handkerchiefs. She had left Angela in the kitchen with the pasta ready to go into a saucepan and the sauce already mixed, the meat thin-sliced and in the refrigerator, the vegetables washed, the fruit in a bowl and the cheese on the wood block. The wine was chilled and the mineral water. Beyond Peppino and the children, in the dining alcove, the table had been laid by Charley for eight people.
'Come on, Mario and Francesca, bath time, come on,' Charley had said.
'So soon, so early?' Peppino had asked.
Charley had glanced down at the watch on her wrist. 'Think I'd better be getting on because then I'll need a shower and time to change. I thought I'd wear what you-'
And Peppino had said, so casual, 'I don't think you need to be with us, Charley. I understand Angela told you that it is my father's birthday – family talk, Sicilian talk. I think that for you it would be very tedious, very boring for you.'
'Don't worry about me, I'll just sit-'
And Peppino had said, 'My father and mother are from the country here, Charley. I think it would be difficult for you to understand their dialect. They would not be at ease with a stranger – not a stranger to us but to them – so it is better that you do not sit with us tonight. Angela will put the children to bed.'
'Of course, Peppino. I quite understand…'
Into the dining alcove, to the table, and Charley had stripped a laid place and removed a chair. Seven places left, and seven chairs. She had gone into the kitchen and told Angela, without comment, that Peppino thought she would be bored by dinner with his parents. She had watched Angela, and seen the woman's face stiffen, and she had wondered whether Angela would stride from the kitchen and into the living room and make an issue of Charley at dinner. Angela had nodded, as if she did not have the will to fight. She had bathed the children, dressed them in their best clothes and brought them back to Peppino. She had made herself a sandwich in the kitchen. She had gone to her room.
She tried to read. She lay on her bed, dressed, and she turned the pages and learned nothing from them. She listened. A car came. She heard the murmur of voices and the happy shouting of the children. She heard footsteps in the corridor, beyond her door, which she had left an inch ajar. She heard the sounds of the kitchen.
She tried to read…
For Christ's sake, Charley…
She turned the page back because she was absorbing nothing of what she read.
For Christ's sake, Charley, it is just a job of work.
She put the book on the table beside her bed.
For Christ's sake, Charley, the job of work is playing the lie.
She pushed herself up off the bed. She straightened her hair.
It was what she had come for, travelled for, it was why she had left the bungalow and the class of 2B. She took a big breath. She put a smile on her face. She walked out of her room, and she went first towards the kitchen, and she saw the dirtied plates of the pasta and meat courses, and there was another plate beside the cooker that had a saucepan lid put on it as if to keep the plate warm. She went along the corridor towards the voices in the dining alcove beyond the living room. She came into the living room and the smile was fixed hard on her face. Only the children bubbled laughter at the table and played with the car and the doll, but the talking died. The chair at the head of the table was empty. She kicked away the quaver in her voice, spoke boldly.
Charley asked Angela if she could help by putting the children to bed.
Angela and Peppino sat opposite each other, then the children, then the two old people. There was a smear of annoyance on Peppino's face, and the expression of Angela was pain. At the end of the table, either side of the empty place and the empty chair, were the parents of Peppino. The old man wore a poor-fitting suit, but good cloth, and his collar and tie drooped from a thin neck. The old woman wore black, with white sparse hair gathered in a bun. Charley had seen their house, she had walked past the open door of their house, she had heard the radio playing in their house and smelt the cooking in their house.
Peppino said, 'That will not be necessary, Angela will see the children to bed. Thank you for the offer. Goodnight, Charley.'
He did not introduce her. The eyes of the old man were on her, bright in his aged and lined face. The old woman looked at her, disapproving, then started again to peel the skin from an apple.
Charley smiled. 'Right, I just wondered. It will be good to get an early night.'
She went back to her room. She again left the door an inch ajar. She sat on the bed.
Her fingers rested on the face of her wrist-watch. She wondered where he was, whether Axel Moen listened. Plain to her that she was not welcome, and there was the empty chair, and there was the food kept warm on the plate. The rhythm of the codes played in her mind. Where was he? Did he listen? Her finger edged towards the button on the watch on her wrist.
She made the signal. She paused. She made the signal again. Where was he? Would he have heard it? She pressed the button, the same rhythm.
The excitement ran in her. It was her power…
She went to the bathroom, washed and peed, and back in her room she undressed. The pulse tone she had sent, three times, was her power
…
For a moment she held the bear close to her, as if the bear should share the excitement that was hers because of the power. She switched off the bedside light. She lay in the darkness. Trying to stay awake, hearing sounds in the kitchen, hearing the flushing of the lavatory, hearing the children going with Angela to their rooms, hearing the indistinct murmur of the voices. Trying to stay awake, and drifting, with the finger resting on the button of her wrist- watch, and drifting further, as if the excitement exhausted her. When she drifted, she dreamed. When she came through from each dream, sporadic, she jerked herself awake and killed each dream and looked at the fluorescent face of her watch. Ten o'clock coming, and eleven, and midnight, and the dreams were harder to kill, and she drifted faster, further.
She dreamed of the young man in the newspaper photograph with the throat cut and the blood spread, and of the story that Benny had told, and of the helicopter.
She dreamed of the shadow in the doorway, and of her door closing.
She dreamed of the hovering helicopter and the men in balaclavas, and of the soft-shoe shuffle in the corridor, and of Axel Moen standing under the trees beyond the beach sand… Charlie slept.
'What time is it?'
'It's thirty minutes on from when you last asked.'
'What the hell's she at?'
'You want me to go to the door, wake the house, request to speak to her, then ask her?'
'She sent the Stand-by.'
'She sent the Stand-by. She has not sent Immediate Alert, nor has she sent Stand Down.'
'It is six hours since she sent Stand-by.'
'Correct, Axel, because it is now three o'clock, which is half an hour after we last had this discussion.'
'Don't understand it.' 'What I understand, Axel, I am quite pleased that I did not call out the heroes of the carabineri. Overtime, the need for a report, I am very pleased.'
'I'll kick her butt.'
'She will be very bruised. You said that half an hour ago, and an hour ago.'
'But, it is just goddam unprofessional.'
'Exactly, Axel. Because she is not a professional.'
They sat in the car. The last of the discos had long closed, the piazza bars had shut, the kids on the motorcycles and the scooters had roared away into the night. Mondello was emptied. The street where they were parked, off the piazza and a block from the shoreline, was deserted. Axel took a Lucky Strike from the packet and swore under his breath and passed the packet to 'Vanni and 'Vanni took the last cigarette from the packet. The match flashed in the interior of the car.
'That sort of settles it, doesn't it? I mean, I'm not goddam sitting here without cigarettes.'
Axel crushed the empty packet. He dropped it on the floor beside 'Vanni's finished packet and beside the squashed wrapping of the pizzas they'd eaten. They smoked.
They eked out their cigarettes until their fingers burned. They dropped their cigarettes through the open
