Ice Dancing Episode 26

Joe reached over and sifted through the photos until at last he seized on the picture of Fred. “Here he is. My grandfather, Freddy. There’s a copy of this at home. Mom keeps all the photos in a big wooden box. We get them out when the family’s all together.”

“Is your dad still alive, Joe?”

“No. Dad died very young. I was only thirteen. But my mom’s still going strong.” “Do you have brothers and sisters?” “One sister. Frankie. She’s two years younger than me.”

“Was she named after your grandmother?”

“Sure.”

He was sifting through the pictures again, absorbed in them. “Wow!” he said, suddenly, and pulled a photograph out of the pile. “Look at this!”

I recognised it immediately. It was the young man with curly black hair. He was standing in a garden. Grinning at the camera. Smoking a cigarette.

“Isn’t he beautiful? I’ve often wondered who he was.”

“I’ve seen that one before and I know who he is,” said Joe. “That’s my grandmother’s brother. That’s my great uncle Mario. Good looking guy, wasn’t he?”

He looked angelic; like something from an old Italian painting, not soft angelic but hard and a bit dangerous. I stared at the picture. He had a look of Joe, though Joe was much taller and altogether broader and his hair wasn’t curly. It was straight and thick, like the dark pelt of some animal. Mario had been slighter and more fragile with black curls. But they had the same Roman nose, the same regular features. The same smile.

“Vezio’s son?”

“That’s right.”

“So what became of him?”

“I told you. We don’t know. He wrote to Francesca from Scotland for a while, and we have this picture, or something very like it, at home. So he must have sent it. And then everything went quiet. Dad kept meaning to try to trace them for her but he never got round to it. Didn’t Louise say anything about this picture?”

“No. Not really.”

She had said something. She had said, “Never settle for second best.”

But I didn’t tell him that. It didn’t seem particularly relevant.

“Maybe I should do something about that as well. While I’m here,” said Joe. “Try to find out more about our family history. My sister’s very interested. Does some stuff online. But it’s mostly mom’s side she’s looked at so far.”

“What are your plans?” I asked, casually. “For next year, I mean.”

Snippets of information

He took a long drink of wine. “I’ll be here for the whole season. Till April at least. After that I don’t know.”

He never seemed to want to talk about “back home” very much. Or when he did, he talked about the past, his mother and sister, his early childhood. And his hockey, but only in the most general terms. Snippets of information.

But you would have had to be blind and deaf not to see that there was something he was avoiding. I don’t mean he was being particularly secretive. It was just that you felt he was avoiding something in his own mind and consequently in his conversation. There was something he skirted round all the time.

I found myself wondering whether he was married, whether there was a girlfriend (and looking at him I wondered how there could not be a girlfriend somewhere in the background, maybe more than one, waiting anxiously for letters or phone calls) and why he had decided to come to Scotland and stay for so long.

Maybe he needed the work. I wondered what professional hockey players got paid. I didn’t know whether it was lucrative or not but I realised that at the higher levels it must be.

He gathered the photos up and slipped them back into the album. “I’ll take these home with me when I go. My mom might recognise some of them. Where would I go to try to find out more about my family, Helen?”

“There’s the record office in Edinburgh, I suppose. I think you can go there and look things up and get copies of certificates. But you could probably do it all online, even from Canada. We have a computer up at the farm. You can come and use that if you like. There’s a site called Scotland’s People. It can get a bit expensive though.”

“I think I’d rather go to Edinburgh. Hey, maybe you could come with me. Show me the city.”

“Maybe I could.”

“Would Sandy be able to spare you?” “From seeing to all those cows? I expect so.”

It was a casual invitation. He clearly liked my company, but that was all. I could see that. And maybe he was a little lonely here. Or would be until he made more friends. But the thought of going to Edinburgh with him gave me a kick of excitement.

I hadn’t been to the city for years. Truth to tell I had avoided it. It was too painful to go back to the place that had seemed like a promised land to me. I had been only once, with Annie and the kids on a village trip, and it had been extraordinarily bitter for me.

Buried sensations

Maybe he was a little lonely here... But the thought of going to Edinburgh with him gave me a kick of excitement

To my surprise, all kinds of buried sensations of disappointment and resentment had come bubbling to the surface. I could hardly bear it. Now, if I wanted to go Christmas shopping or to visit a theatre or a museum, I went to Glasgow. The shopping was better there anyway. But I had an inkling that it might be different if I went with Joe.

“And meanwhile, I’ll do some work on Vezio’s Gallopers. When I have any spare time.”

The sun had set and a bank of clouds was rolling in from the sea. Soon it would be dark. Joe got up and switched on the lamps, pulling the curtains across, shutting out the night. Then he bent down and hauled a big bag out from where it had been stashed behind the couch.

“Sorry about this,” he said. “It stinks. I should have moved it earlier.”

I had wondered about the faint smell of stale sweat that hung about the room. “What is it?”

More tomorrow.

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

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