“Yes, she’s in Italy.”

“Where does she stay?”

“In a place near…Hang on a minute.” Catrin took the letter from her pocket and unfolded it. “Near a place called Terrini.”

“Ah, Terrini is not far from where I live but I never been there. When I was child we don’t travel far from our own village.”

“She’s staying in the Convent of Santa Lucia.”

Norma stiffened and hastily made the sign of the cross with a gnarled old finger.

“Do you know it?” Catrin asked eagerly.

“Mother of all the saints. Si, I know of it. Everyone heard of the Convent of Santa Lucia. Is a terrible place where they used to put all the people who has worse than just their shillings missing.”

“Like Aunt Alice?”

“No. The people they locks up in Santa Lucia does very queer things, screaming and shouting, banging their heads against the wall.”

“Lunatics?” Catrin asked.

“
Si
, and the lunatics sometimes escapes and is running about naked like they children. Is not a nice place to go. When we little and we naughty my mamma say, “You don’t behave and I send you to the nuns at Santa Lucia.” Then we very afraid and we stops the nonsense.”

“It sounds a horrible place,” Catrin said with wide eyes and a growing smile.

“Is very, very horrible. The nuns there was very cruel and people used to think that the nuns can put the evil eye on them and make them sick.”

“What’s the evil eye?”

“In Italia the evil eye is called
malocchio
. See here, I have
corno
from when I little.”

She pulled a small necklace from under her black jumper, a tiny red horn, in the middle of which was the outline of an eye. “This is called a
corno
and protect you from
malocchio
.”

“You really believe in all that daft stuff?”

“
Si
. And you don’t? Maybe someone has put evil eye on you and that why you so thin.”

“What a load of rubbish.”

Catrin was silent, wondering how could this woman know such things when she couldn’t see? Maybe she was like the old man Tony had told her about, who could tell a colour by the feel of it.

“I hear you make bread for Ella the other day.”

“Italian
focaccia
. Did you ever eat
focaccia
when you were little?”

“No, never. Is too expensive. My family very poor and eats same bread all the peasants eat. Very chewy and good for stuffing into holes in the walls to keep cold wind out in winter.”

Catrin grinned.

“Is funny thing, though. Today I have money and can buy plenty of food, but nothing taste so good as when I little girl and I come in and eat what my mamma make. All that work we have to do make big appetite. Appetite is very good thing, eh?”

Catrin looked down into her lap. She was forever battling against her appetite. It was the enemy, the gnawing, noisy dragon in her belly that roared for food.

“Sometimes we almost crying from hunger and my poor mamma she always make something simple but tasting very good.”

Catrin’s stomach began to complain loudly, and she got to her feet to muffle the sound. “I’d best be going now.”

“You come see me again, eh?”

“Okay.”

“And you brings that Ella with you.”

“If she’ll come.”

“She will come in time. Ella takes a while to warm up and come out of herself.
Ciao
for now.”

“
Ciao
.”

T
he rain continued to sweep through the village and the wind blew in off the restless sea, roaring through the tall trees of Gwartney’s Wood and making them creak mournfully. Catrin was soaked to the skin in the few seconds it took to run across the road from the Café Romana to the castle. She stood beside the stove in the kitchen in a puddle of water, her clothes steaming gently in the warmth.

“Get that old coat off quickly,” Ella urged.

Catrin struggled out of the coat she had earlier grabbed from the hallstand, and a small brass key fell out of the pocket. She knelt down and picked it up.

Ella held out her hand and took it from her. “Well, fancy finding that after all this time.”

“Is it yours?”

Ella smiled a wry smile. “No. This is the key to your Aunt Alice’s dowry box.”

Puzzled, Catrin asked, “Isn’t a dowry an old-fashioned thing? Money or jewels or something that a bride has to give to her husband?”

“It was just a joke of ours calling it that. Alice had an old wooden box which she used to call her clues box and she put all her little treasures in there, old postcards, drawings, shells and bits of glass, things she found on the beach. My brothers and I used to tease her and call it her dowry box. Only, once she did find something interesting.”

“What was it?”

“An old ring with some writing on it – Latin, I think. It was probably worth a few bob.”

“Did she sell it?”

“No. She locked it up in her box and wouldn’t let anyone touch it. She was saving it for when she got married.”

“What happened to the dowry box?”

“God only knows, but if you find it you’re welcome to it. You seem to have a knack of finding Alice’s things,” Ella said, handing Catrin the key.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, it’s no use to Alice and certainly not to me but I doubt if it’s still around. I haven’t seen it in years, not since…”

“Not since the day she didn’t get married?” Catrin said.

“That subject is out of bounds,” Ella said curtly.

“Sorry.” Catrin winced, annoyed with herself for pushing the conversation too far. She needed to be careful what she said to Aunt Ella, otherwise she clammed up.

“Come here and let me dry your hair and you can tell me how Norma is.”

“She’s a bit peculiar,” Catrin said, her words wobbling because Ella was rubbing her hair so hard.

“She was a good old stick and there was nothing much that went on in Kilvenny that she didn’t know about.”

“She’s almost blind now,” Catrin said.

“Is she?”

“Yes, except she still seems to know what you’re doing. It’s almost as if she can see you.”

Ella laughed. “People used to say she was a witch. She used to tell fortunes from tealeaves and remove spells.”

“Spells?”

“Oh, I never believed all that malarkey. But if someone was ill they would go to Norma for a cure instead of the doctor. They probably still do, for all I know. She would drop some olive oil into a bowl of water, say some magic words and abracadabra they would be well again.”

“But you didn’t believe it?”

“Not really.”

“Aunt Ella, have you ever heard of someone called Maria Paparella?”

“No.”

“What about Luca Roselli or Father Rimaldi?”

“No, I don’t think so. They don’t sound as if they come from round here.”

“How about Piero di Bardi?”

Ella put down the towel and indicated that Catrin should sit down near the stove.

“I’ve heard of him but I don’t know much about him.”

“He was a real person, then?” Catrin asked excitedly.

“Oh yes, he was a famous artist and painted many great pictures. There’s a painting of his called
Woman and Child
up at Shrimp’s in Alice’s room. It’s not an original, of course; if it was it would be worth a fortune.”

“Where is the original?”

“It was owned by a very wealthy American family, I think. It’s funny you should ask about Piero, because that painting was Alice’s favourite when we were children. She used to say the lady was one of her friends and she blew kisses to her every night before she went to sleep.”

“Do you know anything else about Piero di Bardi?”

“Sorry, but art isn’t one of my strengths, I’m afraid.”

Catrin was crestfallen.

“It’s a shame you didn’t meet the friend I mentioned. Piero was a favourite of…” Ella faltered and turned away quickly.

“Why was he a favourite?”

“Let me see. Piero didn’t merely paint, he told stories through his pictures, and by looking at his paintings you could feel the real person, experience their joy or their pain. His portraits were so wonderful that you could almost hear them breathe.”

Catrin could hardly contain her excitement; she felt just like that when she looked at the paintings in
Recipes for Cherubs
. It was as if they were trying to talk to her.

“I do know someone who could probably tell you all about Piero.”

“Who?”

“Mr Knowitall over the road.”

“Tony Agosti?”

“No, Dan Gwartney from the library. He’s fanatical about art. In fact, there’s not much he doesn’t know about anything, though I hate to say it.”

“Why do you dislike him so much?”

“He’s a meddlesome old bugger, always poking his nose into things.”

“Has he always looked after the castle?”

“When Hester left he offered to, though God knows why –  she only paid him a pittance. Then she died and it was left to your mother. I suppose she’s kept on paying him so that the place doesn’t fall down. One day, I expect draughty old castles will come back into fashion and she’ll sell it.”

“I hope she doesn’t. I like it here. It feels as if, even though I didn’t know it existed until a few days ago, I kind of knew it did exist inside me, if that makes sense.”

Ella nodded. “Even though you’ve never been here before, I suppose Kilvenny Castle is in your blood – the Grieves go back for hundreds of years, you know.”

“That makes me feel funny inside.”

“You have the Grieve genes in you. You look a little like Alice.”

“My godfather, the horrible man, is always going on about genes.”

“Is he, indeed?”

“He says that genes will out in the end, or something like that.”