Papa Georgio Read Online Free PDF Page A

would you like My Little Dear?’ Grandpa asked Brenda.
    ‘I’d love a coffee please, dear.’ She settled in a chair close to a porthole, opening up a magazine which had a smiling lady on the front. ‘And a bit of peace.’
    So Grandpa and I bought a coffee with milk but no sugar for Brenda, and a cup of frothy, sugary chocolate for each of us and we sipped and looked out as Brenda read her magazine. By the time we finished our chocolate, a loud ‘ bwa-a-arp ’ issued from the ship’s funnel, like a mournful giant blowing his nose and there was a shifting sensation as the ship heaved away from the quay.
    ‘Come along!’ Grandpa said, jumping up. ‘Time to go and explore!’
    We stepped out of a side door on to the deck, where the wind made us lean forwards, flapping our clothes about and snatching words straight from our mouths. Luckily Grandpa had left his straw hat inside on the table. I kept having to push my choppy hair out of my face and for the first time I wished I hadn’t cut it. I also wished Charlotte was here too, and suddenly I felt like crying. We walked to the ‘stern’ of the ship to look out at the huge, choppy blue sea shining in the sun. Grandpa took a little bottle of amber liquid out of his pocket and sipped from it.
    ‘Umm,’ he said. ’That’s better.’ I caught a hoochy whiff of it.
    The white wake churned and spread behind the boat like a gown and beyond, the white cliffs of Dover were shrinking further away. Everything was getting further away. Desolate, I wiped my eyes.
    Grandpa took my hand. He didn’t say anything but his touch was very gentle. All I knew about Grandpa was that he looked after my granny for a long time because she was very sick, and then she died. I only remembered Granny from when I was little, before she was ill. We stood there for a while with the wind in our faces.
    Grandpa breathed in and out loudly. ‘This is the life, isn’t it?’
    I managed to smile and when I looked up at him I saw that Grandpa’s eyes had turned deep blue, like the sea.
    ‘You mustn’t mind Brenda,’ he said. ‘She’s got a good heart.’
    I nodded, because I didn’t know what to say. I just didn’t think Brenda liked me very much.
    ‘D’you know – ’ Grandpa’s eyes swept the sea. ‘When I was a soldier–boy, they put us all on a big boat and took us all round France and Spain and Gibraltar – all the way to North Africa. And we went through Algiers and Tunis to Sicily, then Italy.’
    ‘When you were a little boy?’
    ‘No – we called ourselves soldier-boys, but I was a man of thirty-four when I got on that boat. A young blood with muscles like bars of iron!’
    He flexed his arm but I couldn’t see his muscles under his blue fisherman’s sweater. Now he wasn’t wearing his suit and his hair was all blown about in the wind, he seemed to have turned into someone else.
    The land was fading behind us, a dream country.
    ‘Ah – ‘this other Eden, demi-paradise,’ – that’s what Shakespeare said about England,’ Grandpa said, as we turned to walk away. ‘Mind you – he never knew about the M1.’

III.
    ‘Oh dear me,’ Grandpa stalled in the corridor. ‘The Man from Manchester. Not my type at all, I’m afraid.’
    We were heading back into the lounge to find Brenda when our path was blocked by the family with the baby. I felt myself tense up. They were all there together now. That was when I first saw Fizz.
    ‘’Ull-or!’
    The man greeted us as if we were old friends. He was carrying a tray loaded with cups and saucers and bottles of fizzy drinks with straws. The gypsy lady from the car was beside him in a long turquoise tie-die dress with the baby in her arms. The baby wasn’t screaming any more. Instead, she gazed round at everything with brown, shiny eyes.
    The boy was behind them. He was looking away as if he hadn’t noticed we were there, his face half hidden by a flopping fringe of treacle brown hair. I felt very nervous. Having no