Chapter 12: The Long Table

The Castaldi club on Mayfield Road had a long room at the back with a table that sat twenty.

I sat at Lucio's right hand at the head of it, on the first Sunday in December.

I wore my good green dress.

Fourteen old men in dark suits looked at me down both sides.

Over the bar hung a photograph of a heavy man with Lucio's jaw.

Salvatore Castaldi, the plaque said.

Pia sat against the wall on a folding chair with her coat on her lap.

She had not said a word to me since we came in.

Nunzio made the coffee himself.

He moved around the table with a silver pot, filling small cups.

He stopped at each man and said something quiet, and each man nodded back.

When he came to me he poured with a steady hand.

"Signorina," he said. "A great day. Our first guest at the table."

"Thank you for having me."

"The pleasure is ours."

The business was short.

The produce market, the union, the cold-storage tax, the roof of the church.

The baker, who sat nearest Lucio's left, said "Good" at the end of each item in a dry voice.

At last Nunzio took a single sheet from a leather folder.

He laid it in front of his nephew with a gold pen on top.

"The Flats lease for the coming year," he said. "A matter of the city's tax assessment. It needs only your name, caro. I have read it to you."

"You'll read it again," Lucio said.

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