The Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge [31]
‘He deserved it. Bloody fool.’
The glittering shops, closed for the day, flashed past the window. The blue dome of a Catholic church, emblazoned with a golden cross, leant against the white cloudfilled sky. A row of well-dressed women, in fur coats and mantillas, linked arms and pranced in a line down the flight of steps.
‘Where the hell are we?’ demanded Freda, outraged by their red lips and their slim high-kicking legs. ‘Where are we going?’
Rossi shrugged. ‘It is a little surprise.’
He himself had no idea where he was heading, the original plan to go to the Stately Home had evaporated with the ordered van. He simply drove away from the city and followed his instincts. He only knew that Mr Paganotti lived somewhere near Windsor on the river and it was the countryside.
‘I don’t want to be surprised,’ said Freda. ‘I’ll kill that Amelio when I see him.’
‘Amelio is a good man,’ defended Rossi, ‘a good worker and a good father …’
‘The bloody fool went to the wrong garage. It’s obvious …’
Vittorio and Aldo endeavoured to explain.
‘It is not Amelio’s fault …’
‘He tell me he went to the garage you tell him …’
‘Maybe you tell him the wrong day,’ said Vittorio.
‘You have been a little upset lately,’ Brenda said, and could have bitten her tongue.
‘You make me sick, you do.’ Freda hit her repeatedly between the shoulder blades. ‘You’re always so damn reasonable. A bit upset am I? What about your mother-in-law? Don’t you think that’s enough to upset anybody?’
‘I meant your mother,’ whined Brenda, trying to edge forwards on her seat to be out of reach. ‘The funeral—’
She pushed her hands over her mouth, and laughter spilled from her splayed fingers.
‘I don’t blame your mother-in-law trying to do you in. Never saying a word out of place.’ Her voice rose as she mimicked Brenda: ‘She locked me in the barn but I didn’t like to say anything. I saw her going to kill the kittens but I didn’t like to interfere!’
She thumped Brenda on the head. ‘She was doing you a favour if you ask me. You’re sick.’
‘Now, now,’ said Vittorio holding her wrists in an effort to restrain her.
They wrestled together on the back seat, Freda with her lilac scarf crushed under one ear and Vittorio with his duffel coat speckled with crumbs. Brenda felt sorry for Aldo. He was red in the face with distress and bewilderment. She winked at him to show she didn’t mind, that it was only a joke.
‘Ah well,’ said Rossi, ‘we will have a little music.’
He turned the knob of the car radio, and instantly Tom Jones was singing about the Civil War. ‘I do remembbah … a litt-al home-stead …’ She saw the farm again, and all her hysteria left her. She thought of Mrs Haddon dipping behind the hedge outside the kitchen window, a litter of kittens in her apron, going to the stream to drown them. The cat ran from under the rain barrel, its tail arched over its back, hating the wet grass, shaking its paws fastidiously and mewing in despair. When Mrs Haddon ducked under the stile a kitten plopped to the ground, a black rat-like lump, and the cat leapt and caught it in its jaws and streaked off across the field.
‘She’s so bloody reasonable,’ she heard Freda say. ‘You can’t get the truth out of her.’
‘Rossi,’ said Brenda, ‘how can the mini catch up with us if you don’t know where we’re going?’
At a garage near the approach of the M4 motorway, miraculously the red mini did find them. Salvatore left the driving wheel and accosted Rossi at the petrol pump. He indicated the boot of the Cortina and the road behind them and waved his arms about. Brenda couldn’t see who his passengers were. The windows were steamed up. She could only make out a hand, flattened against the glass, and the brim of a hat. She wished Maria could be with them – all those men and just two women making for the wide open spaces. Freda, limp after her outburst, dozed with her head on Vittorio’s shoulder. It amazed Brenda. She couldn’t think why he hadn’t cracked Freda one over the ear and bundled her out of the car. She had called him a bloody Wop; she hinted