Read Traitors to All for Free Online Page B

but also because of the money. I started with the money straight away, because seeing all that money coming into the shop, I couldn’t resist, before I got engaged to him a hundred lire was a big amount for me. I learned the system very quickly, and every day I put away thousands of lire, because nobody can imagine the money that comes in to a butcher’s shop, it’s near here, you know, in the Via Plinio, all I had to do this evening was walk here from the shop. He isn’t driving me back tonight, he’s not supposed to see the bride the night before the wedding, plus he’s having his stag party. I told him not to worry, that I’d come back with Silvano, because they’re friends, he’s the one who introduced Silvano to me. I’d already strayed a few times, being there all day behind the cash desk, in the butcher’s shop, a lot of men come in to do their shopping, though you wouldn’t think so, and every now and again there were some really handsome assistants, I can’t resist, if they insist it goes to my head, but he’s jealous of the assistants and when they’re too handsome he sends them away, but always after I’ve had my way with them.’ She laughed.
    ‘Keep still, or I’ll hurt you.’
    She was quite drunk now. ‘And one evening he picked me up from the shop with Silvano, he said he was a friendof his and we went out to dinner together. We went to Bice’s in the Via Manzoni, and when we were in the restaurant, he looked a bit too much like a butcher in comparison with Silvano who’s such a gentleman, I really liked him straight away, he went to my head.’
    So there was nothing for him to worry about. Apparently, she got excited very easily with everyone.
    ‘We ate and drank everything they had, and in the end Bice herself came to our table and served us liqueurs and even sat down with us for a while, and she was really nice, and very polite to my fiancé, but he was already drunk, he told her he was a butcher and criticised the meat, he told her the meat he could supply her with was better than the meat she got sent from Tuscany, and Bice was so kind, she let him talk, and then she stood up and told him he was really nice, but he wasn’t, he’d made a complete fool of himself.’
    Duca dabbed with the cotton wool and stood up. ‘There, it’s all over, now I’m going to give you a pill.’
    ‘I want a drink,’ she said languidly, ‘and a cigarette.’
    ‘All right, but don’t move, stay there with your legs down and closed, like that.’ He took out the pill, and poured a good serving of whisky into the glass. ‘I’m going to raise your head now, but I want you to keep your pelvis still.’ He put a hand on the back of her neck and raised her head. She was smiling, but in a sisterly way now, all desire spent. ‘Put your tongue out.’ He put the little pill on her tongue and the glass of whisky between her lips. ‘Slowly, you have to avoid coughing.’ If she coughed she would undo the repair he had just made.
    She drank slowly, but she drank quite a bit. ‘It isn’t a sleeping pill, is it?’
    ‘No, it’s an analgesic, it kills the pain, so although you’ll start to hurt a bit, you shouldn’t feel it.’
    ‘I’d like to smoke.’
    ‘Yes,’ he said – he already knew that, he had already put the cigarette in his mouth to light it and then give it to her – ‘but swallow your saliva if you feel like coughing, you mustn’t cough, and if you really can’t stop yourself, cough with your mouth open.’
    He took the cigarette out of his mouth, and she took it greedily, and greedily smoked it, two or three gasps. ‘Then I wanted to go home, but he said no.’
    He waited for her to continue, but she took another couple of drags, and then he lit a cigarette, too, a Parisienne. All the cigarette ends on the floor really bothered him, but the bother passed as soon as she started speaking again.
    ‘After the way he’d behaved with Bice I didn’t want to go with someone as drunk