Chapter Five: The Bells Will Ring
The next morning I felt terrible, disorientated. McGinty had woken me early. He was hungry. In my distraught state I had forgotten to fill his food bowl the previous evening. I had slept on the couch, badly, fully clothed. I shook my head, in frustration, trying to shake off the aberrant thoughts that had invaded my mind. What the hell had come over me? Where had those strange thoughts of the day before come from? That wasn’t me. That wasn’t where I was at. I was enjoying my new life. I didn’t want to kill myself. I couldn’t believe I had been thinking like that. I liked my new flat, and my new life. Seeking answers to explain it all, I put it down to the fact that probably I had just been shaken by Rosa’s death. That had been her choice. Not mine. I wasn’t in that place. I wasn’t the next Rosa on Dante street. My God! Where had all that come from? That was her, not me. I was living the life I had chosen for myself. Also, I still had my new friends, and, of course, Valentina. My life was slowing coming together. I was doing well, reasonably well, anyway. I realised that I needed to clean myself up. I was in a real mess. My clothes smelt of stale sweat, and my mind was still rather jittery. Before going out for breakfast, I cleaned myself up, and tidied up the flat. Stability, that was what I needed. Composure, and self-control. Cleanliness, of my person, and my surroundings. There were no problems in my life. Everything was in order. Everything was exactly as it should be.
As I headed up the road, I refused to even look at Rosa’s bench. Partly because I wanted to keep my life focused on moving forward, but also partly because I was slightly apprehensive of the thoughts that it might evoke. I managed to pass it by without incident. Little as that may seem, at the time it was something of a relief. It felt good to enter into Valentina’s coffee shop. I felt like I was returning home.
‘Hi, Nigel! How’re things?’
She looked even more beautiful than ever. Tight jeans, showing off her slim, long legs, and a tight fitting T-shirt, clinging to her body, like glue. Her breasts looked so enticing.
‘Hi there. Yeah, better today, thanks. I felt pretty shaken yesterday, but I feel like I’m getting back to normal today.’
‘I’m so pleased to hear that. Guess who’s back this morning?’
She nodded towards the table in the corner. Robbie was seated there, back in his usual spot.
‘Ahah! That didn’t last long!’
Valentina shook her finger at me.
‘Well, don’t be so hasty. He’s drinking coffee! He seems like a different person. A much nicer person.’
Robbie saw me looking over.
‘Hey, Nigel,’ he called, ‘come and join me for breakfast!’
‘Sure.’ I called back to him. ‘I’ll have the usual, please Valentina.’
‘You got it.’
I walked over to Robbie. There he sat, beaming. His face looked ten years younger. Even his posture had changed. He had his shoulders pushed back. He looked good.
‘Hey, you see this? Coffee! Are you surprised?’
‘Very glad to see it, my friend. Well done. Hey, it’s a day by day process. Today you are winning.’
‘I’m going to be winning every day, Nigel. I just can’t do that shit anymore. Hey listen, I was sorry to hear about Rosa. I didn’t really know her, but I know you were close.’
‘Yeah, thanks. It really shook me. It was so totally unexpected. But, anyway, look at you. You are all dressed up. What’s the deal?’
‘This morning I have an appointment with the immigration case officer of Nassim and Jana. On Sunday they gave me their paperwork, and I found some irregularities. Something is not right there. I want some answers.’
‘You know, they told me she seemed to really have it in for them. She sounds like a real arsehole.’
Robbie shrugged his shoulders.
‘Bureaucrat, my friend. Just another bureaucrat.’
A smile came to my face at the thought of a lawyer turning up instead of Nassim and Jana, for the appointment.
‘She is gonna freak out when a lawyer walks in! Good on you! They are really nice people. This country needs people like them. Anyway, little Ariane was born here. She’s Italian. There must be a way to sort it all out.’
‘Oh, don’t you worry. I’ve already told Jana and Nassim. It’s a done deal. I will sort this out quick smart. Listen, breakfast is on me, my friend. You take your time, but I have places to be, and people to see.’
He paid for breakfast, and left, with his briefcase in his hand. Valentina brought my breakfast over.
‘Hey, Valentina, who is that guy? What happened to our old Robbie? Wow, what a change! I bet he was a pretty successful lawyer, before the booze kicked in.’
She smiled, and nodded.
‘Yes, it’s good to see. Listen, I spoke with Father Thomas, from St. Mary’s church. There will be rosary prayers for Rosa, this evening, at 7 pm. Her funeral will be held tomorrow morning, at 10. Apparently, her ex-husband has stepped forward, and has organised it all.’
Thank God for Valentina! In my unsettled state I hadn’t given any thoughts about all the practicalities necessary following Rosa’s death.
‘That’s good to hear. Thanks for finding all that out. I haven’t been in much of a state to look into all that, but I really want to be there for Rosa. I wonder if any of her old friends will turn up?’
‘I doubt it. She had really fallen off everyone’s radar. Unfortunately, when problems kick in, the people you thought were your friends soon disappear.’
‘Yes, life can be cruel when things do wrong, that’s for sure.’
I had my breakfast in a pensive state. After leaving Valentina’s, I returned to my flat. The rest of the day was spent virtually just waiting for the church service that evening. I was trying to not think about things too much. I didn’t want to spin out of control again. I busied myself with practical tasks, taking care of things in the flat, and sorting out some paperwork. Anything, as long as it kept my mind away from those dark thoughts that always seemed to be hovering, menacingly, above my head.
I had organised for some flowers to be delivered to the church, so I headed up there a bit early, to see if all was in order. I was pleasantly surprised to see a few flower bouquets, at least someone still thought of Rosa. Inside the church everything looked very nice. It was just a small local church, which in Italy made it just one of the many. In any other country, it would have been considered a national treasure. The altar, all handcrafted in marble, dated from 1661. There were side altars, dedicated to various saints. One to St. Francis, another, the main one, to Mary, the mother of Jesus. I was always amazed at just how many antiquities Italy had, every little church was an historic wonder. Each one, a place to discover. I heard the door open, and turned to see Nassim, Jana, and Ariane walk in. I was a bit surprised, really. Could muslims participate in a catholic ceremony? Did that mean I could just wander into a mosque?
‘Hi, Nigel.’ said Jana. ‘How are you? I know it must have hit you hard. Especially with you being the one who found her. That must have been a terrible shock.’
‘Hey, thanks for coming. Yeah, it really overwhelmed me, alright. Anyway, I’m feeling a bit better now.’
A few other people entered. Some I didn’t know, plus Robbie, and Valentina. We all found places to sit, with Valentina coming to sit next to me. She took my hand in hers, and gave me a smile. It felt so good to be there, with her. Without her in my life, it would all have seemed so meaningless. The ceremony of the rosary was a fairly brief affair, albeit heavy with emotion. Before too long we all found ourselves outside the church. The few people I didn’t know left without saying a word. I assumed that one of them would have been her ex-husband.
‘It was good of you all to come.’
‘Of course we came, Nigel,’ said Nassim, ‘Unfortunately I won’t be able to come to the funeral tomorrow, I have to go to work, but Jana will be there.’
Valentina touched my arm, lightly.
‘Sorry, but tomorrow I have to open the coffee shop, so I can’t make it, either.’
‘That’s OK, Valentina, you came this evening. That was good of you. Rosa would have appreciated that.’
Robbie shook my hand, and we all all wandered off in silence. Each consumed with his own thoughts. Although, really, I was trying to think as little as possible about it all. My mind still seemed to be in a rather delicate state.
To be honest, I was sort of dreading the funeral. I find funerals to be incredibly exacting, so definitive. It’s almost like they take away any last little possibility of it all having been just a bad dream. They made the reality of it all absolutely unavoidable. If I could have, I would have preferred to have abstained from going. However, in all truth, I had to be there. I felt like I had been Rosa’s closest friend, in her last days. Even though I had known her for such a short period of time, it had been an extremely intense experience. I wondered if we could have been friends in our former lives? In our lives before we had both fallen through the cracks. It’s funny how in different phases of our lives, we bond with different people. Maybe we should change our friends with the same frequency with which we change our cars, or our televisions? The newer version, for the newer period we are living in. Just how real is friendship anyway? I’m sure that when Rosa was on top of her world, she would have had many friends, or people who she considered to be friends. Now, where were they? They had moved on to other friends, and other cars, and televisions. Rosa had been forgotten by them. It struck me that most friendships were actually very superficial, and transitory. Just people, in a similar phase as each other, passing a bit of time together. They were fulfilling some sort of need to have others around, but without really having any genuinely deep attachment to them. Probably they felt the same emotional attachment that they had towards their cars, and televisions. We enjoyed our friends, for a while, and then, as our situations alter, we changed them. To a certain extent, there was a sort of logic behind that. As our way of living changes, as our hobbies change, we probably feel the need to surround ourselves with new people. People who also share that new lifestyle. People who share those choices. People who would fill a temporary need, until they, too, would be replaced with others. A continual cycle of superficiality. In reality that had been the way it had been with me, and my so-called friends from my previous job. While the job had given us a communal thread, a common bond, we had been the best of friends. When that common thread had been cut, those friendships had unraveled.
The day of Rosa’s funeral was a gloriously sunny, Italian spring day. It seemed at odds with such a sad event. I suppose I would have preferred a cold, wet, overcast, and gloomy day. The sort of day more appropriate for a funeral. Depressing weather, to go hand in hand with the sadness of a final farewell. Being Italy, and being late spring, that wasn’t the case. It was the sort of morning that would normally inspire optimism, an uplifting of the spirit. On a day like that you should be doing happy, positive things. Enjoying life, enjoying yourself. It almost seemed to be like the last cruel act in Rosa’s painful life. The final betrayal. After having been abandoned by all her old friends, even the weather appeared to have abandoned her. At least the church service itself proved to be suitably sad, in that there were only three of us present. Myself, Jana, and a man who I took to be Rosa’s ex-husband. On studying him closely, he didn’t look like someone who had lost everything, as Rosa had. He looked much the same as everyone else. Just another face in the crowd. Maybe he was better at handling grief than Rosa, or maybe he had just accepted it, as much as was possible, and was getting on with his life as best he could. Some people have the ability to survive anything. The burning desire to live gives them the strength to go on, in the face of all kinds of adversity. It seems as if nothing can stop them. I wondered if it was because of an inner strength they had, or, perhaps, was it more to do with a lack of emotion? Were some of us wired to feel emotional pain more? While others had a higher tolerance to it? Without a doubt, we are all affected differently by devastating events. Almost certainly, we also all have different tolerance levels to physical pain, not just emotional suffering. In the Nazi death camps, many inmates simply refused to die, clinging on desperately as long as possible. Others, in their desolation and despair, had thrown themselves on the electrified wire fences, after having decided to put an end to their suffering. Probably, until they were face to face with such great suffering, people wouldn’t know how they were going to react. I doubted that there was a right way, or a wrong way. Quite simply, each of us is wired differently, and therefore reacts differently. The way we react is the right way for each of us, in that situation. The way Rosa had reacted had been the right way for her. Without a doubt, she had been incapable of doing anything other than that which she had done. She had found the right path for her. She had found the peace of mind she craved.
When the funeral service was finished, we left the church, and followed Rosa’s coffin to the cemetery, where it was interred into a wall vault, in the Italian tradition. It was over. Rosa had been eradicated entirely from this world. Her presence was no more. The memory of her was already starting to fade. Maybe somewhere there were some photos of her, and her family, which would occasionally be looked at, before they, too, started to lose their colour, and fade. She had become just another vanishing memory. Jana and I started walking back towards Dante street.
‘At least she is at peace now, Nigel.’
‘Yeah, I know. She is with her son. You know, when I found her, she looked so happy, strangely. She even seemed to be smiling.’
‘That really is lovely. She is where she wanted to be, we can’t question that. It was her choice to make.’
‘Yeah, that’s true. It was nice of you to come, Jana. I know you didn’t really know her that much.’
‘Well, I had seen her many times, on that bench. Every time I passed her, my heart went out to her.’
‘You really made a big impression on Robbie. I can see why. You are a very genuine person. Have you had any news from him, about your application?’
‘Not yet, he doesn’t have any definitive news for us. Although, he did say that Mrs. Bergonzi, our case officer, does seem to have been blocking us on purpose. So he is very positive. He is sure he can sort things out. We don’t want to get our hopes up too much, but things are looking pretty good.’
‘This has really given him a reason to get up in the morning, you know? He is such a changed man. You should see if some of your friends also have problems he could sort out for them. For their sakes, but also for Robbie’s. This is good for him.’
Jana smiled at me.
‘You really are a wonderful person, Nigel. You pay attention to people’s needs. You really care.’
She stopped, and placed her hand on my shoulder. She looked at me directly in the eyes, with a sort of searching expression.
‘Remember to look out for yourself, as well as others. You’re important, too, you know? Don’t forget that. Think of yourself, as well. OK, this is my street. I will see you later. Take care of yourself, Nigel.’
‘Bye, Jana, I will, don’t worry.’
I had missed my breakfast at the coffee shop, so I thought I would pop in for a cappuccino, and to see Valentina. After that I wanted to head to the park. I needed to evaluate my current situation. The recent turmoil had left me in a strange mental place, and I wanted to figure out where I was through it all. When I entered the coffee shop I immediately saw Robbie, sitting at a table with a Romanian woman I knew vaguely from the area. On the table there was a scattering of documents, and various bits of paper. Valentina greeted me with her arms raised in theatrical poise.
‘Welcome to Robbie’s office! Would you like an appointment?’
Valentina was in top form, as was her way. She seemed extremely happy, with a great smile on her face.
‘When did all this happen?’
‘I knew that Olga was having problems with her Italian immigration status, so I asked Robbie to take a look.’
‘From what Jana told me, it looks like he is going to be able to sort out their problems relatively easily. Maybe he has found his new calling?’
‘I hope so. Olga is a very nice person. She does a lot of cleaning for the elderly in the area. She works very hard, and asks for very little money in return. She knows that they are all on the pension, and that money is tight for them. She even does some shopping for them.’
‘Basically, she steps in where the state, and family, fail?’
Valentina laughed.
‘Don’t go getting too deep on me, Mr. Smarty-pants!’
Her face changed to a serious expression.
‘How did the funeral go?’
I sighed deeply.
‘Pretty depressing. Anyway, her pain is over. I guess she is where she wanted to be, so... ‘
Valentina interrupted me in a quiet, but firm voice.
‘Hey, Nigel, let’s leave it at that, what do you say? There’s nothing to be gained by dwelling on it all. What’s been done, is done.’
I looked at her, and nodded. She was definitely right.
‘Yeah, sure.’
In quiet reflection I had my cappuccino, and then headed up to the park. I was feeling a bit down with it all, so I thought it would be good for me to sit and think things through for a bit. I found a bench in the sun, and sat down. There were just a few other people there. Mainly mums with their babies, although, when I looked a bit closer at them, I realised that they were probably mostly nannies with the babies, while the mothers worked. In fact, a couple of them, deep in conversation, had the characteristic facial lineaments of woman from eastern Europe. Maybe Russia, or Romania. It crossed my mind that you would really need to trust someone a lot, to leave your baby with them. They could just walk out of the park, with those babies, and never be seen, or heard of, again. How would you be able to check someones background and credentials, if they came from somewhere like Russia? That decision was probably, as much as anything, just a leap of faith. Life came with a great element of blind faith attached to it. Faith that the people you trusted wouldn’t let you down. Faith that things would continue, as usual, with nothing going wrong. Choices were made with little, or minimal, consideration, other than that of having faith in the goodness of people. It really was incredible, that we could hold so much trust in people we barely knew. Quite often, the people we know well were those who let us down the most, yet we gave so much trust to people we knew very little about, strangers really. People, I reasoned, are basically optimists, expecting things to always go in the right direction, as we expected that they should. It is probably for that reason, that blind faith given to people, that when things do go wrong, a lot people break down completely, their trust totally shattered. When that absolute expectancy that only good things would happen, is broken, when your faith in society is revealed to have been misplaced, there is really only one possible outcome. When that trust is broken, you too, will also break. Your life will be shattered, never to be the same again. You can try to rebuild a semblance of your former life, but it will never feel the same again. Without that blind faith to guide you, you will call into question everything, and everyone. A constant nagging doubt will replace that feeling of trust, doubt not only of others, but also of yourself, of your own judgement. The solid floor you had been walking on with great surety, would then become unstable, difficult to navigate. Every step, once taken with lightness, with complete confidence, would be overshadowed by menace, a step into the unknown. Your place in society, once taken for granted, once accepted as being a given, would suddenly seem to be highly tenuous. That blind faith in good being ever present, would give way to constant uncertainty. Nothing, and no one, could ever be trusted again. Everything would have to be reconsidered. Nothing could again be accepted on face value alone. At what point in that whole scale of things was my life? Where was I? I had burnt my bridges with my ex-colleagues, my so-called friends, or, to put it better, those bridges had been burnt to a cinder around me. And Valentina? Was I expecting too much of her? Was it just me projecting my feelings onto her? Perhaps my need for her, or someone like her, was clouding my judgement. Did she really feel the same way about me? On reflection though, taking into account her actions, and her behaviour towards me, it did seem like she felt the same way for me, as I did for her. Maybe, for once, I had gotten it right? I knew I had been wrong, on some occasions, too many occasions, truth be told, but with Valentina, I was sure that I was judging the situation correctly. I could feel my confidence slowly returning. It was possible that I could still rebuild my life, even after yet another series of failures. I decided that the best game plan would be to return to my former strategy, that of taking things slowly with Valentina, not to rush her. I would just let things build between us, without pushing her, as I had done, wrongly in hindsight, with Monica. Not to mention Rosa. Optimism was cautiously creeping back in. The sun was shinning, I felt uplifted by its golden rays. I felt like it was possible that the world could still be mine. Things were tentatively coming back into focus. I could achieve maybe not everything that I had hoped for, but enough. My faith in people, and society, was slowly being restored. I, too, trusted those Russian women, to not bring harm to those babies in their care. Look at Robbie. Look at his transformation. Hadn’t I played a part in that? Wasn’t I partly responsible for his return to the good path, resurrected from the depths of darkness? While Rosa had been, without a doubt, an unconditional failure on my behalf, Robbie was a success. Undoubtedly, when you are living on the darker side of life, out on its very edges, the path that you follow is less illuminated. You couldn’t expect all things to finish well. Any successful outcome was to be celebrated. Some failings were to be expected. Things couldn’t be judged by the old standards, where everything had always been expected to flourish. In this life, this new life, out on the fringes of society, different parameters were needed, for judging outcomes. Different scales, to weigh different weights. Nothing was the same, and things couldn’t be calculated by the old criteria. New benchmarks were needed to evaluate diverse results.
The rest of that day passed in a similar vein, that of quiet contemplation. Maybe finally I was beginning to understand the complexities of life? With my new found wisdom, and optimism, that night I slept well. The sleep of someone who is satisfied with where he is in life. Someone who is right where he wanted to be. Someone who after struggling copiously, had eventually found his way back onto his path.