The Italian Romance (11 page)

She is coming. I have not wanted to be parted from my mobile phone. Living in hope, that's called, and it's a mug's game. I pointed the miniature antennae towards England when I heard her voice. I don't suppose it makes any difference. ‘I tried to e-mail you, but you didn't answer. So I hope the offer is still open,' she said. There's a crystal quality to her voice. I don't mean sharp. Clear, I mean, like a stream, and strangely familiar to me, a whisper I remember from before. And her voice on the phone frightens me, too, in a basic, instinctual way. I almost hate her for it. I resent like hell the smarminess of the dealings I have with her. Don't let me offend you by blinking my eyes in a manner displeasing to you. Allow one, if you will, to trail around after you with one's begging bowl, and we'll both feel an awful lot better. Infuriates me.

I don't like making beds by myself. I'm too old for all the flapping and straightening and tucking in this side, walk around to the other side. Punch the bloody pillows. Little cow, erupting her volcanoes all over me. I was going to put a lace bedspread on top. It's yellowed with age and pretty exquisite, I think. Some old nun sat for months with it growing over her lap, probably blinded her. Probably younger than me when she did it, too, let's face it. But I'm not sure. Too lacy, maybe. So I'll throw an Indian spread over
the bed, instead. It will make her room look bright. At least I haven't hung babies' mobiles from the ceiling and stuck a teddy bear on her pillow.

I'll keep the shutters closed for a few hours. I don't want it to be too hot when she arrives, an oven for her to toss and turn in. On the other hand, I'm worried it might get stuffy in here. Oh, for goodness' sake.

I didn't mean to slam the door. Sorry.

I'm better off outside in the shade of the two laurel trees. We can eat out here this evening, if she's not too tired. Oh, it's so good to be alone with the warm breeze and the sigh in the trees. This is my special time of year to be here, when the wisteria is out, crawling over the stone walls, overwhelming the house and its own twisted stems, and me. Such luscious, superbly blue dangles. I could put my face in them, and never come out.

She was back in her girlhood room, in her own bed. It seemed she hadn't even rolled over in the night. She'd been dog-tired. She raised an arm, and let it fall back. ‘Oh, God,' she said, and she closed her eyes again. The yellowed light coming in through the blind also filtered through her eyelids. She loved that light. She turned lazily on to her side. Her own deep, waking breaths were not the solitary rhythm of that room. The dust motes, the occasional kick of the blind in the breeze, the almost imperceptible sway of the light cord, and a more general movement, a breathing of the room itself, were all profoundly familiar to her, a part of her own tissue. She settled her hip more comfortably, and watched the exhilarating shadow of a Chinese lantern bush do figure dancing on the screen of the yellow blind. The room itself hummed.

Lilian was twenty minutes late at the newspaper office. Mr Scanlan no longer looked long and pointedly at the clock on the wall when she came in. He wound that clock himself every morning at eight-thirty, six days a week, with a little extra wind on Saturday afternoon to get it through the weekend. He ran his
own life according to it, had to, he'd discovered over the years. But his young assistant, the girl, who didn't seem to notice time in the mornings, didn't seem to notice it in the afternoons, either. So that was fair enough. She worked like a trouper. He'd never had a girl before. She was better than a lot of the blokes, he'd said to his wife. Oh well, his wife had said, she was supposed to be brainy at school. He tapped his nose. That's where the brains have to be in our trade, he said. He'd aspired to world events as a younger man and had taken over the local paper as a stepping stone. One of the youngsters he'd trained up, Tom, had gone on to Sydney. He was a top reporter on one of the dailies now. Mr Scanlan was very proud of that. He and his wife cut out Tom's by-lined pieces and pasted them in a scrapbook. He brought it in to show the girl once. She had pored over it.

Part of the training he gave to his cadet reporters was the morning trawl of the big newspapers, which he picked up himself at the railway station on his way to the office. She made a pot of tea, poured them both out a cup, and while she was out the back at the sink, he thumped the papers down on her desk so the top one glared its headlines for her when she returned.

‘Here you are, Mr Scanlan,' she said. The girl spilled tea into his saucer every blessed day. He deftly slopped it into his cup when she had her back turned. ‘Thank you, dear,' he said.

She almost bent double to deliver her cup safely down on to her desk. He'd thought at first that she was a very nervous girl. This had surprised him, because she'd bowled into his office the day he had put the sign in the window –
Young reporter wanted, training given.
She'd assumed she would get the job. There was nothing presumptuous about her. It was more that, like a child, she had set her heart on it and therefore it was hers. As it was, the district was fast becoming short of young fellows, who were joining up by the dozen. She was the only applicant he'd had. She told him, standing at the other side of the public counter, that she intended to go to Europe and be a war correspondent, but first
she had to learn how to do it. I see, he commented. I had to laugh, he'd said to his wife that night.

She always settled down at her desk in the mornings in exactly the same way. She doubled a leg under her and sat on it. Then she pulled her cup and saucer over near her, but not near enough it occurred to him, and picked up the top newspaper with both hands. She invariably jabbered her way through it. He had already read them over, of course. After a few weeks, it amused him to listen to her. She's a funny kid, he'd said at home; she's a quiet type, really, but my God she can talk when she wants to.

‘Mr Scanlan, it says here the brave little tugs and fishing boats, with the big hearts of the British people, worked tirelessly and under constant danger from shellfire and aerial attack, to rescue British and French troops from the port of Dunkirk. Thanks to the combined power of Navy and Air Force, most of the British forces were evacuated.'

‘Yes, dear.'

‘Mr Scanlan, my father says France will never surrender.'

‘Let's hope so. We'll be in trouble if they do.'

‘What would happen?'

He looked at her. She was a pretty little thing. He found it hard to think of her as more than a schoolgirl, though her husband was in the Army. She gripped the newspaper tightly. ‘Oh, I'm sure we'll sort them out. We did the last time,' he said.

‘Yes, but just because we did the last time doesn't mean we will this time.'

She discombobulated him sometimes. She also did that when he read over her copy. There was something unexpected about her. One day a week or two ago, as he'd been walking home in the late afternoon, he'd suddenly had a strange concern for her, almost a presentiment, that she would come to something difficult. He saw in his mind's eye a willie-whirlwind sweeping across the plain and circling around her, taking her up and up and then dumping her down somewhere quite strange and difficult. He
didn't tell his wife about this episode. He'd had others in his life. He tried to ignore them.

He blew on his tea. ‘We'll be safe enough here, love. I doubt Hitler even knows where Australia is.'

‘Yes, I know. But I feel sorry for them over there. I'd hate to be in a war.'

‘I thought you wanted to be a war correspondent.' He sipped at the tea, hiding a smile.

‘Yeah, but that's different. You're just looking at it, you're not actually in it. I'd like to look at it, all right, and write about it. They don't tell you enough,' she said.

‘You want to be at the coalface.'

‘What does that mean, Mr Scanlan?'

‘What? Coalface?'

‘Yes, when people say you want to be at the coalface. Does that mean you want to be right there?'

‘Well, I suppose it does.'

‘God, you know when you hear things and you don't know what they mean.' She peered at another article.

He wondered how he'd get this story across to his wife. He practised recounting the conversation in his head. He hoped she'd see the humour right away, and he wouldn't have to run over it again. That took the joy out of it.

‘I think I should interview some of the wives of the boys who've enlisted,' she said. ‘It's a good human-interest story,' she told him.

He would tell his wife that, too. This girl didn't ask, she announced, and she'd only been a reporter for five weeks. And she had some bloody good ideas, too, he'd tell her. I reckon she might be another one who'll land up on a Sydney paper, and not the fashion pages either, if I give her a couple of years' training, he said to himself. Of course, the young Malone boy might not like the sound of that.

I see the lights of Vanna's car coming towards me. I am as nervous as a schoolgirl at a dance. The heat is rising in my armpits, my stomach has contracted to a fist and I suddenly realise what an absolute fool I am to still be here. I should have left an hour ago, got on the train and be chugging my way home to Rome, as I intended to do in the first place. I should, actually, have rung Vanna days ago and asked her to make the damn bed, open the windows and put a casserole into the refrigerator.

Dear God, don't let her take one look at me and ask Vanna to drive her back to the station. I don't suppose I can lurk in the loggia all night. So I walk down the wide stone steps. It is a beautiful night, milky stars, the air still warm. The lights catch me and the pot of nasturtium. I hope the nasturtium, wickedly fragrant to me, appeals to her as she takes in her view. Perhaps if I stand here and point to the pot, it might take her mind off me.

As the lights drop and die out, I walk over to the car. My shoes scuttle small stones. It's terribly quiet. And then Vanna opens her door and the inside lights flickers on. Francesca is leaning over the back seat, fiddling with luggage, I presume. I've no doubt she's already spotted me.

‘Thanks, Vanna,' I say in English. ‘I hope you won't mind taking
me to the station in the morning. I'll be going back to Rome in the morning.'

Vanna looks at me as if I'm a little mad. ‘Yes, certo,' she says. We had this conversation about two hours ago.

‘Well!' I say. I put a wide smile on my face as if to imply, what a surprise! There's my daughter in the car! I stand at her door. Still she fiddles with all types of important things in there. I look nervously across at Vanna, who shrugs, then opens the back door and heaves at a suitcase. I hear Francesca say, ‘Please, Giovanna, let me do it. I'm used to that damn thing. God knows, I've been lugging it around long enough.'

Vanna pulls at it, clumsily I have to say, until it surrenders and releases its grip on the back seat. She lets it drop to the earth too quickly. I hope Francesca hasn't got anything breakable in there, bottles of expensive perfume.

Well, she can't sit in the car all night, any more than I can lurk in the loggia. I put my hand on the passenger door handle and pull, and the door opens wide. Her skirt has ridden up to her thighs. She has one leg tucked under the other. She's tugging at a trench coat in the back with one hand and attempting to grab the straps of a shoulder-bag with the other. As they tumble over her shoulder and into her lap, she falls back into the seat. I say, ‘I won't be staying. I just wanted to open the house for you. I'll be going back to Rome tomorrow.'

She looks at the house through the window shield, and not at me. ‘Very well,' she says.

‘May I take something?'

‘I can manage,' she says. She throws her legs out, and I have to take a quick step backwards. I almost stumble. The land dips just there as the stone driveway meets the grass. I struggle to regain my balance. I am a little embarrassed. If she's noticed this performance, she isn't giving the game away. She slams the door and strides up the path, leaving me on the dark grass. Poor Vanna is leaning dangerously to the left as she staggers towards the steps.

‘Please, Giovanna, let me do that. Perhaps if you'd just take my coat, or the small bag,' I hear her say.

The two younger women argue their way into my house, and I trail after them. The wisteria seems to be asleep now. As I haul myself up, my hand negotiates its hold on the balustrade between solid, old twists of stem which have eaten their way, quite unselfconsciously, into the stone.

Vanna is waiting for me as I appear in the doorway. ‘In here?' she says, and she gestures inquiringly at the master bedroom.

‘Yes,' I say.

She lugs the case into the room. And for a moment, my daughter and I are alone. She looks behind her at the fireplace, built at an angle into the corner. ‘It works,' I say, ‘but you won't need it. It was cold here in the evenings up until a few weeks ago.'

She nods. ‘I see,' she says.

We are going to have a very grim night. She is furious, I think. What an idiot I am.

I say to her, in the silence of that room, ‘I'll be gone in the morning.'

‘Good,' she says.

That might be a reflex, nothing more. But I feel it like a slap across the face.

She had dropped her bulging shoulder-bag to the floor when she came in. Now she bends and picks it up. The grey trench coat is slung over her shoulder. ‘I'll take these in,' she says.

She walks into the bedroom, and I step back out of her way though I am not in it. I am left to my own devices. I hear her laugh at something Vanna has said from the bathroom. I was going to sing out, in an unconcerned way, ‘Shall I heat the dinner?', but I cannot make my voice play along. So I wander out to the kitchen, take the chicken dish from the fridge and slide it into the oven, which I have been pre-heating for at least an hour. I sit on the high stool by the back window, seeing only myself in the glass.

This is the day of retribution, I suppose. Had to come. She will make me pay my dues. Then she can march off and leave me to smart for a few years or until I die, whichever comes first.

They arrive, Vanna, her dark hair loose about her face, dark bruisings under her eyes which usually means she's unhappy, restless again with her life, and behind her, hiding like a shy child in a school photograph, my own Francesca. Vanna says, ‘Here you are.'

‘Here I am,' I say. I slip off the stool. I almost lose my balance. I lean back against the wall to steady myself. ‘I've put something in the oven. Vanna, you'll stay and eat with us.'

‘No, thank you, Lil.'

‘Oh, please,' Francesca says behind her.

‘No, no, my husband will be out with the torch already. You know what he's like,' she says to me. ‘He gives me a very short ... what do you say?'

‘Leash,' I offer.

‘And my children,' she says.

She turns to glance at Francesca, who is clearly reluctant to be alone with me.

Being older, I am more used to the inevitable, and so I walk towards them across the stone floor, my hands a mother hen shooing her young. They both become chickens, mesmerically it seems, and are swept along to the double-fronted door. Francesca opens one of them. She turns the old, twisted-metal ring and pulls hard. The door is of thick-hewn wood, heavy. She steps back to allow Vanna to proceed on to the loggia. And now she is on the horns of a dilemma. I am amused, and sympathetic. I wonder how she will extricate herself. She could do as her instinct appears to be urging her, and a decent upbringing, too, probably, which is to let the old lady out the door before herself. On the other horn, that would be an act too far, a consideration for the grossly inconsiderate, and additionally involve a physical closeness, my squeezing past her too familiar body, clearly an unattractive
prospect. Her eyes dart about. I feel sorry for her. If I am that repulsive, what is the woman to do?

I say, ‘Out you go,' to her and reach my own hand to hold the door. She slips out very quickly. I almost lose my grip – it really is quite heavy. By the time I get out, they are going down the steps in a bouncy unison. I close the door behind me in a lazy effort to keep out insects. There remains a light-filled crack that will drive them wild; they'll be throwing a party under the light bulb when we go inside.

I feel stupidly left out. They are talking to each other, laughing, like two schoolgirls. I have an awful image of myself picking up a stone and throwing it at her head. Francesca's, not Vanna's. Luckily there aren't too many stones up on the loggia. I did sweep it yesterday in her honour.

I put my hand out to the low balustrade and step down. I am tired. I hear Francesca laugh. The thought comes to me that this is the first evening of my life I have ever heard Francesca's laugh. I look down to where the car is parked. Vanna unlocks her door and opens it. The light springs on. And my foot slips off the next step. ‘Oh, Christ,' I am saying. I reach for a grip of the wisteria stem, and I catch it, then feel it tear away, entwined with my fingers. I am falling head first, my arms and legs flailing in a breast-stroke. How completely absurd.

‘Lilian!' I hear Vanna shout.