2008 - Recipes for Cherubs (29 page)

The cat blinked and yawned
.

Signor Bisotti and Ismelda stared in amazement at his mouth. His four large yellow teeth were gone
.

“
It’s that bloody dwarf! Maria, fetch me my stick. I’ll flay the skin off Bindo’s wizened back when I get my hands on him
.”

C
atrin was sitting on the window seat when Ella went into the kitchen.

“Something smells good in here,” said Ella.

“I made a new recipe, some biscuits called
brutti ma buoni
.”

“
Brutti ma buoni?
”

“In English it means ‘ugly but good’. Ugly but good biscuits.”

“Well, I never. Luigi Agosti used to make them for Alice and me when we were small.” Ella took a biscuit from the plate Catrin held out to her, bit into it and sat down next to her niece.

Catrin picked up a biscuit tentatively. She’d followed the recipe to the letter. It was Bindo’s recipe. Bindo the green-eyed dwarf.

“You looked upset yesterday, and I’ve hardly had a chance to speak to you,” Ella said hesitantly.

“I was very upset. I still am.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“I don’t know.” Catrin fell silent and fiddled with biscuit crumbs in her lap.

“Aunt Ella, I found out something about me that probably everyone else already knows and it was a bit of a shock.”

Ella swallowed hard, dreading what was coming.

“You see, Aunt Ella, I’m a bastard – but I expect you know that, don’t you?” Catrin said it so matter-of-factly that Ella flinched and put her hand on Catrin’s arm, but the girl brushed it away.

“I’ve always believed all the rubbish that my mother told me about my father dying when I was small. That’s a lie, isn’t it?”

Ella nodded and fiddled with a loose strand of her wild hair.

“My mother wasn’t married when she had me, was she?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“She was pregnant the last summer she was here?”

“Yes, she was.”

“But you don’t know who my father is?”

Struggling with her conscience, Ella got up and wandered over to the window. It wasn’t her place to tell the girl the truth; Kizzy needed to do that – and pretty damn soon.

“I’m afraid only your mother can tell you that.”

“I don’t want to see her ever again, for as long as I live.”

“Come on, now. I expect she thought it was for the best. I don’t suppose she meant to hurt you.”

“Well, she has! Everyone at school must know, and they’ve been laughing at me behind my back so I’m never going back there again.”

“I doubt if everyone knows.”

“Well, I know. I know that everything I’ve believed is a pack of lies. How could she be so spiteful, and why did she have to lie to me like that?”

“She was young, Catrin. She probably didn’t know what to tell you.”

“
You’re
sticking up for her now,” Catrin said.

“No, I’m not. I just don’t want you to get too upset about it.”

“Upset? Of course I’m upset. I’m a bastard, and I don’t know who my father was, and I’ve got a mother who doesn’t care about me.”

“I’m sure she does care about you in her own way.”

“She doesn’t care at all, that’s obvious. I’m not wanted, and I’m not good enough, I never have been.”

“Good enough for who? There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“I’ve always embarrassed her, never been pretty enough. I used to be plump – fat, really – and I thought if I was thin I’d feel better, fit in more, but I don’t and I never will because I’m a bas – ”

“Enough! I don’t want to hear that word again. Get a grip. You’re not the first child to be born out of wedlock, and you won’t be the last. It happens.”

“Why did it have to happen to me, though? It’s just disgusting,” Catrin wailed.

“I don’t know why it happened to you, but I know people in the same position and they’ve turned out all right.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Tony Agosti, for a start.”

Catrin looked up in surprise. “Tony? Doesn’t he have a father, either?”

“He doesn’t have a father or a mother.”

“That’s being an orphan, though, and that’s not as bad as what I am.”

“His mother had Tony before she was married, and after he was born she left him here with Norma and Luigi and buggered off.”

“What, left him for good? You mean she never came back?”

Ella sighed, and it was a while before she replied.

“No, she never came back. He was brought up by his grandparents.”

“How awful for him.”

“Not really: they loved him dearly. So you see, at least your mother didn’t abandon you.”

“That’s probably only because I didn’t have any grandparents she could dump me with.”

“I don’t suppose it was easy for her being an unmarried mother.”

“She doesn’t love me. She never wants to spend any time with me – look at the way she sent me here without even bothering to see if you minded.”

“But you’re here now and, despite our shaky start, you’re very welcome. Come on, have another biscuit.”

Catrin was about to refuse but, unbidden, her mind conjured up a picture of Ismelda Bisotti and Bindo sitting together beneath the pomegranate tree eating
brutti ma buoni
biscuits. Hesitantly she put the biscuit to her lips, and then popped it into her mouth and ate it. Without thinking, she took another.

Ella sat in silence, delighted to see her eating, and when she’d finished her third biscuit she took Catrin gently in her arms and hugged her close.

“You’re a very lovely girl, Catrin Grieve, and don’t you forget that,” she said softly.

“Aunt Ella, can I ask you a question?”

Ella braced herself, but Catrin only said, “You know the statue in the Italian garden?”

“I do.”

“Where did it come from?”

“You are a funny one! What a strange question to ask in the midst of all your misery, but I can tell you the answer.”

“Brilliant.”

“A ship went down along the coast.”

“Do you mean the
Flino
?”

“That’s right. The statue was salvaged from her and brought here. It was covered in muck and moss until my father decided to restore it and get it working.”

“Where was the
Flino
on its way from?”

“I don’t know…somewhere abroad. If you’re interested you could always look up the records in the library. There’s all sorts of information in there in an old scrapbook someone put together.”

Catrin shivered with anticipation. Things were getting more mysterious and interesting by the minute.

“I see you’ve heard from your mother,” Ella said, nodding at the letter discarded on the window seat.

Catrin scowled. “She’s staying in a place called the Hotel Paradiso in Naples and she can stay and rot there, for all I care.”

“Do you think you should speak to her and tell her what you’ve found out?”

“No. I don’t want to speak to her as long as I live!” Catrin said defiantly.

Ella thought that Kizzy had better make the most of her holiday, because she was going to have a difficult task on her hands when she came breezing back from Italy. Catrin had changed since she’d been here in Kilvenny, and was showing more feistiness by the day.

“Perhaps you’ll feel differently, given time.”

“Oh no I won’t. She can bloody well whistle!”

D
an Gwartney had his head stuck in a book when Ella burst into the library. He got to his feet and went towards her.

“Ella, it’s a surprise to see you. I was just thinking about pouring a drink. Come and join me.”

“I’m not staying long,” she said haughtily. “I want to use your telephone, if that’s all right.”

“Help yourself, you know where it is. Who are you ringing this time of the night?”

“Kizzy Grieve, if you must know.”

“I didn’t think you were on speaking terms,” he said.

“Well, I haven’t got much to say to her, but what I have got may give her a nasty shock.”

“You know where she is then?”

“Some hotel in Italy. Catrin had a letter from her today.”

“Ella, sit down for a minute and catch your breath. I’ll get you a whisky and while you’re drinking it I’ll ring the operator and find out the number.”

Ella sank thankfully in a chair and took the proffered drink without protest. “She’s staying at the Hotel Paradiso, near Naples.”

“What’s she doing there?”

“Visiting some man or other, I expect.”

Dan raised his eyebrows, then left the room, and a few minutes later she heard him shouting down the line to the operator.

When he came back Ella had finished her drink and he poured her another one without giving her time to refuse.

“The line isn’t very good but I’ll try again in a minute, get a connection, and then you can talk to Kizzy. How is Catrin?”

“Up and down, you know,” she said, determined not to give anything away.

“She comes over here quite a bit. She likes to read, which is nice to see in this day and age.”

“That reminds me, can I borrow that scrapbook with all the cuttings about the
Flino?
”

“You taking up history as a hobby?” he teased.

“Hardly. Catrin’s interested in it, and I thought it might take her mind off things a bit.”

“What things would they be?”

Ella pursed her lips and was about to retort angrily that he hadn’t changed and was still a nosy old bugger, when the telephone rang, an insistent ring which made Ella flinch.

“I’ll take that and call you when she’s on the line.”

Ella drained her drink and then helped herself to another; she needed fortifying before she gave Kizzy a piece of her mind.

Dan came back in looking crestfallen.

“Sorry, Ella. I got through to the hotel, but it seems that Kizzy left this morning without leaving a forwarding address.”

“Bugger! I’d got myself all wound up to give her a flea in her ear, and she’s flown the coop.”

“Is there any other way you can get in touch with her?”

“Not as far as I know. Thanks for the drink, anyway.”

“I’ll just get you that scrapbook.”

He searched through the drawers of a large chest and produced a battered old scrapbook. “This hasn’t seen the light of day in a good few years. If you could sign for it in the members’ ledger I’d be grateful.”

The telephone rang again, and Dan excused himself.

Ella opened the ledger and turned the pages until she came to her own name, surprised he hadn’t erased her from the book considering how long she’d been away. She signed for the book and then flicked through the pages until she came to a section in the back for temporary memberships; a lot of the guests from Shrimp’s used to join while they were on their holidays. Looking down the list she saw a name which made her breathe unevenly. There was the once-familiar copperplate handwriting.

Oh God, how excited she used to be when a letter arrived with her name and address written in that distinctive hand.

She snapped the book shut and leant heavily on the table. It was all a long time ago and there was no good getting upset about the past. One had to let go and yet…

She straightened up and turned to see Dan standing in the doorway watching her.

“Are you all right, Ella?”

“Fine. I’m fine.”

“Do you want me to see you home?”

“Do I look like a woman who needs escorting across the bloody road?” she asked sharply.

“Now, now, Ella, mind your tongue.”

“You know me, Dan. Wasn’t it you who always said I was as rough as a badger’s arse?”

“I think my actual words were ‘as rough as a badger’s arse and twice as prickly’.”

Ella grunted and drained the last of her whisky.

“Goodnight, Ella.”

But the door had already closed.

A
rook perched on one of the small stone crosses in the graveyard eyed Catrin askance and, with a strident cry, flew up into the trees.

Sitting down between the crosses, resting her back against the wall, she opened the scrapbook that Ella had given her at breakfast this morning. Someone had painstakingly stuck in an old newspaper article, some handwritten reports and ink drawings.

She read the faded newsprint and learnt that the
Flino
had set sail from Napoli carrying a cargo of fruit and wine and eight passengers. She had got into difficulties when a storm blew up unexpectedly, bringing thirty-foot waves which swamped her decks. She had hit the rocks, started taking on water and been listing dangerously. When the villagers of Kilvenny had seen her in difficulty, they’d tried valiantly to save those on board. A few passengers had managed to scramble into a rowing boat, but it had capsized and those who had clung perilously to it were soon swept away to their deaths in the freezing water. Many of the dead were washed up days later on to the beaches around Kilvenny. One body was washed up along the coast at Aberderi and was dragged up the beach by the cockle women. The captain, Antonio Ravello, who had survived against all the odds, identified those who had perished.

There was a black-and-white sketch of the
Flino
as she floundered in heavy seas beneath a glowering sky. There was another of shadowy, windswept figures stumbling up the beach carrying grown men on their backs, others buckling under the load of barrels and crates. A third showed a priest kneeling, holding the hand of someone who lay lifeless on the beach; the priest’s hand was raised as if giving the last rites.

There was a newspaper report of people coming from far and wide to see what they could loot from the stricken vessel. Another report described a fight which had broken out outside the Bug and Bucket over a barrel of wine, and another in the grounds of Kilvenny Castle over ownership of a mysterious object later revealed to be a watermelon –  for days after the
Flino
sank the sea was choked with olives, limes, lemons and pomegranates.

The villagers rallied round and gave shelter to those who were injured, and Nathaniel Grieve put some of the most badly injured survivors up in the old tower of the castle. One man and his heavily pregnant wife took shelter in a half-derelict house above the beach and lived there for many years after.