‘He fought in the war with you?’ Amy trod carefully. Other people’s elderly relatives seemed to thrive on trotting out their old wartime stories. But not Grandpa. He’d been captured in Libya and somehow made it back to England. Mum was sure he’d once muttered something about escaping from a prisoner-of-war camp but Lance never spoke about it.
Grandpa nodded. ‘Marty was there in the desert. Saw him on TV at the Cenotaph this year, he didn’t look so good, surprised he’s still with us. There’re fewer and fewer of us every year. Soon no one will remember… Hard to understand for today’s young people, isn’t it?’ He patted Amy’s hand.
‘I can’t imagine it.’
‘That’s for the best, love. I was your brother’s age when I joined up; I’m glad he’s having a better time of it but he’ll be working hard once he starts that engineering degree.’
‘He knows what he wants, our Jack,’ Mum said. Amy winced.
‘And what about you, Amy?’
Amy stared into her tea. Surely Grandpa wasn’t going to join the chorus of people nagging at her, expecting her to know what she wanted to do with the rest of her life? All her friends seemed so sure of themselves but after three years of university, Amy was none the wiser. And she suspected a degree in History of Art wasn’t going to help widen her options.
‘With your grades you could apply for an MA,’ Mum said, as if she hadn’t raised the subject many times before.
‘I wasn’t thinking about Amy’s career, I was thinking about this summer,’ Grandpa said. ‘No plans to go gadding off abroad, love?’
‘I thought we could throw some pots, like we did before.’
‘I’m getting a bit old for that. My hands shake when I’m trying to shape the clay,’ Lance said. ‘But if you want to work in my old shed, I’d like to come and help.’
‘Sit and chat, you mean.’ Mum grinned.
‘Amy won’t have too much time to play about with pottery, she needs to start looking for a proper job,’ Dad said, cutting himself a second slice of cake.
‘I’ll have to sign up at the temp agency, I suppose.’
‘Not for the summer you won’t,’ Lance said. ‘I’d like to employ you myself.’
Amy spluttered on a mouthful of tea. ‘Doing what?’
‘Typing – you can do that, can’t you? You’re tapping on that phone of yours often enough.’
‘Touché, Grandpa. What do you want me to type up?’
‘My memoirs. I’ve made up a couple of small memory boxes. One for you, Amy, and one for Jack, mementoes to leave you when I’m gone. But recently I got to thinking, I’d rather like you to have them whilst I’m still alive. And I need you to understand the stories behind them. Otherwise, well, they’re just clutter, and we’ve all got enough of that.’
‘You can put secretarial work on your CV, no need to tell anyone you worked for your grandpa.’ Mum winked.
‘When can we start?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon any good? When a man gets to my age he can’t afford to waste time.’
Making pots in Grandpa’s shed and typing up his memoirs. It was going to be a good summer. Jack could travel the world. Amy wasn’t going anywhere.
3
The football slammed against the wall of the Chiesa di Sant’ Agata, ricocheting back into the village square. Fernanda shook her broom angrily.
‘Sinners! Kicking a ball at a church, you’ll go straight to hell!’
The three young boys ran off laughing, one tossing the ball as high as he could. He jumped up to catch it, his T-shirt riding up, exposing his bare midriff. Fernanda knew the boys wouldn’t dare come back until she’d gone. Although they’d smirked and giggled, she knew she scared them. Yes, she with her tiny frame who could barely reach to polish the eagle on Sant’ Agata’s lectern. She who was so frail her eighty-seven-year-old body creaked and groaned as she bent over her broom.
She smoothed down her shock of white hair and focused once more on the doorstep. The entrance of the church couldn’t possibly get any cleaner but still she worked on, wielding the stiff bristles again and again. Back and forth, back and forth.Father forgive me, Father forgive us all.The tall apartment buildings, the restaurants opposite, the people enjoying their morning coffees all faded away. Nothing but Fernanda sweeping away her sins, praying for herself and her dear departed sister.
‘Fernanda!’ Father Filippo’s voice jolted her back to reality. He peered at her through round metal-rimmed glasses, smiling kindly.
‘Buongiorno,Father.’ He was a young man, this new priest, full of fashionable ideas, peppering his sermons with modern soundbites. Words like integration and diversity. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard him mention the fires of hell without looking embarrassed. But she wasn’t going to knock him, whatever brought people closer to God and turned them away from their wicked ways was a good thing.
