2008 - Recipes for Cherubs (31 page)

“Talking of walnuts, do you remember that
etui
of Alice’s?” Ella said.

“What’s an
etui?
” Catrin asked.

“It’s usually a sort of sewing case, only this one was a painting set. It was quite beautiful and whoever had made it must have taken enormous trouble over it. It was a real walnut shell, beautifully burnished, and it had a hinged lid. When it was opened, it had the tiniest little paintbrushes and things inside. It was Alice’s pride and joy.”

“Tell Catrin the story of how she find this thing,” Norma urged.

“Well, it was really strange. My father – your greatgrandfather – found the cherub statue over there in the castle and decided that he was going to restore the fountain. It took him weeks to plumb it in and make the plinth.”

“What’s that got to do with the
etui
thingy?” Catrin asked.

“Be patient, I’m getting there. My father had finally finished the fountain and we were all waiting excitedly for him to turn it on. There was a great clanking and clattering as the water made its way through the pipes, and then all of a sudden a trickle of water dribbled out of the cherub’s mouth. A few seconds later there was a great whoosh! and water shot out, and something flew out and landed in Alice’s lap. It was a small oilcloth package and inside was the walnut
etui
. Alice thought it was a miracle, of course, and Father let her keep it. No one had a clue what it was doing in there.”

Catrin tried to contain her excitement. She knew the statue of the cherub had been washed up when the
Flino
sank, and she was sure it was the statue in the picture of the Santa Rosa piazza. Luca Roselli had lived in Santa Rosa and he was on the
Flino
when she went down.

Hell, there were so many unanswered questions. Where was Luca going to, and why did he bring the statue with him? Was he travelling alone or were there others from Santa Rosa on the
Flino
, too? And who had hidden the walnut
etui
in the cherub’s mouth, and was it done in Italy or in Kilvenny?

“Do you still have the
etui?
” she asked.

“I haven’t seen it for ages. Alice used to keep it in her dowry box.”

Bugger. If only she could find the dowry box, she was sure she’d learn something important.

A cloud drifted across the sun and a breeze got up, rustling the roses on the walls of the castle and sending a shower of petals over the four of them, like perfumed confetti. The chapel door opened and banged shut. Norma put her hand to her head but too late: the breeze snatched at her black lace shawl and whipped it away, sent it looping and swirling high above their upturned heads. It came to land like a parachute, balanced for a moment on the water spurting from the cherub’s mouth, then wrapped itself over the cherub’s face.

Catrin leapt to her feet, retrieved the soggy shawl and handed it to Norma, but her mind was on something else entirely. On a snowy night in a small hilltop town…

I
n the garden Maria had set up a small table in the shade because the day was blisteringly hot. A dragonfly danced through on a current of hot air and bees fizzed excitedly among the flowers
.

Pipi lay hidden in the bushes, purring loudly
.

Bindo sat at the table, his feet dangling over the edge of his chair. He had made an effort to wash in the fountain in the piazza, and had slicked down his silky hair in preparation for his visit
.

Ismelda sat next to him, dressed in a pretty blue frock, with a freshly washed ribbon already escaping from her unruly hair
.

Bindo thought she looked wonderful, good enough to eat. Her blue eyes sparkled with delight and the colour in her cheeks was high from rising excitement. Surreptitiously he felt for her hand beneath the table and squeezed it tightly in his own sweaty one
.

Ismelda winked at him. She loved to look at him, delighting in the colour of his hair, the sunlight streaking it with thin ribbons of gold and copper. She wanted to reach out and touch his snub nose with its dusting of summer freckles, to smooth her hand along his downy cheek, feel the shape of his bones beneath his hot skin
.

How she would love to trace her finger around the outline of his pink mouth, a mouth which threatened to break into a wide smile at any moment
.

Maria came out into the garden carrying a silver salver on which there were four rosy red pomegranates
.

“II gelato!”
she said
.

Luca handed a pomegranate to Ismelda and another to Bindo
.

“
It’s cold!” Ismelda shrieked, almost dropping hers
.

“
Si, is
il gelato.
Very cold and made with ice. This special recipe come all the way from Napoli, and Luca and I make especially for you
.”

“
Eat and enjoy,” Luca said, handing them each a small spoon roughly hewn from wood
.

Ismelda spooned ice cream into her mouth and smacked her lips with gusto. “I have never tasted anything so good in all my life
.”

“
You know, one day I may open a shop which sells nothing except
gelato,”
Luca said
.

“
You would never be able to get enough ice to keep going,” Maria said
.

“
Maybe someone will find a way of making ice
.”

“
How could they do that?” Maria scoffed
.

“
If you could find a way of keeping it cold, I could take a tray and walk around the village and call out to people to come and try some of my ice cream,” Luca said
.

“
Who in Santa Rosa has the money to buy ice cream?” Bindo asked
.

“
Maybe I go to Napoli, to all the big cities where people have lots of money. Maybe to France, or even as far as Inghilterra
.”

“
Whoa!” Bindo cried. “That’s miles away. You have to cross the seas, and it’s cold there all the time, so who will want to eat cold things?
”

“
Promise to take me with you if you go,” Maria begged. “I’ve never been out of this village
.”

“
I have only been out of this house to go to mass,” Ismelda said sadly
.

Bindo leant over to her, pushed her hair back from her ear and whispered something to her
.

Her blue eyes widened with surprise and she put her hand to his cheek. “You would do this thing for me?
”

Bindo nodded eagerly
.

Maria got suddenly to her feet and put a finger to her lips. “Quickly! Signor Bisotti is back earlier than we thought. Give Bindo a leg up into the tree, Luca
.”

Luca leapt into action and lifted Bindo up into the branches of a fir tree alongside the garden wall. Ismelda watched in admiration as Bindo made his way effortlessly up into the tree. Then, quick as a wink, he was clambering over the wall. They heard a yelp and loud cursing as he made contact with the ground, just as Signor Bisotti stumbled out into the garden
.

He had drunk too much, his face was red and blotchy, and he was sweating profusely. “You’ll all be glad to know my good news
.”

“
What good news, Papa?” Ismelda asked, wiping a smear of
gelato
from her nose
.

“
This afternoon, the lovely widow Zanelli accepted my proposal of marriage. We are to be married in three weeks’ time
.”

Maria drew in her breath with a wheezing sound and reached for Ismelda’s hand
.

Ismelda turned pale and her eyes grew wide with astonishment and the threat of tears
.

“
Is no one going to congratulate me on my good news?
”

There was silence, apart from the sound of an empty pomegranate falling from Ismelda’s hand into the grass, and the contented snoring of the toothless Pipi somewhere in the bushes
.

I
n Shrimp’s Hotel Catrin stood in front of Piero di Bardi’s beautiful painting
Woman and Child
, the painting that Aunt Alice used to blow kisses to every night before she went to bed.

It was curious that, although it was called
Woman and Child
, there was no child. She put her head on one side and scrutinised the woman, then turned her attention to the photograph of her mother wearing the poppy-red dress with the scalloped hemline. Of course! You couldn’t see the child because the child wasn’t yet born. She stepped closer to the painting and saw the soft undulation of the woman’s belly beneath the blue material of her dress. This was supposed to be the woman Piero had married in Naples, so what had happened to her and her child?

She was very beautiful in an unusual way, and there was a wonderful liveliness about her face, her eyes full of passion and her mouth slightly open as if she was about to speak. If only those lips could move and tell her story.

If Piero di Bardi had painted the picture, he must have been with the woman when she was pregnant, and then for some reason they had separated and he ended up in Santa Rosa, and there was no mention of his wife and child ever living with him.

She felt her excitement growing as she examined the scarf tied round the woman’s head, holding her dark hair back off her forehead. It was a distinctive blue scarf, with fringes of gold and red.

This was the moment of truth. Excitedly she opened
Recipes for Cherubs
and turned the pages until she came to the snow scene. There was the shivering cherub with a scarf wrapped comically around its neck. A blue scarf with blurry fringes of red and gold at either end. If she was right – and it was a long shot – the woman in the painting had been in Santa Rosa on that freezing night. Had she wrapped the scarf round the cherub’s neck as a joke, or had it been snatched by the wind, the way Nonna’s shawl had been?

Had she come to Santa Rosa to find Piero and show him their newborn child?

In the
Recipes for Cherubs
painting a priest was crossing the snowy piazza, carrying a bundle. She looked more closely. He might be carrying a baby wrapped in a shawl. Why would a priest be carrying a baby in the dead of night?

It was all too complicated, and made her head ache with the effort of thinking. She looked at the small face peering out of the window of the red house. Whoever it was would have seen what was going on, but there was no way Catrin would ever find out who the person was or what she had seen.

She turned sadly away from the painting and made her way out of the room and down the corridor, pausing at the top of the stairs. The telephone in the booth downstairs was ringing. She was in two minds as to whether to answer it; she was afraid that it would be her mother or, worse still, Arthur Campbell. She slipped out through the kitchen door and went thoughtfully back through the long grass.

As she walked up Cockle Lane she looked across at Meredith Evans Photographer’s shop. She had a feeling that it had been him slipping out of the chapel the other night, the same man she had seen at Shrimp’s. If he was so keen on snooping, maybe she should go into his shop and see if there was anything interesting there. The thought of being in the gloomy old shop on her own, though, made her nervous. She walked past the shop several times, glancing furtively in through the window, but couldn’t buck up the courage to go inside. Then she had a brilliant idea.

M
eredith Evans was deep in thought as he made his way along Goose Row. As he passed the war memorial he looked up from his reverie and saw Catrin Grieve sitting on the step outside the Café Romana. He was taken aback when she smiled at him and said, “Hallo, Mr Evans.”

“Afternoon,” he said, doffing his cap to her.

“I’m glad you came along.”

“You are?” he said, surprised.

“I’ve just been up to Shrimp’s and I think there’s someone up there who shouldn’t be,” she said, getting to her feet.

Meredith put his finger to his lips to silence her. “Did you see who it was?” he asked in a throaty whisper.

“No, but I heard them upstairs poking around about ten minutes ago.”

“Thank you, girl. You won’t mention this to anyone, mind?” he said urgently.

She shook her head, smiled angelically, and watched him hurtle off towards the beach.

The door to Meredith’s shop was stiff, and the glass rattled ominously as she closed it behind her. It was dark inside and she was too afraid to turn the light on in case anyone passing down Cockle Lane saw her.

She stumbled around, looking up at the sepia photographs of Kilvenny folk that stared down accusingly from the walls. There was a large photograph of Aunt Alice, and one of Aunt Ella and some other people outside Shrimp’s Hotel. She looked impatiently round the room but there was nothing of much interest. Conscious of time passing, and scared of being caught by Meredith, she crept into the back parlour.

It stank of whisky and stale tobacco and made her stomach lurch dangerously. There were more photographs of Alice; Alice sitting outside the Fisherman’s Snug, holding a shrimping net; Alice standing next to the cherub in the fountain, copying his pose; Alice on the beach, posing in a bathing costume…She looked like a film star except for that vacant look about her eyes. Meredith must have been very much in love with her to keep these photos for so long after she had died.

Catrin moved quickly into a small kitchen at the back of the house, where dirty plates were stacked up on the draining board, reminding her of a photograph she’d seen of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. A rubbish bin spewed out potato peelings and empty tins, and flies tap-danced in sticky spillages on the floor.

It was nearly as dirty as Shrimp’s.

She retraced her steps to the parlour, and looked nervously up the narrow staircase. If she went up there and Meredith came back she’d be trapped, but she was here now and she might not get another chance. She put her foot on the creaking stairs and went slowly upwards, ears cocked for the slightest sound.

There was nothing of interest in the bedroom or the spare room, so she made her way silently down the stairs and through the parlour. She had just set foot in the shop when she heard the door creak open. She ducked down behind the counter, crouching fearfully in the darkness. She edged further underneath the counter between an ancient camera and a pile of mouldy newspapers.