Ragazzo could not remember a day like it. A day without work and drudgery, a day of excitement out on the canal, in the cold frosty air. Ragazzo was truely happy.
Sitting on the front seat of the cart, next to Stefano and Luke, he chattered incessantly about all that they had done and seen, so that it was only when they were approaching Coppice Row that he became aware that Stefano had fallen curiously silent. There was an air, too, of concern about Signor Carlo as he sat with his arm round his son and suddenly Ragazzo felt Stefano shivering, his body vibrating against his own.
At the shop Signor Carlo jumped down and Luke handed Stefano carefully into his arms. Ragazzo ran forward opening the door and together they climbed the stairs to the living room. There was shock on the Signora's face when she saw her son. Swiftly he was brought to the fire, Carlo chaffing his hands and Maria removing his boots and rubbing his feet. Little was said, but soon Stefano was wrapped in a blanket and carried to bed. The workmen came in and took their supper, enquiring after the boy. "A good night's rest and he will be alright," said the Signor cheerfully, but Maria looked grave.
By morning the shivering had turned to fever and Stefano tossed and turned, calling for water and crying out. The Signora was distraught, Rosa frightened and crying. Ragazzo tried to comfort and distract her.
Two days later Stefano was dead, a victim, they said, of the slum fever which had already carried off his baby sister.
Ragazzo would never forget the gloom and despair which settled on the household, the visits of the Priest, the undertaker, the arrival of friends and relations bringing condolences, the smell of the boiling and dyeing of clothes - for everyone must wear black, even little Rosa.
And then the moment when he entered the Gatti's bedroom to see the frail white child, once his friend, lying silent in his open coffin, a cross in his hands, the candles nearby throwing their flickering light across his thin pinched face.
There was a sound of weeping, but Ragazzo could not weep. He could only stare at Stefano, remembering him running and playing, laughing in the cold air on that wonderful day on the canal which seemed so long ago. He could not believe what he saw. He did not want to believe it.
The priest stepped forward and sprinkled holy water on the child. The others in the room knelt to follow him in prayer. Ragazzo did not pray for he did not know how. He wanted somehow to protest, to shout out loud against what had happened but, as he knelt, his thoughts were overwhelmed by the long prayers, the murmured rosaries and the whispering black figures which hovered in the room.
Next day, the day of the funeral, was again freezing cold with snow in the streets. The Gatti's decided to leave Rosa at home in the charge of Ragazzo and little Carrie Pye, whose mother worked in the shop below. So it was from an upstairs window that these two watched the funeral procession arrive and depart.
The Gatti's had spared no expense. An ornate hearse drawn by four horses with black plumes on their heads drew up at the door. Luke and Barthes carried the coffin reverently down the stairs and placed it in the glass hearse, arranging the flowers, both fresh and artificial, which friends and relatives had sent, around the coffin. Then the hearse set off supported on either side by the funeral attendants, dressed in their black frock coats and top hats, some wearing bands of black crepe, others carrying wands draped with crepe. Behind them walked Signor Carlo and his wife and all the friends who had come to pay their respects - the whole sad black procession outlined against the white snow-covered streets.
Ragazzo and Carrie turned away from the window to find Rosa had fallen asleep in her little chair and so, covering her with a rug, they crept towards the comfort of the fire. There was silence between them. Then Carrie Whispered, "Ma says I may take some flowers to his grave tomorrow. She'll make up a special bunch from scraps of material."
