Steal You Away (31 page)

Pietro had taken to the idea at once. Nobody he knew had a catapult in their garden. They would be able to throw rocks, knock down a wall or two. Mimmo, however, was strongly opposed to the plan. It would mean them spending the next few Sundays slogging their guts out to build something that was no use to man or beast.

The following Sunday work had begun.

And after a few hours they had all begun to enjoy it. There was something grand and new about this labour to build a completely useless contraption. Although you worked and sweated just as hard, it was nothing like as much effort as building that new fence for the sheep.

Four of them worked on it.

Mr Moroni, Pietro, Mimmo and Poppi.

Augusto, nicknamed Poppi, was an old donkey with a coat that was patchy and white with age, who had laboured hard for many years until Mr Moroni had bought the tractor. Now he was in retirement, spending the twilight of his life browsing in the meadow behind the house. He was very bad-tempered and would let no one touch him except Mr Moroni. Other people he bit. And when a donkey bites it really hurts, so the rest of the family kept well away from him.

The first thing they did was to chop down a tall pine tree which
grew at the edge of the woods. With Poppi’s help they dragged it home and there, with chainsaw, hatchets and planes, they made it into a long pole.

Around this pole, over the next few weekends, they built the catapult. Sometimes Mr Moroni would get furious with his sons because they botched their work or were clumsy and then he would kick them in the backside. At other times, when he saw that they had done things properly, he would say, ‘Well done, good work.’ And a fleeting smile, as rare as a sunny day in February, would appear on his lips.

Then Mrs Moroni would arrive bringing ham and caciotta rolls and they would eat their lunch sitting beside the catapult discussing the next stage of the work.

Mimmo and Pietro were happy. Their father’s good humour was infectious.

A couple of months later the completed catapult towered behind Fig-Tree Cottage. It was a strange machine, and rather ungainly to look at. It bore some resemblance to the Roman catapults but not a very close one. Essentially it was a huge lever. The fulcrum was fixed, with the help of a steel hinge (specially made by the blacksmith), to two upside-down Vs nailed to a four-wheeled trolley. Attached to the short end of the arm was a sort of basket full of sandbags (weighing six hundred kilos!). The long end terminated in a kind of spoon in which you put the rock you wanted to throw.

When it was wound up, the sandbag-filled basket rose and the spoon came down and was tied to the ground by a thick rope. To achieve this, Mr Moroni had designed a system of pulleys and ropes which were pulled round a winch which in turn was pulled round by poor old Poppi. Whenever the donkey stopped short and started braying, Mr Moroni would go over, stroke him and whisper in his ear and he would start turning again.

For the inauguration of the catapult there was a party. The only party ever held at Fig-Tree Cottage.

Mrs Biglia cooked three immense trayfulls of lasagne. Pietro put on his smart jacket. Mimmo invited Patti. And Mr Moroni shaved.

Uncle Giovanni arrived with his pregnant wife and his children.
Some friends from the farmers’ club came, a fire was lit and some sausages and steaks barbecued. When everyone had had their fill of food and wine, it was launch time. Uncle Giovanni smashed a bottle of wine against one of the catapult’s wheels and Mr Moroni, who was rolling drunk, drove up on his tractor whistling a military march and towing a trailer loaded with some more or less spherical rocks he had found along the road to Gazzina. It took four people to lift one and place it on the ready-primed catapult.

Pietro was really excited and even Mimmo, though he tried not to show it, was following proceedings closely.

Everyone stood back and with a clean blow of his hatchet Mr Moroni cut the rope. There was a loud crack, the drum full of sand dropped and the rock shot up, curved through the air and landed two hundred metres away in the woods. There was a sound of snapping branches and flocks of birds flew up from the treetops.

The audience clapped and cheered.

Mr Moroni was delighted. He went over to Mimmo and put his arm round his neck. ‘Did you hear the noise it made? That’s the sound I wanted to hear. Great work, Mimmo.’ Then he picked up Pietro in his arms and kissed him. ‘Run along now, go and see where it’s landed.’

Pietro and his cousins dashed into the woods. They found the rock embedded in the earth beside a great oak. And some broken branches.

Then, at last, came Poppi’s moment. They had decked him out in a new harness and coloured ribbons. He looked like a Sicilian ceremonial ass. With great effort the donkey started walking round the winch. Everyone laughed and said it would be the death of the poor beast.

But Mr Moroni didn’t care about those sceptics, he knew Poppi could do it. He was as stubborn and unyielding as the finest of his species. When he was younger, Mr Moroni had loaded on that back the bricks and bags of cement he needed to build the upper floor of the house.

And now he was winding the catapult up, never stopping, never digging his heels in, never braying as he usually did.
He knows
this is his moment
, Mr Moroni said to himself, deeply moved.

He was so proud of his animal.

When Poppi had finished, Mr Moroni started clapping and everyone else followed suit.

A second boulder was thrown and there was more applause, though more muted this time. Then everyone descended on the pastries.

It’s understandable. Watching a catapult throw rocks into the woods isn’t exactly the most enthralling pastime in the world.

It was Mr Moroni who found him.

The murderer had shot him in the head.

Poppi had dropped dead on the ground.

He lay there, stiff-legged, stiff-eared and stiff-tailed, by the fence that marked off Contarello’s land.

‘Contarello, you son of a bitch, I’m going to kill you, this time I’m really going to kill you,’ gurgled Mr Moroni, kneeling by Poppi’s corpse.

If his tear ducts hadn’t been drier than the Kalahari desert, Mr Moroni would have wept.

The war with Contarello had been going on since time immemorial. It was a private feud, incomprehensible to the rest of the world, which had begun over a few square metres of pastureland which each of them considered his own. And it had been waged through insults, death threats, provocations and acts of spite.

It had never occurred to either man to check the documents in the land registry.

Mr Moroni kicked the mud, punched the trees.

‘Contarello, you shouldn’t have done this … You shouldn’t.’ Then he gave a wild roar at the sky. He grabbed Poppi’s legs and with a strength born of fury hoisted the carcass onto his back. Poor Poppi weighed nearly a hundred and fifty kilos, but that little man who weighed sixty and drank like a fish walked forward across the grass, legs apart, swaying from side to side. His face,
with the effort, was a mass of humps and furrows. ‘Contarello, now you’ll see,’ he said, grinding his teeth.

He staggered as far as the farmhouse and threw Poppi on the ground. Then he tied a rope to the tractor and wound up the catapult.

He knew the exact position of Contarello’s house.

Village legend has it that Contarello and family were in the sitting room watching
Carramba, What a Surprise!
when it arrived.

Raffaella Carrà had succeeded in reuniting two twins from Macerata who had been separated at birth and the two of them were hugging each other and crying and the Contarellos were sniffling, deeply touched. It was a tear-jerking scene.

But suddenly everything seemed to explode over their heads. Something had fallen on the house and shaken it to its foundations.

The television went off, so did all the lights.

‘Good grief, what’s happened?’ screamed grandmother Ottavia, clutching her daughter.

‘A meteorite!’ shouted Contarello. ‘We’ve been hit by a fucking meteorite. There was a report about them on
Quark Science
. It happens sometimes.’

The lights came back on. They peered around in terror, then looked upwards. One beam of the ceiling had split and some pieces of plaster had fallen down.

The family climbed the stairs, full of trepidation.

Everything seemed normal up there.

Contarello opened the bedroom door and fell on his knees. Hands over his mouth.

The roof had gone.

The walls were red. The floor was red. The eiderdown that grandmother Ottavia had made with her own hands was red. The windowpanes were red. Everything was red.

Bits of Poppi (guts and bones and shit and hairs) were scattered all over the room together with debris and roof tiles.

Nobody was around when Mr Moroni catapulted the corpse, but if anyone had been, they would have seen a donkey shoot up into the air, describe a perfect parabola, sail over the cork woods, the stream and the vineyard, and land like a Scud missile on the Contarellos’ roof.

That little prank cost Mr Moroni dear.

He was reported to the police, charged and condemned to pay damages, and it was only because he had no previous convictions that he wasn’t jailed for attempted murder. He now had a criminal record.

Oh, and he was ordered to dismantle the catapult.

Not thinking about anything is very difficult.

And it’s the first thing you have to learn to do when you start yoga.

You try, you concentrate like mad and start thinking that you mustn’t think about anything and you’ve already blown it because that’s a thought.

No, it’s not easy.

But to Graziano Biglia it came naturally.

He had assumed the lotus position in the middle of his room and kept his mind blank for half an hour. Then he’d taken a nice hot bath, got dressed and rung Roscio to tell him the Saturnia trip was still on but that he wouldn’t be able to join them for dinner. He would go straight to the baths and meet them there at about half past ten or eleven.

All in all, his first day as a single hadn’t gone too badly. He had spent the whole day indoors. He’d watched tennis on TV and had his lunch in bed. Depression had buzzed around him like a horsefly, ready to plunge its sting into his heart, but Graziano had organised things well, he had slept, eaten and watched sport in a kind of bovine apathy that was proof against the emotions.

Now he was ready for the schoolmistress.

He took one last look at himself in the mirror. He had decided to drop the country gentleman look. It didn’t suit him, and anyway his shirt and jacket were spattered with vomit. He had opted for a blend of the casual with the elegant. Early Spandau Ballet, if you get the picture.

Black satin shirt with pointed collar. Red waistcoat. Black cord jacket with three buttons. Jeans. Python boots. Yellow ochre scarf. Black headband.

Oh yes, and under his jeans, a pair of purple Speedo bathing trunks.

He was putting on his overcoat when his mother emerged from the kitchen, mumbling. Without even trying to understand what she wanted, he replied: ‘No, Mama, I won’t be home for dinner. I’ll be back late.’

He opened the door and went out.

Bath time was always a complicated affair.

And Flora Palmieri sensed that her mother didn’t like it at all. She could see it in her eyes. (Flora, dear, why the bath? I don’t feel like it…)

‘I know it’s a nuisance, Mama, but you must have one occasionally.’ It was a delicate operation.

If she wasn’t careful, there was a risk of her mother’s head going under the water and her drowning. And the heater had to be switched on at least an hour beforehand, otherwise she might catch cold, and that would be serious. With a blocked nose she couldn’t breathe.

‘Nearly done …’ Flora, on her knees, finished soaping her and began rinsing with the shower that white, shrunken little body huddled in the corner of the bath. ‘One more minute … and I’ll pop you back into bed …’

The neurologist had said that her mother’s brain was like a computer on standby. One tap on the keyboard and the screen lights up and the hard disk comes back to life. The trouble was her mother wasn’t connected up to any keyboard, and there was no way of reactivating her.

‘She can’t hear you. It’s out of the question. Your mother is not there. Don’t delude yourself. She’s electroencephically flat,’ the neurologist had said with the sensitivity that is the hallmark of his profession.

In Flora’s view the neurologist was talking through his hat. Her mother was there all right. A barrier separated her from the world, but Flora’s words could pass beyond that barrier. She could see this from many signs, which would have been impossible to recognise for a stranger or for a doctor who relied solely on electroencephalograms, CAT scans, ultrasound and other scientific gadgets, but which were crystal clear to her. A twitch of an eyebrow, a tightening of the lips, a gaze less opaque than usual, a vibration.

This was her imperceptible way of expressing herself.

And Flora was sure it was her words that kept her alive.

There had been a time when her mother’s health had deteriorated and she had required constant care, day and night. Eventually Flora hadn’t been able to cope any longer and on the doctor’s advice had taken a nurse who treated her mother like a mannequin. Never talked to her, never caressed her, and instead of improving, her mother’s health had got even worse. Flora had dismissed the nurse and gone back to taking care of her herself and immediately her mother’s health had improved.

And another thing, Flora had the clear perception that her mother could communicate with her mentally. Now and again she heard her voice break in upon her thoughts. She wasn’t mad or schizophrenic, it was just that, being her daughter, she knew exactly what her mother would have said about this or that, knew what she liked, what she disliked, what she would have advised her to do when there was a decision to be taken.