has been from day one. Nan asked him yesterday why he was getting involved. Eyes impenetrable he’d regarded her. ‘I’m involved in nothing.’
‘You are! You’re up to your eyes in it! I reckon you should stop workin’ there. Better to step back from a tangle than be drawn in.’
‘Don’t talk rubbish! I’m not being drawn into anything.’
‘Oh rubbish is it? Everything’s rubbish to you nowadays! No one can get a kindly word from you, not even the little lad you profess to love.’
Face moody and lips bitten to pieces he’d shrugged. ‘As you said, mother, best not to get drawn in. As for letting go of business you’re piping a new tune. Aren’t you the one always saying there’s no such thing as too much work? ’
‘This is different.’
‘How is it? One person’s brass is as good as the next. Why turn it down?’
‘Because money isn’t the payment you seek. You’re after somethin’ more precious. You’re after her heart.’
Slam! Another door closed he turned away. A closed door on a locked room is Luke Roberts. He never yells or throws things the more enraged he becomes the more silent. And he doesn’t visit the Nelson now. He used to come every day. Nan said to Albert: ‘Why doesn’t he come of an evening? But for a rabbit left on the table and logs chopped out back you wouldn’t know he was alive.’
Albert said to leave him alone. He’s a man not a lad. He doesn’t need his Ma pokin’ her nose in. Nan said she wasn’t poking her nose into anything. She was afraid for him.
Every mother thinks her son handsome. Luke is a right good looking. Muscles of iron and body of an athlete he takes after his father. He has brain too, a mathematician able to count the stars in the sky. Young Matty calls Luke Mister Wolf. That boy will never know how right he is. Luke has the heart and soul of a wolf, an Italian wolf hunting the mountains fierce and dangerous.
Albert Roberts is not Luke’s father. It was Albert, bless him, who years ago took Nan in when she was two months gone with another man’s child. Back in ’68 Letty Morris, a seven year old mule-gatherer used for scavenging weave under cotton gins fell into the canal. Luke’s father went in after her but both he and Letty got caught up in the suck. Apart from a mangy cat bedded under the sink Letty left none to grieve. Luke’s dad, Lucca Claudio Aldaro, left his lover a peppercorn ring on her finger and a child in her belly.
Lucca Aldaro was born in the Apennine Mountains: ‘ Where the light streams over snow caps, mio caro, Nanette , and where the grey wolf runs free. ’
As a boy he came with his mother to England leaving the sunshine of Italy for the soot of Manchester. A shuttle-maker he was in Murrays Mills, Ancoats, Little Italy as they call it. Nan met him on the banks of the canal. He was fishing. ‘ Buon giorno, bella signorina, ’ he’d said, dark eyes smiling. Good day beautiful lady is what he said. It turned out to be a special day for Nanette Ramsden. Instant love and misplaced passion she was then. Now that passion is alive in her son. Luke knows nothing of his real father but from the onset treated Albert with the kindness you offer a child. Albert is the only one he does treat kindly. As far as Luke is concerned compassion died alongside his brother, Jacky Roberts.
Nan blames herself for that death. Her firstborn conceived out of wedlock she sees it as punishment from above. Luke blames himself. ‘I shouldn’t have left him.’ It is pointless saying you can’t watch everything. As Nan mortifies the flesh so does Luke. His passion then was for his brother. His passion now is Anna and as with Jacky will endure forever. He never speaks of her. If Nan mentions her name there’s a clang of a lock. It’s all there, thirty years of the right sun shining on the wrong land. No matter what he’ll hold true to Julianna now until he does as his father did, jump in the deep end and drown.
*
Maggie, whose nose
‘You are! You’re up to your eyes in it! I reckon you should stop workin’ there. Better to step back from a tangle than be drawn in.’
‘Don’t talk rubbish! I’m not being drawn into anything.’
‘Oh rubbish is it? Everything’s rubbish to you nowadays! No one can get a kindly word from you, not even the little lad you profess to love.’
Face moody and lips bitten to pieces he’d shrugged. ‘As you said, mother, best not to get drawn in. As for letting go of business you’re piping a new tune. Aren’t you the one always saying there’s no such thing as too much work? ’
‘This is different.’
‘How is it? One person’s brass is as good as the next. Why turn it down?’
‘Because money isn’t the payment you seek. You’re after somethin’ more precious. You’re after her heart.’
Slam! Another door closed he turned away. A closed door on a locked room is Luke Roberts. He never yells or throws things the more enraged he becomes the more silent. And he doesn’t visit the Nelson now. He used to come every day. Nan said to Albert: ‘Why doesn’t he come of an evening? But for a rabbit left on the table and logs chopped out back you wouldn’t know he was alive.’
Albert said to leave him alone. He’s a man not a lad. He doesn’t need his Ma pokin’ her nose in. Nan said she wasn’t poking her nose into anything. She was afraid for him.
Every mother thinks her son handsome. Luke is a right good looking. Muscles of iron and body of an athlete he takes after his father. He has brain too, a mathematician able to count the stars in the sky. Young Matty calls Luke Mister Wolf. That boy will never know how right he is. Luke has the heart and soul of a wolf, an Italian wolf hunting the mountains fierce and dangerous.
Albert Roberts is not Luke’s father. It was Albert, bless him, who years ago took Nan in when she was two months gone with another man’s child. Back in ’68 Letty Morris, a seven year old mule-gatherer used for scavenging weave under cotton gins fell into the canal. Luke’s father went in after her but both he and Letty got caught up in the suck. Apart from a mangy cat bedded under the sink Letty left none to grieve. Luke’s dad, Lucca Claudio Aldaro, left his lover a peppercorn ring on her finger and a child in her belly.
Lucca Aldaro was born in the Apennine Mountains: ‘ Where the light streams over snow caps, mio caro, Nanette , and where the grey wolf runs free. ’
As a boy he came with his mother to England leaving the sunshine of Italy for the soot of Manchester. A shuttle-maker he was in Murrays Mills, Ancoats, Little Italy as they call it. Nan met him on the banks of the canal. He was fishing. ‘ Buon giorno, bella signorina, ’ he’d said, dark eyes smiling. Good day beautiful lady is what he said. It turned out to be a special day for Nanette Ramsden. Instant love and misplaced passion she was then. Now that passion is alive in her son. Luke knows nothing of his real father but from the onset treated Albert with the kindness you offer a child. Albert is the only one he does treat kindly. As far as Luke is concerned compassion died alongside his brother, Jacky Roberts.
Nan blames herself for that death. Her firstborn conceived out of wedlock she sees it as punishment from above. Luke blames himself. ‘I shouldn’t have left him.’ It is pointless saying you can’t watch everything. As Nan mortifies the flesh so does Luke. His passion then was for his brother. His passion now is Anna and as with Jacky will endure forever. He never speaks of her. If Nan mentions her name there’s a clang of a lock. It’s all there, thirty years of the right sun shining on the wrong land. No matter what he’ll hold true to Julianna now until he does as his father did, jump in the deep end and drown.
*
Maggie, whose nose
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