by G S Johnston
‘You can almost see the sea,’ Amelia said.
They looked out to the fields. In the distance, the men worked, the planting machine pulled by a tractor, the small setts of cane dropped into the long lines of furrows. The machine gathered the earth in its wake, closing it over. A cloud of dust, soil thrown into the sky by the machine, followed its path, a few men scampering around like ants.
‘So much is different,’ Clara said.
Since Paolo’s death, in all her letters, Clara pined for the past, buckling at the remotest sign of any change. Amelia supposed it was normal. But at this moment, Amelia could only try to keep Clara’s mind away from the past, secured in the present.
‘The machines mean fewer men and less pay,’ Amelia said.
‘More profit. But they must cost a fortune.’
‘They paid for themselves in a season. And I depreciated them on the books.’
Clara remained with her eyes on the field but sighed heavily. ‘You no longer sound like a Bolshevik—’
‘The unions have created no end of problems.’
‘Now you sound like a fascist.’
She looked at Clara, her face still turned to the field. ‘And what’s wrong with that?’
Clara sighed heavily. ‘Be careful. We’re not in Italy. In Brisbane, if you kept your head down and went about your business, no-one noticed you. But things have changed. Men have been attacked. Women abused on the street for nothing more than a few syllables of Italian.’
‘Italy is stirring under Mussolini’s hand.’
‘Do you really think it will change? A revolution will still leave the lords in control of the land. They’ll just wear a different hat.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Amelia said. ‘Italy’s no longer for the privileged few but the whole nation. Education is for all. The Cairns Post reported when Dr Vattuone returned to Genoa from Australia, he was lost, so much had been built.’
‘Memory is faulty—’
‘Would you know Bologna if you returned?’
Clara was silent. ‘By reports, I’ve heard the fascists aren’t exactly lambs. They’ve bashed and intimidated people, poured castor oil down the throats of any opposition—’
‘That’s just rumour—’
‘They’re thugs.’
Should she tell Clara her plan now? No. She was tired, her mood sharp and testy. A noise erupted on the staircase, swift steps on the wooden floor fermented with laughter. Clara turned and crouched. Marta darted onto the rooftop, threw her arms wide and ran into Clara’s laughing arms. Amelia laughed, bent down and kissed the top of Marta’s head, held tenderly between Clara’s hands, with a great smooch. Marta’s energy never ceased. And she was pleased Marta remembered Clara. For a five-year-old, time was doubly long.
Clara looked at Amelia and then back at Marta. ‘She’s the image of you.’
Amelia had sent a photograph of Marta to her mother, who’d suggested the same thing. She and her daughter were both small and doll-like, but beyond that, she could see little likeness.
‘Italy awakens,’ Amelia said. ‘Speed, pace, the roar of machines – they’re the future.’
Clara looked back to the field and then back at Marta. ‘I should unpack.’
Amelia nodded. She said to Marta, ‘Will you go and help?’
‘Yes,’ Marta said, glee from ear-to-ear.
Amelia looked at Clara and smiled. ‘Italo will come in half an hour for lunch.’
She left Clara, and Marta and returned downstairs. Clara’s mood worried her, these dour warnings. Paolo’s death had cast a pall on everything. She couldn’t blame her, but on Italy she was wrong. Marta would work like a tonic to lighten her mood.
The kitchen was at the back of the house, the rear wall part dug into the hill, which helped to cool it. The room was large, excessively so, but set like a hotel kitchen to prepare the copious food for the workers. Meggsy stood at the four-oven Aga stove, central to the back wall. She nodded to Amelia. There were two large metal troughs on the other wall, a huge central work table. Amelia checked the mutton chops and boiling vegetables. Italo would be hungry, as would the other men when the food was taken to them, in the new barracks built away from the house.
She returned to the dining room. Clara was looking at some framed photograph on a side table.
‘Marta is a trick,’ Clara said.
‘You’re under her spell.’
‘As are you.’
Amelia considered this. ‘She’s so different to the boys. I appreciate that.’
Clara picked up a photograph of her and Paolo. Amelia had paid for it for their wedding anniversary, some ten years ago. She chastised herself for having forgotten to remove it.
‘I’d never say it was a perfect marriage …’ Clara looked harder at the photograph. ‘We were both so silly and young …’
‘You’re still young.’
‘No—’
‘You have another life in front of you.’
Clara looked at Amelia, her face writ over with questions. ‘What do you mean?’
The front door opened. Italo stood framed in the archway to the dining room.
Now was not the time. ‘Later,’ Amelia said and smiled.
In the barracks, Italo had showered and changed, brushed what remained of his white hair. He walked to Clara and embraced her. Amelia went to the sideboard and selected a white damask tablecloth.
‘You look well,’ he said.
‘I can’t complain. The house …’ Clara turned, her eyes wide.
‘It’s finished,’ he said. ‘Thank God. How are the children?’
Amelia unfurled the cloth over the table. Clara helped smooth it out.
‘Cristiano will finish in another year. Can you imagine that?’
‘A doctor?’ Italo asked.
‘No less.’
He smiled. ‘That’s something to be proud of.’
‘Donata and Eugenia do well at school.’ Clara smiled. ‘I’m grateful for every small mercy.’
Flavio came into the room. Amelia turned to the sideboard for the cutlery.
‘My son,’ Italo said, ‘help seat Zia Clara?’
With a faux-gallant gesture, Flavio moved around and pulled out her chair. Clara continued the theatre, sitting in an exaggerated manner. Amelia moved around them, finishing setting the table. Flavio went to pull out her seat, but she waved her hand for him to remain seated. Meggsy served the soup. At first the talk was inconsequential – small news from Italy, small news of the farm and life in Brisbane.
‘What’s happened with Paolo’s case?’ Italo said.
Amelia scowled at him.
‘It’s all right,’ Clara said. ‘I no longer need to avoid the subject.’ She turned back to Italo. ‘As he died on a construction site, the union is arguing the company is responsible, that certain precautions hadn’t been taken and there should be compensation. But the company have very strong lawyers and have managed to delay all negotiations. They say it could take years, and even then there’s no certainty.’
Italo looked at the table and nodded. Amelia took heart that for Clara, her plan to establish a school was viable.
‘While you’re all together,’ Clara said, ‘I wanted to thank you.’ She looked first at Italo, then Flavio and last Amelia. She placed a hand on Amelia’s. ‘You’ve helped me so much. I really couldn’t have faced the last six months … and, financially … The union has taken collections, but I don’t know what would have happened to us without your support.’
‘You’re our family,’ Flavio said.
‘That’s right, my son,’ Italo said.
‘Now Donata and Eugenia are in boarding school, I’ll start work again. The sewing factories need women—’
‘There’s no hurry,’ Amelia said, to snuff any discussion before they could talk alone.
‘But there is.’ Clara looked at her. ‘Life has to start again.’
Amelia breathed in. Fortunately, Clara asked Flavio of his studies and was
pleased to hear he liked both mathematics and literature.
‘What will you do after school?’
‘I’ve not thought about it. Perhaps I’ll work on the farm.’
‘We can always use more hands,’ Italo said.
‘You have a good mind,’ Amelia said. ‘You should think of university.’
She’d not meant an insult to Italo but feared Flavio was like her brothers and saw no good in education. Italo continued to eat. Perhaps he’d not taken it as such. Once they’d finished, Italo stood and excused himself. He would go for a small siesta and then return to the field, once the high heat of the day had abated. Flavio said he would go and change and spend the afternoon with him.
Italo turned to Clara. ‘I can’t read or write. But your son will be a doctor.’ He smiled at her. ‘This country has blessed us.’
The two women watched him, heard him climb the stair.
‘Would you like to rest?’ Amelia said.
‘I think a walk.’
Amelia had no time for sleeping during the day, and walking aided digestion. They prepared themselves with broader hats, better shoes and umbrellas for the near certainty of rain. In silence, they walked along the ridge to the forest, the air cool and the canopy with the grandeur of a vaulted ceiling. It was one thing Amelia still appreciated, the rush of life, the spray of ferns and palms and climbing roots strangling the buttressed host trees. This section, just a little from the house, had survived the cyclone almost unaffected and had regrown strong branches where some had been felled. The fan palms looked like unfurled parasols. The unseen birds called their calls, the screeching and cooing and warbling punctuated by the drumming and croaking tree frogs. They arrived at a small clearing.
‘Italo wanted to build the house here,’ Amelia said.
Clara looked out at the view of the mountains. Low mist clung to the canopy.
‘Perhaps the view is a little better.’
‘But the forest still stood here. Where the house is built, it had been destroyed; far cheaper to build there.’
‘Of course.’ Clara laughed.
‘Frugality’s to be laughed at?’
She shook her head, smiling. ‘I owe an immense amount to your frugality.’
Amelia breathed in the cool air. The familiar melancholy came to her.
‘Fergus’s hut was here,’ Amelia said.
Clara turned on her sharply. ‘I’ve not heard you mention him in years.’
‘At times, I like to come here.’
Clara nodded slowly, looking around the clearing. Amelia kicked back some undergrowth, the green of ferns and seedlings. The hut’s four cement pylons were worn, the forest grinding into them, reclaiming them. She showed the ring of stones that formed his fire.
‘You made the right decision,’ Clara said.
In all the years, how often she’d pondered this question. ‘I had no choice.’
‘I only met Fergus once,’ Clara said. ‘But Flavio—’
‘You’ve no need to say.’ Amelia thought of her penance; each day, each minute, each second, his appearance lashed her.
‘Does Italo suspect?’
Amelia raised her shoulders and eyebrows. ‘You told me never to discuss it. He’s never said anything …’
Amelia considered the void. No-one had ever said a word. Only, one afternoon when Flavio was about six, on the old verandah, Maria looked at him, then at Amelia, then back at Flavio and then said she had to leave. From then on, Maria came less often to the house, offered help less often, and asked even more rarely. Amelia realised the nature of her expression – she’d seen something in young Flavio she remembered in Fergus.
Perhaps she’d always suspected and just needed proof. People weren’t blind. Amelia knew they talked behind their flimsy, patched-together walls, in the village shops, in the hotels, on other farms. And they’d turned their backs on her, barely acknowledging her, offering no help, hardly the time of day. So, she’d done the only things she could – removed herself, stayed at a distance. And she’d sent Flavio to boarding school in Charters Towers, though there were primary schools in Babinda. If he was absent, perhaps people would start to forget.
‘Italo must know,’ Amelia said.
‘Do you know where Fergus is?’
‘I’m hardly in a position to ask. Once Italo said he was in Victoria. Some years later that he’d gone to Ireland.’
‘To Ireland?’
‘He’s Irish.’
‘No, he’s Australian.’
Amelia looked her in the eye. ‘Who’s Australian?’
They’d often argued about what an Australian was. Amelia wouldn’t allow a person to shake off their extraction, but Clara thought it only a matter of birthplace.
Clara shook her head and turned to the view. ‘And his parents still live nearby?’
‘Over that hill.’
She pointed in the direction of Oisin Kelly’s farm. After the explosion and fire, Fergus disappeared and hadn’t been seen for sixteen years. Cyclone Willis destroyed Oisin’s crop, most of his property and a whole year’s income. Then the Depression caught everyone by surprise. Even some of the Italians had had to sell land. Oisin had put nothing aside, so he sold more land.
Amelia wanted to buy a small parcel away from their main property, but Italo was against it. The land was flat, already cleared, but the idea brought considerable financial risk; they’d have to take a bank mortgage. But Amelia was sure they could. They needed more income and more land to crop. But even this sale – and Amelia would add that the purchase price was more than fair – had aggrieved Oisin. She would hear him in the village, always in earshot, cursing the Italians, ranting they had all the best land.
‘There’s no-one else to run Oisin’s farm?’ Clara said.
‘Apart from Fergus, he only has daughters. And he couldn’t afford to pay a manager. Oisin’s old now, bent with rheumatics. God knows what he’ll do.’
Clara walked to the edge of the clearing before it fell to the valley. Amelia followed a few steps behind.
‘I hope Fergus never returns,’ Clara said. ‘If Flavio ever saw him …’
Amelia glared at Clara, who continued looking at the view. The mists had lifted, unclouded blue sky backing the dark granite range. But it wouldn’t last. Fergus’s return was Amelia’s greatest dread, another living effigy of their sin. Fergus’s absence for sixteen years had made the situation bearable, the stories circulating the village drifting off to folklore. What lesions would his presence lay bare?
‘And how’s the business?’ Clara said, as if she too wanted not to contemplate these consequences.
‘The mortgage frightens me. I’d never tell Italo that. But even after paying it, the land makes money.’ She looked at Clara. ‘No-one ever went broke making a profit.’
Clara tossed back her head and laughed, loud, strong, from the belly. Amelia was pleased to see such a thing and laughed as well.
‘This country’s been good to you,’ Clara said.
‘Yes, for greasy dagos, we’ve done all right.’
Clara turned on her. Amelia felt it may erupt to a disagreement. But then Clara smiled. And together they laughed again.
Amelia returned to the path, not waiting for Clara. When they cleared the forest, she could see Mauro, riding home from school in Babinda. During the day, he’d tethered the horse to the school fence. He was making his way to the new stable, still on the flat near the first field, but when he saw them on the ridge, he struck the horse to a gallop towards them. In one motion, he slowed the horse, tossed a long leg over the neck and slid to the ground. Clara laughed and threw her hands towards him.
‘I’d been told you were taller, but this is ridiculous,’ she said. The two embraced.
‘You’re as tall as your father.’
‘Not quite.’
He came to Amelia and she kissed his cheeks.
‘Perhaps you could slow your growth for a while.’
Clara asked him in Englis
h of his day at school, and they started back towards the house, him leading the horse. Amelia dropped behind. It was Mauro’s last year in primary school. Next year he would attend the same boarding school as Flavio in Charters Towers. She would miss him.
‘You sound like an Australian,’ Clara said, in Italian.
‘I don’t know – I just talk like the others in school,’ he said, in Italian.
‘Now you sound like an Italian. But you used the wrong preposition. You should use a instead of in.’
‘But a is “to”, not “at”.’
Clara smiled and ruffled his hair. ‘It’s both in Italian. Prepositions are the hardest.’
‘I’ll never understand them.’
With that, he mounted the horse and took off down the hill towards the stable.
‘They’re neither one nor the other,’ Clara said.
‘They’re forced to be Australian.’
‘Perhaps that’s as it should be.’
Amelia bit her lip. ‘I couldn’t disagree with you more. They’re Italian. Australia reminds them of that again and again.’
Clara walked on ahead. She let her go. She’d not rile her. She needed her to be calm before they spoke of the school.
Dinner was eaten against the cacophony of the children’s news for Clara. Having considered her question, Flavio talked about how he wanted to travel after he’d finished school, Mauro said he would do anything not to go to boarding school in Charters Towers and Marta talked on and on about a brand-new dress. After the children were all in bed and Italo went to check the horses, they were alone. They sat outside at a table on the lower verandah, the mosquito coil smoke curling around them. Meggsy brought two brandies, and Amelia told her she could retire for the evening. And they were quiet, not a word between them for some time, looking over the fields.
‘You’re not wearing your wedding ring,’ Clara said.
Amelia looked at the white depression in her finger. ‘I removed it last night.’
‘Why on earth would you do that?’
‘You know why.’
Clara breathed deeply. ‘You can’t be seen to support fascism.’
‘There’s no law against it.’
‘Not yet.’
Amelia felt chastised and resented it. ‘They’ll send me an iron replacement.’