Wishing and Hoping by Mia Dolan

suggested they take jobs in his nightclubs as hostesses, only they ended up being much more than just pleasant to the customers. They ended up as high-class call girls – at least they were high class for a while. In time, once their innocence and their youth began to fade, they ended up on the slippery slope to street walking.
    Michael had badly wanted his natural father to be proud of him. There was still a residue of that in his psyche. His brother he had merely tolerated and the feeling was mutual.
    He sighed, glad to be away from them all and, although it was hard work, he was pleased with his life. Everything was going well. Rafferty was the only fly in the ointment. The man knew that Michael and his father had parted on bad terms and thus he was out from beneath Camilleri protection. He was vulnerable and Rafferty knew it.
    Of course he could go back to his father and ask him to intervene with Rafferty, to persuade him to lay off or else risk gang warfare between the Sicilians and the Irish. Sucking in his lips, he thought about it. It would be so easy to run back with his tail between his legs, but his pride wouldn’t let him do it. Besides, there was also the fact of what his brother had done to Marcie. He could forgive his dad perhapsbut Roberto was another matter. And his father would always take Roberto’s side. There was nothing else for it but to stand up to Rafferty or place himself under the protection of somebody who was more powerful and more dangerous. He needed time to think.
    Aldo’s Trattoria was an oasis of calm in his busy life. The atmosphere was unmistakably Italian, the windows steamy and the coffee hot and frothy. Aldo and his team spoke loudly and used their hands a lot. It was the in joke that if anyone ever cut off their arms, they wouldn’t be able to speak.
    Wearing a massive white apron that covered him from his chest and past his knees, Aldo came over full of welcoming bonhomie.
    â€˜You not look happy today, Michael. Your wife not love you any more?’
    Aldo’s question broke into his moroseness. He had to smile. ‘My wife loves me very much – and very often,’ he added with a salacious wink.
    Marcie was the one thing in his life that always made him feel good. He deeply regretted losing his rag with her the other night, but he had a lot on his mind.
    â€˜Lucky man,’ said Aldo, returning the wink with the salaciousness only a true-born Italian could show. ‘I wish I had a wife like yours, but mine . . .’ He laughed loudly. ‘She prefer to be with her motherthan with me. That is why I am in London and she is in Naples.’
    â€˜That’s sad.’
    Aldo laughed. ‘No, my friend! It makes me very happy that she is there and I am here. We get on very well when we are miles apart. When we are together we fight like – how you say – the cats and the dogs. She is the cat and I am the dirty dog – that is what she says to me.’
    Laughing loudly, he landed a heavy slap on Michael’s back before returning behind his counter and his steaming espresso machine. Aldo and his relatives – because that was mostly who he employed – exchanged loud conversation in Italian which was interlaced with much laughter, much slapping of tea towels at each other and waving of hands in the air. It was pure theatre and the customers loved it.
    Michael mustered a smile. Usually he would have laughed with them, but today his thoughts were elsewhere. Rubbing a circle in the steamed-up window, he looked out on the street. He wasn’t feeling happy, though not unhappy either. It was imperative he kept positive and didn’t let Marcie know how worried he was. All the same, it was difficult not to feel apprehensive.
    He had been unable to shake off the feeling of foreboding he’d had since Paddy Rafferty had first tried to muscle in on his business. He realised nowthat hoping Rafferty would take no for an