Chapter 18

Chapter 18 - Her Last Day

Angela hardly slept a wink that night. The air was humid and hot. She opened windows but it made no difference. She needed to think. And she needed to reflect. It was as though that one, baking hot and extraordinary night she just gave up. And the more she could feel her resolve slipping the more she resigned herself to misery and recrimination. And she never stopped crying. Not once, all through that terrible night. Every so often the crying would turn to anger and in anger she would call herself a killer, a whore and a useless mother. The last was of course the worse of all. The one that really ripped her insides. And as she tore into herself she told herself that she had to give herself up. She had to go to the police and deliver herself to her fate. She just couldn’t keep the charade up any longer. She just couldn’t do it one more second.

“Oh, why did you have to leave me, Giacomo’” she kept wailing. Over and over and over.

She just kept recalling the memory of her brother in law and she kept telling herself how selfish she was for not helping him that day when he cried in front of her. That morning in the cafe just before he killed himself. And so now she was alone and now she blamed herself for his suicide. Why not, after all she did nothing to help him that morning. And he surely came to her for help. She just thought of her safety and so he died. She may as well have murdered him too. She never felt so alone in her life. And she was so tired now. But she couldn’t sleep, so she just kept wailing and crying and recriminating and wailing. All night long.

In the very early morning, before the sun even considered rising, she hit rock bottom. And as she hit rock bottom she attacked the mannequin. She used her fists and her feet and she punched and she kicked that mannequin until her hands were bruised. Then she attacked it’s short brown hair with her teeth. It was only when her mouth was stuffed with it’s fake, wiry hair and she could hardly breath that she slumped back down to the floor and wept. She wept and she chocked on the hair. And then she collapsed onto her face.

So, when the sun started rising, Angela had made her mind up. She dressed for the occasion. She wore a black suit, a white silk shirt and black leather shoes. She tied her hair up and she whitened her tan a little. She was light on the make up and scent. Then she put together a small bag with some underwear and a nightgown and a robe. It was a night bag made up for one purpose only. It was the kind of night bag you assembled if you have never been to prison before. A bag so full of acceptance and humility and naivety. The contents said it all, even the wash bag with only a tooth brush, tooth paste, a hair brush and some tissues. Nothing more. It was as though she was entering a convent. But, she wasn’t. She was going to jail. For good.

And as Angela surveyed her house for the last time she never shed a tear. She had none left. She had cried them all out the night before. So, she quietly and forlornly left her house in Piazza Rimazza. And she left the mannequin in his workshop. She removed her from their bedroom. It seemed fitting.

Then she walked over to the café in the Piazza and she had a coffee. She heard no one even though the café was packed and vibrant. Then she walked from that Piazza. As she left it she looked back one last time and she said goodbye. She said goodbye to her home and her Piazza and it wasn’t so bad. It was almost impossible for her to feel any more pain, for her heart was already broken in two.

Then she walked to the church to pray. And after she had prayed for her soul in the church she would sit in front of Monte Amiato one last time and say goodbye. She would not go to her parents. She couldn’t. And she knew they would look after Giuseppe and look after him well. They were already doing such a good job. Maybe a better job than she could ever do.

So, in front of her God and in the front of her church Angela prayed. She asked the Lord for forgiveness and she hoped that by her turning herself in she might begin a path to redemption. Then she prayed for Giuseppe. She prayed for her little Giuseppe and she remembered him with his glasses and his twitch and she remembered him with the lacerations across his head. She remembered him lying next to her when she thought she must be dead and she remembered looking into his tear stained eyes with his twitch. He twitched so uncontrollably when he was afraid. She hoped he would twitch less as he grew. Then she saw a vision of him when he was older and would no longer remember her and she cried. She cried silently and meekly in her pew but she cried none the less. And her tears were as sap oozing from a broken trunk. Oozing to the floor before the tree collapses. Collapses to the ground, crashing through the undergrowth until it rests for good. No longer able to produce any sap. So she cried until she ran out of tears and then she slowly and painfully resolved to leave. To leave the church and to start the long walk to the police station to face up to her fate.

As Angela stood up from her kneeling, she felt a tap on her shoulder. A gentle tap. She looked round slowly and saw her father. And he saw his daughter. Perhaps for the very first time in his life he really saw his daughter. And he saw her pain and it killed him. In his perfect pin striped suit and white pressed shirt and dark blue, silk tie, he nearly cried. He nearly cried in front of her for the very first time in his life. But before he could, she grabbed his elbow and smiled at him. She saw his pain and she saw his love and she was ok. She was ready for what she needed to do. She started to move on but he grabbed her hand and made her sit with him.

Then he told her. He told her that he knew she had killed Bruno and he knew that she lied about his illness and her blood type and he understood the lie she was living. He said that he even knew that Bruno beat her up. And then he looked down at the ground. He bowed his head before her and before their Lord and he told her all. And when he had finished she kissed him on his head and she forgave him. Then she told him her stories. She told him how she killed Bruno and how she thought Giuseppe was dead and how she tried to kill herself. And she crossed herself as she told him and as she told her God. Then she told him about her life of beatings and how it was now behind her and she had somehow become strong. And then she knew she was ready to go to prison. And so she told him that too.

The father stared at his daughter. He stared deep into those big brown eyes and he remembered her as his little baby and then as his little girl and he remembered all the things he did with her and all the things he didn’t do with her and then he cried. He cried and he cried and he couldn’t do it silently. Not even in this noiseless church. He just couldn’t do it. So he wailed and then he pleaded. He pleaded for her to stay and to look after them all and to be with them. He told her that they needed her and then he told her that Giuseppe needed her more than anything and finally, finally he told her that he needed her. For the first time in his life he told his daughter why he loved her and why he would love her forever, whatever might be. And for an instant he found his moment. For this one split second she paused. She went into slow motion and everything blurred around her until she heard herself say that she would think on it one more night and she would meet him at that church the same time the next morning and then she would decide. Then he hugged her like a bear and she left. She left dazed and confused. But she left complete after she had entered so broken. And she thanked her Lord.

So that day Angela returned to the Piazza and returned to her home. But she didn’t unpack her bag. She changed her clothes and she put them neatly away so that she could wear them the next day. For she knew this would be her last day of freedom. This time she was almost ok with it. And like a person who knows they will die of some terrible disease the following day she took everything in for the last time. She put on her jeans and her sneakers and she walked Girotondo. She walked Girotondo and then she drove down to the sea. She drove down to Monte Argentario and to the beaches that surround this extraordinary place and she took photographs. She took photographs on the beaches and in the ports and at the café’s. She took photographs of fishermen and tourists and old women shopping. The she took photographs of policemen and young lovers. Then as the sun was slowly fading she photographed the beaches one more time and then she sped back to Girotondo to photograph her last sunset there. She photographed the sun setting on the streets, the town walls and on the people. Then she photographed the vineyards and the olive groves that she had always played in. They looked so magnetic in the fading, blood red Tuscan sun. And then as her finale she photographed Monte Amiato. And she had one last tear left as she captured that big old mountain of hers for the very last time. And he couldn’t have looked prouder. Her big old faithful bear of a mountain sat completely still for her to capture him one more time. To capture him for her son. For these last reams of film were all for him, to remember her by. For ever.

She would give them to her father the next morning and make him promise to keep them for when Giuseppe was old enough.

Then Angela returned home. And in the silence of the evening she remembered that it was Thursday night and Thursday night was when the reading circle met. She was due to have dinner with her parents later, so she concluded that she would be better off to first go to the reading circle. It would be better than festering at home. So, she went one last time. But this time she didn’t faithfully read one of Bruno’s latter works. This time she went to the back of that walk in freezer and she took out one of her stories. She would finally read one of her very own tales. For the very first time and the very last time she would get to read her own writings. So she walked up the hill in the evening heat with the crickets ringing all around her and she felt anxious. Who wouldn’t.

copyright ©Philip L Letts 2007