Roman Song Read online

  His room was small - just enough space for a bed, a wardrobe, a table and a chair that faced the window of his new world - but warm and bright and exacting in its neatness. Arianna had even made sure it had a fresh coat of white paint for his arrival. It was a far cry from the dilapidated room he used to share with his Granny Noreen.

  ‘You should rest after your journey,’ Arianna told him. ‘If you’re unsure of anything, you must ask me.’

  ‘We would like you to begin working in the kitchen in a few days,’ Alfredo said, ‘if you’re not too tired.’

  ‘Of course, no problem. But when do I start singing lessons with you, Alfredo?’

  Alfredo winked approval of his eagerness. ‘There’s no time to lose. We’ll begin this evening. I’ll return to collect you at six o’clock. For now, we leave you to settle in.’

  As soon as his door was closed, Fergal lay back on the bed and stared at the white ceiling, imagining it was a blank page where his dreams were waiting to be written. He wondered about the people who had lived in this new room of his before him. If the walls could have talked, they would have gossiped like four old spinsters. They had outlived every coat of paint and every repair. They could tell him how many words of love had been whispered in the night air, how many angry insults had been flung in desperation, how many promises made and broken, how many lives had begun and ended here.

  He got up again and paced the room slowly. Above the bed was a framed picture of Jesus, with a little red bulb flickering underneath. It made Fergal think of prostitutes for a split second, and he grinned at how quickly his mind could sink to the gutter. His thoughts turned, once again, to sex, to Father Mac and the similar room that they had so often secretly shared. It struck him that over the time they had known each other, Father Mac had helped him forget what it was to be lonely. He couldn’t believe that all those days and weeks and months had evaporated, and here he was, in a new country, surrounded by a language he couldn’t understand, much less speak. He knew he was lucky to be in Rome, but at the same time he couldn’t help feeling that he didn’t deserve it. A mild panic rose in his chest.

  Fergal shook his head in frustration and began unpacking his suitcase. He spread out his few belongings in the deep drawers and hung the second-hand winter coat up in the wardrobe, on its own. ‘Sorry,’ he said to it. ‘I’ll get another coat as soon as I’m rich and famous, then you’ll have a bit of company.’ He laughed at his own half-serious foolishness.

  Before he closed the long mirrored door of the wardrobe, he ran his hand down one side of the coat and leaned his head closer to smell it, convinced that Father Mac’s slight tobacco scent still lingered. He felt the little parcel in one of the inside pockets, a collection of secret poems about forbidden love. Father Mac had passed it to him as they’d said their final farewells at the security gate. It was the last time Fergal had touched his hand. Fergal took the parcel out, kissed the inscription and slid the tiny volume under his perfect white pillow. He hadn’t the heart to read any more of it just yet.

  The weight of the past was beginning to slow his heartbeat and tighten his head. He decided to go back down to the restaurant and offer to start work straight away if Arianna wanted him to. He looked at the picture of the Sacred Heart and said angrily, ‘I haven’t come all this way just to mope in my bedroom. Fuck that!’ The kitchen was another breed of motorway altogether, full of stainless steel, crockery and copper traffic. Arianna, surprised, reluctant, but delighted - she prized hard work above all else -gave Fergal an apron and an approving smile and sent him to the sinks to help with the endless washing-up and drying.

  Fergal had never seen so many dirty dishes in one place. He thought of Walker Street back home and his poor mother’s tiny kitchen (no one ever called it his father’s kitchen, even though he quickly pointed out that it was his fucking house if anybody dared to change the TV channel). She was never done trying to cope with the chaos of four constantly hungry boys - or five, if you included her husband, as she often hissed when he was out of earshot. As Fergal scrubbed an enormous pot, he half-smiled to himself. No matter where he went, he always ended up doing dishes. But it was different this time - he knew he didn’t have to, and in a few days he would be paid to do it and he wouldn’t have to fight World War Three to get a clean cup. He washed and rinsed, his memory drifting back and forth across the sea, until Arianna came back and told him that the lunch crowd had finally left and they could take a well-earned break.

  Fergal followed the rest of the kitchen staff to a circular table surrounded by chairs. It held a huge ceramic dish of steaming pasta, precarious towers of smaller bowls, a platter of perfectly cut loaves fresh from the oven and a small dish of olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dip the bread into. At first Fergal wasn’t sure what to do, but after watching the staff, he helped himself to a generous portion of spaghetti with rich tomato sauce. It tasted nothing like the tinned hoops his mother used to heat up for lunch. He wasn’t sure which he preferred, but he decided to keep that to himself.

  The staff gathered in little groups, gossiping between mouthfuls and smoking out the side door. Arianna began handing out espresso in baby cups. One by one, the staff turned their attention to Fergal and reintroduced themselves, in very good English. They were all members of the extended Moretti family -cousins, in-laws, nephews-of-cousins - and to Fergal all their names sounded extraordinary: Giacomo, Cecco...Try as he might, Fergal forgot them as soon as they were pronounced, but they laughed, telling him not to worry if he couldn’t remember. After a Saturday night on the beer, they said, they couldn’t remember their own names either.

  Arianna smiled protectively. She was glad to see that Fergal was already settling in, and she hadn’t seen her brother so genuinely excited for years. She picked up an empty wine glass and tapped the side of it with her fork until the little room fell silent. Then she cleared her throat and announced to the gathering, ‘As you know, our newest member of staff, Fergal Flynn, is here to study singing with my dearest brother, who assures me he will be another star of the classical world. Now, if Alfredo has his way - and, if you know my brother like I do, you know he will have his way! - then we want to be the first to wish Fergal every success. If he sings as well as he washes dishes, he will have no problems!’

  The staff roared their approval and slapped him good-naturedly on the back before heading back to their never-ending duties and the preparations for that evening’s meal.

  Arianna had noticed that Fergal was eating the bread but not dipping it into the oil. ‘You don’t like olive oil?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure what it was. I didn’t want to be rude, but why is it dark in the middle like that?’

  Arianna laughed. ‘Olive oil is for Italy what potatoes are for Ireland. The dark one is balsamic vinegar, for contrast, to make the dip even more delicious.’ She immersed the corner of a piece of bread in the mixture. ‘Try it. If you don’t like it, that’s fine.’

  Fergal thought he would hate it, but as the thick liquid oozed from the warm bread and down his throat, he thought it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. He’d always loved piles of salt and vinegar on his chips, but this was something else. To Arianna’s delight, he swallowed every bit and instantly reached for another piece of bread.

  She smiled and wiped some oil from the corner of his mouth with a napkin. ‘Fergal, we’ll make an Italian of you yet!’

  3

  Alfredo kept his promise. He returned to Bistro Moretti as the nearby church bells sounded six solemn times. Fergal was taking a much-needed shower, as the combination of the heat of the kitchen and the afternoon sun had made him sweat right through the back of his shirt. His hair was still wet when he came bounding down the stairs at Arianna’s call.

  At Alfredo’s home the table was set for dinner, and Alfredo explained that some of his closest friends were coming to eat with them later. They were all dying to meet his new Irish protégé . Fergal liked the way Alfredo called him his ‘protégé ’. He wasn’t rea
lly sure what it meant, but he could tell it was something good by the way Alfredo smiled proudly when he said it. Alfredo, catching the confusion on Fergal’s face, explained how much he loved the word and indeed why it applied to him. It was as if he’d fitted a light bulb in a forgotten socket in Fergal’s head - as soon as he flicked the switch, he managed to make him feel special and a little brighter on the inside.

  Alfredo sat at the piano and began playing a slow, melancholy introduction. Then he burst forth, in full voice, with a dramatic melody in such a rich and impressive tone that Fergal nearly lost his balance. He thought Alfredo sounded incredible - and to think this man wanted to teach him! The piece came to an end with a note that Alfredo sustained for so long that Fergal felt breathless. He couldn’t take his eyes off his teacher’s mouth. In that moment, he understood why Alfredo’s presence at the airport had created such a stir.

  Fergal clapped awkwardly and quickly. Alfredo nodded modestly. ‘Eventually,’ he said, ‘we will work on this piece for you.’

  Fergal’s heart sank - he felt like he would never be able to learn something so difficult - but Alfredo smiled at the worried look on his face. ‘I felt the same way when my old teacher first played this song for me, more than twenty-five years ago. Fergal, do you know that I have been singing, and now teaching, for longer than you’ve been alive?’

  They began with relaxation techniques, moved on to posture and then to scales. Over and over, Alfredo led Fergal up and down a staircase of notes, improving and polishing the sound of each step as they went. Every now and then Alfredo would stop and tell Fergal to pay attention to the shape of his mouth, or to imagine the different letters of the alphabet in different places in his mouth. Fergal didn’t really understand all of it, but when he happened to make the sound that Alfredo was after, Alfredo would yell encouragement and get him to repeat it over and over until he understood what he was doing. Sometimes their concentration would unravel. Alfredo would playfully mimic Fergal’s accent and they would both be in stitches laughing.

  More than an hour later, the doorbell rang and Alfredo closed the piano, saying that their first lesson was at an end. Fergal wasn’t sure how it had gone. He felt light-headed from the new way of breathing that Alfredo had insisted on, and he was glad of the rest.

  Two men swept into the room carrying bunches of flowers and kissed Alfredo’s cheeks as if their lives depended on it. Alfredo introduced them as Giovanni and Luigi, saying, ‘We’ve been friends for more years than any of us care to guess or admit!’ Giovanni was a set designer at the local opera house, and Luigi owned one of the largest flower shops in Rome.

  When Alfredo introduced Fergal to them, Giovanni put the back of his hand to his mouth. ‘Oh, Alfredo, if his voice is half as beautiful as his eyes, who knows what will happen in the classical world?’

  Luigi clutched an imaginary string of pearls at his chest. ‘Welcome to Rome. My poor heart is breaking just looking at you, young man. Oh, to be a youth again!’

  Alfredo laughed. ‘I’m not sure which of you should be on the stage after all.’

  Alfredo’s housekeeper, Daniela, was well used to her employer’s ‘unusual’ friends, which was how she described them to her religious mother during secret phone calls if Alfredo was out and she got bored of dusting. She appeared from behind the door at just the right moment with a tray of drinks.

  Alfredo was as much an expert on wine as he was on singing. He loved watching his guests’ eyes light up as they recognised the vintage of the bottle, or the look on Fergal’s pale face as he sipped nervously from a glass of Barollo for the first time. Fergal felt completely out of his depth. He’d tried altar wine a few times and Father Mac and he had shared the odd bottle of wine, but to his surprise, he liked the Barollo.

  When they were all seated for dinner and had begun the first course of Parma ham, Luigi and Giovanni began asking Fergal about Ireland. They listened with interest as Fergal took them on a carefully edited journey around West Belfast. How could he explain what it was really like, the real images that came crashing into his head when he thought about Ireland? Like the time he had seen a local boy, not much older than him, shot dead by a bunch of foot-patrol soldiers, or the time he had stumbled upon a punishment beating, the victim screaming in an alleyway while one hooded man shot him through the side of his knee and another cut the word ‘TOUT’ - informer - into his bare chest with a rusted six-inch nail. His diet account concentrated on Father MacManus and their eventual trip to the monastery in Sligo where he had made a recording with Brother Vincent and his strict order of monks.

  ‘Ohhh, strict monks? How strict were they?’ Giovanni nudged Luigi and winked.

  Alfredo cleared his throat and took over the story. Fergal was only too glad to be rescued. ‘Brother Vincent was in charge of an extraordinary choir. They chant in Latin every morning before breakfast—’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Luigi broke in, ‘before breakfast? If I don’t have a cigarette in my mouth before the kettle boils, I’m no good to anyone before or after breakfast, am I, Vanni?’

  Giovanni raised his eyebrows and nodded in agreement, and Fergal laughed. ‘Brother Vincent is a character,’ Alfredo finished. ‘And if it weren’t for that strange little holy man, I would never have heard Fergal’s exquisite recording, nor been able to meet him and Father MacManus in Belfast, and Fergal wouldn’t be sitting around the table with us now, after what I must say was a very promising first vocal lesson.’

  They raised their glasses, and the food kept coming. Thankfully for Fergal’s limited palate, the main course was roasted chicken and vegetables, and he couldn’t get enough of it. Alfredo was delighted to see that he had a fairly healthy appetite, even though it paled in comparison to his own.

  At the end of the meal, Fergal left the table to go to the toilet. As he ascended the stairs, he looked at the pale cream walls adorned with framed posters of the operas and concerts that Alfredo had appeared in over many years. Outside the bathroom door was one from London’s Covent Garden, signed by the rest of the cast of The Barber of Seville. He stood in the doorway and thought about all the places the posters were from and the life Alfredo must have led. He knew he wanted a life like that for himself. He felt a little rush of excitement as he fantasised about giving concerts in front of thousands of people and having his name on a proper poster. He looked around the perfect bathroom and wondered what it would be like to have his own big house one day, somewhere in Ireland or England or even America, maybe, with posters and artwork and books and a piano, of course - God, yeah, he’d have to have a piano.

  On cue, an angry little voice with a strong Belfast accent started at the back of his head, getting louder and louder. Wise up and stop dreaming. You’ll never amount to nothing, because you are nothing. You’re sick in the head, do you know that? You’re a freak. God will never forgive your sins of the flesh with Father MacManus. Fergal put his hands to the sides of his head in frustration. He threw some cold water on his face, trying to wash away the past. He looked at himself in the mirror and thought he didn’t look that bad. He didn’t look evil, did he?

  When he came back down again, Daniela was serving rocket-fuel espresso to the little party who had settled by the fire in low, soft chairs to smoke thin, brightly coloured cigarettes and sip the Armagnac. When Fergal tried some, it burned the throat off him. He couldn’t believe how strong everything tasted in Rome.

  Alfredo put his glass down. ‘Do you feel like singing, Fergal? It’s absolutely no problem if you don’t.’ But Luigi and Giovanni had already begun clapping and positioned themselves near to the piano, and Fergal hadn’t the heart to deny them.

  ‘I don’t know what to sing,’ he said shyly.

  ‘Do you know any Judy Garland? How about “The Man that Got Away”?’ Luigi asked hopefully.

  Fergal shook his head, and Alfredo laughed. ‘No, Luigi, I’m afraid we haven’t begun to study her - or Liza, before you ask!’

  ‘Something Irish?’ Giovanni aske
d.

  Fergal thought for a second. He stood up, remembering to carefully adjust his posture to the new one he’d just learned that day, and said, ‘This is an old one, one of the first I ever sang, and it’s a County Down song.’

  ‘And after this one, maybe a County Up song?’ Giovanni quipped.

  He and Luigi laughed and Alfredo made a face at them. ‘What is it called, Fergal?’

  “‘The Flower of Magherally”.’.

  The room fell silent. Fergal started singing, slowly and softly, drawing out the notes and sending them around the room with his eyes closed.

  One pleasant summer’s morning

  When all the flowers were springing-o,

  Nature was adorning

  And the wee birds sweetly singing-o,

  I met my love near Banbridge town,

  My charming blue-eyed Sally-o,

  She’s the queen of the County Down,

  The flower of Magherally-o.

  By the second verse, his voice had grown stronger and more confident.

  With admiration did I gaze Upon this blue-eyed maiden-o,

  Adam wasn’t half so struck When he met his Eve in Eden-o,

  Her skin was like the lily white That grows in yonder valley-o,

  She’s my queen and my heart’s delight,

  The flower of Magherally-o.

  He sang the last verse almost in a whisper.

  I hope the day will surely come When we’ll join hands together-o,

  ’Tis then I’ll take my darling home,

  In spite of wind and weather-o,

  For let them all say what they will And let them scowl and rally-o,

  For I shall wed the one I love,

  The flower of Magherally-o.

  He held the last note as long as he could, and this time Alfredo was the one to stand up and clap. Luigi and Giovanni did the same, shouting, ‘Bravo! Bravo! Encore!’ Giovanni reached into one of the vases and threw a rose at Fergal. He caught it awkwardly, pricking himself on one of the thorns. He stuck his wounded thumb in his mouth, and Daniela, who had been watching from the hallway, returned with a plaster and helped him apply it. Luigi announced dramatically, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, not only does he sing, but he bleeds for us!’