The Bad Samaritan (8 page)

“We have a visitor,” she said.

An unexpected visitor was not an unusual occurrence in a vicar's life. Paul nodded and waited.

“It's the waiter at the guesthouse in Scarborough—I told you about him.”

“Good Lord, the Yugoslav boy? What's he doing here?”

“He says he's in trouble.”

Paul nodded again, and went in and introduced himself. Rosemary felt herself blessed in having so unflappable and unsuspicious a husband. Stanko was looking less drawn and lean now, and she thought Paul was liking him already.

“Well, what's the trouble, then, Stanko?” Paul asked, when they had all sat down.

Stanko put the bowl with fruit and cream in it down on the table in front of him and sat with his hands in his lap.

“I get the sack,” he said.

“Is that so terrible?” asked Paul. “Surely there must be lots of jobs in seaside places at the moment, with the summer season coming up.”

Stanko nodded.

“Is true. But Mrs Blundell she say the police is getting very strict. Always before I have—what do you say?—been a jump in front of them.” He gave Paul a shy, conspiratorial glance from lowered eyes. “You see, I have always heard when they have started to make enquiries—in Whitby, at Robin Hood Bay and so on—so I get out before they come. But Mrs Blundell says they are making a . . . a
drive
she calls it, in all the seaside towns, in the smaller restaurants and hotels.”

Paul had not stiffened up his easy stance in his chair.

“What you're saying is you've no work permit.”

“No. I got passport, but I not got work permit.”

There was silence in the room for a moment. Neither Stanko
nor Rosemary was looking at Paul, but Rosemary's heart was in her mouth, wondering what he was going to say next.

“I wish we had more contacts in the hotel or restaurant trade.”

Rosemary blamed herself for doubting him. Of course he would take the humane decision. He always had in the past. It could only have been a slight twinge of guilt on her part that had made her doubt he would this time.

“There's no one in the congregation that springs to mind,” she said, keeping the relief out of her voice.

“It's something we'd better think about tomorrow,” said Paul, who could take snap decisions when necessary but tried to avoid them. “There's no problem about a bed, is there?”

“No—Mark's is still made up from his visit while I was away. If you can put up with it tonight I can change it tomorrow, Stanko.”

“No, no—you go to no trouble. Is fine.”

“I think,” said Paul slowly, “it will be best if you lie fairly low while you're here. A clergyman is not exactly in the public eye, but he is observed by his congregation. Someone they don't know—and an obvious foreigner, as you are—coming to see me would cause no comment, but someone coming and going and obviously living here might.”

“That's true,” said Rosemary, who knew all too well parish habits of mind. “What we really need to find is a job with some kind of living accommodation thrown in.”

“A room, a shared room—anything!” said Stanko. “If the police catch me they send me straight back to Gorazde—anyway to Bosnia. Back to fighting and being bombed. You understand, Rosemary, I
can't
go back there. I'd rather die!”

Paul touched his arm.

“Yes, we
do
understand, both of us. We'll do what we can, but we need to think carefully first. You really do think the police in
Leeds are likely to be less active in hunting down illegal immigrants than those on the coast?”

Stanko nodded quickly. He had obviously thought about it.

“I think so. I hope so. Is in London and the seaside towns we mostly work, and in London is only in the small, not very nice hotels. I think they will not look very hard in Leeds.”

“You have contacts with others?”

He nodded hesitantly.

“With a few. Is my countrymen, you understand? They speak my language.”

“Of course, of course. Now—I think it's time for bed for you, my lad.”

Rosemary noticed that Paul's tone had become fatherly—and fatherly as if towards quite a young child. Yet he knew Stanko was married with a child of his own. Somehow his reaction was not unlike her own to Stanko's air of well-meaning bewilderment.

In bed later on Paul said, “you know, I've been thinking, and I think the personal touch is called for here. I think we should go to Gianni's for lunch.”

Rosemary frowned.

“I suppose it's the best we can do. Gianni is a dear, of course, but we can hardly pretend that we're regular customers.”

“Gianni gives me a little of the respect he would give to one of his own priests,” said Paul, amusement in his voice. “I don't expect him to offer the boy a job, but he could wise us up on the best avenues of approach.”

“That's true. I'll give Stanko the run of the cupboards and the deep freeze for his lunch and we'll go out. It seems ages since we had lunch out together.”

“You think I was right about his lying low while he's here?”

“Very much so. There are eyes watching us—cat's eyes.”

“It's sad for the lad to be cooped up.”

“Oh rubbish, Paul: Think what he'd be if he was in Sarajevo or Gorazde. And he knows that, poor man, only too well . . . . Oh, and thanks, Paul.”

He looked at her in astonishment.

“You didn't think there was any question of my handing him over or showing him the door, I hope, Rosemary?”

“No,” she said, not entirely truthfully. “But I'm just saying ‘thank you' to
some
body,
some
thing, for having married me to a man who wouldn't consider doing that.”

The next day they went to Gianni's late on, leaving behind a Stanko who looked much better—less hungry, more relaxed—and was anxious to be useful around the house. They suggested it was best if he didn't answer the door or the telephone. Gianni's was an unpretentious but warm and inviting trattoria off the Ilkley Road. It was moderately full with lunchtime eaters when they arrived at one fifteen, to a genial but respectful welcome from Gianni himself. By the time they had had their soup and pasta it was two o'clock, and most of the customers had disappeared back to work.

“You not like something else? Ice-cream? Zabaglione? Coffee?” Gianni enquired.

“Two coffees, please—cappuccino,” said Paul. “And we would like a word with you if you have a moment.” Gianni nodded, apparently pleased and flattered, and five minutes later he came back with the coffee and sat himself at their table.

“How can I 'elp? You want to come over to the Cat'olics, like a lot of your priests and politicians?”

“Not this week, maybe next,” said Paul. They all chuckled. Gianni was a genuinely devout Catholic.

“Woman priests! What an atrocity!” He saw a look in Rosemary's eyes, and quickly said, “But we don't quarrel, eh?”

“I'm sure we won't,” said Paul, ever the conciliator. “I'm sad about the priests, but you're welcome to the politicians. What we
want is advice. We want to know—” he looked around him and lowered his voice—“how to go about finding a job in the catering or hotel trade for someone who . . . who doesn't have all the necessary paper work.”

Gianni shot him a quick, suspicious glance, but seemed reassured by the clerical collar which Paul had taken care to wear. It was a useful piece of superstition and seemed to work even though Paul had his wife with him.

“Forgive me. One 'as to be careful.”

“Of course. We're trying to be.”

“Not that I myself—” Gianni leaned back expansively in his chair, once again the genial host—“not that I myself would need to employ such a person. A business which is doing very nicely does not need to—
capisce
?” He exuded proprietorial satisfaction. “But I tell you this: when the recession was at its worstest, I think of it, eh? I consider. Because then it was all ‘cut this cost, cut that cost,' otherwise—” he brought his hand down like a guillotine on to the table.

“We thought you might know
something
about it, even though not from experience,” explained Rosemary guilefully. “You're the only person in the trade we really know.”

Gianni paused to say farewell to a departing party of regulars. Now they were the only people in that part of the restaurant.

“You have a person in this country, and you want to find him a job—maybe a place to stay, a room over?”

“That's right. That would be ideal.”

“You not want to talk to your Mr Mills?”

“Stephen Mills?” said Rosemary sharply. “Why would we want to talk to him? Stephen doesn't have anything to do with the restaurant trade.”

“No, no. But he is a good—how do you say?—organiser. He know how to get things done.”

“He's a fixer,” said Rosemary.

“Exactly! A feexer!”

“I would
very
much rather not bring in Stephen Mills,” Rosemary said.

“Right. I understand.” He looked amused and smiled slyly. “Is a man who the ladies like very much or not at all. Maybe not at all is wisest. So, you do it yourselves, eh? Now let us talk turkey, like you say. Hotels in Leeds, they are not like seaside hotels. In Leeds there is not a hundred and one little guesthouses that are very difficult to investigate. On the other 'and, little takeaway food places—”

“Pizza takeaways?”

“
Esattamente
! ‘Pizza and Pasta,' ‘Pizza Pronto'—that kind of thing. They are all over the place. Some is family establishments—the big family, you understand, with distant cousins brought over from Sicily to learn the trade and learn the language, though mostly they don' learn the trade and they don' learn the language. Is not suitable, such places. But other places, where there is one man, who has seen an opportunity, an opening you say, where there is perhaps an area with many many students and no takeaway—such a man with no large family behind him . . .”

“That sounds just the job,” said Paul.

“Your man—he can make pizzas?”

“I'm sure he can,” said Rosemary firmly.

“Is silly to ask. Anyone can make pizzas, pizzas that students will eat. They just want to be filled up, as cheap as possible because they're living on loans. Now, I give you four names, just to start with.” He wrote rapidly on the back of their bill. “You try Signor Gabrielli first. Is a very nice man, good Cat'olic, but not very wealthy. Struggling a little bit, you know? He try to help if he can. Ring him up maybe eight, half past eight. When the early
evening peoples is gone and the late supper peoples isn't come yet. Don' mention my name. Is delicate, you understand? Tell him you are a priest.”

They left Gianni's on the whole well pleased with their work. They walked home, talking over the options, and when they arrived back at the vicarage they found that Stanko had spent the time vacuuming over the entire house. Their threadbare carpets hadn't looked so good for years.

“Just so long as he doesn't start clearing up my desk,” said Paul, ruefully glancing at the chaos there.

They rang up Signor Gabrielli that evening, having been assured by Stanko—he regarded the question as almost insulting—that he made an excellent pizza. Paul took Gianni's advice and introduced himself as the “priest” of St Saviour's. Signor Gabrielli, amiable to start with, became positively friendly.

“Ah, you want pizzas? You want pizzas for a party?”

“Not at the moment, though it's an idea. Definitely an idea. No, it's a question of someone I'm trying to help.”

“Yes?” Still friendly.

“He's not an Italian, but a Yugoslav. Bosnian, I suppose we should say. He's an excellent cook, makes a splendid pizza, and it's a question of whether you might have a job at Pizza Pronto.”

There was a pause, and then a somewhat cautious response.

“I could do with some help, certainly some evenings.”

“There are reasons in his case to be . . . discreet about the fact that you are employing him, if you understand.”

“Ah yes,” said Signor Gabrielli, his voice now low and conspiratorial. “Now I
do
understand.”

“Particularly we need to be discreet because of where he comes from. The consequences of his being sent back there would be very much more serious than if he were sent back to Italy.”

“È
vero.
In Italy we are not quite yet in the civil war. Maybe soon the North fight the South, but not yet. But the police they do send back to Yugoslavia, that I know.”

“So we've heard. The important thing you understand, Signor Gabrielli, is not wonderful pay, but having enough to live on, and maybe a bed to sleep in. I don't suppose . . .”

“There is a room upstairs. Is not nice, is partly storeroom, but it has a bed in it. Another boy—this is boy from Tunisia, you understand?”

“I understand.”

“He has the other room. Is a nice boy, very clever with languages. So he is a companion. But perhaps I should talk to this man.”

“Yes, of course. We wouldn't dream of suggesting you give him a job simply on my recommendation.”

“Tomorrow evening, about this time, is possible he could come and we could talk?”

“Very possible. I shall be at a meeting, but my wife can bring him. Look, it might look best if we ordered a couple of pizzas. My wife can collect them, say at eight thirty, and Stanko can stay and talk when it's convenient for you.”

“Excellent. What you like?”

“Let's say a Bologna sausage and a
quattro staggione
.”

“Right. I talk to your lady tomorrow.”

Paul put down the receiver rather pleased with his work. He turned to face the others.