The Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge [56]
‘You’re sure?’
‘I am, I am.’
It was meaningless really, and he knew it. She had the kind of temperament that stopped her from being truthful. All the same, he thought he might persuade her.
‘What we do,’ he said, ‘is to get her back to London and put her somewhere while I think how to make Rossi tell us what happened. In your room—’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t do that.’
‘For me.’
His face loomed over her; he bared his teeth like a baboon. He’d told Vittorio he had never been in the woods. She had heard him. He said he’d been in the town. He was so anxious they shouldn’t go to the police … Freda had a graze on her cheek … He was looking at her imploringly. She wondered if he guessed what she was thinking; despite herself she couldn’t help recoiling from him and pressing closer to the windows.
As they left the arena a solitary monkey leapt to the top of the slope and stood upright. Dangling a long thin penis like a scarlet lupin, it swung its arms in rage.
The lions and tigers were a disappointment. They lay in lusher pastures under the feathery branches of horse-chestnut trees and slept.
‘They are not wild,’ cried Rossi, and he unclasped his hands and banged on the window with his fist.
When they returned to the bus shelter, Patrick suggested they should all go for a cup of tea in the cafeteria. Aldo Gamberini tiptoed slyly to the Cortina and rapped with his knuckles on the glass.
‘For God’s sake,’ shouted Patrick, and he leapt across the gravel and knocked Aldo on his back upon the grass. ‘Haven’t we had enough agitation for one day? Can’t you see the woman’s sleeping it off?’
The men murmured at Aldo’s rough treatment. Patrick put his hand to his forehead and forced himself to smile. He helped Aldo to his feet and brushed him down with his large mauve hand scratched in a score of places. The workers were not rash enough to criticise him; every week he came into work with his face gashed or his mouth bruised from asserting himself outside the public house on a Saturday night. They closed ranks about the demoralised Aldo, and Patrick led the way down the road to the cafe with Brenda and Vittorio lagging two paces behind.
They had tea paid for by Vittorio, who seemed quite ready to put his hand in his pocket, and packets of dry little biscuits gritty with raisins. The men sprawled across the soiled tables and passed the postcard of the monkey from hand to hand. A waitress with enormous breasts wiped at the plastic cloths with a square of rag and was openly admired. She had yellow hair and a faint ginger down on her narrow lip. Freda, thought Brenda and closed her eyes, but already she could no longer visualise clearly that round face with the painted lids.
After a time Rossi left the café and wandered about outside, hands behind his back and chin sunk on his chest. Patrick nudged Brenda and indicated she should go outside and talk to him.
‘No,’ she protested, pursing her mouth edged with crumbs, and he pinched her quite hard on her thigh and frowned.
‘Talk to him, that’s all I ask.’
He wasn’t as he had been in the bathroom. He was no longer shy and full of reverence. She bridled and moved her leg away and chipped a raisin from her tooth.
Vittorio was perpetually in the dark – the strange accent of the Irishman and the mumblings of Brenda confused him. He listened politely to the men discussing the placid lions, nodding in all the right places, his eyes continually flickering from Brenda to Patrick and back again. Under his fingers the picture postcard buckled at the corners. Patrick removed his cap and laid it on a ledge. Exposed, his flaring ears burned pinkly beneath his copper-coloured hair. I don’t like him without his hat, thought Brenda. Come to think of it, she didn’t like him at all. She actually preferred Rossi with his trouble-some ways and his black and tangled curls. Excusing herself, she pushed her way from the table and went outside on to the lawn. They paced in silence for a time, up and down the path outside the window. They could hear the clatter of cups and the hiss of the coffee machine. Now