The Painted Altar

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Plot reminder: Six days have now passed since Ettore Lo Bianco's murder and Vincenzo is still on the run. Italian authorities have during this same period signed an armistice, changing the status of Italian POWs in allied hands.

~~~~~

The following dawn, Friday 10th September, was one of those bright but misty affairs like a thin cotton sheet backlit by the glow of a torch. It felt auspicious somehow, the day ahead a jewel about to be unveiled. The sort during which risks might be taken, stakes claimed.

The woods where I planned on burrowing away my weary body for the duration of the daylight hours was bordered by a cattle farm, the misted silhouettes asleep in the pasture larger and more impressive than one might expect of such docile creatures. Certainly, I couldn't recall having ever seen such healthy-looking cows back in Italy. All that lush green English grass they chewed, I supposed. Such a rainy climate had its advantages, yes.

I was just about to turn back into the dark interior of the woods when I heard a sudden clap of hands in the mid distance, the chirpy call of female voice. "Come on now girls. Time for milking." There was a brief muffled chorus of bovine grunts, as if in vain protest, and then with a swish of their tails the creatures turned sluggishly towards the sorting gate. I could just make out the outline of the person who stood guard - a slender figure in ankle-length skirt, hair gathered into a bun.

It was the same figure I would spot again mid-afternoon after waking, this time wheeling a bicycle through the front gate of the pretty-looking farmhouse on the other side of the pasture. I watched as she mounted, began pedalling away back along the same country lane which had led me there. The earlier mist had by this time cleared, the patches of sky visible through the canopy of the trees that typical English mottling - equal parts blue, white and grey. At that particular moment the sun was uncovered, its golden light illuminating the woman's smooth glide, setting aflame her auburn hair. Mid- to late-thirties I estimated, though from that distance it was difficult to be certain.

As I followed her progress I noticed that the perimeter fence along that side of the padture was in a sorry-looking condition - several of the stakes were diagonally slanted, the wire inbetween sagged and curved. A recent storm perhaps, or else the flank of the van which collected the milk had one day strayed a little too far to the side of the narrow lane. Whichever the case, if the cattle had a mind to it wouldn't take much for them to break through, scatter themselves far and wide over the neighbouring fields. The sudden appearance of a fox might set them off, for example, or the nearby boom of an anti-aircraft gun.

I don't recall there being any conscious thought process. Not a decision duly deliberated and then made. More it was instinct, an involuntary flex like a hand swatting at a buzzing fly. No sooner had the woman disappeared from sight than I was on my feet, creeping my way stealthily around the perimeter of the pasture and onto the lane. As I approached the farmhouse there was no discernable sign of life from inside - no noise or movement, the windows and exterior doors all closed. This was as I had expected: if anywhere near the woman's own age, her husband would be caught somewhere in the distant tides of war.

As I unclicked the gate and tiptoed around the side of the house, it soon became apparent that the woman didn't live completely alone however: stepping into the backyard area, I was immediately beset upon by a twin canine assault. One of the two dogs, a border collie, was quickly befriended; the other, a Yorkshire terrier, took a little longer to becalm. It was a backyard they shared with a handful of cackling hens, a rope-tied goat and a languid, unmoved cat.

The clutter of outbuildings were rickety-looking wooden constructions of a similar state of disrepair to the perimeter fence. There was a fairly rudimentary milking room consisting of a line of stalls, a feed store which seemed to be running critically low, and finally a disorganised mess of a tool shed in which several minutes' of frenetic rummaging were required before I was finally able to unearth all the implements I needed.