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MascaraThis story may contain adult content. |
| Written by mick beville | |
| Monday, 26 May 2008 | |
Mascara Dressed in a light summer raincoat, her face streaked with black mascara. Dina Moretti had been standing motionless in the rain soaked Salford back-street for almost fifteen minutes. The wet knuckles of her hands protruded as she clutched firmly at the plastic bag containing the last few remnants of a previous existence. In front of her the rusting industrial skip bin stood full to over flowing. ‘It was only fitting,' she thought, ‘that a life such as hers should end in a place such as this.'
Dina Moretti's life had begun eighteen years earlier amongst the vineyards and olive groves that were the outskirts of Perugia Italy. ‘The year of your birth was a good year,' her mother Mejella had told her as they picked raspberries from alongside the house wall. Dina would recall several happy memories and she would reinforce them over and over in her mind; bicycle rides into the town, a smiling father, and her eldest brother Louie, swinging her around in the long summer sweet smelling grass in the meadow beside their house. She could still hear herself laughing with such happiness and joy. Louie had been the cement that had held them all together. Her other brother Aldo was almost one year older than Dina but having suffered through a particularly bad time with glandular fever and asthma he appeared the slighter and younger child. In the year of Dina's birth, Alfonso her father had graduated from the University of Perugia with a degree in veterinary medicine. It would be soon after her birth that he had left the family home and moved to Pisa to do a post graduate course in animal health and hygiene. There were mixed memories of her father's visits home. The strongest being the funeral. Dina could not recall the funeral itself, but she could recall the shouting and arguing, and her mother taking to her bed for what seemed like days.
‘I'm the king of the castle' Louie sang out, as he had done with compulsive regularity on his return from school each day. But today not a single soul would witness his last act of bravado. A modest four feet could have reached the top of the wall from the pavement, but today Louie climbed the eight or nine feet that rose, with a slight batter, from the half acre meadow that ran out and around their house.
‘The stone wall had stood undisturbed for over a hundred years; there should be no good reason to believe that it could just give way like it did,' the policeman had said, during what he called ‘a curtesy visit to tie up a few lose ends.' Multiple Organ failure was the official announcement that came amidst the angry embers that spat from underneath a qualified sympathy: Who was responsible..? Where were his parents..? There were further uneasy rumbling when Alfonzo returned to Pisa, and once again Mejella took to her bed, leaving Dina and Aldo to fend for them self's. It was sometime shortly after her first holy communion, but before they had all left Perugia, to start what her father had said would be a ‘wonderful new life on a ‘farm' in Watford England,' that he had first knelt beside her bed; ‘el papa le adora' he'd said as he slipped his hand between her legs. Sometimes it would hurt when he touched her there, but his closeness made her feel safe and warm.
The ‘farm' that he had spoken of was, in essence, a run down cottage on an acreage belonging to a private company that carried out research on animals. Alfonso would drill the family to keep their business to themselves and not to get involved in any of the village gossip. ‘She has gone home to look after her sick sister' he had replied, when asked by a co- worker where Mejella was. Dina knew that this was a lie, because she'd been the one that had found her mothers note. There was no mention in it about herself or Aldo, it was simply directed to Alfonso, saying that she found life with him unbearable and was returning to Italy.
At the age of twelve Aldo was moved from the house and into an out building. ‘A boy needs his space' his father told him; but again Dina knew better and had now started to dread her father's visits to her bed. The mumbled words of comfort, the feeble excuses and the even the words ‘el papá le adora' had given way to a bestial silence. She would hum tunes over and over inside her head in a vain attempt to protect her mind as his vile breath invaded her deapest being. Later when he had returned to his room she could hear him repeating over and over, ‘holy Mary mother of god pray for us sinners now and at the hour of death amen.'
A short time after Dina's thirteenth birthday, Alfonso was drinking heavily and the house had become over run with dogs, cats, rabbits and the countless fleas that came with them ‘I couldn't just let them suffer' he'd say bringing yet another inside the house.
It was a Thursday night in early November and she knew by the excitement of the dogs that he was returning down the path on his way home from the village pub. ‘Leave the house now.' she told herself sharply. ‘There is no way he wont find you if you try to hide in the house.' She had thought for a moment to take refuge with Aldo, but realized, that it would be the first place he'd come looking for her. As the dogs rushed to the front door, tails wagging, to greet him, she took a blanket from the bed and pushing one arm into the sleeve of her jacket she snuck out through the back door. The wind had bitten hard at her face as she'd stumbled blindly and in haste over and along the fresh ploughed furrows of the field that had led her to the Browns boundary fence. There was no logical answer to her direction, other than it would be the last one that he would have thought to follow. After climbing the wire fence at the back of the Browns shed, she felt her way along its walls until she reached two large corrugated iron doors that were being held closed where they met in the middle, by a large chain and padlock. Lying on the ground she wriggled and squeezed until her petite body was finally through the gap at the bottom of the doors. ‘You're safe now...' she told herself sitting and waiting for her breathing to settle. There was nothing to see in the blackness of her fox hole, but she could smell diesel oil, and the new rubber tires that had been put on the tractor only two days earlier. She felt a strange comfort in the sound of the wind as it teased, tested and rattled the corrugated iron sheets. Her breathing had settled now but she felt no inclination to move. Taking a large breath she held it fondling its freedom and freshness inside her lungs for several seconds before finally breathing out again. She breathed back in again, held it for several more seconds and then breathed out again. Rising to her feet she took a cigarette lighter from her pocket, held it at arms length, and struck it alight. It led her across a dry dirt floor between a tractor and a trailer to where a kerosene lamp sat invitingly on a wooden work bench. She'd lit the kerosene lamp when she saw the hessian potato sacks that were stacked neatly in the corner where the wooden bench top met the wall. One by one she held them up to the light of the kerosene lamp, checking first one side, and then the other, before methodically layering them on the dirt floor between the tractor and the work bench. As she wrapped her self in the blanket and lay down on sacks, Mary and Joseph entered her mind and she felt warmth She had first seen the shotgun and cartridges on the narrow shelf underneath the work bench as she'd put the bags on the dirt. The gun she had thought looked ‘somehow casual,' with its cold black steel barrel broken at an angle and a handful of cartridges scattered loosely alongside. She had also felt the itch straight away to touch it... and at first that was all she did, but as the itch grew stronger she had taken it from the shelf. It felt heavy. It felt powerful and exciting. She closed the barrel and slowly squeezed at the trigger. Click... It was only a click, but it caused such a rush that it touched her whole body. She broke the barrel and closed it again. Click... and then again, click... and again, click...
Her father looked peaceful, his face half buried in the pillow. It was almost six a.m. and in less that one minutes his radio alarm would click to wake him for another day. Dina could feel her heart beating through the wall of her breast as she put the end of the cold black steel barrel to the side of his face. ‘It was only a dream' she told herself as she closed her eyes squeezed at the trigger and waited for the click...
After spending eight days in the hospital wing of Holloway women's prison Dina was moved to a medium secure hospital in Manchester. The original charge of adult murder had been dropped after a neighbour told police how she had seen marks and bruises on Dina that would corroborate Dina's and her mothers claims of abuse by her father. The case was transferred to the jurisdiction of the juvenile system where Dina was ordered to under go a psychiatric assessment. An application by Mejella Moretti for the custody of Aldo was granted and after a short time in care he returned with her to live back in Perugia. Dina remained in England where she was made a ward of the state and would spend the next five years in various juvenile institutions, of which her last six months had been spent with a foster family in Salford Manchester.
As the rain streaked down the window panes, thirteen year old Sally Thompson stared out from the upstairs bedroom window towards the industrial skip bin. "Did you really kill someone?" she asked. "Your hair is so beautiful" replied Dina pulling the brush gently through the fine golden strands of Sally's hair. "You didn't answer my question," Sally persisted. "No I didn't," she replied, firmly. "And some questions are better left unanswered." "I will miss you Dina" said Sally as she reached in search of a hug. Dina pulled away sharply. "We did our goodbyes at the party yesterday. Now be off to school with you and not another word. Dina turned and put the hair brush back on top of the oak dresser. Her eyes started to well. "Don't forget your school bag" she said, hiding her tears in the art deco mirror under the pretexts of applying more mascara. This was no ordinary goodbye. This was a goodbye that could not be undone, could never be followed and could never be returned to. Today on her eighteenth birthday Dina Moretti would walk the short distance that took her to an industrial skip bin in a Salford alleyway and was never seen or heard from again.
Copyright 2008 mick beville |
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