Papa Georgio (8 page)

Sometimes I wish there was someone to hang around with who speaks English.

Tomorrow we go to Venice, to see towers and gondolas. I’ll buy post-cards to stick in here. And best of all, we can go to the Poste Restante and see if there are any letters from Mum or Charlotte. I can’t wait ‘til tomorrow!

**

Janey Old Fruit,

I hope you like this card. I got it when Dad took us to a safari park. The lions were amazing! Katy came as well. Next week we’re going to Birmingham for the next round of the dance competition and I bet she’ll win - she’s always better than me. Sulk. :-( Only three weeks left ‘til the end of term - bye-bye Valley Primary and bye-bye smoosh-face Marshall! Hope you’re having an exciting time. Love Charlotte. Xx PS. Don’t go getting more of a tan than me!

**

Golden Yak Lodge,

Kathmandu,

Nepal.

June 28th 1972.

My dearest Janey,

Well, if you and Grandpa are running to time you will have picked this up in Venice. I’m so glad to think of you seeing the place with him. Your Dad and I went once and I remember it as little alleys with coloured houses, crumbling bridges and green water. I‘m sure you are loving it.

By the time you receive this I should be well on my way out into the hills. For now, we are resting up in Kathmandu making sure we have a good team to help us. I’m so glad my friend Roy is with us. He has been trekking and climbing in Nepal lots of times and he seems to know just what to do about everything. I have bought a big woolly jumper here which smells terribly badly of sheep if it gets the least bit damp! I’ll get you something nice too. We have found a Sherpa called Kalsang. He is Tibetan and he says his name means ‘good fortune,’ so I hope he will bring us luck for a safe journey. He will come up with us to Base Camp on Kanchenjunga. We are anxious to begin the journey as soon as possible, to be sure of getting back before the monsoon rains really set in.

Kathmandu is so different from anywhere you can imagine. One day, my love, we shall have to travel here together. It is like being at the top of the world, a city in the clouds, with narrow, smoky streets, tiny temples and roofs shaped like yaks’ horns. On the streets there are men selling thick wool jackets and jumpers, and bowls of beaten silver. If things were different I should like to stay here, but we need to move on, to be closer to your Dad, to my lovely Peter. To say goodbye for him from us.

Do you remember Dad telling you the story of ‘his’ mountain, of Kanchenjunga being the ‘Five Treasure Houses in the Snow?’ I’m sure you do. I shall go and see if I can see the gold and silver peaks and take photographs to show you. How Peter loved this mountain and always wanted to climb it. At least he got some of his wish.

Dear Janey, I do hope you are all right, my strong, brave girl. I miss you very much and long to give you a big cuddle. In a few weeks I shall be able to do just that. In the meantime, Grandpa is so happy to have time to get to know you, even if he is too bashful to say so!

Don’t worry about me. I’m not climbing, remember, only trekking and no further than base camp.

Take care of yourself darling. Love to pops and Brenda and of course allmy love to you, poppet, from my little lodging room in Nepal.

Mum xxxx

Someone was crying. I could hear a funny sound in the dark, a mewling, and I imagined it was the little tabby cat before I woke properly and realized it was me. My face was wet and everything seemed to hurt, feelings from dreams I could now remember which left me washed full of sadness.

There were movements in the caravan, someone pulling back the grey curtain.

‘What is it my little dear?’

Grandpa’s voice was all gentleness but I couldn’t speak, only snuffle and cry as I felt him sit on the edge of the bed, making the covers pull tight, and scoop me up in his arms where it was all warm and my cheek was pressed against his soft old pyjama jacket. He smelt warm and comforting and he rocked me back and forth. I couldn’t stop crying – as if it was being squeezed out of me.

‘I know,’ he murmured, very softly, into my hair. ‘I know my dear. It’s terrible losing someone you love. It’s the worst thing that can happen to you. When I lost my first little wife I was in a dreadful state. And now my poor Elizabeth’s lost her husband – your Dad….’

I felt his body lift and fall as he breathed in and then let the breath out in a long sigh. Then he kissed the top of my head and rocked me some more as the squeezing in my body stopped and I was quieter.

‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘We must all look after each other, mustn’t we?’

I nodded against him. I felt sleepy again, and almost as if I was dreaming. Grandpa didn’t let go, not yet. He settled me on the bed and stayed close. I felt his hand gently patting my back and heard his rumbly voice singing very quietly.

‘
I’ll sing you a song of the fish in the sea
…’ And even before he reached the line, ‘…
and we’re bound for the Rio Grande
,’ I was a blink away from sleep.

Fizz Again

I.

LOG BOOK

Well, I s’pose I’ll have to be all nice and upbeat, won’t I? Even though I
hate
Charlotte for that card – just a mingy rotten postcard! She couldn’t even be bothered to write me a
proper letter
after all this time when I’ve been writing to her over and over again in my head! And even if her card
is
full of Katy Harris and how marvellous she is at dancing and how obviously marvellous at
moving in on my best friend
as well
. Charlotte didn’t once say she was missing me or cared that I wasn‘t there. The cow! She didn’t tell me about sports day when we usually run the relay together. It was Katy this, Katy that… I bet Katy ran in my place instead. I felt like writing and telling her she’s mean and
horrible
and I never want to see her again...

Except I can’t. Because a) that’s not true and b) I don’t want her to know how much she’s hurt my feelings. Oh pride! But the maddening thing about Charlotte is,
she’d never do it on purpose
. I can see her sitting there, her sickeningly pretty face laughing as if I’d just said the
maddest
thing and saying, ‘Oh Janey, don’t be so
barmy
. Of course you’re my best friend!’ She probably just wouldn’t get it. And, to tell the truth I don’t want to drive her away. I couldn’t send her a card like she sent me. Just couldn’t. …Could I?... I don’t hate her really.

Oh dang! I’ve gone and written all this in the front of my Log so now it’s all muddled up together.
Dang it!

**

Charlotte me old pal!

I got your post card. THANKS :-) a bunch!

Venice is GORGEOUS! You’d like it extremely much. Shame you’re not here! How’s school? What am I missing?

Today we drove a long, long way. I’m not sure of my Grandpa’s sense of direction. We went all the way to the east and now we’re going all the way back to the west – but we had to see Venice!

My aunt’s making me do sewing. You know how good I am at sewing. :-( We’re doing a patchwork. It’s driving me crazy! I’ll be dreaming about hexagons and beehives soon.

We’re by the sea now – a place called Marina di Massa. We’re going to the leaning Tower of Pisa and the beach….

Oh! And just as I looked up for a moment, there it was, rocking across the field, ponderous as a maroon and white elephant – the Ship of Dreams with all its orange and green symbols painted along the outside! I forgot Charlotte’s postcard immediately.

‘Fizz!’

My impulse was to jump straight out through the caravan door, but I stopped myself, feeling really stupid. Why was I rushing off to see Fizz as if he was an old friend? I hardly knew him, did I? Wouldn’t he think I was a bit weird?

Brenda looked out of the window and said over her shoulder,

‘Oh my goodness, that’s all we need! Now, Janey, we don’t have to have anything to do with them just because they’re English. Let’s hope they park over there, out of sight.’

Whenever we went to a new campsite Grandpa checked round for English number plates on the cars and avoided them like the plague.

‘I haven’t come to Italy to see
them
,’ he’d say breezily. I wasn’t sure what he’d got against English people. Or people from Manchester for that matter. He’s just weird too when it comes to that.

The campsite was long and thin, running alongside a pebbly beach. The caravans and tents and were pitched along each side of a track, with a tap provided every few vans and the toilets half way along. Behind our caravan, a scrubby area of wiry grass sloped down to the stony strand and then the sea. I watched, heart thumping with excitement as the Ship of Dreams lumbered past and pulled into a space not too far away on the other side of the track. And there was Archie Chubb clambering down from the driver’s seat and a moment later, out came Fizz, in his same scruffy green trousers, carrying baby Clarey round the front of the van.

I had the oddest feeling. Fizz felt so familiar, as if I’d known him for years, forever. As he disappeared up the steps into the van I stood up, wondering what had got into me. This boy, Fizz – I didn’t even know what he was really called – I’d only seen once before, on the ferry. So why did I already feel that he’d somehow become part of my life – as if there was no one else I’d rather see - not even Charlotte?

Something made me hold back though. Shyness maybe. I waited for an hour. The sun climbed higher and it was hot. Brenda kept saying, ‘Wouldn’t you like to go out dear, to the beach?’

When I found the courage, I tapped, blushing, on the door of the Ship of Dreams, and Maggie appeared, in a floaty orange dress with thin shoulder straps. Across the orange, big red suns with long rays reaching right across the dress and Maggie’s thin body.

‘Oh, hello there!’ Freckles the colour of tea were dotted all over her long face. ‘Janey, isn’t it? Oh that’s grand - Fizz’ll be delighted. He’s been on about you since we saw you on the boat!’

I was so pleased to hear this that it made me want to turn cartwheels.

‘He’s gone down to the beach. Why don’t you go and find him there? You can come back and have ice creams.’

I scrambled over the tough grass down to the green, white and rose-pink pebbles of the beach. The sun was pouring down, little chiffon clouds were scattered across the sky and the sea was a deep, crinkled blue. About half a kilometre out, parallel with the shore, a long line of rocks had been piled up like a wall, enclosing the water near the shore into a lagoon. Within it, sailboats with pale blue and white sails went skimming across the water.

For a second I stopped and shaded my eyes. I saw Fizz straightaway. Over to my left, a shallow stream ran down the beach to the sea and Fizz was kneeling beside it, holding a green fishing net, his dark hair falling over his eyes.

He was so stuck into what he was doing that he didn’t hear me coming. I stood in front of him and saw him gradually take in the fact that there were legs there suddenly: green pumps, bare, skinny shins, lime green shorts, orange T-shirt, finally looking at my face, my choppy hair blowing in the breeze.

His face broke into the widest of grins, showing his big square teeth.

‘’Ello!’ He looked really pleased to see me, which was gratifying.

‘What’re you doing?’

‘Catching things.’ He spoke very seriously. I remembered that intense way he had of making everything he was doing seem very important and an adventure. I was drawn back in by him straight away.

I knelt beside him and squinted into the water. ‘What things? There can’t be any fish in there?’

‘Not fish – well, probably not. But there are things you can’t see. Microbes –
thousands
of things! They’ re all in there.’

Both of us stared at the obviously empty net. ‘You’re weird,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you go and fish in the sea?’

‘Yes,’ Fizz agreed, but he was still staring into the water as if trying to make out the invisible. At the bottom of the stream, the stones shone like coloured jewels.

‘It’s marble, all this,’ I told him, feeling I ought to
know
something. Fizz seemed to know everything.
Facts
. ‘We’re near Carrara – it’s famous for marble.’

Fizz looked round at me, solemnly, then down at the stones again, before bending to. pick up a handful of the bright marble pebbles and letting them fall through his fingers.

‘Marble,’ he said, as if he’d just taken in the information somewhere deep within himself. For a moment there was something so sad about him that I lurched inside, though I didn’t know why.

Fizz leaned over, twisting to reach behind him.

‘Look what I’ve found.’ He thrust towards me a whole load of dangling orange legs.

‘Ugh!’ I recoiled, almost overbalancing into the stream. ‘What’s that?’ It looked like an enormous spider and I hated spiders.

‘A crab. This is the kind they have here – a Mediterranean crab.’ He dropped it again, a rounded, spiny body with hairy orange legs. ‘It’s dead.’

‘Well I can see that,’ I said scornfully, trying to make up for having been frightened before.

We walked down to the sea together.
I’m with Fizz
I found myself thinking. I wondered whether he liked being with me.

His trouser legs were already rolled up and he was wearing a faded red T-shirt, too big for him. I took my pumps off. There were grey-ish patches of sand at the shoreline but it was still stony, little coloured pebbles rolling back and forth with the froth-edged wash of the waves. The water felt cold at first, gritty sand pushing up between my toes, but as we paddled up and down I soon got used to it. Fizz kept dipping the net into the water, catching pebbles, delicate pink shells and once or twice, tiny shrimp-like creatures, with indignant twitching whiskers. He showed me everything, as if it was as exciting as catching a shark or that giant squid he was on about on the boat.