More Lives than One by Libby Purves

Author:Libby Purves [PURVES, LIBBY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 1999-06-16T16:00:00+00:00

13

As the group came round the great church of San Giacomo di Rialto, Kit called a halt and pulled a black bundle out of his coat pocket. It was an imitation silk cord, intended probably for a curtain pull in some grand room, and all of thirty feet long. He knotted it in the middle with a loop, slid his hand through the loop and said to the children, ‘In the crowd, I want you to hold on to this rope. It’s what French schoolchildren do. It will keep us together in a clump and stop anybody wandering off. If Miss Miles brings up the rear, nobody will go missing.’

‘Unless Miss Miles does.’

‘Or the rope breaks.’

‘Better tie it onto Josh’s loops,’ giggled Leanne. Josh’s trousers were fashionably military, with a camouflage pattern and abundant loops for commando knives, water bottles and heavy belts. They had been the subject of much half-envious jeering from the rest of the boys, who were still too short to shop at army surplus stores.

Molly approved the system, particularly since Kit artfully added for her benefit, ‘It was Anna’s idea.’

In good accord, they moved along the crowded waterfront, crossed the teeming Rialto Bridge and plunged into the lighted busy streets beyond. Kit had booked a six o’clock supper for them all at a trattoria close enough to San Marco for the rising evening tide of masks and musicians to be intoxicatingly visible through the wide glass windows. They piled their masks and cloaks in a corner and settled, happy and excited, to eat.

There were two tables for eight with one extra chair squeezed in, giving just enough room for small Kara. Molly presided over one table, mainly of boys although Leanne would not be separated from Josh. Over on the other table Kit had Andrew Murray, Joe Baldwin, and the other six girls. Glancing round halfway through her spaghetti carbonara, Molly saw with horror that Kit had ordered red wine, and was giving each child a taste of it. Andrew was looking up at him over his glass, and Kit was leaning over, inclining his head as if to listen to the boy while on his other side, gazing at him, sat the moon-faced Marianne. That child, Molly noted grimly, was wearing both rouge and mascara. Must have put them on under her mask before leaving, the artful little minx. Kit was saying, ‘. . . the best wine comes from the toughest, hardest soil. It’s the stress, the suffering of the vines, which makes the grapes sweet and good.’

Molly made another mental note. Her report to the head would be full, frank, and incontrovertibly damning. Milcourt might be getting his own way this week but she would make very sure that this was the last Dewar trip – or school trip of any kind – that he was ever entrusted with.

‘Can I have my diary, sir?’ Andrew asked.

‘Sorry. It’s at the hotel,’ said Kit. ‘Do you need to write something? Is it about the grapes?’

The little boy nodded, solemn-eyed.

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