Patricia and Malise by Susanna Johnston Page A

smiled and looked serious. ‘Indeed. He is a hero in particular for my family. He saved the lives of our Jewish community. Many of my relatives were rescued as a result of his brave actions. My parents, my brother and I were fortunate enough to survive in Genoa where we went to live. Our name was Levi so, we had of course, to change it. It was hard for us, as children, to remember always that our surname was now Leri. My mother made us each say it about a hundred times a morning in order to get it into our heads. Leri. Leri. Leri. I remember it clearly to this day. We were very fortunate but it wasn’t easy. Much time hiding. I have always stayed with that name’
    Malise emptied Andrea’s ashtrays rather too frequently for the demands of hospitality and digested the unsettling fact that Patricia’s husband was one from another race.
    After giving the child a little talk about the church bells, he promised Antonio a demonstration with the basket and the winch – popping in the joke book and telling the boy that it was to wait for him downstairs – that it was a present to be taken home – together they reeled it down to the piazza below where it ended up beside Ruggles.
    Patricia took that as a sign for them to leave. The evening was over. They thanked him and said goodbye.
    â€˜Maybe’ Patricia smiled, ‘Maybe you will visit us one evening. I can see that Andrea liked talking to you.’
    Andrea endorsed it and, quite suddenly, asked Malise if he might be prepared to give the odd English lesson – both to him and to the boy. ‘Antonio’s English is good but not perfect. Patricia speaks Italian so well that we are lazy sometimes.’
    There stood a chink of a link. Not that he had anticipated having to teach – but something, surely, promised. He had their address. That and their telephone number was provided by the husband.
    Malise rolled up his sleeves and washed the hard, white plates; meticulously preserving remains of comestibles. He threw open windows to expel the stink of cigarettes. Sacrilege. Husband of Patricia to chain-smoke.
    English lessons.
    He had not reckoned on that.
    In the morning he planned to buy phrase books. Grammar. Andrea would discover how capable he was.
    He was to bind his way into the family. A sort of tutor. Did tutors not, notoriously, work their ways into the beds of ladies of houses?
    Certainly not a Mc Hip, but Patricia had, he told from instinct, several drops of blue blood in her. Why had she married a foreign academic? Stately homes had, surely, been open to her. Her effect on him was terrifying. It caused in him a transient feeling of faintness which came and went by the second.
    He decided to let a few days pass before arranging the first lesson. Either with husband or son. The father would be the easier of the two since he wished for a lesson and the son had not looked enlivened when it had been suggested.

 
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21
 
    As soon as things were shipshape, he made for a
cartolleria
. All text books were, naturally, in Italian but he was unlikely to have trouble in reversing the structure.
    Lessons were to be meticulously prepared. He still kept an eye open for signs of Patricia on her bicycle as he scoured the town for folders and suitable stationery. Notebooks and so on. Never before had he spent money at this speed. Never before had he fallen in love and he believed it was never to happen again in his lifetime. The iron was not hot but he had to strike.
    No sign of her during that or several subsequent days. Eventually he dialed the number given to him by Andrea.
    Patricia, in the loveliest and most luscious of voices, answered in Italian. ‘Pronto.’
    â€˜Tutor here!’ He shouted it out.
    â€˜Gosh. Yes. Andrea was a bit hopeful actually. He’s terrifically busy and most often in Pisa. Thank you, though, for a great evening. You really are a master chef.’
    Was that it? Was he