Authenticity

by Deirdre Madden

  The night Dennis arrived in Italy to begin his holiday Marta’s parents had been invited round for dinner, an affair which turned out to be strained and uncomfortable. Half-way through the first course, Roderic rose from the table, murmured something under his breath and left the room. Dennis would have thought nothing of it and expected him back moments later, were it not for the quick tense glance he saw exchanged between Marta and her mother. They finished the risotto they were eating and when she began to serve the second course, Dennis noticed that she removed Roderic’s plate but did not replace it with a clean one as she did for everyone else.

  ‘Do you think he’s feeling unwell?’ Dennis asked, and Marta gave him a look as though he were being remarkably obtuse.

  ‘He’s gone to his studio,’ she said shortly, and evidently none of the rest of the family expected to see him back for the rest of the evening.

  It annoyed Dennis as it put a strain on the proceedings, especially for Marta. Dennis had only ever learned the most basic Italian and her parents spoke no English, so as well as cooking and serving the meal, she was obliged to keep the conversation going, never becoming too long involved in speaking one language or the other and translating when necessary. Dennis had said before dinner he was worried about not being able to communicate properly but Roderic thought it of no consequence. ‘Just remember the most banal table talk from when we were growing up, those awful Saturday lunches, and you’ll get the drift of things.’ While they were eating dessert one of the children started to cry upstairs and Marta excused herself briefly. In her absence the atmosphere was uncomfortable. Dennis smiled weakly at her parents. Her father responded with a pained grimace, but her mother frankly glowered at him. Dennis knew he had done nothing to upset her and that it could only be a question of guilt by association. Given Roderic’s rudeness, he could find it in his heart to understand her logic, even as he suffered it.

  So bad did he feel about his brother’s behaviour that after her parents had gone home and he was helping her to clear things away he found himself awkwardly apologising to Marta. ‘But what have you done?’ she said, genuinely puzzled. ‘It’s Roderic, not you. You’ve done nothing to hurt or embarrass me.’ He was touched by her goodness. It would not have been right of her to blame Dennis for Roderic’s faults as her mother did, but in the circumstances it would have been understandable. ‘Oh, there’s no point in making too big a fuss,’ she went on. ‘We have our good days and our bad days, Roderic and I. Marriage is like that. It could have been much worse. Leave those,’ she added, waving her arms at the dishes as he moved to help wash them. They’ll do tomorrow.’

  He silently resolved to get up early and attend to them the following morning but when he came down to the kitchen he found that Roderic was already there rinsing and stacking the last of the plates. The sight of him took the sting out of his anger. It was years since he had seen Roderic tackle a sinkful of dishes, and yet in the past it had been one of his most abiding images of his brother. How often had he woken at weekends to the sound of crockery chinking, as Roderic washed up the dishes from the night before.

  Roderic turned and smiled at him, ‘Morning, Dennis,’ and it was as if the years had not happened, as if they were back in the house in Dublin when they were living together. It had been the happiest time of Dennis’s life; he wondered if Roderic now saw it in the same light.

  He had meant to remonstrate harshly with his brother for his behaviour the evening before but in the more relaxed atmosphere of morning, it didn’t seem right to do so. The most he could manage as the coffee was poured was: ‘I felt a bit sorry for Marta last night.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ came the short reply. ‘She has everything she wants.’

  ‘Does she?’

  ‘The house, the family, you know. Why yes, everything,’ Roderic said. The vague wave of his hand that he gave to encompass all this included a tiny child with startlingly blue eyes who had appeared silently at the kitchen door. She was barefoot and clad in a white nightdress. Roderic’s frown vanished when he saw her and he jumped up, flinging his arms wide. ‘Serena!’ he cried, ‘Vieni qui!’ She ran across the room and leapt up into his embrace, laughing and shrieking in delight as he tossed her up to the ceiling. She looked, Dennis thought, like a little child in a storybook who had dreamed of a jolly giant and awoke to find him there in the house. Roderic took her over to the fridge, lifted out yoghurts and peaches for her breakfast and engaged in complex negotiations with her about a bar of chocolate. Dennis sat watching and listening as his brother and niece chattered to each other in rapid Italian and wondered why it was that he had never got used to the idea of seeing Roderic speak another language with such fluency.

  ‘You never thought to teach the children English?’ he asked as Serena came to the table, but felt at once he had again said the wrong thing.

  ‘Bilingualism isn’t as easy to develop as people think,’ he said. ‘It’s easier when it’s the mother who’s the foreigner in a country because the children tend to be with her more in their formative years. They get the father’s language not just from him but from the society around them and it all balances out in the end. Our situation isn’t like that. I always used to talk to Serena in English from the time she was born, but she was slow to start speaking in any language. So Marta’s mother weighed in and said I was only confusing the child. It was something of a bone of contention and they wore me down in time. When Allegra was born I spoke to her in Italian from the start. It’s deeply regrettable, of course. In time they’ll learn English, and they’ll labour over tables of irregular verbs and pronouns just as I did to learn Italian. I regret it most of all in relation to our family, of course. It would make things easier, and we all might go to Ireland a bit more often.’

  Dennis privately doubted this but said nothing. Serena put her hand on her father’s arm, where it looked absurdly tiny. They spoke to each other briefly, at the end of which Roderic laughed. ‘She asked what we were talking about and I told her we were saying what a pity it is that she can’t talk to Zio Dennis in his own language. She says Zio Dennis will just have to learn Italian. What are your plans for today, by the way?’

  ‘I’m a bit done in after the journey. I thought I’d stay local, maybe read in the garden, have lunch in that little place down the road.’

  ‘You could do worse. I’ll be in the studio and Marta’ll drop the kids off with her mother on her way to work, so you’ll have peace.’

  This conversation with his brother over breakfast reassured Dennis. Marta’s parents would not join them for dinner and that too pleased him, for with just the three of them at table it would be a more relaxed affair, he thought. But in surmising this, he was horribly wrong.

  The tension between Marta and Roderic was palpable that evening, due no doubt to the fact that he had clearly been drinking heavily even before they gathered for aperitifs in the garden. She offered white wine to Dennis, who was shocked to see Roderic pour himself a large grappa, which he bolted down before immediately pouring another. He began to understand the remark Marta had made the night before: It could have been much worse. Certainly Roderic had been surly and rude, but he had at least been sober.

  ‘I thought grappa was a drink for after dinner,’ Dennis said.

  ‘It is,’ Marta replied.

  They moved inside to the dining room and she brought out a silver platter bearing tagliatelli in a meat sauce.

  ‘“This looks delicious, Mum.” “Thank you dear. I hope you all enjoy it.”’ Roderic parroted, opening red wine and pouring brimming glassfuls for everyone. Dennis gently attempted to refuse, stretching out his hand when his glass was half full, but Roderic brushed his protests aside. “The Road of Excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom.”’ He turned to Marta and favoured her with a rough translation of the phrase. ‘Doesn’t sound the same in Italian, does it?’

  ‘It’s not a particularly Italian sentiment, I’d have thought’

  ‘Well then it should be
, because it’s the truth.’

  Marta ignored him. ‘How was your day, Dennis? What did you do?’

  Roderic pointedly did not join in the conversation but ate his food sullenly and put away three glasses of wine with it.

  ‘Your friends I met at the time of your wedding, do you ever hear from them?’ Dennis asked as Marta took away the pasta dishes and brought in another platter bearing roast meat.

  ‘Ray went back to the States years ago,’ Marta said. ‘We hear from him at Christmas. He’s teaching in Brooklyn now. Elsa’s still living in Turin. We keep in touch and we’re always intending to go up and visit but we never seem to get round to it. It’s not easy making long journeys with the children.’ She started to serve out the food.

  ‘Elsa,’ Roderic said softly. ‘Do you remember Elsa? She used to call me Gulliver. If only she knew how right she was, how good a name it was for me. That’s who I feel like. Gulliver lying on the ground, wakening up and realising that he’s fastened by thousands of tiny ropes. And to Gulliver, you see, these ropes are like threads. He could snap each one like that,’ and he snapped his fingers. His face was red now; he was half-way between laughter and weeping. ‘But he can’t do it,’ he said. ‘Gulliver can’t break the threads because even though they’re so little there are so many of them, and even though Gulliver’s so big there’s only one of him.’

  As his brother spoke, and even as he despised him for his self-pity Dennis remembered a childhood book and how he had loathed the picture that showed exactly what Roderic spoke of: Gulliver pinned down. How it had frightened him, that suffocating image, how well he knew this fear of littleness, like the fear of insects or mice.

  ‘It’s death by a thousand cuts,’ Roderic said. ‘And that’s me. I’m Gulliver. That’s me.’

  And at that point Marta’s patience snapped. For the first time that evening she spoke Italian, threw some sharp remark at Roderic which Dennis was grateful not to understand as he rose to the bait and a short, ugly row developed. It ended as quickly as it had started, a sudden tense silence descending. Roderic stood up and went to the cupboard at the far side of the room where drinks were kept. He took out a bottle of whiskey and left without speaking. Marta and Dennis heard in succession the slamming of three doors: the door of the dining-room, the back door of the house, and finally, off in the distance, the door of Roderic’s studio. They sat in silence for a few moments. Marta picked up the wine bottle and held it out to Dennis, a gesture he found bizarre in the circumstances. He shook his head. She topped up her own glass, but did not drink.

  ‘For how long has this been going on?’ he asked at last.

  ‘For years,’ Marta said. ‘But he doesn’t drink all the time. Sometimes months pass and everything is fine, and then all of a sudden he starts again. I hoped it wouldn’t happen while you were here.’

  ‘And are you afraid?’

  ‘No,’ she said immediately. ‘Roderic’s not a violent man. No, I’m not afraid. But I’m not happy.’

  All this shocked and astounded Dennis. ‘This is terrible,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Marta quietly agreed, ‘it is. It’s terrible. There are days when I don’t know how I endure it. The children, I suppose, the baby, you know. As for the future …’ She threw her hands wide and jutted out her chin in a gesture that expressed perfectly all her uncertainty and doubt ‘I don’t expect you to be able to do anything, Dennis, but to be able to talk to you about it is already a help. I’m glad that at least you know now. I would have spared you this, but to share it helps me.’

  The following day was a Friday and Dennis fled the house early, unable to face the prospect of another breakfast with his brother. He spent a gloomy morning in Siena visiting the main art gallery. It bored him immensely: so many green-faced Virgins, he thought, so many stiff, identical angels. He was particularly out of sympathy today with anything associated with painting because he was so out of sympathy with Roderic. Afterwards he had lunch in the Campo. Before leaving Ireland he had looked forward to exactly such occasions, but today no amount of veal and good wine even when served in such surroundings could prevent it from being anything other than a dismal meal. He dreaded going back to the house for another evening of strife and tension and remained in the city for as long as he decently could.

  It was Roderic who answered the door to him when he finally did return. Casually dressed in jeans and a blue check shirt he was, to Dennis’s great relief, sober and cheerful. In his hand he held a long two-pronged fork. ‘You took a good day to yourself,’ he said. ‘Come through to the garden and tell me all about it.’

  They walked down the hall and into the kitchen. Roderic lifted a tray of sausages and chops from the table and carried them on out into the garden, where the air was sweet with smoke from a lit barbecue, made sweeter still as he scattered herbs on the glowing charcoal. He told Dennis to help himself to wine and to take a seat, indicating a heavily padded garden sofa which swung gently as Dennis sat on it, and then more dramatically as Serena flung herself down beside him. The walled garden was verdant and lush, full of roses and vines, and he breathed in its evening fragrances. The barbecue was a stone structure, pot-bellied at the base, then tapering up into a slim, elegant chimney from which smoke drifted.

  Dennis admired it and Roderic said, ‘Marta’s doing. If it were up to me we’d probably have one of those cheap and nasty things you buy in a DIY shop, if that. All the home improvements are her idea.’

  ‘But you’re not in favour?’

  ‘It’s not so much that I’m against it in principle, it’s just that I’m too busy with other things, too busy with my work. To me, it’s not what life is all about. When they were building this thing,’ and he pointed at the barbecue, ‘it took them ages and it was so noisy. I couldn’t hear myself think in the studio. And the day after you leave we have the painters due in to do up the dining-room. No, I can’t see anything wrong with it either. It’s only a year since it was last done but Marta’s tired of blue walls. So that’ll be the whole house in upheaval again for who knows how long. Still, it’s what she wants, and what Marta wants, Marta gets.’

  What struck Dennis most in all of this was how resigned Roderic appeared to be. There was none of the rancour and annoyance he suspected there might have been had the subject come up the night before, and although he had a glass of red wine to hand he seemed to have forgotten about it. As he talked to Dennis he had been arranging the meat on a wire rack which he now lifted and placed carefully over the glowing coals.

  ‘Where is Marta?’ Dennis asked.

  ‘Putting the baby to bed. This little minx,’ and he nodded at Serena, who had left the sofa and gone over to see what her father was doing, ‘is allowed to stay up late tonight because it’s Friday. You’re a minx, aren’t you?’ he said, pretending to chase her with the long fork, making her giggle and shriek. ‘You’re a villain.’

  ‘The kids are fabulous,’ Dennis said.

  ‘Yes, aren’t they? We’re hoping for a third.’ In the light of recent days Dennis was surprised to hear this.

  ‘Really? That’s nice,’ he said sincerely. ‘Would you like to have a son next time?’

  ‘Jesus, don’t you start. Do you know what Marta’s mother said to me when Allegra was born? “What’s wrong with you, that you can’t make a boy baby?” Half in jest and whole in earnest. I want another daughter. I want to be like King Lear. I’ll go and visit them when I’m old and grey and difficult. I and my hundred knights. Yes, another daughter,’ he said, grabbing Serena and holding her tight, ‘and then another and another and another …’ She laughed and wriggled as he tickled her in a different place with each word, releasing her only when Marta appeared at the door which led out from the kitchen. She was wearing a cream linen dress and holding a blue glass bowl full of salad leaves, which she set down on the long tiled table where they were to eat.

  ‘Oh, hello Dennis,’ she said. ‘I didn’t hear you come in. Did you have a good day in Siena?’

/>   ‘Excellent. And you?’

  ‘Today was all right. I went over to see my mother at lunch time. They have an apartment in Positano, do you remember, they spoke of it the other night. I went to say goodbye to them. They’re going off there tomorrow so we won’t see them now for a whole month.’

  Looking past Marta, who was standing with her back to her husband, Dennis saw Roderic punch the air gleefully as she said this. Marta noticed Dennis’s expression and followed the line of his gaze. She turned to look at Roderic, who was now turning the chops over with an air of studied innocence. She knew he had just scored some kind of point against her but she didn’t know how. Evidently it rather amused her for she shrugged her shoulders and smiled. Speaking quietly to her daughter in Italian, she asked her to bring out the cutlery and plates from the kitchen to help set the table. ‘That rose,’ she said to Roderic, walking over to a white rambler that grew thick against the back wall of the garden. ‘The trellis has come loose and some of these branches need to be tied up. Will you help me do it tomorrow?’

  ‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘We can see to it after breakfast.’

  She lit citronella candles to drive away the mosquitoes. ‘Are you hungry, Dennis? Where did you have lunch? Oh really? Which restaurant on the Campo?’ They fell into desultory conversation about Siena. Marta dressed the salad, Serena set the table and Roderic cooked the meat. He lit a cigarette now and as he narrowed his eyes against the smoke of the barbecue, he looked exactly as he had done when cooking weekend breakfasts at the time they lived together in Dublin, jabbing at rashers and sausages in the eye-level grill of the cooker.

  If lunch had fallen short of Dennis’s expectations, dinner was everything he could have wished for in an Italian holiday. They ate in the warm scented garden, talking and laughing until far into the night. He enjoyed it even more than he might have done because he was relieved to be reassured about Marta and Roderic.

  Dennis and Roderic were already in the kitchen the following morning when Marta came down. She was simply and lightly dressed, both for the heat of the day and for the work she was planning to do in the garden, wearing shorts and a tiny lilac vest with fine shoulder straps. The colour of the vest perfectly suited her tanned skin. It was cut low in the front and clung tightly to her, and even Dennis was struck by how alluring she looked. He also noticed how appreciatively Roderic studied her as she crossed the room, giving the lie to the idea that married people became inured to each other’s bodies over the years, sheer habit making them take each other for granted. They were standing side by side now and, speaking in a low voice, Roderic said something to her in Italian. Marta’s eyes widened in mild shock and she blushed. Whatever the substance of the explicit compliment he had paid her, she was evidently pleased by it. She shot a quick glance over at Dennis and murmured something to Roderic, who also looked at him and then quietly replied to Marta. His reassurance that his brother would not be able to understand what he had said was actually something Dennis could understand, capire, as in Non capisco, being one of the few Italian verbs with which he was familiar. Marta bit her lip trying not to laugh, and Dennis felt oddly hurt at how they made of both their language and their sensuality a barrier to shut him out.