Read Online The Italians at Cleat's Corner Store by Jo Riccioni - Free Book Online

chin with his thumb. She was about to ask what he meant when he straightened. ‘Ah,’ he said, focusing beyond her in the direction of Cleat’s.
    Vittorio was riding her bicycle down the road, arms stiff and knees wide, teetering ridiculously, like a clown on a wire. As he gathered momentum, he began to make swooping curves, barely avoiding the wild verges on each side of the lane. At first she thought he was putting on a show. But when he reached the schoolhouse and she saw his frown, his bright cheeks, his open-mouthed concentration, she realised he was as serious, as determined, as any child.
    â€˜His first time, evidently,’ Mr Gilbert said as Vittorio sailed past. She was mulling over his comment about circumstances, bad circumstances, and her own mother, her father, what she could remember of them.
    â€˜There’s more to him than what you see, Connie.’
    â€˜Isn’t that true of all of us?’
    He looked at her properly, perhaps for the first time that evening. ‘You really are an unusual young woman, you know. I’m not quite sure how you’ve managed to turn out that way, given —’ He stopped. His eyes ran the length of the street. The deflected brilliance of the evening in the windows, the heightened chatter of birds in dusky gardens, did not quite mask the vague sense of curtains twitching. ‘Well,’ was all he said.
    Vittorio returned, breathless, locking the brakes and jerking to a stop by the kerb of the schoolhouse. ‘This bicicletta,’ he called to them, lifting his leg over the bike frame and revealing the underside of his boot, a hole lined with newspaper at the toe. ‘This Ro-yal En-field,’ he articulated the bike’s golden letters, shaking one of the handlebars as he appraised the racing green paintwork. ‘How much you pay?’
    Connie was torn between indignation and intrigue at his candour. It had taken her a year to save the four pounds and six shillings for the new bike. She’d had to squirrel away what was left of her wages after paying board to Aunty Bea, even keeping hold of her thruppences when the collection plate rattled past in church. And all the while, she would curse Uncle Jack’s rusty old Raleigh, which slipped its chain and spat oil on her as she cycled to Cleat’s, mortified by the wooden blocks he’d attached to the pedals because the seat was jammed at his height. She didn’t know whether to feel sorry for the Italian or to laugh at the ease with which he thought he could come by such a bike. She wanted to impress upon him how long she had had to wait for this one token of freedom. But she only reached for the handlebar protectively.
    He shrugged. ‘I think I get one.’ She opened her mouth, but when she looked from his cracked boots to his unfaltering eyes, she closed it again. He had such little doubt in himself, such guileless confidence, she almost believed him.
    Connie rounded the corner of the rise, still engrossed with the events of the evening. At the crest of the hill, though, habit made her stop to look out at the gamekeeper’s cottage. The sun had sunk below the clouds, and the barley and wheat rolling before her shivered in the breeze like the skin of some vast animal. She felt the shudder of it in her own skin and was about to cycle away when she caught sight of a figure at the edge of the spinney.
    At first she thought it was Fossett, off to the Green Man after his rounds checking the young pheasants. But soon she made out the broad shoulders of Lucio Onorati, bent over, examining something in the rough before the trees. When he stood up, she saw in his outstretched fist an animal held by the hind legs. Squinting, she made out the sleek skin, the distended belly of Mrs Repton’s pregnant Siamese. It twitched, like one length of overworked muscle, and the wind over the ridge teased its fur, the colour of fine sand, its darker undercoat glimpsed