Of all the workmen who lived in the Gatti household, Ragazzo liked Luke Corazza best. From the first, Luke had taken an interest in the frail frightened boy, coaxed him to eat, talked and encouraged him and as Ragazzo had grown stronger, protected him from too much teasing or the practical jokes the other men liked to play on him.
In the long attic under the eaves, Ragazzo slept beside Luke. There were eight men, all from the Ticino, except for Borgonino who came from Lombardy and worked in the kitchen for Battista. All had come first to work for Signor Carlo and the jobs he offered them often varied according to the seasons. One ran a kiosk, another a tiny cafe Carlo had set up. One was a waiter, another learning to be a pastry cook. They could all turn their hands to odd jobs and in the winter they went out collecting ice and in the summer delivered it to butchers or fishmongers. If the season was slack, they might find casual work amongst the paviours, those workmen who laid the granite blocks of which London's main streets were made.
In April, the year of the Great Exhibition, Luke Corazza had
three weeks work with a group of paviours in the Strand, relaying the street in
preparation for the Queen's visit to the City of London, to celebrate this
event. It was a particularly warm April, and the work was hard and exhausting.
One very hot day when Battista stopped in the shop for the midday meal, Ragazzo
asked his permission to take Luke a cool drink in a stone jar. "You'll miss
your dinner." Ragazzo nodded. "You'll not be late back," Battista said sternly.
"No Signore, I shall run all the way."
And so he set off down Fetter Lane, slipping through Rolls Court, along Carey Street and down Boswell's Picket to Temple Bar. As he turned into the main street, he heard a strange sound. Thud, thud, thud, thud. As he walked forward he saw a line of men with heavy wooden rammers beating down the granite blocks into the concrete. In the middle of the line was Luke, the sweat pouring off him. Thud, thud, thud, thud. The men followed the beat of the foreman's stick, working in unison all along the line in deafening precision. Thud, thud, thud, thud. Behind them stretched the new street, curving slightly to the centre, already grouted and spread with sand.
"Alright lads. That's enough. Take your piece now," shouted the
foreman. The men set down their rammers at the side of the road and broke up
into little groups. Some had brought food with them, others went over to the
coffee stall seller who had stationed his barrow close to the works cart.
Ragazzo moved forwards to where Luke sat on a pile of granite blocks,
unwrapping a piece of bread from a large handkerchief. "Ragazzo! What brings
you here?"
"I brought you a cool drink. It being such a hot day," said
Ragazzo shyly.
Luke smiled and tipped up the jar and took a drink. "Mi fa
bene. That's better. Why today it's almost as hot as the Valley."
For a moment he closed his eyes. How far away it seemed the Valley of the Blenio. It was almost May now and in Dongio the winter would have gone except for the snow on the sides of the mountains. The thin crops would be pushing up the earth and the young vines beginning to come into leaf. He opened his eyes to see Ragazzo patiently waiting. "Sometimes I wonder why I ever left."
"Sure this heat's something terrible," Young Seamus, one of the paviours smiled down at Luke, offering him an apple quarter he had cut with his pocket knife. "This'll quench your thirst."
"Grazie, tante grazie - very kind."
"You're well served, I
see."
"This is Ragazzo, he come with aqua. Prego you drink." Luke offered
the jar and Seamus drank eagerly.
"Thanks a lot. See here, a piece of
apple for the boy." And with that he moved on.
Whilst they ate their slices, Ragazzo said, puzzled, "If you liked the Valley so much, why did you leave?" For a moment Luke's face darkened. His mind went back to that hard winter, five years earlier, to the failed crop, the icy room, crying children and the sad hopelessness of his wife, Caterina. His own empty pockets. He said simply, "It was the poverty, the hunger, a sort of despair." They were silent for a while, then he went on, "when things were at their worst, a message came to the village, a message from Carlo Gatti. In London there was work, there were prospects. He needed 10-20 men. I could hardly believe my luck. I hadn't seen Carlo for years, but as boys we played and fought all round the village." He laughed at the memory. "Mark you, Carlo was of gentler birth than any of us village boys, but he seemed to enjoy being with village people as much as his own kind."
"Stefano used to say the Signore walked all over the mountains
to Paris."
"That's right. He ran away from school to join his father and
brothers in business there. He had no time for school, had Carlo, and that
master, Don Martinoli, he made him suffer for it. He was a cruel man." Ragazzo
shivered, remembering his own beatings. "Well then for a time Carlo would come
back each year to see his mother and we'd have a drink together and gamble at
cards, but when his debts began to pile up with Belgeri, the moneylender, he'd
be off back to Paris. He was never still. Always there was some plan of his, of
how one day he would make his fortune." He broke off a piece of bread and
handed it to Ragazzo. "And then he disappeared and if you should ask his family
for news of him, especially his brothers when they were home, you got the
impression the sooner he was forgotten, the better."
"And then he sent for
you in London?"
"Not I. It was just a message. He needed men, nothing more.
Oh, it was a hard decision leaving Caterina and the children, but it seemed the
only thing to do. They said you needed francs to cross the Channel. I borrowed
that money and for the rest of the way we walked. We worked as we went. It took
us nine weeks."
