Going to the Source

by Stella Duffy

This story was written for Sarah Weinman's guest editorship/UK edition of Plots With Guns.

I don't do guns. I don't like them, I don't approve of them, and I think the world would be a better place without them, in any form. On the other hand, they are very useful for plots. And, having only just been to Brescia when I was asked to write the story, the timing seemed fortuitous. (nb - I quite liked the fascist piazza, after an excess of Italian renaissance, those wide, clean lines can be very soothing.)

Going to the Source

My Granny always used to say if you want to sort out a problem you need to go to the source. Same if you want to get the best. Anything you like, she'd never buy it through a catalogue or franchise shop. They were for what she called 'the lazies'. She'd save up, make the trip, and go to the main outlet, head office, wherever they had the biggest and the best. Department stores were the work of the devil as far as she was concerned. Specialist shops and direct importers, everything handmade on the premises - they were the places for her. It was as if she thought that passing an item from one shipper to the next trucker to the third shopkeeper tainted it in some way. Diluted its power. Now, that might be true of a fresh egg or a newly picked bouquet or even a handmade tooled-leather armchair, but it's hardly the same when you're dealing with a TV or a carpet or, as on one memorable occasion, a detachable-trainer-wheel bicycle. Every other kid in my street, in my class, in my world, had their bikes at least a year earlier. We had to wait until the holidays, travel eight hours on a train there and back, queue with God knows how many gormless locals, and finally pick up my brand new sixth birthday present bicycle in an industrial lot halfway across the country. It took hours to get it home, having to wait for two trains before we found one where the guard would let us bring the bike on board. We never did bother to get the bell. I'd have loved a bell, really loved a shiny silver noisy drrring drrring bell. Told her I didn't care though. She'd already said the bell factory was in Scotland.

She had another saying too. Well, it wasn't her saying, I know loads of people say it, but none as often as my Granny. If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well - and if it's worth doing well, you'd best do it yourself. Actually I realised later that was two sayings put together. Tried to point it out once and got a smack across the face for it. Granny said I was being cheeky. I wasn't, truly. I was trying to be right. She liked me better when I tried. She hit me more when I was wrong.

Not that she was a bad woman, my Granny. She did all right by me, took me in when Mum and Dad didn't want me any more, and that was pretty early, long before I can have been all that hard to cope with. I was almost five when I moved to my Granny's. Four years and eight months and two weeks and five days old. I learnt that one quick enough. It's what she used to tell everyone. Anyone. Anyone sitting next to us on those interminable bus and train rides. "That's how long I've had this one - four years and eight months and two weeks and five days old and then they decided they couldn't be bothered any more. Dumped off on me. Dumped!" And the assorted passengers would sigh or tut or nod or frown. And generally return to their books or papers or the suddenly ever so interesting view out the window - other people's back gardens. Most people don't want to chat on buses and trains. Granny never seemed to notice. And she didn't mind that I heard her telling them all either. Didn't mind at all that I knew what she thought of my Mum and Dad. Fair enough, it was her own daughter she was calling a lazy feckless slut. Not far wrong. Slightly nastier words for my Dad, but only slightly. She didn't mind me hearing it and, once I'd worked out what she meant, neither did I really. They were bastards.

Bastards. They kept the little one and got rid of me. I know they had another later on too, don't know if it was a boy or a girl, don't care. We didn't exactly send Christmas cards. Though Granny would send a postcard every now and then. "Just bought Sam's birthday present. Thought you ought to know. Five hours on train. Well worth the journey."

"Picked up Sam's new school trainers. Bit of a hike to get them, but worth it to see the factory and know they were properly new."

And my all time favourite : "Sam finished college today. We went to Munich for a beer to celebrate."

We didn't, we went to Macdonald's. But she thought it was funny and wanted to let them know they were missing out. I think it was funny too, but I don't expect they cared. Though they did send a congratulations card - "Well done from Mum Dad and the kids." No kid names, no kisses. I suppose Granny and I could have journeyed to visit them one time, but I never suggested it and she never offered. Perhaps there isn't a factory where they make happy families.

Anyway anyway. Time passed. I grew up, moved on, as my parents did before. Not that I dumped anyone to get here. I could never dump anyone to get here. And that's my problem. You see, once you've been as soundly dumped as I have, you know what a wicked thing it is to do. But now there's someone I need to dump. To break off with. To get away from. Only I can't. Because it would be cruel to do what my Mum and Dad did to me. And this woman I need to get rid of, this lovely loving woman I need to get away from, she doesn't have a Granny of her own to take her in and pick up the pieces and put her together again. Cracked maybe, the odd chip, but together. As Granny did for me, made me functioning, getting on with it, someone who could keep going. So I've had to make other arrangements. Am making other arrangements.

And now, here I am, on a train plane bus train journey of my own. Doing as my Granny always said. Going to the source. You see, I have to get away. I do love her, have loved her, will continue to love her. But perhaps - and maybe this is genetic, maybe I inherited it from my running Mum and Dad - I just don't feel like I can stay any longer. There isn't anyone else, not really, I simply need to move on. But I know how it feels to be left behind. And I always vowed I would never make anyone feel that ache, suffer that pain because of me. Better to feel nothing I think. Better to feel nothing at all, I'm sure.

I am going to Italy, Lombardy, Brescia. The guide book says Brescia is an ugly industrial town with little to recommend it. It says most impressions are negative in this small town. It says the fascist piazza is horrid. Clumsy, large, overbearing, domineering. The Brescians say the same of the piazza. They hate it. It symbolises a bad time, a past time, a time they would rather forget and have no choice but to remember with the tolling of the asymmetrical clock tower. I like it myself. But I grew up with Granny. Overbearing and domineering are second nature to me, I wear them lightly, slide beneath. The guide book mentions a few industries, the markets, a duomo (there are two, the book only approves of one) and several other, prettier, more traditionally Italianate piazzas. Romantic, Renaissance, easy on the eye, making no demands other than view and enjoy. The Brescians will tell you all about these too. And the remains of the Roman town wall, and the pillars and columns and archeological studies. And they'll point you in the direction of the castle and the view and it is a surprise, based on the information in my guide book, to find it a lively place, clearly wealthy, with fancy shoe shops and good cafés, and a soft, mouth-melting local cheese.

The Brescians will also tell you about their favourite industry. How this town and the villages around are famed for their arms manufacture. That the castle has a display of military artifacts. Iron and gunpowder. Fortification. And then, unlike my guide book which is a little too interested in monasteries and women-only convents-turned-hotels and yet one more hard to find but well worth the trip trompe l'oeil/fresco/stucco church, the Brescians will tell you about their guns. The Brescians will tell you about the Beretta. The taxi driver will tell you about the Beretta and the receptionist in the newly refurbished hotel across from the train station will tell you about the Beretta and the old man in the dark and tatty student café up by the ruins of the Roman Theatre will tell you about the Beretta. The gypsy woman and her loud snotty children outside the hotel entrance. The man selling gelati. The old woman begging on the old duomo steps. They are proud of their gun manufacture here. Even the ones with peace signs and rainbow paz flags hanging out their windows, they are still proud. This is what they do in this city. In this industrial town with its embarrassing fascist square. And the American army buys their guns and the LAPD buys their guns and so do the US Marines, Coast Guard, Navy, Air Force, and Border Patrol. And so do I. That's why I've come. On the train and the plane and the bus and the taxi. Journeyed to the source. To get the best. To sort out my little problem.

I had arranged to meet a man. It's not hard you know. The internet has made arranging to meet a man, any man, one of the simplest things in the world. In the old days you might have had to talk to the cousin of a friend who knows someone who knows someone else. Now you go online, type your request into a search engine and wait. Within five seconds I had three hundred and sixty eight responses to my query. One for every day of the year and a couple of leap years thrown in. I narrowed the search, came up with a few names and website addresses, carefully phrased my inquiry and left it at that. The next morning I had four useful replies to my newly obtained email address. Just in case. By that afternoon I had made contact with Fabio Vidani. Three brief emails later, and I was on my way to meet him. I booked the tickets online as well. Virtual shopping, real time travel. No matter what they say, there's nothing quite like going there yourself.

The Beretta family have been gunmakers for fifteen generations. I read it in the guidebook and I read it online. They are the toast of the gunmaking world, internet heroes. Bartolomeo Beretta was a maestro de canne at the beginning of the 1500's. His sons followed him into the business and their sons and their sons. I expect they've even allowed the occasional daughter to flourish in the industry as well. And there are other Beretta manufacturers, of course there are. In St Etienne France, Accokeek in Maryland USA. There are outlets in Athens and New York and Alexandria, Virginia. And it would probably have been far easier to buy the gun in the United States. Get the permit, travel with it, full and legal permission to own one of the finest handguns in the world. But Granny always said to go to the source, and I wanted to do this right. So I went to Fabio Vidani and we had a coffee and later he showed me the red tiled roofs of the Fabrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta S.P.A on via Pietro Beretta, in the once-was-little village of Gardone Val Trompia, Brescia, Italy. It's a big factory. Fabio was a small man. But he knew what I wanted and he knew how to help me.

He doesn't work at the factory you understand. Please don't think I'm accusing any Beretta employee of this - this meeting. I'm sure every single one of them works always and only within the law. For Fabio, that afternoon, the law stretched just a little. A little flexibility here, a lot of cash in his bank there. Dinner and coffee, a small glass of grappa to help with the digestion. And then, in the street, in front of the shallow steps of the small Duomo - the old one, not the new one - he handed me a box. It could have been a shoe box. Like the one we buried Granny's budgie in, digging a too-big hole and dropping it in far and low so the fox wouldn't find it. It could have been that kind of a shoe box. It wasn't. I thanked Fabio and left him outside the old church. He was going in to light a candle for his family. I considered lighting one for Granny, but I knew she'd disapprove of such obvious popery.

In my hotel over the road from the train station I opened the box. There were layers of pink tissue paper. A box of ammunition. The gun. Not any gun. The gun. The Beretta. It was brand new and beautiful. Just as the website said it would be. As Fabio said it would be. It was heavier than I expected. Not heavy, but heavier than I had thought. It sat still and quiet in my hand and there was a weight to it. The Beretta knew its own importance. I looked at myself in the mirror, holding the gun, holding it out in front of me, my hand moulded itself to the correct position to fire, fingers shaped and ready. I took up the stance as I had trained. We looked good.

I slept well that night. Long and well. In the morning my breakfast was a good slow meal. I was ready to leave Brescia. Ready to go home.

Yes, it's true airport security can be a problem these days. I guess it always has been, but now? Killers and terrorists all over the place. You can't be too careful. Belt and braces as Granny used to say. Belt and braces. So I took two precautions against getting caught. Found myself a flat right by the airport. Found myself a local bar and waited. Late shift security officers always like a bit of a drink. All those other people flying off to the world while they stay at home checking passports and running their hands over sweaty breasts and dirty back pockets. Shitty job. Shitty people sometimes too, these jobs attract them I guess. Like to like, as Granny ... well, you know. Typically though, the nastier the job, the greater the need for a drink. I met a dozen security officers and drank a lake of beer before I met Paula. Lovely girl - saving up to go to college, working her way through the summer break. I liked her, she fell in love with me. It's a facility I have, getting young girls to fall in love with me. Problem is, I can't always get rid of them once they've fallen. They hang around, don't get the hint, won't go away. Unless I make them. And some people just won't be told. It's why I'm here. To make her go away, the one who won't leave, won't let me go either. You can tell them once, twice, three times even - but if they don't get the hint, then what? Short sharp shock. It's the only way according to Granny.

It's why I needed the Beretta. Why I needed to get the gun through airport security. Why I needed to get Paula to help me get the gun through airport security. She was very sweet about it, protested that she'd never done anything like that before. Of course she hadn't, poor lamb. Assured me she'd never even thought about breaking the rules. I don't suppose she ever had. But I don't suppose she'd ever been fucked in the back of a rental Alfa Romeo convertible either. I got the car for an evening. She thought it was mine. I told her it was, she believed me. I told her I loved her, she believed me. I told her to help me get the gun through customs and I'd be back within the month. She believed me. Young girls and gullibility - it's practically an anagram, isn't it? I didn't ask how she would do it but, three days later, I met her at the boarding gate. She took me aside for an extra security check, laid the gun carefully in my hand luggage as we'd agreed and then escorted me on to the plane. She sat me down in my first class seat - her lovely friend from the ground staff had sorted it. After I'd sorted him as well. Our little secret. Neither of us wanted to hurt Paula. (Except when she asked for it. For such a young one, she certainly knew what she wanted.)

I had arrivals organised as well. They don't always put your hand luggage through those x-ray machines after landing, but they do sometimes. Not usually when you've had a suspected heart attack though. Not usually when your pulse is racing and they need to get you off the plane as soon as possible. More than half a gram of coke up my nose in the first class toilets. When ground staff and security staff check you in with the personal touch it's almost obscenely simple to smuggle a little carefully hidden powder on board. Though I did have it packed in coffee, just in case. Finest Colombian. In every sense. And a screaming ambulance to the West Middlesex is a damn fine way to hurry through the Heathrow crowd. Lovely Australian nurse in A&E as well. All in all a fantastic trip. Very pleased with myself I was when I finally left the hospital. Done and dusted and a good old-fashioned bed bath thrown in too. The nurse was, officially, obviously, too busy to wash me down. But I asked so nicely. And smiled so well. And she was a little lonely, a little more impressed by my first class passenger status. I'm not saying they're all so easily led, these young girls. But it's true there is an awful lot more attention available when people think you can afford the wide seats.

Then again the journeying. The buses and the trains and the coaches. Stopping and starting and taking another mode of transport. Not, this time, because it was how Granny travelled. While we travelled extensively, it was always by the fastest, cheapest method. This time I journey home by as many different routes as I can find. Doubling back on myself two three and four times. It takes almost a week. Staying in two different B&B's on one occasion, booking into three different hotels on another. I am making extra tracks to cover the real ones. I'm on my way back. I need to cover my back. I need to uncover hers. To set myself free. She won't let me go. I should never have loved her this much in the first place and now she won't let me go. But I am leaving. And covering my tracks on the way there. I need to be free to find another, love another. Just as my Mum and Dad needed to leave me to love the next child. I need to leave her to love the next woman. It's normal. We were not made to love more than one at a time. Granny taught me that too. Not intentionally, but she taught it well.

Granny had another saying. My favourite of her many : "You could have gone sooner if you'd asked."

And I do need to move forward, and I do need to move on, and I have to leave her now, this woman who loves me. I have to dump her without dumping, to leave her with quitting, to get away without leaving her behind. So I don't have to see her crying eyes and her sadness when I go.

And I won't. I won't see her eyes because they will be closed. There won't be tears. Blood maybe, but no tears. Not hers anyway. I will not leave her behind me, hoping for my return. I will not leave her hope.

"You could have gone sooner if you'd asked."

I get home. Let myself in the back door. Am quiet, as quiet as ever I was when I sneaked out on Granny years ago, hid on the stairs until she was sleeping in her chair and whispered my way past her heavy-breathing body, out to the dark streets and my friends waiting on the corner.

I creep in now as I crept out then. I am ready to go. She is not ready to let me. I love another. I am moving on. It is time. The Beretta is smooth and cool and heavy in my hand. You could have gone sooner if you'd asked.

Bye bye Granny.


© Stella Duffy 2004


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