The Moon Tunnel

30

Lost in Ely’s spreading smog the tiny village of Queen Adelaide was invisible: reduced to a mysterious series of mechanical sounds, each one a clue to its railway past. Goods trains criss-crossed its four level crossings, and the klaxons which blared as the automatic barriers were raised and lowered were a constant motif. Two mainline routes, a branch line and a great, sweeping loop for the goods trains had given Queen Adelaide its Victorian role as a microscopic Clapham Junction, a village overwhelmed by the railways. By one of the automatic barriers a tethered goat looked constantly startled by the passage of cars making their way out towards the more distant villages of Burnt Fen.

Humph, ignoring the dismal visibility, took the first two crossings at the Capri’s top speed of 53 mph, achieving a satisfying degree of lift-off and percussion on re-entry. This was one of the joys of his life and he was deeply satisfied to hear the exhaust hit the ground on the second attempt – a hollow clang like a Chinese dinner gong – followed by the faint but exotic scrape of the rear bumper touching the tarmac. But the third barrier was flashing red before he got within distance, so he was forced to pull up in the mist and wait. A train clattered past devoid of passengers, rocking the cab slightly as it rolled over uneven sleepers.

‘That was very childish,’ said Dryden, looking pointedly out of the side window at the tethered goat, its eyes a pool of satanic yellow and black. ‘Well done.’

‘Cheers,’ said Humph. ‘Terrific.’ He thrummed his fingers on the furry steering-wheel cover he’d bought in a job lot with a pair of fluffy dice.

Dryden reviewed his conversation with Pepe Roma. He was convinced that the clues to Azeglio Valgimigli’s death lay in his family’s past, and with the body in the moon tunnel. To build on his suspicions he needed to know more: what, for example, was the family secret he couldn’t share? Clearly the brothers had disagreed about the future of their father’s business. But Pepe had made it clear there was another, deeper reason for the bad blood which seemed to have poisoned the family. Dryden knew one man who could help, and it was a man who owed him a favour.

About 100 yards beyond the village a drove road broke north, climbed the railway embankment and crossed another, hidden railway crossing before turning back towards the line. The track petered out here but left a clear footpath ahead. Humph executed an inexpert hand-brake stop and killed the engine. The mist, free of the contamination of the town dump upriver, was sharp and cold with a touch of frost. Dryden could see nothing but the neat rows of late salad crops in the rich black soil of the fields. They were alone together again, a situation neither saw as a disaster.

Dryden cracked the door open and the mist slipped in, making Humph shiver, a physical reaction in the cabbie which involved counter-swinging several layers of flesh in both a clockwise and anticlockwise direction. He pulled a tartan rug off the back seat and tucked it under his chin like a giant napkin, meanwhile drilling his bottom down into the sheepskin rug on his seat like a dog on heat. Dryden let some more mist seep in before re-interring his friend in the vehicle which had become his moving, living mausoleum. Then he set off alone into the whiteout.

At the top of the embankment Dryden was startled to find himself so close to the line and, rather than follow the trackside path, he dropped down a few paces to give himself plenty of clearance in case a train came through. He stopped once, listening for the clatter, but all he heard was the hint of Humph’s onboard stereo language tape and the distant bongs signalling the rise and fall of Queen Adelaide’s barriers. A bird crossed his field of vision, swooping from invisible to visible to invisible in less than a second. Then he saw it: a crazy wooden pile of eccentric architecture, twisted high into the mist. A plaque in old British Rail typography read: QUEEN ADELAIDE, PRICKWILLOW ROAD SIGNAL BOX. 1936. Dryden, taking a closer look at the rails, saw that weeds sprouted from the gravel between the sleepers; it looked like the branch line was defunct, as well as the signal box.

The three-storey wooden house dripped in the mist. Dryden climbed the exterior stairs to the first floor where a long picture window, which had once looked out over the two lines which joined about fifty yards to the south, showed the old switchgear and levers. Casartelli was sitting in a kind of wooden inglenook seat set amongst the polished wood and brass – like a human cog in the machine.

He welcomed Dryden with a smile more redolent of the Lido than Littleport. In one hand he held a copy of the Express, complete with its story on the appeal for Marco Roma’s memorial.

‘A thousand thanks to you,’ said Casartelli. ‘Already more than £2,000. We are well on our way and thanks to you – sit.’ Dryden sat, suppressing a vague feeling of guilt at the effortless manipulation he was about to exert on his victim.

Then Casartelli realized his mistake. His hand rose to cover his mouth. ‘What am I thinking? You are here about Azeglio, of course. Terrible news. I heard on the radio. His family, what pain for them. He was not a good son, but he was a successful son, perhaps you cannot be both.’

Dryden had sensed since their first meeting at Il Giardino that Casartelli was the collective memory of the PoWs – the chronicler of the first generation. Although excluded from the elite club that was the six gardeners, he had been a prisoner himself – one of the handful of survivors.

‘No trains today?’ asked Dryden, sitting and trying to lighten the mood. The signal box switch room had been turned into a remarkable living space. The machinery sparkled, even in the thin white light of the mist, while the deep mahogany of the woodwork radiated a warm reddish-brown, like sun-dried tomatoes. There was a TV, a bookcase with a few ornaments, and three upholstered wooden chairs. Casartelli put down the Express and went to make coffee in the kitchen beyond. A set of stairs led up to what Dryden presumed were bedrooms.

‘No trains any day, no more,’ shouted the old man. ‘The line closed in 1996. Trains still beyond – at the village, but here very quiet.’

Dryden heard from the kitchen the satisfying gurgle of an espresso pot bubbling over.

Casartelli emerged, his still-powerful fingers cradling two small espresso cups with a lifetime’s ease.

‘Did you live here before, before the trains stopped?’

‘No, no. My family we lived in Ely, near the station. Now, the children are married, their mother long dead, they have their lives. The price here was good, I like the view, the space out there. I am happy here.’

While one wall of the room was taken up by the great array of switchgear and levers the two end walls were stencilled with smaller windows to give a clear view up and down the line. By one hung a framed photograph of Casartelli and a woman: a blonde, she looked younger than her husband, and pale skinned.

‘You married a local girl?’

Casartelli glanced at the snapshot. ‘Yes. Many of us did. My Grace. We were happy. Cancer – just 54. A long time ago.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Dryden, meaning it. ‘I had a favour to ask,’ he ploughed on, catching the wary look in the old man’s eyes.

‘If I can,’ said Casartelli, withdrawing slightly into his niche of brass and mahogany.

‘This is not for a story in the paper, not directly. I’m just trying to understand something about the Romas – about Il Giardino – something which doesn’t make sense. I’m trying to understand Azeglio’s past. You knew the family – there were three brothers, that’s right?’

Casartelli swallowed hard and played with the ring on his wedding finger.

Dryden set his cup down. ‘This is just so that I can understand – I’m not going to quote you, or put your name in the paper.’

Casartelli picked up the Express with its story about the appeal. He fingered the paper. ‘Of course. I will try to help as you have helped us. So – but no secrets, I think. No confidences broken – especially now.’

Dryden smiled, cursing the old man’s honour.

‘So. Yes. Azeglio – the oldest, then Jerome, and then Pepe – who you know yes?’

Dryden cut to the point. ‘Why, and how, did the first two leave home?’

‘Families,’ said the old man, shrugging. ‘I have two sons as well – and three daughters. I do not understand them either. Things happen.’

‘What happened?’ said Dryden, looking the old man in the eyes for the first time. ‘I don’t want any secrets – but the Italian community must have talked – what did they think happened?’

Casartelli looked out into the mist, clearly wishing he was alone again. ‘I think the story was a common one. The generation that survived the war prized security: a good job, keeping the family together. For the next generation this did not mean so much – that is their compliment to us, of course – if they knew it!’ He laughed, resting one hand on the polished brass lever beside him.

‘When Marco died they were all teenagers. This was a bad time. No secrets we said – but we were friends, Marco and I, and I spent some time with them. There was grief for all of them – but especially for Gina. I think she thought all the boys would go. Long nights, Mr Dryden, a family at war with itself. I could help very little, but I tried.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Azeglio had won a place at university, at Cambridge. Marco had wanted him to wait – perhaps a year, perhaps two. But Gina could not stop him – she knew that. That’s the problem with an expensive education, it buys you more expense. Jerome too had been well educated but was less dutiful, I think. He wanted a new life – as simple as that. The business was in trouble although the association had made some loans – which, please understand, are all paid back. But we could go no further – the business was very close to folding. So Jerome went to Italy. He and Azeglio decided – they told no one else. There was family there and the capital needed was relatively modest – £25,000 perhaps.

‘As we know, he did not return. Nor the capital. Like his elder brother he had never been keen to inherit the business – a disappointment Marco had shared with us all. Pepe he loved, but he thought the boy simple-headed compared to his brothers, which is uncharitable.’

‘The woman Azeglio married – Louise Beaumont – did you know her?’

He smiled again. ‘Of course, yes, we all knew Louise, because of Jerome.’ He bit his lip and Dryden understood, instinctively, that he’d found what he was looking for, but he calculated that he had to ask the right questions before the old man would tell the story.

‘Jerome? He is the enigma for me. And you?’

‘Brothers,’ said Casartelli, throwing his eyes heavenwards. ‘You have to understand that Jerome and Azeglio had been born a year apart, less. They were very similar in many things, they looked alike, spoke alike, and so there was a natural competition. No – an unnatural competition.’

‘A competition for…?’ asked Dryden.

A masterstroke. Casartelli sighed: ‘Jerome and Louise Beaumont were engaged, Mr Dryden. They were just a little younger than Azeglio and they’d all been to the school – the private school. It is in Cambridge – I forget the name. The wedding day was fixed. Everyone was excited: my own son was to be the best man. 1984: the year that Marco died. It had not helped Gina – to think that her son’s marriage would follow so soon after her husband’s funeral.’

He sipped his coffee. Dryden waited, filling the silence with his thoughts. He saw it suddenly, but with the clarity of the truth. Two brothers so alike they loved the same woman. So alike she was able to love them both. And the lonely figure of Azeglio, twenty years later, working by torchlight near the tunnel.

Casartelli went on. ‘But it never came: that year swept all their plans away. Jerome went to Italy: he didn’t tell Louise he was going – at least this my son tells me. Then Azeglio went to the university, and Louise went too, the next year: a clever woman, you see. When Azeglio completed his degree and moved on into academia, they married. We heard this only much later, and it is not so unusual in large families. It is no scandal, but it cannot have brought the brothers closer. For Jerome it was embarrassing, so perhaps that is why he went, why he stayed away. Perhaps he knew she loved his brother. A broken family, Mr Dryden. A sad story, especially for Italians.’

Dryden accepted the offer of a second espresso.

‘So Gina and Pepe were left with Il Giardino?’ he asked when Casartelli returned. They heard a mainline passenger service rattling through Queen Adelaide.

‘Yes. Azeglio’s career has made us all proud but he visited very rarely and taking up the original family name made his point clear. I don’t think he was a nice man, Mr Dryden – cold, I think.’

‘And Jerome?’

‘Jerome was not cold. The opposite, in fact – in that one thing. He rings home, for Gina. He has a new life. But he does not share it with them. Best left, perhaps. Each year Gina wants to see him less. And there is bad blood with his brothers – so why should he come?’

‘Did Jerome make a donation to his father’s memorial fund?’

‘Yes, he did. We make sure that all the children are contacted. We asked Azeglio for his details. Jerome’s reply was a gesture of reconciliation I think. Five hundred pounds. A good sum.’

‘I don’t suppose you have his bank details? I’d really like to get in touch briefly.’

He shrugged. ‘It was a banker’s draft – he did not send a cheque.’

Of course, thought Dryden, seeing now how the great deception had been sustained for all the years.

‘But there was a covering letter with the donation – and a telephone number. Milan, I think. Please wait.’

Outside the mist folded itself in the breeze and briefly revealed a horse standing motionless in a nearby field.

Casartelli returned with the letter. The note was brief, typed, and in English.

Dear Roman,

I enclose a small donation for father’s memorial. He did great things for the community, and for all of us, perhaps more than he should have. His life should stand for something when we are all gone.

Best wishes to you,

The signature was Jerome’s and the notepaper headed with an address.

1345b La Strada Vittorio Emanuele I

Embonica

Milano

MIL FXT 4578 678.

Tel: Milano 598 346 346.

Before Dryden got back to the cab he’d rung the number. It rang after the usual whirl of interlocking call tones, but there was no answer for about twenty seconds. Then it transferred again, through another maze of telephonic static until an automatic answering service came on the line: a woman’s voice, the Italian precise and disjointed. He left a message, almost certain now that he left it for no one.