‘I’m sure he is,’ Gem echoed. But you couldn’t say that and it didn’t help, pure corny sentiment. Ray wiped his sweating palms on his pants and kept walking.
‘That stuff,’ he said. ‘It’s better if you don’t ask.’
‘Okay. Whatever you say.’
‘I don’t want to crack up,’ Ray interrupted him. ‘You’ve seen those guys. How it gets.’
‘Yeah, no. Fuck that. That’s no good for anybody. Look, how far do you think I can throw this stone? You reckon I could hit that tree?’
That night they ate from the hospitality of one of the locals, a thin minestrone with hardly anything floating in its flavoured water.
Gem told the black-clad woman, ‘Just like my mamma makes.’
Ray said, ‘I think we should go to Palermo and start again from there. Otherwise we’ll be lost for ever.’
‘Could be worse.’
‘Or we don’t go back at all, how about that?’
‘Become deserters, you mean?’
‘That’s the way. Blend in. Disappear. Just watch it all happen.’
‘Become Sicilians. This old girl’s gotta have some daughters.’
The following day they were starting to get into the higher country. They passed between the flaking, bullet-pecked walls of a village and out into hills.
‘They look sorta soft, don’t they?’ Ray liked Gem enough now to share thoughts like this with him, odd, vulnerable thoughts that took some understanding. ‘The way they’re crumpled up, I mean.’
‘Yeah.’
Ray thought they looked like heaped cloths with long folds of shadow. ‘You could make a cowboy picture here. They’ve even got those cactuses.’
‘Prickly pears. And we got guns. Just need some Indians.’
‘Indians all ran away, thank Christ.’
‘Look up ahead. One of their trucks.’
‘Indians didn’t have no trucks.’
On the road about a hundred yards ahead of them was a burned-out truck, its green paint blistered by fire, its canvas gone but for charred shreds. As they approached it, Gem started to jog ahead to have a look. Always eager. Ray saw him jump up into the air and apart in pieces. That was a strange thing for him to do. Ray felt a powerful hot wave overwhelm him. He saw one of Gem’s lower legs, the boot and the shin, whirling towards him, right at his face.
23
Ray woke up and opened his eyes. The immense, painful light of the sky dropped onto him. His mouth was full. He wrenched himself over onto his stomach and coughed, hawking hard to dislodge a gritty paste at the back of his tongue. He stood up and started walking, falling forwards and catching himself with each stride. He walked past the small crater and the remains, the colours strong in the sunlight, and past the truck, its shreds of canvas flickering madly, rasping in the breeze. He walked straight into that area so that he too would jump and disappear. But he didn’t. The world wouldn’t take him. He had to carry on hobbling over its hard surface, over rocks and into the wind.
He walked for some time, well clear of the area. His feet kept hitting the ground and he didn’t fall over. There were little itchy patches on his face and body. When he touched them, they were wet, loose or sticky. He walked over a hill and down to the right. The apparition of a large building. He walked towards it.
The building grew. It had three sides. No one stopped him as he approached. He went in through the door into a hallway as big as a museum. Overhead the ceiling swarmed with clouds and angels. In front of him, stone steps, round at the edges. They poured towards him. He started walking up them. He wanted help, he supposed, but he didn’t call out for it. The silence was nicer. It was nice to be inside where it was quiet.
Corridors and furniture, gold-framed paintings leaning forwards off the walls like they wanted to look at him or tell him something. There were rooms to the sides of the corridor, widely spaced. The third of them had an open door. It was a lady’s bedroom. There was a dressing-table with a mirror and brushes and little bottles. Soft colours, patterns. So gentle and floral, he stepped inside. A bed. A chair, books. He reached out to touch a book and saw his fingers leave blood marks. He caught sight of his headless body in the dressing-table mirror. His uniform was stained. This made him want to cry.
The bed was extraordinary. An ornate silver frame had doves resting in curlicues of branches. The cover was of dark silver satin. He lifted it up, slippery between his fingers, and climbed in. The thick pillows slowly gave way under his head. He drew his knees up to his chest, pulled the cover over him and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, a young woman was sitting on the end of the bed, staring at him.
He tried to speak but his voice cracked. He coughed and tried again. ‘Don’t make me go back. I’m not going back. Don’t make me.’
24
‘You are American,’ she said.
Who are you? What is this place? Don’t make me go back.’
The young woman was smiling. Her skin was pale yellow. Her eyes were dark and glittering. She was breathing intensely through her smile, through her teeth. He said again, ‘Don’t make me go back.’
‘You are American soldier.’
‘That’s right.’
‘You are young.’
Some kind of shock went through his body, tightening every muscle. His feet pushed down, his hands gripped the cover. When the spasm let go of him, he sank back down, soft and weak. ‘Don’t make me go back. I ain’t going back.’
‘There is a place,’ she said. ‘Do you speak French? French is better.’
‘I don’t speak no French. Are you French?’
‘You put blood everywhere,’ she said. ‘The servant will want to know. But it is fine.’ She stood up from the bed and went over to the dressing table.
‘What?’ His head, as he raised it from the pillow, felt heavy and unstable. She had a small pair of scissors in her hand. Its little silver beak was open.
‘It is fine,’ she said and dashed the scissors against her arm. She looked, unsatisfied, at the result. She did it again. ‘There,’ she said. ‘What an accident.’ She did it one last time and swore, throwing the scissors onto the floor. She held out her left arm and Ray could see blood tapering down to the ends of her fingers, hanging in red droplets. ‘See. Accident, look.’ She shook drops of blood onto the dressing table then walked over to the bed and wiped her hand on the covers and the pillow.
‘There is a place,’ she said in a whisper, leaning over him. ‘But you must make no sound. Why do you cry?’
‘Don’t,’ he said, holding the covers up to his chin. ‘Don’t hurt yourself.’
25
The Americans arrived from Palermo in a jeep. A message from their superiors in Messina had alerted the British in Sant’Attilio that they were coming.
Samuels led in three men, Major Kelly, his subordinate and the local contact. Kelly removed his hat to wipe his forehead and revealed dark red hair, the colour, Will thought, of a red setter’s. This made Will think of dogs and the black Lab, Teddy. How was he getting on back home? Major Kelly said, ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen.’ He wore round spectacles. His skin was pale and blotched by the heat. Despite his American baritone, Major Kelly was clearly an Irishman, his parents or grandparents had been immigrants. Another American pretending to be an American. As an Englishman, Will could see what he was underneath. The underling was of the neat and healthy American type, square-headed with fair eyebrows and blue eyes watching the major to anticipate his needs. The third man was the local, a heavy, middle-aged man with large hands, slow and economical in his movements.