Read Online Broken Chord by Margaret Moore - Free Book Online Page A

there was an unstable old man in the village afflicted with a phobia for Germans. Perhaps he had done it before, was well-known, and could be discretely defused.
    When he put the phone down he didn’t feel any happier. There was an air of tension in the house like an intangible miasma. It couldn’t be attributed to any one thing, rather to the sum of several. The arrival of Tebaldo and family a few days earlier had brought things to a head. Isabella was causing as much trouble as she could, grumbling about the food for the children, expecting Marta to look after them while she went to have pedicures, manicures and the like, and generally stretching Marta’s patience to the limit. It was not a good moment for the family. Marianna had more or less withdrawn to her bedroom in a deep depression after Roberto’s accident the previous week. He had been taken to hospital with a fractured skull as well as internal injuries and a fracture of the femur. He was still on the danger list. Marianna had come home from the hospital on the day of the accident perhaps expecting some kind of sympathy, but there had been none. The next morning there’d been the row, a monumental disgusting row when Ursula had told her daughter what she thought about her liaison with Roberto and had forbidden her to see him again. Her Aunt Felicity had already been called in for duty to escort her to New Zealand, a month’s tour. They were due to leave the following week so that she would be back well in time for the start of the school term and her last year there. He had made the travel arrangements for her. Marianna was throwing scenes and refusing to go. Not that she had much choice in the matter. She was not yet eighteen, and totally dependent. The family was mustering its soldiers and making its battle plans despite the fact that Roberto’s accident and his subsequent injuries made it all superfluous. Piero remembered the screaming match between Ursula and Marianna. Words had been hurled into theair, threats of injury and desperation. Young people were always so prey to violent emotions, he thought. They saw things in a very black and white way, used words like freedom as though they had a meaning, and they were generally so pitiful that one wondered whether crossing the magic line of the eighteenth birthday was going to make any difference at all. In some cases it made things more difficult, because as adults they could be held responsible for their actions and their crimes, whereas as minors they were treated quite differently. And they were always so dramatic about things. It was all life and death. They didn’t understand that time heals all wounds, no matter how terrible, as he knew himself. For a moment the memory of his own son, who had lived such a short time, flashed into his mind. He shut his eyes and willed the vision to go away.
    Ursula’s plans had subsequently been backed by Tebaldo, who had been apprised of the situation as soon as he arrived. Her emphasis on the cocaine use had been a determining factor. Since his rehab from what had been a very heavy drug dependency, he had become extremely self-righteous, ultra respectable, and like so many of the redeemed, totally intolerant of other people’s weaknesses, perhaps because he was more aware of the dangers than others. Whatever the reason he was solidly behind his mother on this and Marianna had retreated to her room defeated, at least for the moment.
    After fixing a meeting with the local Chief of Police, Maresciallo Spadaccia, Piero had finished the rest of the morning’s chores. He could hear Isabella’s strident voice in the garden. It was pretty obvious that Tebaldo was getting tired of her. She was not a Signora , a lady, and never would be. Piero had very strong feelings about class and blood. Tebaldo’s blood was old blood. He came from good stock. Isabella was a peasant with the manners and breeding of a pig, the language of a fish wife and the most appalling taste.