Beneath the Southern Cross (58 page)

Kitty was waiting outside. They caught a taxi back to the flat in Leichhardt and Kitty tried to argue all the way, Artie refusing to join in.

‘You didn't tell me you wanted to get married.'

‘I did not know until tonight.'

‘Oh rubbish, you only said it because it was the conventional thing to say under the circumstances.'

‘Perhaps. I am a conventional man.'

‘Well, I don't want to get married, I can tell you that right here and now. And I never will.'

‘Fine,' he shrugged, ‘then we will not marry.'

He was obviously not going to be drawn into an argument, so Kitty turned her hostility upon her parents instead.

‘They behaved just the way I expected them to,' she said, then started to systematically tear them apart. Her mother was a snob to whom nothing but appearances mattered, but her father was
much worse. Her father was a bigot who pretended not to be.

‘Good old Tim Kendall,' she said, ‘a bonza bloke! Everybody's mate! The working-class boy who made good, but never forgot his roots! Well, bully for him, he's the biggest hypocrite of them all.'

Artie paid off the taxi and she was still berating her father when they entered the flat.

He turned the lights on to reveal the chaos—they hadn't finished unpacking the previous day.

‘He disappointed you,' Artie said.

‘What?'

‘Your father. He disappointed you.'

‘No,' she said defensively, ‘I knew he'd behave like that.'

‘But you hoped that he would not.'

Kitty's lower lip quivered a little, suddenly she wanted to cry. It was true. She'd been disappointed. Her heart had sunk the moment her father had gone into his ‘g'day mate' act. Kitty loved her father dearly, and she had hoped that he would recognise her love for Arturo. She had hoped that he would genuinely welcome him into the family.

Artie put his arms around her. ‘Poor Kitty,' he said, ‘you have got yourself all worked up …' she sniffled against his shoulder, ‘… and for no reason at all.' She raised her head, about to argue the point. ‘No, no,' he saidquickly, ‘I will not fight with you. But I will talk with you if you wish.'

They did. Around midnight Artie opened a bottle of red wine. By then he'd convinced her that her father was not really a bigot.

‘Your father is afraid. He fears that which isdifferent,' Artie had explained, recalling Rube's words at Bonegilla and how, time and again, they had proven to be so true. ‘But he is a good man, he will learn to accept me in time. And I do not need to be Italian for him to dislike me.' He laughed at her puzzled expression. ‘I am your lover, Kitty, every father is jealous of his daughter's lover.'

He'd defended her mother too. He had found Ruth a most gracious woman, he said. ‘You must learn acceptance yourself, Kitty. You too must accept that which isdifferent in others.'

It was then he had suggested they share a bottle of wine, and she sat on the bed as he opened it, waiting, impatiently, for him to continue.

‘Your mother and father were trying hard in their own ways
tonight. You must accept that your mother's social graces are important to her. And you must accept that it is important to your father that he is—how did you say it?—a bonza bloke. It is the way they wish others to perceive them, there is nothing wrong in that.'

He poured the wine and joined her on the bed. ‘And I must accept that which is different in you.' He smiled. ‘The way you initiate sex, and the way you say “fuck”.'

‘I don't say “fuck” any more.'

‘I appreciate that.'

‘And what is different in you that I must accept, Arturo?' She rolled over on her stomach and looked up at him as he leaned back against the bedhead.

‘Everything,' he laughed. ‘And you do. It is what I most love about you.'

They talked until four in the morning. Then they made love and slept for two hours before getting up to go to work.

Artie was right. Kitty not only accepted, unequivocally, his differences, she loved him for them. She loved his dark, foreign looks and his accent. She loved the Italian music he played, and the pasta he ate, and his passion for conversation and sex. Never in her life, she thought, had she met a person as vibrant, and as honest, as Arturo Farinelli.

But she was well aware of the malice they attracted as they walked down the street. The Australians didn't like seeing an Aussie girl with a dago. And she could feel the animosity when they walked into one of the Italian restaurants which they regularly frequented. The Italians didn't like seeing one of their kind with his arm around an Australian woman.

Artie turned a blind eye. He said he didn't notice it any more, and that it didn't bother him. So Kitty did the same. She ignored the hostility. It was difficult for her at first. At first she felt belligerent, she wanted to confront those who sneered at them. ‘What's your problem, mate?' she wanted to demand. ‘Spit it out, what don't you like?' But she resisted the urge. And eventually, like Artie, the prejudice which confronted them daily ceased to bother her.

It was then that Kitty realised she had learned another lesson in acceptance. She had learned to accept herself. No longer did she
need to shock and to make statements. No longer did she need to search amongst the bohemian fringe for a reason as to her existence. The very life she now led made a statement.

Once a fortnight Kitty rang her mother. ‘May I bring Arturo to dinner?' she asked. And of course Ruth always said yes. Kitty and Artie had agreed that it was the way to go about things. ‘We'll wear them down,' Kitty said.

And they did to a degree. Certainly Ruth was won over. She was only too thankful that Artie had led her daughter back to the fold. It was a pity he was so foreign-looking, certainly, but his manners were impeccable, he was obviously intelligent and, over a period of time, Ruth found that she liked him. And he liked her, she could tell.

Once the bond was sealed, Ruth was his ally. Arturo was a handsome, civilised man of the world, after all. And that was exactly what she would tell her acquaintances who might differ, though she would not tell them that he lived with her daughter.

Tim was a more difficult case. He had reluctantly accepted that his daughter was in love with an Italian and that there was little he could do about it. But as he saw the friendship developing between his wife and Artie, he became more and more alienated. Why wasn't the dago trying to win him over? That's what a bloke was supposed to do.

Artie knew nothing of the Australian male ego. He didn't realise that he was expected to drink beer and discuss the footie with Tim. He didn't like beer and he knew little about football, and it didn't occur to him to pretend otherwise.

Kitty observed it all, and at first she was amused by her father's piqued ego. Let him stew, she thought, and she said nothing. Then she realised that a tension was building between her parents and Artie was the cause. Reluctantly, she decided that Artie would have to play the game.

‘Go and have a beer with Dad,' she said one Saturday after lunch when Tim had retired to the balcony with a bottle and a glass.

‘But he is listening to the radio,' Artie said. Tim Kendall always listened to the radio on a Saturday afternoon. ‘It would be rude to interrupt.'

‘It's just the footie,' she said.

Artie knew of this Rugby League game. Sydneysiders, it
appeared, had a passion for it. Even some of his Italian friends at
La Fiamma
avidly followed the matches each Saturday.

‘So?' he asked.

‘So let him tell you about it,' Kitty said. ‘Here,' and she thrust an empty glass into his hand, ‘ask him for a beer and talk about the footie.'

‘I know nothing about football.'

‘It doesn't matter. He does.'

Artie stepped tentatively out onto the balcony. ‘May I join you?' he asked, holding up the glass.

‘Yes, of course, Artie, take a seat, there's the bottle.'

Artie poured himself a beer and pulled up a chair, and Tim turned down the volume on the radio.

‘Please do not do that on my account,' Artiesaid, but Tim did anyway.

‘It's a lousy match,' he said. ‘A walkover, the Rabbitohs are getting slaughtered.'

‘Rapidos?' Artie was surprised. A Rugby League team with an Italian name, how strange. ‘They are an Italian team?'

‘Eh?'

‘
Rapido
, it is Italian for swift.'

‘No. Rabbitoh. It's a bloke who used to sell rabbits off a cart in the old days.'

‘Oh.' What a strange name for a rugby team, Artie thought. Rapidos would have been better.

‘Yeah, they're a South Sydney club, good team normally but they've lost it today.'

‘I know very little about Australian Rugby League,' Artie said, ‘but I have friends who follow the game. It is very popular in Sydney.'

‘Yep,' Tim nodded. Then after a brief pause, ‘Play any sport yourself, Artie?'

‘Soccer, yes. I play soccer a great deal in Italy.'

‘Ah. Good game, soccer,' Tim said. ‘Skilful.'

‘Very skilful,' Artie agreed with enthusiasm.

‘Can't get away with a trick in soccer.'

Artie shook his head.

‘Have to have all your ball skills about you there.' Tim thought for a moment. ‘Slow scoring game, though, a bit frustrating I'd think.'

‘It is the frustration that gives the game its passion,' Artie said.

‘Oh.' Tim hadn't thought about it like that.

‘A whole match played for perhaps just one winning goal,' Artie said. ‘It makes for great intensity.'

Half an hour later the men came inside with their glasses. ‘It's easier if I show you on paper.' Tim took a pad and pencil from the sideboard drawer and sat down at the large coffee table. ‘Kitty, grab us another beer, will you?'

‘Your father is explaining Rugby League to me,' Artie said, and Kitty grinned as she left for the kitchen.

Was it really this easy, Artie wondered as he sat beside Tim and watched him draw a map. It was more than the beer and the rugby, he realised, it was the offer of mateship. But it certainly appeared that the Australian male ego, once offended, was very easily appeased.

In his country, Artie thought, it was difficult to truly offend. Men shouted and screamed and made gestures, but it meant little. If, however, a man did take offence, it might be a whole lifetime before he forgave. Perhaps never. A son might even carry on his father's vendetta without any knowledge as to the original offence. Yet here in Australia it appeared that if you accepted a man's offer of a beer, all was forgiven. The Australian way was quite possibly the better, he thought.

Artie had been in the country for well over three years, but there was still so much to be learned.

 

‘I'm pregnant.' As usual Kitty didn't waste any time getting to the point. But she watched closely for his reaction. Did he want the baby? She would abort if he didn't. She had no problem with abortion, she was mistress of her own body, she believed.

‘How wonderful.' Artie was glowing. There was no other word for it, he was glowing with unashamed happiness.

Kitty tried not to show it, tried not to acknowledge it even to herself, but she felt an overriding sense of joy that he wanted the baby, deep down she had hoped that he would.

‘
Cara mia
.' He held her to him and laughed delightedly. ‘A child, how wonderful.'

‘I can get rid of it if you don't want it.' The old Kitty Kendall couldn't help coming to the fore.

He refused to be shocked, he knew her too well. ‘We will get married,' he said.

‘Oh no we will not. You know the way I feel about marriage.'

Artie was suddenly serious. He sat her on the bed. Lecture time, she thought. Well, she wouldn't listen. She could be tamed only so much.

‘And how will your child …
our
child, Kitty … how will
our
child feel about marriage?'

‘It can form its own opinion,' she said with a touch of defiance, ‘nothing to do with me.'

‘Do you not think it will have enough troubles?' Rube's words returned, as they always did at such times:
They will not want you as their neighbours, they will not welcome your children in their schools
.

‘Society will be cruel to this child,' he said. ‘Do not add to its burden, Kitty. Marry me.'

She knew she was going to give in, but she pushed just that little bit further. ‘You want me to succumb to convention?' she frowned.

And Artie, in turn, knew that he'd won. ‘Of course,' he said. ‘I am a conventional man.'

Kitty dropped all her defences and laughed. ‘A conventional man doesn't emigrate,' she said, ‘and if he does, he brings out a conventional wife from Italy and he settles in a conventional Italian community. You are not a conventional man, Arturo,' she draped her arms around his neck and kissed him, ‘but you insist upon making me a conventional woman.'

‘Yes.'

They married before her pregnancy showed, and Ruth Kendall couldn't have been happier. And when their son was born they named him Robert after Kitty's brother who had died in the war. Tim Kendall couldn't have been happier.

It was Artie's idea to call the child Robert.

‘You sly bugger,' Kitty said. ‘You're just doing it to get him on side. And all this time I thought there wasn't a devious bone in your body.'

‘It is only right that I should give my father-in-law, who has lost his only son, a grandson who bears the same name. It is my duty.'

He said it so seriously that Kitty wasn't sure whether it was an Italian tradition or not. And for once she didn't push for an
answer. She had loved her brother and it was a damn good idea. But she didn't want Artie to be disappointed that his son did not bear an Italian name.