Short Story

MR POSITANO’S PECCADILLO

Jenny Campbell, The Sherborne Scribblers

Autumn brought the usual scattering of fallen apples in the orchard. Russet, pale gold and cidery, they lay in the damp grass, waiting to be collected by the two women. That September also brought Mr Positano and a wealth of speculation to the village.

May Bartlett, mother of three grown sons and recently widowed, stooped to pick up an apple, rose stiffly and examined the fruit for signs of worms before popping it into one of the baskets. She rubbed her back, glad of a rest, and turned to her younger sister.

‘Well, our Jess, what do you make of this Italian that has just bought old Jacob’s cottage?’

Jess ran the local post office and was always the first to know about any newcomers to the village. It irked her, therefore, that after a week she had still not had occasion to speak to the man; even though, just the day before, he had tipped his Panama hat to her while passing on the other side of the street.

‘Hmm,’ she replied sharply, ‘a man of mystery since you’re asking me. He could be one of the Mafia or even a spy for all we know.’ This, you understand, was in the late 1950s when vivid war time memories continued to linger in the minds of many.

May gave one of her knowing half-smiles. She had once been on a church excursion to Paris and liked to convey the impression of being ‘worldly’.

‘Some men do like a bit of mystery about ‘em, my dear. But our young Fred seemed to think he was a decent enough chap after he came into the Crown last evening.’

Jess shook her head and returned to picking up apples with an over-the-shoulder, ‘Early days, our Maisie, early days. There’ll be summat. Just you wait and see.’ And, indeed, it was not long before rumours of Mr Positano’s little peccadillo began to spread.

By this time, the days were getting shorter and cooler; and the little Italian had exchanged his cream linen jacket for a good Harris tweed. With his neat, clipped moustache, gold signet ring and pomaded grey hair he cut a rare and dapper figure at the bar of the Rose and Crown among the burly farmers, local businessmen and passing strangers on a regular Friday night when few women chose to be there.

‘So, what really brought you to our little village, then, Mr P?’ asked one of the Bartlett boys a month or so after that gentleman’s arrival. Prompted by his mother, he was determined to find out more than the fact that Mr Positano had gone from Italy to Scotland between the two world wars to help in his uncle’s ice-cream business in Glasgow and that he was now retired.

‘A dream, mio figlio, a dream,’ said Mr Positano. ‘I was a boy, just 18, when I left my family in southern Italy. My father, grandfather and many generations before were all fishermen and very poor so it was natural for young men like me to emigrate to Britain and America where they could earn money to send home. My uncle Alfredo had been in Glasgow since the end of the nineteenth century and he had built up a good business with the help of his Scottish wife, Jeannie.’

‘And did you, yourself, marry?’ broke in Lionel Braidwood, a local solicitor.

A soft, sweet smile lit up the face of Mr Positano. ‘Si. Mia bellissima, Linda. Sadly, she died giving birth to our son, Paulo, who also died a few hours later. Babies then were mostly born at home and there was nothing the doctor and the nurse could do to save either.’

‘And you never married again, Mr Positano?’ said young Fred Bartlett, close to tears. ‘No, Fred. Later, at the beginning of the war, I was interned on the Isle of Man, along with so many Italians. A terrible, bitter time for me when all I could think of was Linda, work and, one day, returning to Italy – to somewhere warm instead of the cold north and the sea gales. But I never did as there were so few of my relatives left in Campania. And then, of course, there was always my little peccadillo. So, I carried on working in Glasgow and dreamed of buying a cottage with a garden in a little English village in the sun – just like yours.’

Every ear round the bar went on red alert and some of the men even put down their glasses on the mahogany counter in order to listen better.

‘Pecker what?’ asked Fred.

‘A little indiscretion, of no account,’ said Lionel who looked at Mr Positano and winked, man to man-like.‘Cherchez la femme, eh, Positano?’

‘Ah, si,’ said that gentleman who, despite pleadings for more about this story, refused to be drawn further and merely lifted his own glass saying, ‘My round now I think, gentlemen.’

When May Bartlett, all agog, heard about this ‘pecker summat’ from young Fred, she gave another of her knowing smiles while her sister, Jess, now fully justified in her own opinion of the newcomer, said ‘There! Didn’t I tell you there was summat?’

The villagers enjoyed being party to Mr Positano’s indiscretion – some creating their own exotic version of it – and maintained a kind of village loyalty to one of their own which he quickly became. But, when invited into his kitchen, none noticed the framed picture on a wall next to the fridge. For one thing, it was all writing. In Italian. So, they never could have guessed that this was the ice-cream recipe, stolen from his employer back home and brought to Glasgow where it made uncle and nephew a small fortune. Mr Positano’s little peccadillo.

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