[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Grey hair, escaping from the bunch on her neck, spilled down her back, as she rocked back and forth gulping her champagne.She remembered other places, other deaths.Her lips moved.‘Ah well,’ sighed Rossi.‘It cannot be helped.It is life.’‘Aye, aye,’ agreed the men, though life it was not.Brenda gazed at the distant sofa.At this angle nothing of Freda was visible save for one big toe warm in its tennis sock and a fringe of golden curls tipping the shadowy upholstery.She remembered that Rossi had brought her here two weeks ago.He had chased her round the tables and the chairs.She had jumped over the back of the sofa and stumbled.He had leapt upon her.Down came his little red mouth in a jangle of springs and a flurry of dust.He had tried to unbutton her coat.Squealing, she rolled to the floor and fluttered her rubber gloves in his face.Freda, when told, had been scornful.‘You must be mad,’ she had said.‘You wouldn’t catch me lying down on that dirty old couch.’ Brenda glanced at Rossi to see if he too remembered, but he was examining the barrel at the lift.‘She looks beautiful, yes?’ asked Maria.‘Beautiful,’ agreed Brenda.Where were Freda’s clothes – her purple jumper – her knickers? I could never do anything like that, she thought, looking at Maria, not even if I was paid.‘On her splendid legs,’ whispered Maria, ‘there are bruises.’‘Bruises?’ said Brenda.‘And on her stomach.There are bruises.’‘Oh,’ said Brenda, and wondered if the ride on the horse had caused the bruises on her legs.Freda had said she was aching; she had said her thighs hurt – she hadn’t mentioned her stomach.The men were beginning to drift about the room, relaxed by the Spumanti.They opened drawers and looked inside the suitcases and found sheets of music.Gino, exhausted from his labours with a blunt saw, lay down upon a mildewed mattress and went to sleep.He sprawled with his mouth open and groaned softly.‘He is tired,’ said Rossi apologetically, fearing it might seem disrespectful.Under cover of the gloom, he put his hand on Brenda’s waist and dug at her with his fingers.He drew her to a bookcase standing against the wall and pointed at the shelves.‘I think it is very good, yes? It is very valuable.’ He was licking the tip of her prominent nose.‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s mostly plywood.Look at the cheap varnish on it.’He was offended.Nothing remotely connected with Mr Paganotti could be cheap or tawdry.Still, he did not let go of her waist.There was quite a hum of conversation growing.The little buns crumbled to the floor.The bottles of wine emptied.The men filled their cheeks with rice cake and munched and munched.Maria, bolt upright on her chair, fingers closed and pointed at her breast, shut her eyes and prayed.Anselmo found an old gramophone with a handle; a voice reedy with age began to warble a ballad.‘Santa Vergine,’ cried Maria out loud, and the record was abruptly removed.The turntable continued to spin round and round, slower and slower.From below came the sound of heavy banging.Someone was hitting the shutters of the loading bay with a brick.A voice, dulled at this distance, but dreadfully loud outside in the street, demanded admittance.Vittorio crossed himself.He looked about for Rossi but could not see him.The banging began again, louder this time.‘The Irishman,’ whispered Aldo Gamberini, face pressed to the windows above the street.‘Let him in,’ cried Vittorio.‘He will wake the town.’Nobody moved.Like a drowning man, Vittorio ran to the lift and sank below the floor.When he returned with Patrick they were still in their places: Maria in the chair, the men about the table, Gino asleep on the dusty mattress.Patrick stared at the remains of the cake, the empty bottles, the flickering candles.‘For the love of God,’ he said.‘What are you doing?’The cut on his eye was already healing; in the dim light it was no longer noticeable.He saw the sofa, the hair tumbled on the padded arm, the white mound strewn with stiff and everlasting flowers.‘Where is she?’ he demanded, turning on them grouped together for safety.‘Where’s Brenda?’They too looked about at the shadows, at the dull gleam of the cheap bookcase, the black cave behind a mound of boxes.He ran to the wall.He clambered over chairs.He kicked the boxes to the ground.Clothing spilled to the floor, old books; there was the smash of disintegrating plates.But he had Rossi by the throat, lifting him bodily from the darkness by the front of his jacket, shaking him like a rattle.It seemed to the men that he would shake the breath out of his body.They hurled themselves upon Patrick.They clawed his hair.They pulled him back-wards from the gasping Rossi.Brenda, dishevelled, her coat unbuttoned, treading a carpet of broken crockery, stumbled into the light.She peered short-sightedly at the ring of men.She was dreadfully alarmed and confused.‘You—’ she said, ‘I thought you’d gone away.’‘At a time like this?’ shouted Patrick, outraged.He appeared simpler than before, his cap knocked from his head, a button torn from his mackintosh.Maria gave a small dry titter and clapped a hand over her mouth.The men, shrinking from the heavy blows they had delivered, trembled in the candlelight.Rossi straightened himself, he tugged his shirt into place, he adjusted his ruined tie.‘You have no right,’ he said.‘You have not the right to touch me.’ And his face crumpled at the unfairness of it.The workers did not know what to think
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]