The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [8]
Mario had erupted into the Brigadier’s bedroom as he was grimly unpacking his suitcase, wondering how long he would have to extend his unpaid leave from UNIT. Family responsibilities were all very well, but if the old man should die – correction! When the old man died he would be the new Barone, with all that entailed. Yes, ‘but what did it entail? He could hardly flog the island and leave the islanders to the tender mercies of a thug like Vilmio.
In any case, he quite liked the old beggar, even allowing for a lingering resentment dating back more than three decades. When little Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart had visited all those years ago, he’d insisted on taking with him a pile of his favourite books (as well as, secretly, his Teddy; as a prep-school boy, he was supposed to have put away such childish things). But the books were left behind and, in spite of numerous requests, never returned.
‘Aha!’
27
He hardly reacted. In the short time he’d known Mario he’d grown accustomed to his abrupt manner of appearing and disappearing.
‘Glad you come back, boy. I was half afraid that… But no, blood is blood. You true Italiano, through and through!’
‘Uncle Mario,’ said the Brigadier wearily, ‘Granny MacDougal was only half Italian, so that makes me one-eighth Italian and seven-eighths Scots.’
‘Never mind,’ replied Mario. ‘You learn to speak proper the Italiano and nobody guess.’
‘And I’m supposed to be over the moon about that?’
‘Over the moon? Like the cat on the fiddle?’
‘It’s just an expression. An idiom. Used mainly by footballers,’ said the Brigadier drily, putting his underpants neatly into a drawer.
The old man clapped his hands in delight. ‘Ha! Over the moon! Better to kick ball over the moon than up the spout, eh? I learn to speak like real Scottishman before you say Jack Homer!’
It had quickly become clear where he had learnt most of his English. The Brigadier had already reluctantly decided to abandon his claim on the missing books.
Mario turned to go as unceremoniously as he’d arrived.
‘Uncle!’ said the Brigadier calling him back. ‘I rang my scientific adviser. He’s agreed to come out to look into these 28
– ah – ghosts of yours. It was a pretty bad line, but he said he’d come at once, so he’ll probably catch the morning flight to Palermo and –’
The bony hands were flapping at him urgently. ‘Si, si, si! I must screw my head on more tighter. Yes. I forget. He is here, your Doctor in a blue box. I tell him you acoming, yes?’
With a little agitated skip, he was gone.
‘So I thought I’d better give you a shout. Just on the off chance that I wasn’t going round the bend, you know.’ The Brigadier gave a little laugh to indicate that this was a joke, knowing that he had no chance at all of fooling his friend.
They were having a pre-dinner drink in the great hall on the first floor of the castello. A dusty, untidily informal museum of a place, with bits and pieces from every period lying about, some probably priceless (as, for instance, an ornate golden cup, standing by the telephone, full of broken pencils, which was decorated with bas-reliefs depicting the amorous adventures of Zeus), others pure junk.
A gallery above the door, reached by a steep flight of stairs in the comer, was dominated by a large painting depicting the death of Caesar. The noble tragedy of the scene was somewhat offset, however, by the fact that the 29
picture was hanging at a drunken angle some forty-five degrees from the horizontal.
A large eighteenth-century dining table took up a certain amount of the hall; and the area around the grand old fireplace had been turned in effect into a cosy sitting room.
It was somehow comforting, thought the Brigadier, to see the white-haired elegant figure of the Doctor in his elaborately frilled shirt and his velvet jacket standing with his back to the blazing log fire warming the seat of his trousers.
‘My dear Lethbridge-Stewart,