The Painted Altar

Chapter Twenty

My memory of those next few minutes is vague and fragmentary, like a warped section of video reel. There were so many questions of course, many of them awkward, potentially incriminating. And yes, at some point they would need to be asked just as much as they would need to be answered. In that dazed initial aftermath, all that could wait however.

I recall the frequent glances Lucio turned towards me, checking my emotional temperature like someone might periodically touch fingers to a family member's brow during a bout of flu. A hand brushed repeatedly up and down my arm, his voice a feathery whisper in my ear: "Are you OK Mary? Do you need a glass of water? A breath of air?" When not turned towards me, the voice would drift off over to the armchair into which my father had lowered himself, switch back to Italian. His tone muted - clearly a little shell-shocked himself - I imagined he was recounting the long and winding journey which had brought me there. Irene. My mother's name was peppered throughout the narrative almost as frequently as my own.

I recall too the grappa my father had poured us all, how it had slid its fiery trail down through my stomach. Its effects were almost immediate: a welcome mental cocoon.

Mostly though, what I remember of those minutes was how I had been unable to take my eyes off him, that elderly man there in the armchair, and how he in turn had been unable to take his eyes off me. We were like a pair of lovers in the dumbstruck aftermath of a surprise first kiss. Each of us searching the other's face for some faint echo of ourselves, imprinting each contour and each detail onto our mental fabric.

Suddenly almost, I then became aware of the silence in the room - the only sounds the swoosh of passing traffic five storeys below, the tick of a hidden clock somewhere. Lucio's account had finished; it was my father's turn now to to speak.

Long, spindly fingers pressed into the armrests of his chair; with a groan, he struggled himself upright. Pouring himself another grappa, he wandered over towards the window, gazed out over the sparkling nocturnal cityscape.

"Of words I have many," he began. "Right at this moment, they don't come to me however." He nodded towards the window. "They lay hidden somewhere out there in the darkness." His narrowed eyes seemed for a moment to search them.  "In any case, were I to start now I fear the night would defeat us. My story is a long one you see. Long and tortured and complex." The corners of his lips twitched momentarily upwards. "Sometimes I feel as if I've never really understood it myself." He paused, took a wincing sip of his grappa. "It's a story I have never told anyone, not even lovers, my dearest and closest of friends." Turning, he directed me a warm smile. "But yes, my daughter - mine and Irene's beautiful gift to the world - she has the right to know." His gaze peeled across to Lucio, then back to me. "I will tell you everything, not leave out a single detail. In return, I ask only one thing. These facts I will recount to you - my many and varied misdeeds - they must remain between us, here in this room."

There followed a questioning pause, one in which Lucio and I exchanged glances. Sombre, concordant nods.

Satisfied, my father turned back to the window. Back to the vast impenetrable canvas of the night.

"Memories can be elusive sometimes." A hand flitted out a snaking line before him. "Like skittering fish beneath the surface of the sea. One requires patience and fortitude to reel them all in." He glanced briefly around at us once more. "Come back tomorrow morning, around ten o'clock let's say. But now I'm afraid I must ask you both to go. Leave this old fisherman alone to drag his net."

*

As Lucio and I fought our way back to the hotel through the ever denser Friday night crowds, we remained largely wordless. Perhaps it was tiredness, the day we were about to close our eyes on having been a long, brutal affair of endless miles and black spilling secrets. Conjecture and hypothesis seemed futile; a little more patience, that was what was required. A few more hours and all would finally be revealed.

From the lift door, Lucio's was the first of our two rooms along the quiet marbled corridor. I paused for a moment as he rooted key card from pocket, inserted it into slot. As the door dutifully clicked open, he turned back to me, squeezed a hand to my upper arm.

"Rest, Mary. You need to rest."

But although I was physically exhausted and just moments later collapsed gratefully onto my bed, sleep would prove as elusive as those skittering fish my father had talked about. I felt like I'd received the most beautiful and unexpected gift imaginable, but that it was in some way faulty. Defective. That I wasn't quite sure whether I wanted to accept it or not. My father was a breathing, tangible reality, had lived a long and seemingly fulfilled life. And all that was magnificent, made my very soul hum and vibrate with joy. Yet nothing could mask the fact that for whatever reason and under whatever circumstances he had assumed another man's identity, and as such was guilty of a crime serious enough to warrant a significant custodial sentence. And maybe this was not all either. What about those other 'many and various misdeeds' he'd mentioned?

*

The following morning we mistimed things a little, arrived ten minutes before arranged. My father was ready for us however, the Chesterfield he once more ushered us towards having been cleared of its clutter, a duster passed over leather. Laid out on the coffee table in front was a plate of biscuits, glasses and a carafe of fruit juice.

"If you're ready," he announced, lowering himself in armchair, "then I'll begin."

In the daylight he appeared different to the previous evening. Paler somehow. More frail, less formidable. From the grey smudges beneath his eyes it seemed the night had been similarly as restless for he as it had for I. All those memories he'd had to reel in; the effort had drained him.

I remember the deep, stuttering breath he took. Not a man about to tell his story, but about to make his confession...

This is the end of part two. For the next thirteen chapters the narrative voice passes to Vincenzo D'Ambra. As well as answering many of the mysteries raised in the first half of the novel, and though morally ambiguous in parts, his story is an inspiring one. I hope you will enjoy reading it just as much as I enjoyed writing it.

If you enjoyed this chapter - indeed, if you have enjoyed the novel as a whole so far - your feedback would be very much appreciated. Alternatively, a vote would help put a smile on this amatuer writer's face.

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