The Painted Altar

Chapter Eleven

Plot reminder: After making the acquaintance of a local man named Lucio, Mary has received the bombshell news that there was no DNA match between the remains and her father's brother, Salvatore.

~~~~~

And thus in a finger-click the fog grew denser. The whir of questions in my head ever more dizzying - a deafening tumult, a cacophany of competing voices.

If not my father, then whose remains were they which they'd pulled from the Lincolnshire mud? And why were his ID tags found in the vicinity? The thirty shillings Irene had lent him? Most importantly, what on earth had happened to him? Why had he never returned home from the war?

Feeling Lucio's eyes on me - curious, concerned - I was forced for the moment to swallow down the emotional impact of the news. Put it to one side like one might a novel, leave it there on the bedside cabinet until I had the chance to open it up again. Until I was alone once more in the quiet of my room, could concentrate on it properly - analyse the patterns of the words, the nuances of meaning. Until finally, like the grief I felt for Irene's passing, it might be allowed to seep into my soul.

Right at that moment, disguised as I was in my self-created role, I was restricted to viewing the news as a freelance journalist might. An unexpected twist, the story lent further mystery. And not only this, there was the human angle too. Salvatore D'Ambra. Wouldn't a reporter be keen to gain insight into the poor man's emotional state? The sheer heart-wrenching turmoil which the last few days must have provoked?

Yes, I reasoned - a hard-nosed hack would just carry on regardless. They'd travelled all that way, after all, had racked up quite an expenses bill in need of justification.

Several moments had now passed since Lucio had broken the news; I could feel my heart slip once more into its usual slow, cold beat.

"The brother," I said, turning my attention back to him across the crumb-strewn café table. "I would be eternally grateful to you if you could help me talk to the brother."

*

We agreed to meet right there at the cafė an hour later, time I partially spent attempting to wash the sand from between my toes with the stingy half-hearted squirts of water emanating from the hotel shower head. Principally however the sixty minutes were passed in an equally vain effort at absorbing the bombshell, trying to understand the significance of the news.

When Lucio finally slunk around the corner, I was grateful to see that he'd left Dante at home. He was ten minutes late, but as I would soon learn this represented an admirable level of punctuality in smalltown southern Italy.

Ordinarily, our destination would have represented only a short walk from the meeting point. What with virtually every other passer-by pausing for a moment to exchange a few jokey, back-slapping words with Lucio, it took us almost half an hour. This is why Italians are traditionally viewed as poor time keepers, I came to realise. It wasn't that they set out to be late, deliberately intended to do so. More they were victims of their own gregariousness. It's almost impossible to punctual, I suppose, when the sun shines much more often than it doesn't, and when almost everyone in town is your best friend.

Again, I found myself wondering as to the nature of his relationship with whichever woman it was who'd slipped that wedding band into his finger. It was at least marginally unusual, surely, for a man to be seen in public with an unknown woman at his side. He was a divorcee perhaps, I concluded - a reluctant one, the marital schism effected against his will. Just hadn't been able to bring himself to wriggling loose the ring. Either that, yes, or the poor chap was a widower.