The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [105]
all of you all, in saying thank you for you saying goodbye to my enemy who I shot. One potato, two potato and out he must go. Si? Little devils likeways. But especial to my good Alistair, for cause he bring you here and will be Barone when I peg it. Hear, hear.’
He took a large swig of his Marsala and sat down to a round of applause.
The Brigadier cleared his throat and spoke gruffly, without looking up. ‘Yes, well…’ he said. ‘I’ve been meaning to say something about that.’
Mario looked up brightly and leant forward eagerly.
‘Si?’ he said.
The Brigadier stared into his glass. ‘It’s just that…’ He looked up and caught Mario’s eye. ‘Never mind. It’s nothing,’ he said gloomily, sighed and tossed back the rest of his brandy.
Poor Brig, thought Sarah. He’d got too much sense of duty for his own good.
Roberto picked up his guitar, which was sitting by his chair like a pet dog waiting for titbits, and quietly began to sing ‘Love Me Tender’ under his breath.
‘There’s one thing I’d like to know, Doctor,’ Sarah said, partly to fill the rather embarrassing silence and partly because she really did want to know.
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‘And what’s that, my dear good journalist?’ said the Doctor, affably.
She grinned. He was always teasing her about her propensity for interviewing people. ‘The whole object of the exercise in the first place was to stop all the evil bursting out of N-Space. You seemed to think it would be the biggest catastrophe the world had ever faced.’
‘Quite right.’
‘And yet you just let it scatter into space. Where is it now?’
‘At a rough guess, halfway to the moon,’ he answered.
‘You see, the danger was from the concentration of negativity. A burst dam is a disaster to the people in the valley below, but more water flows from the mouth of the Amazon river in a day than a thousand dams could contain.
But it’s all safely dispersed into the ocean.’
‘And a jolly good thing too,’ said Jeremy, with a wise nod.
‘I see,’ said Sarah, wondering why her mood had suddenly changed. From feeling relieved, contented, relaxed she now found herself puzzled, fearful, sad. Then it came to her. Roberto had changed from his Elvis mode and unbelievably was singing in a pure sweet voice the very song Guido had been singing in the garden, the song of the wanderer pining for his lost love.
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‘What song is that?’ she said, when it came to its last sad cadence.
‘A folk song, I guess you’d call it,’ answered Roberto.
‘I got it off of my Paw.’
She looked at him. It couldn’t be. Surely not. And yet…
‘Excuse me,’ she said, jumped from her chair and shot from the hall.
‘There! Look! Look everybody!’ she commanded the astonished company as she held up beside Roberto’s face the small portrait of Guido she had grabbed from the wall of the gallery near Mario’s room.
There was no doubt of it. If you ignored the difference between Roberto’s oiled quiff and the long bob of the Renaissance, they could have been twins.
‘But don’t you see,’ she said, when she’d told the whole story, ‘you’re a real genuine long-lost heir! If you’re the descendant of Guido, you’re even more entitled than Signor Verconti himself!
‘Oh, sorry,’ she added, realizing that she’d gone way beyond the bounds that politeness demanded of her.
But she needn’t have worried: Mario was jiggling up and down with delight, and running his hands through his hair until It looked like a washing-up brush. ‘Vodeo do,’ he 369
said, excitedly, misremembering his music slang to the tune of some fifty years.
The Brigadier, who was of course the one who would be most affected by the outcome of Sarah’s surprising suggestion, said, ‘But if he’s descended through the male line he’d have to bear the name of Verconti himself.’
Roberto was looking from one to the other as they spoke as if the world had gone mad.
‘What is your second name, Roberto?’ went on the Brigadier.
‘Orazio,’ he replied.
‘Well, that’s it then,’ said the Brigadier, obviously downcast.
The Doctor intervened. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.
‘What is your last name?’
‘Oh, my last name? Menestrello.’