2008 - Recipes for Cherubs (25 page)

It was wonderful to have time to think without the nuns telling you what you should be thinking. She was mulling over what Norma had told her about Arthur Campbell marrying Alice Grieve, but things didn’t add up. For a start, he didn’t have a sister, and yet everything else Norma had said sounded as if it must be him.

He would never have married someone like Alice; he despised people who weren’t intelligent. He didn’t say it out loud but you could tell. When she was small he’d paid for her to have piano lessons and every Sunday afternoon she had to play for him. She’d enjoyed her lessons, even though she was hopeless, but as soon as Arthur Campbell commanded her to play she’d been a bag of nerves. She crumbled beneath his withering gaze and impatient sighs and the black and white keys on the piano became a blur.

A year or so later he’d sent her to art classes with the best teacher he could find, then dancing lessons, but when she failed to shine in either he lost interest in her. She still visited him on Sunday afternoons during the holidays but she could tell he was bored with her.

She got slowly to her feet and climbed the steep steps to Shrimp’s Hotel, wandered through the long grass and stood looking at the dilapidated building. She shut her eyes and tried to imagine how it must have been in its heyday.

The windows would be open wide and the curtains blowing in the sea breeze. Maids would be waving their feather dusters out of the windows and singing as they cleaned the bedrooms. There would be guests sprawled in deckchairs on the lawns, talking and laughing. Others would be sitting at tables covered with white damask tablecloths. She would hear the tinkle of silver teaspoons against bone china and someone playing the piano as girls in black uniforms and starched white caps served afternoon tea.

She was lost in her reverie and it was a few moments before she realised that the music wasn’t inside her head. She opened her eyes and listened intently. Yes, someone was definitely playing the piano in the hotel. The breeze caught the notes and whirled them around her head. It was a song that Sister Matilde had taught them in school:

“
Oh soldier, soldier, won’t you marry me with your musket, fife and drum…
”

“
Oh no, sweet maid, I cannot marry thee for I have no hat to put on
.”

The song told the story of a young girl who fell in love and was tricked into giving a wily soldier everything that she had, and when she had, he told her he was already married. The last words of the song were: “
Oh no sweet maid, I cannot marry thee for I have a wife of my own!
”

Mary Donahue said that the girl wanted her head examining for being such a trusting chump, but Sister Matilde said that love clouded the eyes and sometimes the judgement.

Catrin went over to the french windows, screwed up her eyes and peered into the room. She could see the piano but not who was playing it. It was a spooky feeling, as if a ghost were in there.

The music stopped abruptly. Then a chord was played with a flourish and the final notes echoed on the air for a long time.

She stared intently at the piano. Any moment now whoever was playing would stand up and show their face…

The hands came down on her shoulders without warning and she cried out in alarm. She spun round, her eyes wide with fear.

A
s Ella walked, head down, across the cracked paving of the Italian garden, she was startled by a meaningful cough. She jumped, and put her hand up to her heart. “Dear God, Norma, you gave me such a fright!”

Norma was sitting in a bath chair to the left of the rose-laden archway, a black lace shawl draped across her head and shoulders to keep off the sun.

“I think you taking a long time to come and see me, so I gets my Antonio to push me over in this contraption and comes to see you instead. You going to sit and talk with me or you going to run away?”

“I’ve stopped running, Nonna,” Ella said with resignation.

“Come here to me, Ella, my Ella!” she cried, holding out her arms. Ella stooped and kissed her affectionately on both cheeks and they held each other tightly for a long time.

“It’s good to see you, Nonna, it really is,” Ella said.

“You take your times, but I very glad I see you before I dies, eh?”

“Don’t talk like that, Nonna. You’ll be here for ever.”

“Well, I thank God that child come here and make you come out of hidings.”

“As soon as Tony rang me I came straight away. Not that I wanted to leave Shrimp’s but I was worried about her. She’s not well, Nonna, she’s as thin as a stick.”

“Something troubles her badly, eh? Something very deep that make her punish herself.”

“I think so. She doesn’t get on with her mother. I suppose that’s history repeating itself – you remember how Kizzy and her mother used to fight?”

“Mother of God, the screams that come from this place! They fighting like dogs and cats!”

“I suppose Kizzy never had much example, really. Small wonder she turned out the way she did.”

Nonna said hesitantly, “I know it’s long time ago, but when Alice decides she don’t get married, is something to do with Kizzy?”

Ella was silent for a while. Then she took a deep breath and said, “Yes, it was.”

“None of us ever knows what happen, because the next day when we come to Shrimp’s you gone looking for Alice, and when you come back we don’t hardly see you again.”

“I couldn’t face anyone, Nonna, and I was worried to death about Alice taking off like that on her own.”

“We don’t understand what happen, because Alice seem so happy to get married and then she don’t turn up to her wedding.”

“There’s a simple explanation, but not one that I wanted everyone to know about. On the morning of the wedding someone sent Alice some photographs.”

“She cancel the wedding because of photographs?”

“They were photographs of Kizzy and Arthur Campbell together. They were obviously taken without their knowledge, and showed them in a very compromising position.”

Nonna’s hand flew to her mouth. “Poor Alice!”

“That’s why she bolted while we were at the church, so that no one could stop her.”

“Who do you think sends her the photographs?”

“It must have been that bloody Meredith, of course. He’d always had a shine for Alice, and he must have got wind of what Kizzy and Arthur were up to and started following them. He got the evidence he wanted, and the fool made sure that Alice saw it.”

“Maybe you too hard on Meredith, maybe he think he’s doing the right thing.”

“Why didn’t he come to me and tell me first?”

Norma laid her hand on Ella’s. “If you knew, you don’t let her run off like that.”

“Of course not.”

“But, Ella, maybe she need to go. Maybe she need to do something on her own for once.”

“I don’t know, Norma. It was so out of character.”

“What did Kizzy say about the photographs?”

“I didn’t give her time to say much. I’m afraid I lost my temper and threw her out.”

“But why she go and do a terrible thing like that? She only a young girl and he an old man to her. She know he going to marry Alice, and Alice always so good to her.”

“Kizzy was like her mother: any man she set her sights on she had to have.”

“I always think Kizzy has the hare’s brains but I no think she wicked like that.”

“She was worse than wicked, Norma. When she left Shrimp’s she was pregnant.”

“
Mamma mia!
” Nonna crossed herself. “This child is Arthur Campbell’s?”

Ella nodded and sighed deeply.

“And Alice, did she know of this?”

“Yes. The note that came with the photographs made sure that she did.”

“Did you ask Kizzy if it is true?”

“Like I said, I just told her to go. I couldn’t bear even to look at her.”

“But Kizzy didn’t marry Campbell?”

“No. She was a scatterbrain and would have driven him mad within a few days. My guess is that he agreed to support her financially, but never acknowledged the child as his.”

“And Alice? You don’t think Alice would drive him mad if she became his wife?”

“Exactly. I never could work out why he was interested in Alice, apart from her looks.”

“Does Catrin know this man is her father?”

“No. Kizzy told her some nonsense about her father dying when she was a baby.”

“Who do she think is her father?”

“God only knows. She’s been told that Campbell is her godfather. She doesn’t know that Alice was going to marry him.”

“I very sorry, Ella, but she know now.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I just mention I remembers name of man who going to marry her Aunt Alice.”

“Has she been asking you about him? You see, when she mentioned that he was her godfather I pretended not to know him.”

“No, she don’t say much. I don’t think she very interested.”

“Thank God for that.”

“No one ever going to tell this poor child the truth?”

“Not me, that’s for sure. She doesn’t like him, for starters.”

“Maybe that why she so sick inside, because there this big secret in her life and deep down she know something not right.”

“She’s an intelligent girl. I’m surprised that she hasn’t questioned why she has her mother’s surname and not her father’s.”

“It’s fine bloody mess, eh, Ella?”

“It is, and I don’t think the truth would necessarily help Catrin at the moment.”

“Maybe she don’t get well until she know the truth and learns to live with it.”

“Or maybe knowing the truth would make her worse. You know what I’m like for blurting things out, Norma. I’ll have to keep a firm watch on my tongue while she’s here.”

“Where did Alice go when she disappear?”

“That’s the funny thing. I went everywhere I thought she might go but I couldn’t find her, and when she finally came back she refused to say where she’d been.”

“But surely if she’d gone to friends they would have told you.”

“That’s what I thought, but I never found out. She was never herself after she came back.”

“And poor Alice, she don’t live long.”

“She went downhill fast. The doctor said that she’d been diabetic for some time and her heart was weakened. All the shocks didn’t help her.”

“That was last time I see you, at Alice funeral. You look so ill and yet you don’t want anyone to be near you. For long time I ring you on telephone, but you don’t reply.”

“I’m sorry, Norma. I wasn’t even there for you when Luigi died.”

“My poor Luigi go so suddenly,” she said, wringing her hands in her lap.

“No good looking at the past and wishing, eh? That thing they call hindsight is a bastard nuisance. I just wish I’d never let Alice get involved with Campbell.”

“Ella! She a grown woman. Okay, she not like a proper grown-up but you can’t be stopping her find herself a man.”

“I suppose not, but I don’t feel as if I protected her properly. There was something not right about Campbell from the start.”

“How you mean?”

“Well, the first time he and his sister came, they did nothing but complain. The food wasn’t to their taste and the rooms were too warm. We were glad to see the back of them, and yet they kept returning time after time.”

“He come back second time to see Alice?”

“No. When I think back it was really odd the way he settled on Alice. He’d never given her a second glance. I mean, he looked her up and down – all men looked at Alice, but once they realised she was slow-witted it put them all off, apart from Meredith. Dr Campbell was the same as the rest of them.”

“When he start noticing Alice?”

“Well, out of the blue, on one of his visits he started paying her compliments, then he pursued her relentlessly. When he went back to London he telephoned every day, sent flowers and wrote her soppy letters. It was all very odd.”

“And she is flattered?”

“Absolutely. She worshipped the ground he walked on. She was forever sending him silly little gifts and walking about like she was on cloud nine. She even gave him one of her daft things from her dowry box. God, she must have been in pieces when she saw those photographs.”

“Did she ever speak of him when she come back?”

“Not a word – that is, not until the day she died.”

“What did she say?” Norma leant forward, consumed with interest.

“She said something very strange: “Arthur Campbell must never ever find out about the children.””

“What children?”

“God knows. She was rambling, slipping in and out of consciousness most of the time. It was just the fever talking, I daresay. She died a few hours later.”

Suddenly the rooks set up their squawking above the trees of Gwartney’s Wood, and far off on Duffy’s Farm the old donkey brayed in answer.

There was silence for a while. Then Ella said, “It’s a shame your Tony has never met a nice girl.”

“There no one here in Kilvenny he take a fancy for. I think at one time he have little shine for Kizzy.”

Ella looked up in surprise. “You did?”

“They was always whispering together and sending notes that last summer.”

“You don’t think they…”

“No, Kizzy don’t have no interest in him, only like a brother. I worry about him, though, because he not happy.”

“He seems okay to me.”

“The Café Romana is in bad way. Not many customers, and I don’t think he can keep on much longer, but he worrying about what will happen to me,” Nonna said wearily.

“What do you think he’ll do?”

“The Good God only knows,” Nonna said. “It’s time I go back now, but tell Catrin that Antonio find the old icecream maker in the cellar – she say she want to make ice cream.”

“I don’t know about making ice cream, she could do with eating it to fatten herself up.” Ella said. “She likes to make food, Nonna, it’s eating it that’s the problem.”

“Is not food that is the problem. Something deep inside is troubling her. She only using the food as a weapon.”

“A weapon?”

“Something wrong in her life and she can’t mend it. She don’t know, maybe, what it is that troubles her. She only in charge of one bit of her life – what she eat and what she don’t eat.”

“You’re a wise old bird, Norma. I just hope she’ll get over this.”