The Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge [51]
‘What are they doing?’ asked Rossi. ‘Where have they gone?’
‘They’ve gone to see Freda.’ She looked curiously at his white face and his doleful mouth perpetually trembling. ‘Tell me what she said to you in the bushes. I won’t tell anyone, honestly.’
‘Nothing – she said nothing.’
‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me,’ she confided. ‘I don’t feel very upset.’
They stared at each other. The pain in his eyes caused her own to fill with tears, but it had nothing to do with Freda. Every time she tried to concentrate on what had happened she was distracted by something trivial: the particular slant of a raindrop in the window, a piece of grass stuck to the rim of her green court shoe, the spread of veins in Rossi’s hand as he gripped the driving wheel.
‘Santa Vergine,’ he murmured.
‘Look at my shoe,’ she said.
As she spoke, Rossi saw Vittorio and Patrick returning, running past the tree trunk towards the car. Vittorio slumped on the back seat and covered his face with his hands. He spoke in Italian to Rossi, who muttered and shook his head from side to side. Brenda thought she recognised the word ‘Paganotti’. How they dote on him, she thought. Whatever will they tell him?
‘We can’t leave her there,’ said Patrick, ‘that’s for sure. We’ll have to bring her to the car.’
‘But there’s people you have to tell. We …’
‘There’s more to it,’ whispered Patrick. ‘You don’t just drop dead …’
‘Like doctors …’
‘Not at her age …’
‘She was in an awful state,’ said Brenda, ‘before she went in to the bushes. Sometimes people have heart attacks when they get angry. I know of …’
‘Never,’ scoffed Patrick. ‘Wasn’t she always in a bad temper?’
The implication of his words reached her at last. For the first time since her return to the car she realised that Freda was dead out there in the park, never to live again. She experienced a prolonged bout of shivering followed by noisy intakes of breath and finally began to cry.
Twice Salvatore had come to the Cortina and been refused admittance. He made gestures outside the window and was waved away. He told his passengers that Rossi looked as sick as a dog and Vittorio too. They made jokes about it. They said it was the English women that had caused nausea, not the wine. They were in the mood to go to the safari park full of wild lions and tigers: they growled ferociously at one another and clawed the covering of the seats. Salvatore defiantly tooted his horn to remind the occupants of the Cortina that they waited. In the meantime they sang loudly and helped themselves to the remainder of the Beaujolais that they had wedged into the back of the car when no one was looking. They watched the comings and goings of Patrick and Vittorio to the clump of bushes bowed under the rain and speculated as to what was going on. The Mrs Freda had drunk too much and was refusing to come out – they were enjoying her favours, the two of them; she had taken them both in her arms; even the weather could not damp her ardour. They were further amused when they finally saw her being helped out of the bushes – the interior of the mini rang with laughter. They stuffed mufflers into their mouths and watched pop-eyed the sight of Vittorio and Patrick unevenly balancing Mrs Freda under the armpits, the sheepskin coat hanging from her shoulders, her feet scuffing the ground. Aye, aye, they agreed, in smothered admiration; she had drunk enough for them all. Her head hung down limply; the dimmed hair, plastered to her cheeks was like a veil.
‘We go now,’ called Salvatore sticking his head out of the door as Mrs Freda was bundled into the back seat. Nobody answered. After some time