Ice Dancing Episode 22

Ididn’t know what to say to him. I had been talking to him about all kinds of things, but just in my head. Now that I was with him, I could hear my voice shaking as I tried to make conversation. It wasn’t like me.

Well, it wasn’t like my middle-aged self. More like the tongue-tied teenager I used to be. I thought I had got beyond such stupidity, but perhaps you never do.

Eventually, he was striding along at such a pace that he pulled ahead of me and Jess lengthened her run to include both of us, anxious to keep up with him, anxious not to leave me behind. Then Joe stopped, looked round and waited for me.

“I can’t keep up with your long legs”. “Sorry”.

All unexpectedly, he took my arm and pulled it through his own. My heart lurched at his proximity, but there was nothing remotely sexual in the gesture. Not on his part, anyway.

Some people have a very definite physical presence and Joe was one of them. He smelled of toothpaste and some spicy cologne or aftershave.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“Fine”.

It was too. Familiar in a good way.

A big oak tree marked the turn-off and Jess crouched down and watered its roots enthusiastically.

“This is where we turn back.” “Shame. Do we have to?”

“Well it’s about a mile back to the farm by this road, so it’ll take us a little while to get there.”

“Good. I was enjoying walking. It’s great out here. So where does that road go?”

He gestured back the way we had come. “If we carried on walking instead of turning down here, where would we finish up?”

In the distance, a horizon of ragged pines, black against the blue, showed where the hill country began.

“Nowhere much. There are farms along there. Sheep farms mostly. Forestry roads. Eventually it joins one of the roads south.”

It was the road to Poldarrach, but I didn’t tell him that. Not then, anyway.

“So what have you been doing with yourself, Joe?” I asked.

“I’ve started clearing out Louise’s shed.” “That’ll be a job and a half.” “You’re not kidding.”

“Do you want any help?”

“I reckon you’ve got enough on your plate.”

“With tending to my cows? I’m sure I could find the time to give you a hand. And I could do a bit of gardening for you if you like. I looked after Louise’s garden for her when she was ill. She was very proud of her garden and I expect it wants putting to bed for the winter.”

“Well that might be good. I’d have no idea.”

“I could do a bit for you.”

“You could tell me what needs doing. I’d need a supervisor, in case I destroyed something precious.”

A crow waddled along the edge of the ditch like a wee fat minister in a long black coat. Jess ran at it, and it flapped into the air at the last possible moment, protesting noisily. Undeterred, it flew over the fence and landed a couple of yards away, eyeing her. Jess put her front paws flat on the grass and yelped at it, but it ignored her, plodding along, listening to the ground, eavesdropping on lunch. Joe seemed fascinated by it.

“So have you found anything interesting? In the shed, I mean?”

“Most of it was complete junk, but then right at the back I found …’

He hesitated. “What?”

“I think I’ve found Vezio’s Gallopers. Or what’s left of them.”

I stopped and looked at him blankly. “Whose what? What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t Louise ever tell you about the Gallopers?”

“No. What are they?”

His smile made him look unexpectedly boyish. We walked on.

“I have to tell you a bit of my family history to explain.”

“Go on then.”

“You can come in and see them if you like. Mind you, there’s not much to see at the moment. I need to get them out properly.”

“So what are they?”

“Well, you know my grandmother ran off with Louise’s Uncle Fred?”

“Yes. Louise showed me Freddy’s picture one day and said he’d eloped with an Italian girl called Francesca. That was the word she used, eloped. I had this vision of windows and ladders in the night, but I don’t think it can have been quite like that, can it? They ran away together. So they went to Canada. Is that right?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Their son was my dad, Alex. He was their only son as it turned out. After him they had girls. I have a lot of aunts.”

“So who was Vezio?”

“Ah well, that’s kind of complicated, but Vezio was Francesca’s father. My great grandfather. Vezio Ciccarello, that was his name.”

He said the name properly, I noticed, relishing it. Making it sound Italian, not Canadian.

“I see.”

“And he, Vezio I mean, used to take a little travelling carousel round Scotland.”

“A carousel?” I must have sounded sceptical because he stopped again and turned to face me.

“No, I don’t mean a big thing. This was small. Three little fairground horses on a wheeled platform, and you could hitch it up to a real horse and take it from place to place. Kids would pay for rides on it.”

“He was supposed to have made it himself. He was born in Northern Italy some time in the late 1880s I think and he married my great grandmother, Anna, not sure exactly when, but they were as poor as church mice. That’s the way the story goes in our family. He was apprenticed to a woodcarver, but for some reason they came over to Scotland, looking for a better way of life maybe.””

“Anyway, about 1920, my grandmother Francesca was born. She was born here in Scotland. And there was a brother called Mario. A younger brother. But their mother died while she was still quite a young woman, and poor Vezio was left with the two kids to look after. He used to take them round with him, the kids and the carousel together. It must have been a strange kind of life for them.” ■ More tomorrow

A crow waddled along the edge of the ditch like a wee fat minister in a long black coat. Jess ran at it, and it flapped into the air

Ice Dancing by Catherine Czerkawska, Dyrock Publishing, £9.99 and Kindle E-reader from £2.99. For more of her books, including The Posy Ring and A Proper Person To Be Detained, see saraband.net.