A short story

When I started my day yesterday, I realised that I had nothing worth presenting to my fellow members of the Writers' Group at the forthcoming weekly meeting last night at the Library in town, so I fired up the keyboard.

The following story is the result. The rest of the story will follow as soon as possible, so I hope you will enjoy it enough to want to return for the finale, or the next part, leading to the finale - or however it turns out. I have the general idea churning through what passes for a brain, but have no real idea of how it will progress, though I do know how it will finish.

The million dollar question is - when will it finish, when will I be able to work on the thing.

I thought you might like to see it.

I hope you enjoy it, and would be pleased if you'll be kind enough to say how you like it, if that's how it takes you.

Thank you.


'Gino's Vengence'
Copyright Ambrose Salathiel

The old man was still, resting with his back pressed to the upholstered bench seat, where he could be seen from all parts of the room. The Miner’s Arms was quiet for a Friday night, the sort of conditions where the few patrons could conduct a civilised conversation in civilised surroundings. He reached out, one hand pressed to his chest, the other carefully grasping his pint glass and lifting it, slowly taking a sip from the glass, now half empty, taking care not to spill any on his shirt. This was open at the neck, under a buttoned jacket, exposing the hairs of his chest and a livid scar from the throat to the breastbone.

Replacing the glass carefully on the beer mat, he rested his arms on the table and as he did so, any one of the few men in the room who looked carefully would see the traces of a smile on his lips, slightly misshapen to match the scarred face. It was a round, cheerful face, marred by miners’ tattoos, and topped by short cropped black hair. Antonio was dreaming.

Dreaming of sunny days in his youth, the bright sun of Southern Italy, where he lived a simple life amongst the mountains, the son of a shepherd in the village of San Vittoria di Climente. Saw an image of the shrine to Santa Rosa at the cross roads, where he would walk to meet Angelina, the daughter of that fat bastard who owned the vineyard on the North Slope. The same idle fat bastard who said he wasn’t good enough for his Angelina and refused to allow them to marry.

He struggled to remember the man’s name, but couldn’t, so left it that, content to remember him as the Fat Bastard. He knew how to make wine, but that didn’t make any more likeable. Antonio remembered Mama though, how could he forget? Mama was always hard at work in the house and around the village, anything that came along, work provided by people just as poor as they were, who didn’t pay in money, but paid in kindness and food. She was the one quick to scold and then to enfold a small boy in those comforting arms.

Try as he might, he couldn’t picture his father, except as a tall, kindly man. Antonio was only 7 years old when his father died of some disease or other, leaving Mama to fend for the two of them.

Food was the one thing that they had aplenty, until the Fascists came to the village and stole what they had. They stole from everybody. Who was it? What was the man’s name? Guiseppi? No, he was the old man who pissed in the wine they stole before they loaded it on the truck to cart it away.

Angelo – that was it! It was Angelo the farmer who refused to hand over his crop of olive oil, and the Fascist bastards damn near beat him to death for it.

Images of those lazy days on the mountain and around the village of San Vittoria flickered though his mind as Antonio’s reverie brought him to remember how he came to be here, many miles away from the place of his birth.

Up the track, over the simple stone bridge on the stream, past the wayside shrine, rising to the pastures where he cared for his sheep, where the magnificent vista flowed away to the Mediterranean Sea in the distance.

The sound of “Poppa!” across the clear air as someone called his name. “Poppa!” Louder this time.

“Poppa, you’re dreaming again!”

Antonio started suddenly as he recognised the voice and focussed on the man calling him.

“Yes, my Son, I was miles away. Years away, back home in San Vittoria.”

“This is your home, Poppa”, said Gino, “you’ve lived here far more years than you lived there. All your family is here.”

“Yes, Gino, I know, but you’ll allow your old Papa some time for raccogliere– what’s the English word? Recollect? Yes, recollections.”

“Of course, Poppa” said Gino with a smile, “but don’t go getting morboso will you?”

“Oh, no, Son, I don’t remember very much of those times, you know that – I’ve told you often enough. But is pleasant to remember those days.

“Most of the time”, he added with a smile.

Antonio paused and took a drink, then went on, “I remember the sunshine and warmth. Not like here, it’s more cold and miserable than sunny and warm. My old bones don’t like this weather, Son. I miss the warmth, but there’s not much else that I miss.”

Tilting his head a little towards his son standing by the table he asked, “What do you want? Why did you wake me?” He paused, then continued, with a touch of irritation, I wasn’t asleep, but you know what I mean.”

“I just want to tell you that I’m nipping out for a few minutes. I’ve got to go down to the Crown to pay my dues for the fishing club. I’ll be quick as I can.”

“Go ahead, Son. I’ll be fine here on my own. Arthur there’ll help if I need owt, won’t you Arthur?” This last was spoken in the direction of another man, about Gino’s age, seated at a table by the television.”

Arthur, engrossed in the television, responded without taking his eyes from the screen on the wall.

“Yeah, sure! I’ll keep an eye out for you!” was the reply.

“There you are then, Gino – no need for you to worry. Before you go, get me another drink, will you, Son?”

“Pint?”

“Yes, no, no – I’ll have a glass of wine please.”

“You HAVE been dreaming, Poppa” said Gino with a chuckle as he went to the bar to fill his father’s request.

He turned and went to the bar where he spent a few moments choosing a wine for his Dad. Dennis kept a selection there specially for Antonio as he’d been a regular at the Miner’s for many years, more years than Dennis had been landlord there. Returning to the table in the corner, Gino gently placed the glass on the beer mat, removing the empty pint glass.

“There you are Poppa, enjoy that. I’ll see you in a few minutes, OK?”

“Thank you, Son”, the old man murmured absently, returning to his dream of yesteryear.


Antonio woke with a snuffle from his reverie and found the glass on the table. Raising it to his nose, savoured the aroma, pleased to discover that it was one of his local ones, not one of The Fat Bastard’s wines, but close by. The grapes were similar, but there was a distinct difference between them if you knew what to look for, and Antonio did, although it had been many, many years since he’d tasted them straight from the vine.

It was summer, he recalled, when he was conscripted into that bastard Mussolini’s army and was sent south for training before being sent with his regiment into North Africa. Training, pah! Six weeks square bashing in Torrento then being issued with a rifle that he didn’t know how to shoot.

He remembered going to the front and being captured by the British without firing a shot. He was glad to be out of it, away from the desert. He was lucky, he remembered, as he’d been put on a ship and sent to Britain and into prison camp.

The place was so green, so much more green than home, and he was excited to be seeing new places and meeting new people. He was sent out to work on a local sheep farm. Yes, very lucky, he remembered.

They called these hills ‘mountains’ but they were no comparison to home, they were so green but not so wild and they were cold. He remembered the cold. And the wet. In the beginning, he thought he’d never get used to the climate and often wondered how the natives managed.

He’d be glad when all this mess was over and he could go home and start again. Would Angelina still be there, he wondered. Would the fat bastard have drowned in one of his wine vats and so be out of the way?

An inward smile came to his lips as he imagined the bastard negotiating a marriage for his virgin daughter, when both Antonio and Angelina knew she enjoyed that status no longer, ever since that afternoon they spent together when her father went to town to sell his grapes. She was married now anyway, to a lorry driver who carried their grapes to the winery. It was she who wrote to him to tell him that Mama had been killed by a Germans. Something about an argument over billeting their soldiers in her house.

After Italy capitulated and changed sides, he was released from the camp then when the war was over in Europe, they told him he was free to go home, but he hung on for a while, because he’d nothing positive to go back to and he’d met a nice English girl, Doreen, from the neighbouring farm. ‘Oh yes,’ he told himself if I were to stay here, life would be so good with Doreen.’

1947. A bad winter, but why should I remember that? It was a special year - Ah yes, we got married and I got a job down the coal mine, because the pay was better and I needed the money. That was a big shock, going into the bowels of the earth to get coal. I wasn’t frightened, but this was nothing like the caves I’d been in at home.

Once, he remembered, one of his sheep had wandered into a cave and it had taken him two hours to find the stupid animal and get it out. This was different. It was hard work, and it was dirty, but he had good workmates. They didn’t mind that he didn’t speak English very well, but he worked hard and made some very good workmates.

Doreen was a great help and comfort to him when he got homesick and told her about the mountains, the rivers, the village and the people. He’d tell her about the olives, the grapes, the lemons and all those wonderful scents and senses.

He’d always kept an eye on the ladies, that was the Italian blood in him, but he never strayed fro Doreen, not once, never. They were great days, he remembered, as he pictured the little cottage they shared, as it seemed to shrink with the arrival of their family, beginning with Gino, then Giacomo, then Gina and before too long, there were their kids too.

Antonio leaned further back in the corner, dreaming, when loud voices disturbed him. Was it the miner’s strike when he’d got into a fight? No, not in his dream but outside in the pub, where a bunch of kids had come through the door.

A high pitched female voice screeched, “’Ere Daren, in the corner, look. An old bloke.”

“Yeah, Trace, I c’n see ‘im.”

“Shall we then?” came the question in the same high voice as before.

“Yeah, why not. Hey, watch this, you lot!”

“What you looking at then, you old fart?” The question was called loudly by Tracy, directed at Antonio in the corner, stirring from his dream.

The bunch of youths all turned to watch the action. Arthur was buried in the telly and the landlord was in the other room. They may as well have been alone.

“’Ere, Darren, that dirty old man’s staring at me tits, inny?”

Antonio, fully awaked now, faced the group of kids who were now moving towards him.

“Are you talking to me?” he asked.

“Yeah, yer mucky old git, wotcha staring at me girl’s tits for then?”

“No, I’m not looking at her. She may be pretty, but I’m not looking at her!”

“ ‘e is, Daren – look at ‘im! The scruffy git’s staring at me tits,” said the girl, excitedly, taking a deep breath so as to expand her ample bosom.

Antonio turned towards this voice, startled and afraid.

“You mucky old bugger, “shouted Darren, as he picked up Antonio’s glass and rammed it into the old man’s face.

His yell of pain and fear dragged Arthur from the TV and, as he stood to intervene, one of the youths hit him in the face, hard. He slumped backwards as the youths ran from the pub, laughing at their fun.

Ambrose Salathiel

end of part one