Last Train from Liguria (2010) by Christine Dwyer Hickey Read Free Book Online

face up to the sun. Bella let down the sash and leaned out to the smell of new paint and the gnashing of a gardener’s shears.
    And the one thing with which she would always associate this street, this borough, this time of the year - the Chinese wisteria: falling in clusters of pale-blue and mauve. Down the fronts and across the gables, through the railings and over the doorways, of all these Chelsea houses.

    SICILY, 1933

    FROM SHIPBOARD SHE NOTICES Signor Pino. His is the only calm figure down there on the dockside, the only one who doesn’t appear to be either running to, or from, an emergency. Apart from the emigrants waiting to board the ship for America. They stand on the sidelines in dark, silent coppices; bags like dogs at their feet, clothes that are heavy and formal - what she imagines to be their funeral-best.
    Pino wears jodhpurs and tall boots, like somebody waiting for his horse to be brought round. An urchin stands beside him, schoolroom slate held over a small, cropped head. As soon as the queue gives its first tentative shudder, the urchin makes a charge for the gangway, displaying his little blackboard to those already on the descent and accompanying them on their first terra firma steps, pushing the blackboard at them, pointing at its message, until he seems satisfied that it has been read and understood by all. Then, through similar urchins holding similar signs, he struggles back to the gangway and the next batch of passengers, to start the whole process again.
    It takes her a moment to recognize the name chalked on his slate, Signora Stvart, the u drawn like a v in the Greek fashion. There had been no need to worry about being Bella after all. Here she will be, like any other adult woman would be, simply Signora.
    Under the slate, the child appears frantic, as if he is afraid he will never find her, and therefore, she supposes, will never be paid. She tries to attract his attention. But her gesture is timid, and his eye moves too quickly to catch it.
    Bella turns onto the gangway and the heat is so sudden she feels almost molested; the thrust of it, the way it forces itself on her face and neck. She pulls back a few times, before finally accepting that from now on the heat will have a permanent hold of her.
    And so down into a Palermo dockside morning she inches, keeping her eye on the queue ahead, as it lands and then splits to join other queues. Some are alphabetically arranged to facilitate baggage collection or custom clearance, others appear to have an official, if somewhat indefinite, purpose. At various points an officer pops up, black uniform and seagull gloves, turning a truncheon gracefully in his hand to conduct passengers out of the mob and into a line, until the terminal, as far as the eye can see anyway, is a tabulation of shuffling queues.
    She steps off the gangway and, breaking away, waits for Pino. Bella sees that he has already spotted her, and is manoeuvring himself through the crowd, hip first and agile as a waiter. He is holding an old-fashioned veiled hat, and a pair of goggles sit on his head. When he reaches her, he gives a little bow, the goggles dip and she finds herself smiling into a pair of large, insectile eyes. His face lifts back to her and she tries to say something, something unnecessary, like to tell him that she is Signora Stuart and that he must be Signor Pino. But the noise on the dockside is dense, impossible to navigate and she can’t even hear her own voice. She notes Pino nonetheless is following her lips with his eyes. She stops speaking. The impact of movement and sound is immediate and shocking: wheels, whistles, limbs, screaming machinery, brawling voices. In the distance a precarious sway of cargo, which, through her tired and distorted eye, seems to be aiming for the side of Pino’s head. She resists the urge to push him to safety and turns her face away.
    Hundreds of children; she has never seen so many. Squalls of them, barefooted and scrapping for