by G S Johnston
Would it happen tonight?
Italo came into the bedroom. She made no effort to close her eyes. He wore the nightclothes. Their eyes met.
‘It’s a very busy time,’ he said.
‘Maria explained.’ They were both silent. ‘What can I do to help?’
‘There’s nothing now but in about ten days, the gang will come to harvest my cane … our cane. They’ll need to be fed. Maria normally does it for me, but perhaps …’
‘Of course.’ She felt pleased to be asked, but how could she cook for so many men without a stove? ‘But I’ll need her help …’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s coming in the morning. I’ll speak with her.’ She thought of Maria’s preparedness to help. ‘I like her.’
He nodded. ‘I think we should marry.’
She laughed. ‘We’re already married.’
She raised her hand, splayed her fingers to show him the ring his aunts had bought with his money.
Now he laughed. ‘I know we can’t marry again,’ he said. ‘But … perhaps a celebration. Being together might make it more … as it should be.’
‘You’re too busy.’
‘This Sunday.’ He came and knelt by the bed. ‘Will you marry me?’
She laughed, as she’d not since she parted from Clara. ‘Of course I will.’
He took her hand, leant in and kissed her cheek.
‘I’ll wait till then,’ he said.
She searched his eyes. Shouldn’t that light kiss on her cheek ignite something, some ricochet of events? Emma had told of a sizzling in her spine. This was no more than Giuseppe’s kiss at the altar, light, moist. But whatever the moment was, whatever the possibility was, it was gone. Italo withdrew to the door. She half resented this. And she half thanked him. Standing in the hallway with one hand on the doorframe, he drew it partly closed.
‘Goodnight,’ he said, in English.
He’d not noticed the brown curtains she’d made for the window. He closed the door, and she heard his steps to the other room.
When she woke, Italo had already left. She made coffee, grinding the beans and resting them in boiled water, and sat on the front step to watch the rising sun. What did she think of Italo? To find clarity, she wrote to Clara. Whilst he wasn’t what she’d expected, he wasn’t unpleasing. He seemed kind, considerate and thoughtful, although perhaps a little self-willed, as Signora Pina had suggested. And now they were to celebrate their marriage. Perhaps it was a nice thing to do, the first sign of romance in what had been a long chain of cold bureaucracy. She’d only agreed to the church ceremony for her parents. Italo had been shut from any celebration, from anything more than months of signing notary papers. He may as well have bought another horse. She looked at the less-than-practical house. It was impossible to describe. The prospect of feeding a gang of working men was unnerving. What would she feed them? And cooking on that damn fire.
In the kitchen she filled the kettle, and when it had warmed she took the water to the rear washhouse. By now the mound of Italo’s clothes had grown, as had their odour. But she quickly removed her clothes, unwound the rope from its peg and lowered the metal can, poured in the water and raised it. The water over her head, over her body, felt nothing short of luxury. She lathered her hair, her skin, and when the streams ran dry she filled the can again with cold water that braced her against the rising heat and humidity of the day, rinsing her clean.
When she’d dressed, she heard the lowing of the cows, quite close. Ben must be moving them past the back of the house. She walked to the breezeway. The three cows stood at a distance. The door to the main room opened. At first she just saw a man, Ben, but then realised he was hunched over, turned in on himself. He wore a cap, but there were patches of hair missing at the side, the skin ruffled and marbled. His clothes were old. He made no overture to acknowledging her. He shuffled down the two stairs in the manner of an old, old man. His face was as young as hers, but the skin pulled tight from his cheek to his neck, a braised red.
‘Hello,’ she said.
But he continued, half dragging one leg forward. After his back was to her, she saw one hand, the same heated colour, but the fingers were missing, just stubs. She raised her hand to her mouth to snuff a gasp. He walked away, as if she weren’t there, as if he’d seen nothing. He picked up a cane and motioned the obedient cows to continue along the ridge.
The poor soul. How had he been so injured? And why had Italo not warned her? He returned no look, made no sound, followed the cows.
In the kitchen, he’d left the jug of fresh milk. She placed it in the coolest corner, near the tap, and then set to clearing the kitchen, set to push Ben from her thoughts. But he reminded her of Signor Gregorio in her village, and that brought another wave of homesickness. Would this longing ever leave? Ben laboured to walk; there must be something she could do to help him. She’d ask Italo.
She heard a truck. It must be Maria. By the time she walked through the house to the front, the vehicle had stopped. But it wasn’t Maria’s truck, being much larger and with timber stacked on the rear. She pulled back into the house. She couldn’t see the driver, whose seat was on the far side of the truck. She heard the door open and peered out. Fergus stepped from the truck. He looked towards the house, caught her peering out from behind the door. She stepped to the verandah, pleased to see him. Ben had unsettled her.
‘Good morning, Fergus.’
She smiled broadly, and he nodded, a burning cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth. He came around the truck and took three or four great lengths of timber from the tray as if they were of no great weight and carried them towards the house. He lay them at the base of the stair. He said something. She didn’t understand, and he said it again. He walked the stairs to the verandah and then reduced what he was saying to one word. This was ridiculous. She raised her open hand and turned back into the house, taking the dictionary to him. It trembled in his hands, but he found the word.
Panca. Bench.
Now she understood. Italo had asked Fergus to build a bench. How sweet of him. The consideration lifted her spirits. She nodded to Fergus. He smiled, an openness spreading to his eye.
‘May I?’ he said.
He motioned to the dictionary and flicked through the pages. He kept his finger under a word and turned the book slowly to her, moving closer. She caught his scent, already strong for this hour of the day, mixed with smoke.
Table – tavolo.
Italo had also asked him to build her a table so she could sit outside and have a place for her book and her study. She looked from the dictionary. He smiled again. Then his finger moved from the page, and his hand that held the dictionary aloft pushed it towards her. She clasped the book to her chest. He moved to return to the truck, but she was before the stair and had to step out of the way.
He brought more pieces of equipment. She found an empty bottle, filled it with water and took it back to the verandah, as the day had suddenly become warm. He’d put himself to his task with firm and definite movements, his eye moving between the bedroom window and the timber. He took a long piece and held it at knee height below the window and looked back to her.
‘Yes,’ she said.
He nodded. Once this was decided, he went about his job with purpose. She went back to her own work. Clara was right; she must keep busy. She tidied the main room. She heard Fergus on the verandah, the rhythm of his saw regular and pleasing. She picked up her broom and began to sweep, great long strides that synchronised to the rhythm of Fergus, continuing to the breezeway and the front hall.
She walked to the verandah, turned and stopped. He’d removed his shirt, wearing just a white cotton vest and khaki shorts. His back arched away from her, out over a piece of timber held between two trestles. His far knee rested on the piece, part to steady it and part to be able to reach further along, his other leg straight but at an angle, a large arc of muscle from his thigh. His arms forced a plane, moved like some mechanical appara
tus, the arms on the wheels of a train.
She hurried through the house to the kitchen, her heart pounding as it shouldn’t, as there’d been no undue exertion. The morning’s humidity had risen, and she tore off a light cardigan she wore over her shirt. She filled a glass of water from the tap, drank it whole, the coolness doing nothing to relieve the heat. As much as she shouldn’t look again, she filled a water bottle and returned to the verandah. He’d replaced his shirt. And then she heard Maria’s truck, straining up the small rise to the house, and walked to the rail to welcome her.
Maria greeted Fergus, but he barely acknowledged her, intent on his task.
‘This will be lovely,’ Maria said.
He continued working as if the women weren’t there. Until then he’d been quite jolly, but Maria’s presence brought a change.
‘You knew about this?’ Amelia said.
She nodded. ‘Italo spoke with Dante.’
The two women went inside. She made them tea and told her of the previous evening’s culinary disaster. Maria showed her how to vary the heat of the frypan by moving the coals about, how to vary the heat for the pots by adjusting the height of the hooks on the chain. She tried to concentrate on what Maria was saying, but she could hear Fergus’s saw, its unrelenting rhythm. Maria showed her the large copper stored under the house, and how to boil Italo’s soiled clothes clean.
That evening, she sat at the new bench and table when Italo came home.
‘Do you like it?’ he said.
She smiled. ‘I like it very much.’
He smiled, his teeth gleaming. He bent down, inspected the joints in Fergus’s work. The memory of his saw’s rhythm unsettled her.
‘I saw Ben today,’ she said, more to distract her thoughts than anything. Italo nodded, ran his hand along the table’s surface. ‘Why’s he so disfigured?’
‘A fire, when he was young.’
She paused. How awful. ‘Is there something I can do for him?’
Italo looked at her, somewhat taken aback. Then he shook his head. ‘He has everything he needs. I’ll go and clean up.’
He walked around the house to the washroom. In the kitchen, she could hear the water fall from the tin can suspended on pullies. She moved the coals away from the pan and seared the evening’s chops.
On Sunday morning before the dawn, Amelia heard Italo in the breezeway. They were to go to church. They ate their breakfast in silence and then rode on a small dray behind one of Italo’s horses into the village. But there was no church, just a hall with seats and many people. They mainly spoke English, the service in Latin with smatterings of English words. Amelia took communion but not confession; apart from the fact she couldn’t speak English and the priest spoke no Italian, she had no new sin to confess.
Outside the building, she met some of Italo’s friends. In all, she counted about thirty people, with the surnames Alcorso, Pellegrino, Nanni, Sabbatini, Garofalo, Lucchesi, Pennisi, Tedesco, D’Angelo, De Francesco, Lanza – too many for her to remember. And she met Maria’s husband, Dante Pastore, a fine-looking man but older than she’d imagined. The only women were herself, Maria and two others, Anna Nanni and Teresa Garofalo.
They all followed Amelia and Italo’s dray back to the farm, a jumbled procession, a gypsy caravan coming to town, some single on horses, others grouped on horses and carriages, some trucks in low gear. They carried cooking equipment, even extra furniture. As far as she knew, no invitations had been sent, but clearly people knew to come. They were all Italian. She’d prepared nothing, but like a troop of well-rehearsed performers, these people went to their tasks. On the flatter side of the breezeway, a man set a metal device to turn a whole pig over a fire. Other people set the mismatched tables and a host of chairs on the verandah. How impersonal, these people she’d never met, celebrating her wedding. But how generous of them, their resplendent smiles, their help. She spread the cotton tablecloth the women had brought, but they shooed her away to prepare herself.
In the bedroom, she closed the door and the brown curtains and sat in the semi-dark on the bed’s edge. The day was warming. Voices moved around the outside, the clatter on the verandah, instructions and disagreements, and the women were sometimes shrill, but there was great joy. She wished her mother was there. It was six months since the church wedding. A wave of sadness, so sudden and heavy, came over her. She had no energy for this day, a sorry consolation. But she had no choice; she must meet these people’s enthusiasm. She raised herself from the bed, dressed in the white cotton voile she’d worn in Tovo di Sant’Agata. But she wore no veil, just a white hat with a small, round brim that sat proudly high on her forehead.
She walked to the verandah. At first no-one noticed her but then Anna Nanni touched Teresa’s arm and motioned towards her. They stared at her, surprised initially, but then relaxed to smiles. And then the men came, swirls of them around her, their smiles and laughter and joy as inebriating as strong liquor. And then Italo was by her side, smiling like she’d never seen. But that was no great surprise; she’d only seen him for a handful of days.
They sat together, halfway along one side of the long table made from many small tables, facing the fields. There were toasts – so many she lost count of them – to her and Italo’s long happiness, men welcoming her to the village. The good wine made by these men rose to ease her mind. Someone brought plates of carved porchetta, the salty skin as brittle as glass, and there was more wine and bread – someone had baked bread! – and a hot salami one of the men had made, which tasted exquisite. The men poured beer from tall brown bottles. And when the food was waning, she heard music, an accordion sighing to life, from which Dante Pastore squeezed music. Soon another man tuned a violin.
Italo raised an outstretched hand to her. She flooded with embarrassment as he held her, as they waited for the music to beat. This was the closest they’d been. She looked into his eyes but had to look away. And then they swayed, their rhythm carrying them around the small verandah. She felt the strength in his shoulders, carried by the force of his hips. She smelt the yeasty beer on his breath and she smelt his skin, the sweet of a cologne, the slight sour of a cut onion.
Maria and the other women cried, and the men clapped the simple stress of the waltz. Around and around and around they turned. She was warm from the day, giddy from the toasts, burning from the other men’s eyes. Would this never end? As ungrateful as it was, she wanted solitude. She’d not sought this public display.
Finally, the music wound down. Finally, they parted. The hands came towards them, all well-wishing. At least they wanted to wish Italo well. The men were very fond of him. To a degree, she was an afterthought, a ‘new chum’, yet to find her place amongst these people.
The dance’s stress had taken her breath. She withdrew, slipped from the men and the harsh daylight. But the house was overly hot. In the kitchen, she poured a glass of water and went to the breezeway, although the wafts of cool air here were only fleeting. She’d never imagined feeling so alone. She longed for the past, felt alien in the present and feared the future. Her lips trembled, and she fought off these emotions.
Someone appeared in front of her, as if he’d been standing flush against the outside wall. She jumped with fright. Fergus. She didn’t know he’d been invited, but then she’d known nothing about the day. He towered over her, the same as Italo. She smelt his cigarette tar. She smiled. Nothing was said because there was nothing that could be said.
‘There you are,’ Maria said, coming from the hall.
Amelia looked to her and then back to Fergus, but he’d disappeared.
Maria came to her side. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ Amelia said. ‘Hot. I think Mamma and Papa.’
Maria smiled a lippy smile. ‘Yes. Don’t cry. Your photograph.’
Italo had arranged for a photographer from Cairns to come to the house. She nodded, and they walked to the verandah. Fergus was seated at the table, amongst the men. He was dressed, as ever, in a sh
irt and shorts and boots, a contrast to the other men in their serge or corduroy trousers, shirts and ties; some even wore jackets. But whilst Italo was tall, as were Dante and Manny Pellegrino, Fergus was solid. He had washed and combed his hair, the colour glossed and shining. He listened to the men, who gestured with their hands and faces to fill the void of misused or poorly connected words. He took a wad of tobacco from a small tin, rubbed it in his palm and rolled a fat cigarette. The other men’s talk in Italian was all of Italy, of the stories of why they’d come to Australia. They seemed happy Fergus was there, a foreigner in this little Italy.
Someone had brought a chair, a Savonarola, the same chair in the photograph she had of Italo, taken many years ago. To her, the chair was familiar and foreign. Although the evening was only forming, the light still strong, the mosquito coils burned. Italo came to her and took her hand, led her to the chair. He sat, and she stood by his side. Even in this arrangement, she was only slightly taller than him. Maria brought a posy of white flowers. The photographer, Mr Taylor, came to her, placed her hand on Italo’s shoulder, placed her right hand to allow the long trail of flowers to drape over his shoulder. She was bewildered, paralysed, a statue, yet her hand trembled.
Mr Taylor said something.
‘You both have to be still for some seconds,’ Maria said.
How could she be still with this thrumming in her legs and arms?
He returned to his apparatus. ‘Please remain still,’ he said again, motioning he was to start the process. He repeated this process three more times, with slight adjustments to their clothes and the flowers. She feared the posy shook in her hand and in the image the flowers would blur. And then Mr Taylor said he was finished.
A voice rose, a woman’s, Anna’s, full of melody and melancholy. With only a few words, Amelia recognised the song.