Blood Fever Read online

  ‘I don’t know,’ said James. ‘I lost Mauro. He seemed in a bad mood.’

  ‘Mauro is always in a bad mood,’ said Victor. ‘It is just his way. He is a bandit. From the Barbagia.’

  Before James could ask Victor what he meant, his cousin led him to a long wooden table under a shady vine. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Have a drink.’

  Victor poured two glasses from a jug of iced fruit cocktail. ‘You mustn’t worry about Poliponi,’ he said, passing a glass to James. ‘He likes to be mysterious, but it is all just an act. He has a reputation to maintain. The great surrealist. Painter of dreams. Reader of your inner fantasies. He has probably already done his number trick on you, I imagine?’

  ‘Yes,’ said James.

  ‘Seven,’ said Victor.

  James grinned. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘He always says seven. Most people, if you ask them to think of a number between one and ten, they think of seven. If they say another number he bamboozles them with some mumbo-jumbo.’

  The two of them laughed and James took a long sip of the cool drink. He couldn’t quite believe he was here.

  ‘He designed this house for me,’ said Victor. ‘La Casa Polipo. And those are his paintings on the walls. He is probably a genius, but I would never tell him that. It would go to his already swollen head. So. We have arranged a feast in honour of your arrival for later, but first – do you want to go to your room and wash and rest, or down to the beach for a swim?’

  ‘A swim, definitely,’ said James. ‘I’ve been looking at the sea all day, unable to dive in, and it’s been driving me mad.’

  Just then Mauro appeared, wearing swimming shorts and carrying a towel. Victor rattled off some Italian at him and James saw the boy raise his eyes heavenward.

  ‘Good,’ said Victor. ‘Mauro will show you to your room. You can get your costume, and then he will take you to the beach.’

  James would rather have gone alone. This moody Italian boy evidently didn’t like him, but he was not going to let anything spoil his holiday.

  Twenty miles away to the south, the harbour at Terranova, the main port of Sardinia, was busy. The stink of fish hung in the air, as fishing boats unloaded their catches. Men ran in all directions with trolleys, shouting. Great cones of salt stood everywhere, ready to be exported. Sardinia supplied most of the salt used in Italy, which was harvested from the salt marshes that dotted the island.

  Zoltan the Magyar stood on the quayside, supervising, as several large, wooden crates were winched out of the hold of his ship, the Charon. He was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and his bad arm was hanging in a sling, which was stained yellow and brown where blood and pus were leaking from his wounded shoulder. He swatted irritably at the flies that clustered round him, and coughed. The infection was in his throat and moving down to his lungs now. It felt as if acid flowed through his veins and the itchy, crawling heat burnt behind his eardrum.

  Lying in bed at night, unable to sleep, he wanted to tear the side of his face open and pull the infected tubes from inside his head.

  He didn’t want to be standing out here where there was no shade, but his cargo was too precious to leave to anyone else.

  He cursed as something bit his neck, and he finally lost all patience with the swarming flies, yelling and flailing his good arm like a wild man. Two crewmen up on deck stopped what they were doing and stared at him.

  Was he signalling to them?

  ‘What are you doing, you lazy idiots?’ Zoltan screamed. ‘Get on with your work. I do not want to be out here a moment longer than I need to!’

  There was a shout and through the shimmering, heated air Zoltan saw a figure approaching along the quayside. He instantly recognised the man’s red hair and scarred face; it was Smiler.

  He walked over and the two men shook hands.

  ‘You should wear a hat in this heat,’ said Zoltan. ‘Your white Scottish skin will burn.’

  ‘I know,’ said Smiler and he wiped sweat off his forehead with a hand tattooed with a large red M. ‘But I’m not a big one for wearing hats.’

  Because of the long upturned scars on either side of his mouth that had earned Smiler his nickname, Zoltan was never sure whether the man was really smiling or not. But he had known him long enough to realise that he probably wasn’t.

  ‘You’re late,’ said Smiler.

  ‘We hit a storm,’ said Zoltan. ‘It delayed us getting into Tunis. Is all well?’

  ‘Couldn’t be better,’ said Smiler, taking out a rough Turkish cigarette and lighting it. Zoltan grabbed hold of his hand and studied the tattoo.

  ‘That is new,’ he said.

  ‘Aye,’ said Smiler.

  ‘You should be more careful,’ said Zoltan. ‘The Millenaria are not loved by everyone.’

  ‘Ach,’ said Smiler. ‘With this face, nobody bothers me.’

  ‘So, where are the trucks?’ asked Zoltan. ‘I do not want to keep everything sitting here on the quayside for too long.’

  Smiler looked away and sucked his teeth. ‘Ah, well,’ he said. ‘The trucks… There’s been a small problem with the trucks.’

  ‘What sort of problem?’ said Zoltan. ‘Are they here?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Zoltan swore. ‘You said things couldn’t be better. Well, I think they could, Smiler.’

  ‘It’s hard to get the parts out here,’ said Smiler. ‘But the trucks are on their way, don’t you worry. In the meantime, I’ve arranged a warehouse for you to put this lot in.’

  ‘How long will it be?’

  ‘A few days.’

  ‘A few days? It is not good enough,’ said Zoltan.

  ‘It’s Sardinia,’ said Smiler with a shrug.

  As he said this, a rope slipped on the cradle holding one of the crates and a warning shout went up from a crewman as the net swung out crazily over the water.

  Zoltan swore loudly and colourfully, calling his men every name he could think of, and thankfully they got the crate under control and lowered it gently to the quay.

  Smiler watched. Was he amused? It was hard to tell.

  10

  You Can’t Eat a Picasso

  Victor’s table was set with the weirdest food James had ever seen.

  There was the figure of a naked woman sculpted out of food – her body made of cheese, her skin ham, her hair salad leaves and her lips cherries. There was a bowl of pasta dyed dark blue with cuttlefish ink, a loaf of bread baked in the shape of a motor car, two stuffed cats for decoration and a live lizard that crawled slowly over the table. There were bright-red lobsters and spiny crabs with long spindly legs. There was a tray of tiny fish with their heads and tails still attached, and scooped-out sea urchins containing little orange stars. There were edible flowers, vegetables carved into the shape of flowers, the fruits of a prickly pear cactus, a bowl of green jelly with toy soldiers suspended in it, and, in the middle of it all, on a gleaming silver platter, an octopus with purple tentacles.

  ‘Welcome, James,’ said Victor as they sat down. ‘This is a surrealist feast created by the great Poliponi.’

  ‘It is food as art, and art as food,’ said the artist teasing, the pointed horns of his black hair. ‘You cannot eat a Rembrandt,’ he said, ‘or a Picasso. You cannot fill your stomach with a Michelangelo statue! But tonight you will devour a genuine Poliponi.’

  He broke off a piece of bread and popped it in his mouth. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘in the true spirit of surrealism, we will start with the dessert and finish with the soup.’

  He took a scoop of jelly and slopped in on to James’s plate.

  ‘Please don’t think me stupid,’ said James, fishing a soldier out with his spoon. ‘But what exactly is “surrealism”?’

  ‘It is the greatest artistic movement of the century,’ said Poliponi. ‘From now, realism is dead. Why would I want to paint a picture of a vase of flowers, or a sunset? If you want a picture of the real world, then take a photograph. My art goes beyond reality. I paint the world o
f dreams, of fear, of desire. Everything that goes on inside your brain. The purpose of my art is to free the conscious mind and express the subconscious. To show you that the world we live in is ABSURD!’

  The food may have looked absurd, but it all tasted good. Victor showed James how to crack open the lobster to get at the juicy flesh inside its claws and tail. And, once he’d overcome his squeamishness, he found the tiny fish were crispy and full of flavour. He discovered that the orange stars inside the sea-urchin shells were their eggs. He scooped them out with a spoon and tried them. They were gritty and tasted of the sea but not unpleasant. The only thing he wasn’t sure of was the octopus. Poliponi put three pieces of tentacle on to his plate, saying he must eat them.

  ‘It is polipo,’ he said lovingly. ‘The food of the gods!’

  ‘Polipo?’ said James.

  ‘Yes,’ said Victor. ‘Didn’t you know? Polipo is Italian for octopus. Signor Poliponi named himself after the creature.’

  ‘The octopus is the most pure example of a surrealistic animal,’ said Poliponi. ‘What could be less human and more absurd than an octopus?’

  James put a piece of tentacle into his mouth and chewed… and chewed. It was the chewiest, rubberiest thing he had ever tried to eat, but he persevered.

  ‘So this house,’ he said, after washing the last pieces of flesh down with a glass of water, ‘La Casa Polipo, is “The House of the Octopus”?’

  ‘But of course,’ said Poliponi. ‘The greatest house in the world.’

  ‘You have not seen it properly,’ said Victor. ‘To fully appreciate it, you need to see it from above. In the morning we will climb up to the rock and I will show you. Now, you must take a glass of wine, James.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said James. ‘I don’t think I’d better.’

  ‘Nonsense. You should learn how to drink. So that you know how not to get drunk. There are few sights more pathetic in the world than a man who is drunk. You must know your limits. You must know when to start and when to stop. I shall give you the smallest measure of wine, and you can add some water. Come. This is a Cannonau, a local wine, from near Oliena.’

  He poured James a glass of deep-red wine and James drank some.

  Mauro and the cook, Isabella, a loud, jolly woman, cleared away the plates. Victor kept a permanent staff of three, who all lived in the villa. As well as Mauro and Isabella there was Horst, the muscled young man James had seen lifting weights in the inner courtyard. He looked after the gardens and did odd jobs about the place, but seemed to spend most of his time exercising and studying himself in the mirror.

  Mauro’s sullen manner hadn’t changed. As he took James’s plate he gave him a dirty look as if to say ‘What do you think you’re doing here?’

  Victor said something to Mauro in Italian and the boy slouched across the room and put a jazz record on the wind-up gramophone.

  ‘How I wish I could play a musical instrument,’ said Victor, conducting the music with his wine glass. ‘It is my one great regret. I love music, but my life has been spent working with steel and concrete. We have had many musical people stay with us here at Casa Polipo. In the spring the great Cole Porter was over from America and last summer your own Noël Coward stayed for a weekend. He played us many songs on the piano. Such a witty man. I think I was not born to be an engineer, James, but it is always too late when we realise that we are only given one life.’

  ‘You only live once,’ said Poliponi. ‘But you can live a thousand times in your dreams.’

  James awoke in the morning in his small, bright room still wearing his clothes and covered in mosquito bites. He knew he wasn’t supposed to scratch them but he couldn’t stop himself. He tore at his skin with his fingernails, but after a brief feeling of satisfaction the itching returned worse than ever. He hurriedly found his bottle of quinine tablets in his wash bag and swallowed one. He had forgotten to take one the night before, and while it wouldn’t stop the mosquitoes from biting, it should at least help to keep malaria at bay.

  He had gone to bed very late, exhausted after the day’s travelling and staying up late for the feast. He had slumped on to his iron-framed bed without undressing and forgotten to unfurl the mosquito net hanging above it.

  He would not be this careless again; there were ugly raised red lumps all down his arms and round his ankles and he had even been bitten on his ears and in his hair.

  He searched his room, in the vain hope that he might find one of his six-legged tormentors still here. He eventually found one – a big, fat brute, sitting on the wall near the door, too bloated and lazy to fly away. He took his shoe and hit it as hard as he could. The insect left a wide smear of blood on the plain white wall.

  James noticed a painting next to the smear, not one of Poliponi’s grotesque works but a simple watercolour of a local view with the signature ‘Delacroix’. It must have been painted by Victor, but hanging nearby were two scenes of Venice that looked old and valuable.

  ‘They are Canalettos,’ said a voice, and James turned to see Victor in the doorway. ‘Beautiful, aren’t they?’ he said. ‘I did some work for a prince whose palazzo was sinking into the lagoon. I managed to shore it up and save the building. He could not afford to pay me, so he gave me those instead. Now, come, we need to make a start before the day is too hot.’

  After a quick breakfast, still feeling miserably itchy, James started out on the climb up to Bear Rock with his cousin. The path wound steeply up between huge boulders through the familiar low scrubby Mediterranean maquis of juniper, myrtle and rosemary. Lizards sunned themselves on the rocks and scurried away as the two figures approached.

  It took them 40 minutes to reach the summit, from where there was a magnificent view of the whole of this part of the island.

  The rock itself was huge, and towered above them like some bizarre ancient monument. James was fascinated by the way the wind had scooped and scraped it into caves and arches. Indeed the wind up here was terrific and James felt as if he might be blown away.

  ‘It is the Mistral,’ shouted Victor. ‘The north wind. It is always blowing here. The sailing is some of the best in the Mediterranean. Do you like the wind, James? I love the wind. It is so clean and pure. You sense the power of nature when the wind blows; it reminds us how small we are.’

  James nodded, not sure what to say. He had never really thought about it, and, if he was to be really truthful, he felt slightly scared. He hadn’t experienced wind this strong before; it seemed to have an almost physical presence, as if it were some giant, invisible beast tugging at him and buffeting him.

  He felt suddenly very unsafe. The height unnerved him. He had never been afraid of heights before his experience at the Nuraghic tower, but now he was trembling and nauseous. He fought to control his emotions. This was not like him.

  He staggered back across the polished stone ledge on which they were standing into the shelter of the rocks. Victor joined him; it was quieter here, and, away from the edge, James’s vertigo receded.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Victor.

  ‘I think so,’ said James. ‘I just need a moment.’

  He took a long deep breath and told himself not to be so stupid. He could cope with this.

  He forced himself back out on to the ledge and looked down.

  He didn’t want to jump. He knew that if he was careful there was no danger.

  His heart rate dropped.

  He swallowed.

  Something had happened to him back at the tower. Something he didn’t understand. It had knocked him for six, and now he had to control his fears.

  ‘Better?’ said Victor, walking over.

  ‘Yes,’ said James. ‘I’m fine.’

  Victor pointed down to where the land met the sea.

  ‘What do you think?’ he said, and James saw the villa properly for the first time. It was built in the shape of a great white octopus. The large central living room was the body, and the various corridors leading off it made up the eight tentacl
es.

  ‘I like it,’ said James. ‘I think all houses should look like that.’

  ‘Poliponi wanted me to paint it red,’ said Victor with a chuckle. ‘We fought over it like two dogs, but in the end I won. It was my money, after all, that was paying for it. White is better, it keeps the heat away. It can get very hot here. What your English schoolteacher is doing organizing a field trip to the Nuraghic monuments at this time of year, I do not know. He will lose half his students to heatstroke. Why did he not come in the spring or autumn when most sensible people visit the island?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said James.

  ‘So,’ said Victor as they started back down, ‘should I ask Mauro to take you sailing this afternoon?’

  ‘I’m not sure he likes me,’ said James.

  ‘Oh, that is just his way,’ said Victor. ‘He is very protective of me, and suspicious of outsiders – even if they are family. And, of course, at heart he is a bandit.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘He is from the Supramonte Mountains,’ said Victor. ‘The Barbagia region.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said James. ‘I’ve heard about the villages hidden away up in the hills, to avoid attacks from the sea.’

  ‘That is right,’ said Victor. ‘You have seen how beautiful the island is, and its coastline is the most beautiful part, but it is largely uninhabited and the people are not great seamen, because the true Sardinians live inland. They are fierce tough people up there. There are still whole villages of bandits, and they are always fighting. Mauro’s father was killed in a feud with another family.’

  ‘Really?’ said James.

  ‘Yes,’ said Victor. ‘When Mauro was old enough he left home to find work so that he could send money home to his mother and sister. I have tamed him a little. I have tried to educate him and teach him to read and write, but he will always be a bandit at heart. I hope you two can become friends, because it is not a good idea to become his enemy. Horst is meant to protect me and the villa. He is a big young man covered all over with muscles, but I would rather have Mauro by my side in a fight.’