Cosi Fan Tutti - 5 by Michael Dibdin Page B

thinking and tireless energy got him in the past? To Naples, was the answer, and when in Naples…
    Sooner or later, nevertheless, he had to go home to meet the new tenants of the lower flat and see them properly installed. It was while he was overseeing this operation that the phone started ringing upstairs. Obedient to his ‘what I don’t know can’t hurt me’ philosophy, he decided to let the machine take it. It was not until some time later, on one of his trips up to his own flat in search of decorative materials to fake the influence of a woman’s hand below - and also to remove various personal effects which might reveal more about him than he wished strangers to know - that he finally bothered to listen to the message.
    ‘So you were in town yesterday and didn’t even bother to come and see your poor mother who you’ve abandoned here like some old coat you’ve no more use for now you’ve gone native in the sunny south with some slut you’ve picked up like that time in Venice with Rosalba’s baby who may I remind you happens to be my Goddaughter apart from anything else which makes you her great-Godfather but of course that didn’t stop you from going right ahead and ditching Tarda who I’d just begun to think of as part of the family and someone who might one day take the place of your poor wife Luisella who just happens to be in Rome for a week and actually took the trouble to come round here and visit me unlike some I could mention even though you walked out on her fifteen years ago the same way you do on all the women in your life including your mother who I’d have thought might feel entitled to a little consideration seeing as how you wouldn’t even be here today if it hadn’t been for me carrying you in my belly all those long months and in wartime too with the shortages and the fear and my husband disappearing the way he did which is I suppose where you get it from not that that’s any excuse and I certainly don’t see why I should be punished for something I suffered enough from at the time God knows instead of
    which you hide there behind the answering machine like the coward you are while I sit here all alone and unloved at my age in a strange city with no one to care for me - sola, perduta, abbandonataV
    This was the recorded version. When he called her back, Zen was treated to a live encore, preceded by a lengthy recitative explaining how she heard about his visit from Rosa Nieddu, who ‘accidentally let it slip’ when she came by to drop off the girls that morning so that she could drive Gilberto to the airport and how at first she couldn’t believe what she’d heard and then Rosa tried to pretend she hadn’t said it and then broke down and confessed everything and they had both burst into tears and hugged each other.
    ‘Ah, the female mafia on the job again!’ murmured Zen, feeling drenched in oestrogen as though in cheap scent.
    Fortunately his mother was not listening.
    ‘Then later on Luisella called to say she needed to get in touch with you about the divorce settlement
    ‘What? I haven’t seen her for ten years! We haven’t lived together for.. p>
    ‘But you’re still married to her, Aurelio, and now she’s met someone else and wants to have children before it’s too late. I hope you don’t mind, but I did just say that as you’ve made all that money from that American family I’m sure you’ll have no trouble agreeing to any suggestions which her lawyers may make.’
    ‘Are you out of your mind, mamma?’
    ‘Then that evening Tarda dropped round so naturally I told her about you coming all the way up here to chat about video games with your pal Gilberto and not even bothering to come and see your poor mother who you’ve abandoned here like some old coat you’ve no more use for now you’ve moved to the sunny south and gone
    native…’
    And so on, for some time. And when Zen finally succeeded in getting the conversation back on track, it promptly ran right