A Kitten Called Cat

Chapter Thirty Five - Restaurant La Conia

The next weekend, Master and Dr Nil appeared again and, on the Saturday, the four of us went for a mysterious trip. The journey was exciting with a couple of rapid car switches in Napoli. The first was at the railway station and the second at a lively fruit and vegetable market... I'd have loved to have nosed around but we were pretty much running through the place so I didn't get the chance.

It all felt very James Bond, even more so when we climbed into the last car - a boring touristy type hire thing with. I wasn't particularly surprised to find that Caroline was driving.

My senses must have been on high alert though because I thought I noticed that we were being followed by a motorbike.

"Well spotted!" Caroline said. "It's Elroy. I'll let him know you noticed him." Yep... there was something going on between the two of them!

We drove up into the hills until at last we arrived in the village of La Conia where we piled out of the car, playing up the fact that we looked like tourists. Caroline had even brought a couple of guide books and a camera.

The place was a maze of tiny little cobbled alleyways which, with the high stone walls of the houses on either side and the washing hanging out to dry from the upstairs windows, felt like tunnels. Some were so steep that they had to have steps running up and down them. From a park thing up at the top of the village by the church, there were amazing views down from the hills and past Napoli to Mount Vesuvius. You could even see bits of Sicily.

Then we went inside their church. It was small and a bit shabby on the outside but spectacularly beautifully decorated inside. We looked around for a while; there was an amazing series of pictures on the walls: 'The Stations of the Cross', Terri called them.

Then, when we were about to leave, Terri paused by a funny rack, in front of a statue of Jesus, that had half a dozen candles burning on it. She added two more and said a little prayer with her head bowed.

"What was that all about?' I asked as we made our way back to the door.

"Those are votive candles," she explained. "I was just saying a prayer for the two guys who were killed when they set Slimeball free."

"Did you know them?"

"No. But they were Family."

It was another one of those little moments that helped me to understand what it meant to be a member of her Family... my Family now, I suppose.

Then we strolled back to the main piazza in the middle of the village. They had a bit of a market going on there and so Terri and I wandered around for a bit - the fruit and vegetables looked amazing.

We girls had somehow managed to get separated from our men and, when we started to get hungry, we set off to hunt for them. They had last been seen heading towards some little workshops around the edge of the piazza.

They were looking at some of the traditional leather bags and wallets and things that they make around here. Mr Bossy seemed particularly interested but I managed to distract him with thoughts of food.

Terri led us across the piazza to a simple little pizza restaurant. It had a large terrace in front of it but, with the damp weather, the red and white striped awning was rolled up and the furniture was folded flat and stacked against the wall. It wasn't anything like as posh as the places that Master usually took me but it looked like it might be fun.

A man with a neat beard and moustache was busy behind the bar but, when he saw her, he dropped what he was doing and almost ran around to grab her and give her the three kiss treatment. "Theresa!" he said in heavily accented English, "It has been too long!"