‘You don’t understand,’ I said. ‘I was scared stiff. That man who posed as Shirer—’
‘I do understand. Max told me all about what happened to you at the Villa d’Este.’
‘I see.’
‘You do not see,’ she said angrily. ‘It makes what you have done—’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I cannot put it into words.’
The blood was suddenly singing in my veins. She believed in me. She wasn’t like Alice. She believed in me. She offered hope for the future. I gripped her hand. The grey eyes that stared up at me were suddenly full of tears. She looked away quickly and where the dust had been rubbed from her skin I saw the freckles reaching to the neat shape of her ears. I looked past her to the gaunt remains of Santo Francisco and the mountain behind it with the great belching column of smoke and the broad bands of the lava and I was glad I’d been there. It was as though I’d been cleansed by fire, as though the anger of the mountain had burned all the fear out of me and left me sure of myself again.
‘Stop! Stop!’ It was Hacket and he was shouting at Zina. She tugged on the reins and the American jumped down. … He ran back up the road and picked up something lying in the ash at the side.
‘It’s the little boy,’ Hilda said.
‘What little boy?‘I asked.
‘The little boy who was sucking his thumb by the fountain when we drove into Santo Francisco.’
Hacket handed the small bundle up to Hilda. She took the little fellow in her arms. His brown eyes opened wide in sudden fear, then he smiled and closed them again, snuggling close to her breast.
‘He’s probably lousy,’ Hacket said. ‘But you can get cleaned up later.’
He climbed in and we started off again. I caught Maxwell’s eyes looking up at me. His lower lip was in shreds where he’d bitten it. ‘How much farther?’ he asked. I scarcely recognised his voice.
I looked past Zina’s skirt along the road ahead. I could see the entrance to the villa now and beyond it, down the straight, tree-lined ribbon of the road I caught a glimpse of Avin lying in a huddle under a cloud of dust. ‘Not far,’ I said. I didn’t tell him a great sea of black lava was reaching into the village. Away to the left, beyond the villa, the air shimmered with the heat of the other lava flow. It ran past the back of the villa and on down towards Avin. On either side of us was lava — nothing but lava. ‘How’s the leg?’ I asked.
‘Pretty bad.’
The dust and sweat on his face had caked into a mask that split and cracked as he moved his lips.
‘I wish we had some morphia,’ Hilda whispered to me.
I glanced up at Zina. ‘There’s some at the villa,’ I said.
Maxwell must have heard, for he said, ‘No time. Must get through before we’re trapped by the lava. I’ll last out all right.’ The cart jolted violently in a rut and the beginnings of a scream was jerked out of his throat. He clutched at Hilda, catching hold of her knee. She took his hand and held it as the cart rocked and swayed and he writhed and bit at his lip in pain.
Then we were entering Avin and suddenly it was hot and the air was full of dust. A smell of sulphur hung over the village. It was as though we had returned to Santo Francisco.
The cart came to a halt. I heard Zina say, ‘What do we do now?’ and I looked past her at the narrow village street that had been full of children and carts when we’d come through the previous day. It was utterly deserted now and it finished abruptly in a wall of lava. I don’t remember feeling any sense of surprise at finding our way out blocked. I think I’d known all along we’d find it like this. There’d been such a narrow gap when I’d looked towards Avin from the top of that tower. I heard Zina sobbing with vexation and Hacket saying, ‘Well, we’ll just have to find a way round, that’s all.’ And I sat there with a sense of complete resignation.
‘Come on, Farrell. We got to find a way round.’ Hacket was shaking me.
‘I don’t think there is a way round,’ I said. ‘Remember what I told you back in Santo Francisco? The two streams have converged.’
‘Come on, man. Pull yourself together. We can’t just sit here.’
I nodded and got out of the cart. The stump of my leg was very painful when I put my weight on it. The lacerated skin seemed to have stiffened and as I moved I could feel the grit working into the flesh again. ‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked. All I wanted to do was to sit still and wait for the end. I felt resigned and at peace. Hilda believed in me. It wouldn’t be so bad going like that with someone believing in me. I was very, very tired.
‘This lava flow is coming in from the right.’ Hacket’s voice seemed far away, almost unreal. ‘We’ll just have to work along the flank of it until we can find a way round.’
I rubbed my hand over my face. ‘There isn’t a Way round,’ I said wearily.
He caught hold of my shoulders and shook me. ‘Pull yourself together,’ he snapped. ‘If we don’t find a way round we’ve had it. That lava flow behind us will push its way through Santo Francisco. Then we’ll find ourselves driven into a smaller and smaller area. We’ll be slowly burned up. We got to find a way through.’
‘All right,’ I said.
‘That’s better.’ He turned to the others, still huddled on the cart. ‘You wait here. We’ll be back soon.’ They looked like refugees, a cartload of derelict humanity fleeing before the wreck of war. How many times had I see them — on the roads in France, in Germany, here in Italy? Only they weren’t fleeing from war. I glanced back again at the dim, smoking ruins of Santo Francisco and the mountain hanging over it, spilling death out of its sides, belching it into the sunless air, and I found myself thinking again of the end of Sodom and Gomorrah.
‘Come on,’ Hacket said.
Hilda smiled at me. ‘Good luck!’ she said.
I turned then with sudden, violent determination. I had to find a way through. There just had to be a way. Seeing her sitting there, calm and confident in me, the little bambino asleep in her arms, I felt there had to be a future. I couldn’t let her die up here in this world of utter desolation. If I had to tear a way through the lava with my bare hands I’d got to break a way through into the future for her and her father.
We went down towards the lava, found a track that ran to the left and started along it. Then Hacket stopped and I saw there was a man coming towards us. He wore no jacket and his shirt and trousers were burnt and torn. ‘You speak Italian, don’t you?’ Hacket said. ‘Find out whether there’s a way through.’
I limped forward. ‘Can we get through?’ I asked him.
The man stopped. He stood staring at me for a moment and then came running towards us. Something about the stockiness of his build and the square set of his ash-caked jaw seemed familiar. ‘It’s Farrell, isn’t it?’ he asked in English.
‘Yes, but—’ And then I knew who it was. ‘Reece!’
He nodded. ‘Where’s Maxwell?’ He was panting as he stopped in front of us and his eyes looked wild.
‘Back on the road,’ I said. ‘He’s hurt. Is there a way through?’
He brushed his hand through his matted hair. ‘No. We’re completely cut off.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Meeting Reece like that, all the serenity and confidence seemed drained out of me. The sight of him brought back the memory of Milan and my fear and that brief meeting with Alice. ‘How did you get here?’ I asked him.
He ignored my question. ‘Who’s this?’ he asked, staring at Hacket.
‘An American. Mr. Hacket.’ I turned to my companion. ‘This is Reece, a friend of Maxwell’s.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Hacket said. It was ridiculous, standing there, cut off by the lava and yet maintaining the formalities of a way of living that lay beyond the lava.