All we had to do, every one of us, was to pick up a single stone from the street, and we could have overwhelmed the man with the gun. We did not pick up a stone, we went home'… She felt the weight of her arrogance. It was as if she thought that she alone could pick up the stone from the street. Axel Moen had taught her the arrogance.. . The boy, piccolo Mario, was excited, and his father quietened him and told him that the journey was nearly complete. The road climbed out of the town.
There was a junction, there was a road sign to Prizzi, there was the turning to a hotel.
A coach was parked outside the hotel. It was an English touring coach. The coach came from Oxford and had TV and a lavatory at the back. Some of the tourists were still in the coach, wan and tired and beaten faces peering and blinking at the windows as the headlights of Peppino's car caught them. Some of the tourists, those with fight in them, were with the courier and the driver at the steps of the hotel, and the argument raged.
Charley heard the protest of the tourists and the shrugged answers of the manager who held the high ground at the top of the steps and who guarded his front door.
'Why can't you help us?'
The hotel was closed.
'We are only looking for a simple meal. Surely…?'
The hotel's dining room was closed.
'It's not our fault, is it, that in this God-forsaken place we had a puncture?'
They must find another hotel.
'Is this the way you treat tourists to Sicily, feeding money into your damned economy – show them the door?'
The hotel was closed for a private function.
'Where is there another hotel where we might, just, find a degree of hospitality?'
There were many hotels in Palermo.
It was, for Charley, the confirmation. The hotel was closed for a private function.
Peppino had opened the door for his wife, studied manners. Small Mario was out of the car and running, and Francesca was chasing him. Charley lifted the carrycot from the car, and the bag. The tourists were sullen and bad-tempered and they stamped away with their courier towards the coach in the shadow of the car park. She was the donkey.
Charley trailed after the family with the weight of the carrycot and the bag. She was the dog's body, and there was the weight of the watch on her wrist. She did not look round, she did not turn to see whether there were car lights back down the hill. The manager ducked his head in respect to Angela and shook Peppino's hand warmly and he tousled the hair of small Mario and pinched the cheek of Francesca. He ignored the young woman, the donkey, who struggled up the steps with the carrycot and the bag. He'd bloody learn. They'd all bloody learn, before the night was finished… He ignored Charley but he made a remark about the baby in the carrycot, spoke of the beauty of the sleeping baby.
They went through the lobby of the hotel.
There were three men in the lobby, young and wearing good suits, with neatly cut hair, and they had their hands held across their groins. They watched. They did not move forward, they did not come to help her, they watched her. There was no receptionist at the desk in the lobby. Charley saw the precise lines of room keys, perhaps fifty keys. The hotel, of course, was closed for a private party… She was the horse made of wood, she was trundled through the gates on rollers, she was Codename Helen, she was the point of access… The manager ushered Angela and Peppino and the children, oiling respect, across the lobby towards the dining room door. He knocked. An older man opened the door and there was a smile of welcome. It came very sharp to her, to Charley, the thought of what Axel Moen had said. The older man had a hard and bitter face that the smile did not mask, and the smile had gone and the older man had seen her. 'If you arouse serious suspicion, they will kill you and then eat their dinner, and think nothing of it…' She listened.
'Who is she?'
'She is, Franco, the bambinaia of our children.'
She heard the exchange between Peppino and the man, anger meeting hostility.
'I was not told she was coming.'
'It is a party for the family, perhaps why you were not told.'
'I am responsible. There is no place laid for her.'
'Then make a place for her. She was cleared. She has been investigated to the satisfaction of my brother.'
Her thoughts were a fast jumble. In the street, knocked down. In the photograph, a boy dead beside a motorcycle. Her bag snatched from her. A boy from the tower blocks dead and with his mother grieving over him. Her handbag returned by Peppino. She stood, she waited, she played the dumb innocence of ignorance. The man, Franco, gazed at her, then stood aside and she followed the family into the dining room.
It was a long and narrow room. There was a single table in the centre of the room.
There were fifteen places laid at the table, the best glasses and the best crockery and the best cutlery, and there were flowers. At the side of the room was a long buffet table with hot plates and with mixed salads.
She stood inside the door. She had no place there. She was there because Angela had made the battleground for her. Angela knew… What depth of viciousness, what pit of vengeance, what total hatred. Angela knew… Angela walked the length of the table, serene, a queen. Charley put the carrycot on the floor, and she knelt beside it, and she could see Angela walk towards the family at the far end of the dining room. She understood why Angela had dressed her best, why she had worn her most precious jewellery. The family were peasants. Angela brushed the cheek of her mother-in-law with her lips, the barest gesture. She let her father-in- law peck at her face, only once.
There was the grinning Carmelo, big and awkward and constrained in an old suit, and she held his hands and made a show of kissing him. There was the sister, gaunt and with her dress hanging on bony shoulders. Another woman stood behind the parents of Mario Ruggerio, and Angela went to her and held her momentarily, and the woman had a teenage boy and a teenage girl with her. The woman's eyes flitted nervously, and she tugged at the waist of her dress as if not comfortable in it and the teenage boy had a sullen face, and the girl was dumpy with puppy fat. Charley watched. She busied herself at the carrycot, and she watched as Angela greeted each of them. And she saw that each of them gestured towards her or glanced at her, as if they queried her presence, as if they checked who she was.
Peppino was beside her.
Peppino asked, considerate, 'You have everything you need?'
'I'll have to heat the baby's bottle. Evening feed.'
'You will amuse the children if they are bored?'
'They seem pretty excited,' Charley said.
'It is a family party, Charley.'
'You won't notice me.'
'Would you like a drink, anything?'
Charley grimaced. 'Not while I'm working. Don't worry about me, just have a lovely evening.'
They did notice her. They noticed her as if she were a wasp at a tea table, as if she were a mosquito in a bedroom. They noticed her and they asked. The man, Franco, looked at her and his eyes had the coldness of suspicion. She made the baby comfortable. She did not know where they were, nor if they listened…