The Boy, the Bird and the Coffin Maker

  To my family –

  those with two legs and four

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Dedication

  The Coffin Maker’s First Coffin

  The Mayor’s Early Order

  The Curious Bird

  Who Were You, Miss Bonito?

  A Funeral and a Thief

  A Mother’s Broken Promise

  A Little Thief Gets a Name

  The Coffin Maker’s Apprentice

  A Parade of Golden Oak

  A Faint Flutter

  The Flight of the Lantern

  Cakes and Sweets and Strawberry Jam

  Tito’s First Story

  The Man Who Stole Three Apples

  Alberto Hears a Rumour

  Tito Learns his A-B-CS

  Alberto’s Promise

  The Sailing Coffin Maker

  The Mayor Takes a Tumble

  The Coffin that Cost more than a House

  Tito Loses a Friend

  Tito’s Telescope

  A Friendly Warning

  Fia’s Gift

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  THE COFFIN MAKER’S FIRST COFFIN

  The town of Allora was famous for two things. The first was its flying fish and the second was the beauty of its winding streets. Tourists came from all over the country to watch the fish fly out of the sea while artists came to paint, in pigment, the bright houses that rose like steps up Allora Hill. There were so many colours that the artists did not have enough pigments to paint them, and it was rumoured (at least by the Finestra sisters) that the great artist, Giuseppe Vernice, invented a whole new colour just to paint the roof of their house.

  “Splendid Yolk, it was called,” Rosa Finestra said to anyone who would listen.

  “Derived from the crushed eye of a peacock feather,” Clara Finestra added with a wise nod.

  Yet though the sisters gushed about their bright home, the one next door was even brighter.

  Alberto Cavello’s house was the highest house on the hill. If you went any higher you would reach the graveyard at the top. It stood like a bright azure jewel glistening across the sea. And it wasn’t just bright. It was loud. It was loud when Alberto and his wife, Violetta, moved in. It grew louder when their first child, a girl named Anna Marie, was born; louder still when their son, Antonio, came into the world; and even louder when a little miracle named Aida wailed for the first time within its bright walls.

  Alberto was a carpenter: the best in all of Allora. During the day he would build beds, tables and chairs for his paying clients, and at night he would build toys for his children.

  With each new toy Alberto made, a new sound filled the house: squeals of delight as Anna Marie jumped off her spinning chair; screams of anger as Aida cried for Antonio to give back her favourite doll; and cries of “Gallop on! Gallop on!” as this same Antonio raced his wooden horse up and down the stairs.

  Their house remained bright, loud and bustling for seven happy years until the sickness came.

  The sickness appeared in the coldest month of winter, but it did not reach Allora until spring.

  The first to fall ill were the men working on a new railway that linked Allora to the north, then the doctors who tended them and the artists who had come to paint the town. Only one family was wealthy enough to flee. The mayor took himself and his family on a long holiday to a place the sickness had not spread.

  “Good luck!” he cried over his fat shoulder as a plush coach drawn by six white stallions carried them far away.

  In the beginning, the dead were buried in the graveyard – one, then two, then three to a single plot – but as the sickness spread other measures had to be taken.

  A gate was built at the back of the graveyard and a thin staircase carved into the stone with steps leading down to the water. No longer buried, the dead were wrapped in blankets and cast out into the violent, surging sea.

  As the number of dead mounted and the number of living fell, the cobbled streets of Allora grew quiet. Houses went unpainted and shutters, once thrown open to greet spring, were pulled tightly closed. Even the Finestra sisters didn’t poke their big noses out.

  Just like the unfinished paintings that lay abandoned in the streets, the town of Allora itself began to fade.

  The sickness rose up the hill – house by house – until it finally reached Alberto’s home.

  It took the eldest child first. Alberto spotted the purple mark behind Anna Marie’s left ear as she read a book in her favourite chair. Then, Antonio fell ill. While he was ailing in his bed, the mark came upon little Aida.

  Violetta and Alberto tended to each child as they fell sick. They kissed them when they cried, hugged them when they whimpered and when the time came for each of them to go they answered, “Yes, of course: one day, we will meet again.”

  Keeping her promise, Violetta joined them two days later. The plague bearers came to collect their bodies that evening, but Alberto wouldn’t let them.

  “I can’t,” he had said to the two men waiting at the front door. “I can’t let you throw them away. Not into that cruel sea.” Even from where he stood outside the highest house on Allora Hill, Alberto could see foam shooting up from where the waves crashed against the grey stones below. He could not bear to think of his family thrown in there.

  “You must get rid of them somehow,” the men had replied. “You can’t let them stay inside. It will spread the sickness quicker.”

  “I’ll bury them.”

  “All the coffin makers are dead. We collected the last one this morning.”

  “Then I’ll make their coffins myself.”

  And that is what Alberto did. He went into his workshop and for the first time built something for the dead instead of the living. He carved a coffin for his wife, a coffin for his eldest daughter, a coffin for his only son, and a coffin for little Aida. Each was smaller than the one before and, like Babushka dolls, could fit inside the other.

  When the coffins were finished and his family buried, Alberto returned to his workshop and began to make his own. But by the time he finished, the plague had left the town. The mayor returned from his holiday, the Finestra sisters reopened their shutters and people passed gaily up and down the streets of Allora once more.

  But instead of joining them, Alberto sat beside his coffin every day, waiting for the purple mark to come back and claim him too.

  THE MAYOR’S EARLY ORDER

  Thirty Years Later

  “I want it made of golden oak,” said the mayor grandly. “Nothing beats golden oak. Strong as an ox and light as a feather. They say—” He tried to lean across the table, but his vast stomach got in the way. “You can throw a whole tree in the ocean, roots and all, and it would float all the way to the wilds of Africa.”

  “Are you planning a sea burial?” Alberto asked. He wasn’t used to asking questions. His clients were usually dead by the time they arrived.

  “Of course not,” the mayor spat. “I’m not a sailor.”

  “No one in Allora is,” Alberto agreed. No man, sane or insane, would set sail across that tumultuous sea.

  Almost like it had heard, the sea chose this moment to send a colossal wave crashing into the rocks below. Water sprayed so high it battered the kitchen window. A second later, a giant sea bass battered it too. Luckily, it didn’t break the glass.

  “So,” Alberto said as the fish flapped about on the cobbles outside, “why do you want it to float?”

  “I don’t.” The mayor took a sip of his tea and then, tasting it, spat it back out. He only drank tea steeped from the finest leaves and Alberto’s were cl
early the cheapest.

  “But you just sai—”

  “Oh, I don’t care about all that floating nonsense.” The mayor flapped his hand about like the fish in the lane outside. “I just care that it’s…” He searched for the right word. “Rare!”

  “And expensive,” Alberto added. You couldn’t buy a more expensive wood, not unless you shipped it in from Africa itself. “Are you sure you don’t want to use something else, like elderwood or ash?”

  The mayor gave him a scathing look. “I’m not poor either, Coffin Maker.”

  Alberto eyed the mayor’s golden lace and velvet cloak. “No one could ever accuse you of being that. Golden oak it is.” He dipped his pen into a jar of ink and wrote Golden Oak beneath the mayor’s name. “Now.” He looked up from his notebook. “Measurements.”

  “Measurements?” The mayor lost some of his vigour. “What measurements?”

  “Your measurements, Mister Mayor. Height and girth will do. After all, I’m no shoemaker.”

  In truth, there were no shoemakers in Allora. Not any more. The last one had died two weeks before. Alberto had made his coffin:

  Master Luigi Scarpa

  Elderwood

  75 × 23 inches

  “Er, right. Well…”

  “I have a tape measure,” Alberto offered. “I could get it if you would like.”

  “No. No. It’s quite all right.” The mayor waved him back into his seat. “We can leave the measurements for now.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do much without measurements. They’re a vital part of the coffin-making process. Normally, I’d measure the body myself. Most people don’t come to me when they’re still alive.”

  “Well, I’m not like most people, am I? I’m the mayor: the mayor of all Allora.” He stuck his chest out importantly, and the fat of his stomach broke over the edge of the table. “And as the mayor it’s my right, nay, my responsibility, to have the largest and grandest coffin this town has ever seen.”

  He’ll certainly have the largest, Alberto thought to himself. He had never met anyone, alive or dead, who was as fat as the mayor.

  “What was that?” the mayor snapped.

  Alberto’s eyes widened. Had he voiced that thought out loud?

  “On second thoughts, I think it was my stomach.” The mayor hauled it back under the table. “She always gets temperamental in the evenings. You don’t happen to have any cakes or sweets in the cupboard? Just to quell the gentle beast.” He gave his stomach a fond rub and glanced hopefully around the kitchen.

  “There’s some stale bread on the bench,” Alberto offered. “And some cheese on that plate. Though, it’s looking a bit green, even from here.”

  “Never mind,” the mayor said, though he looked like he minded a lot.

  “So?” Alberto asked.

  “So, what?”

  “What are your measurements? Just an estimate will do, so I can order the wood. If you want the grandest coffin, I’ll have to start work on it soon.”

  “Right, well, seventy inches by – er…” The mayor’s fat cheeks turned a deep shade of red. “Seventy inches, I suppose.”

  “Seventy by seventy?” Alberto said, unable to hide his surprise.

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just curious.”

  “What’s curious?”

  “I usually make rectangular coffins, not square ones.”

  “If it’s too much of a challenge,” the mayor said, trying unsuccessfully to stand up, “I’m sure I can find someone else to build it.”

  “It’s no problem at all, Mister Mayor.” Alberto dipped his pen into the ink and wrote the measurements down. “Now…” His voice wavered. He had a feeling the mayor would not appreciate the next question. “When would you like it by?”

  The mayor’s face turned from red to purple. “How would I know?” he blustered. “One doesn’t exactly know these things. Death can be very unexpected.”

  “It always is,” the coffin maker agreed. “One moment you’re breathing and the next you’re not.”

  “Still,” the mayor said with a nervous laugh, “you shouldn’t work too fast. I’m not planning on popping off anytime soon.”

  Outside, the clock tower rising from the graveyard chimed twelve. To block the tolls, the mayor began to yell.

  “Good genes, I have. Mother lived to eighty-three, and even then she was killed by a runaway cart. Clean bill of health except for the broken skull and punctured lu—”

  The mayor was cut off by three loud knocks on the front door. He frowned and looked across the table to Alberto.

  “Do you usually have visitors this late?”

  “Not living ones,” the coffin maker said, and leaving the mayor alone in the kitchen, he went to answer the door.

  “Put her down there.” Alberto pointed to a table near the back of his workshop. He had carried a candle from the kitchen and now used it to light five more around the room. One by one, little pools of yellow-grey light spluttered into life. When they formed one constant glow, he joined the two men who had carried the body in.

  Alberto recognized the woman. It was Miss Bonito. She had moved to Allora just over a year ago. In the four seasons she had called the town home, Alberto had only spoken to her once. He had helped her to read a sign in the market square: Two pears for the price of one!

  “What happened?” Alberto asked. He knew both men, one far better than the other. The older man was Enzo the baker and the younger was his apprentice, Santos.

  “She died,” Santos said.

  “I can see that. How did she die?”

  “Um…” Santos looked to his master.

  “A growth, Alberto.” Enzo coughed to clear his throat. “Right there. Just above her heart.” He pointed towards her chest where, above the cut of her faded dress, a lump the size of a small apple could be seen.

  “Ah,” Alberto said sadly. “I have seen this type of thing before. Many a time, in fact.” He pulled back from the body and looked at his old friend, Enzo. “Who found her?”

  “My wife. She used to give her our stale loaves for free. Poor thing couldn’t afford them fresh. Hadn’t seen her for two weeks, so went out to the cottage to check if she was OK. Found her like this, alone in her bed, the sheets still warm.”

  “Warm?” Alberto frowned. “Are you sure?” By the state and smell of her, he was certain Miss Bonito had been dead for at least a week. If it had been high summer, she would not have even looked like Miss Bonito any more.

  “Si. Si, Alberto,” Enzo said with a sad nod and even sadder eyes. “My wife was most sure about that.”

  Ah, Alberto thought. That explained it. Enzo’s wife was prone to exaggeration, almost as much as the Finestra sisters who lived next door.

  “She could not afford food, Alberto, let alone a coffin.” Enzo’s voice took on the tone of a proud man about to ask a favour. “But I remember – how could I forget – that you helped my father when we couldn’t afford…”

  “Of course. Of course,” Alberto said. “You do not even have to ask, Enzo. Don’t worry. I’ll look after her now.”

  “Thank you, Alberto.” Enzo shook his hand. “I knew she’d find a friend in you.”

  “Alberto’s had a busy night,” said Clara Finestra. She pulled her head inside the window and turned to face her sister.

  “Really?” Rosa asked. She was sitting in an armchair decorated with roses to match her name.

  “Oh, yes. The mayor and Miss Bonito.”

  “The mayor’s dead?” Shock rendered Rosa speechless, but only for a moment. “Well, I can’t hardly be surprised. When one’s of a certain size, death does come rather early.”

  “No.” Clara’s sharp face lit with delight. She loved knowing things before her younger sister. “The mayor isn’t dead. Miss Bonito is. Enzo and his apprentice just carried her up now.”

  “Let me see.” Rosa clawed herself out of the chair and raced towards the window. Push
ing Clara aside, she poked her head out into the lane. But she was too late. All of Alberto’s living guests had left, and the front of his house was dark.

  One by one, Alberto blew out the candles in his workshop.

  “There you go,” he said, placing the final flame beside the body of Miss Bonito. “That’s better. Don’t you worry yourself now. I’ll look after you. You’ll have a proper burial, just like everyone deserves. You can have my coffin.” Though she could not see, he pointed to a short, dusty box resting in the corner. “And I’ll buy you a plot in the graveyard too. You can have a stone and everything.”

  To keep the flying fish away, Alberto closed the back window. He turned to leave but something made him stay. Miss Bonito may have died alone and lain alone for a whole week, but she did not have to lie alone any longer. So, instead of going upstairs, Alberto sat down beside her.

  “Good night, Miss Bonito,” he said, and in the final pool of light, he laid down his head, closed his eyes and eventually fell asleep.

  THE CURIOUS BIRD

  That night, while Alberto lay sleeping beside the body of Miss Bonito, a bright little bird flew high overhead. Each beat of its wings made a patch of the stars flicker out, and another made them flicker back on.

  The bird was heading out to sea, but it wasn’t getting very far. The wind was strong and the bird’s wings were weak. So, instead of flying forward, it kept circling round and round.

  “Twrp!” the bird cried. “Twrp!” it cried again. Its calls echoed across the water, but no calls echoed back.

  The bird flapped and wailed for almost an hour before a small light caught its eye. Turning its back on the sea, it soared towards the town of Allora. Houses as bright as its feathers flashed past as it spiralled downwards. It flew over cobbled lanes, shingled roofs and glass that glistened white in the night. Then, with a gentle sigh, it landed on a stone windowsill.

  The bird shuffled towards two wooden shutters that covered a window. Through a thin gap where both shutters met, it peered into a dim room that flickered with golden light.

  A woman’s body lay stretched out on a cold table and an old man, his hair grey, lay sleeping beside her. The bird looked at the woman and tilted its head. A sad cry, formed deep in its chest, echoed across the room. Then it looked at the man. Its inky eyes studied him for several minutes. Finally, as if seeing something it liked, the bird’s eyes flickered gold.