Dear Olivia

by Mary Contini

  ‘Good morning. Good morning, Mrs Brown.’

  Mrs Brown nodded, unsmiling, at the young woman standing beside Cesidio.

  The other women nodded as well.

  The first of the small boats sailed between the rocks and made its way into the cove.

  Mrs Brown shouted at her man and her son. She hitched up her skirts and waded into the shallow water. Her son jumped out of the boat and between them they hauled the boat up onto the sandy shore.

  ‘How many huddies dae ye need, Sis?’

  ‘About two stone.’

  The men handed the fish they had caught out of the boat and Mrs Brown laid it on the foreshore, sorting out haddocks for Cesidio, packing the rest into lidded wooden fish boxes to be taken off to market at Newhaven.

  One by one, the other boats came ashore; the women hauled them in and sorted the catch. Some packed creels with the fish, tied them to their backs and carried them away for salting or curing.

  Marietta stood and watched the proceedings, full of admiration for these hard-working women.

  When they got back, there was a wiry, fresh-faced man in the shop. Cesidio introduced him to his wife. ‘Marietta, this is Tommy Dougal. He’s deaf and dumb. He helps me with the fish.’

  Marietta nodded to the man, who smiled and clapped, pleased to see this lovely girl.

  Tommy took the fish from Cesidio. He immediately went to the sink and set about cleaning and gutting them with a long, narrow, sharp blade and a dexterous flick of his wrist. Marietta watched, fascinated.

  She fed and washed the children then, smelling a wonderful aroma, took them through to see what their father was doing.

  Twice a week a gallon can of warm fresh milk was delivered to the back door.

  In the back room, Cesidio was standing over a deep pot of simmering milk, balanced on a square gas ring. He had added sugar, double cream and butter and two or three pungent oily vanilla pods that he kept in a jar. He was stirring the creamy mixture rhythmically with a long wooden spoon with a metal paddle attached at the end.

  ‘What a wonderful smell.’ Marietta breathed in deeply. ‘It reminds me of when I was in London when I was young. Oh, Cesidio, it seems like a lifetime away.’

  ‘Here, taste it.’

  He took a small cup and scooped out some of the custard. He caught the drips on the side with his finger and, after licking it, handed her the cup.

  She tasted the creamy, sensuous vanilla custard and closed her eyes, breathing in deeply and savouring the flavour.

  When she opened her eyes she smiled with pleasure. Cesidio was looking intently at her. He didn’t say a word, just moved towards her and kissed her lips, which were sweet with the sugar of the custard.

  ‘Do you like it, sweetheart?’

  Marietta burst out laughing and kissed him back.

  ‘Watch, Cesidio. You’ll burn the custard if you’re not careful.’

  She took the wooden spoon from him and handed him the cup.

  ‘I’ll do this. Here, let the children taste the custard.’

  Marietta knew what to do. She had seen her father make ice cream. She knew that the paddle at the end of the spoon had to keep contact with the bottom of the pot to stop the custard sticking. She worked rhythmically, taking her time.

  As soon as the custard coated the back of the spoon, she turned off the gas. She opened the tap in the pot, siphoning the shiny mixture into sparkling clean metal pails. Then she covered them with some clean muslin and left the cream to cool.

  The Newhaven ice-man delivered blocks of ice to the harbour for packing round the fish. Cesidio had some dropped off at the shop. He stored it outside in a cool cellar, covered with a cloth and straw, so that it didn’t melt.

  Once the custard had cooled, Marietta called to her husband: ‘It’s ready!’

  Cesidio prepared the hand-cranked freezer. He lowered a cylindrical metal pail into a round wooden barrel. He crushed some of the ice with a hammer and filled the space between the pail and the inner rim, adding coarse salt to make a brine solution. Then he poured the custard into the metal pail.

  Tommy Dougal stood and churned the handle round and round. After a time the mixture started to chill, solidify and change as if by magic into a mouth-watering ice cream.

  Cesidio scooped some ice cream onto a cornet, smoothing it round the edges so that it wouldn’t fall off. He bent down to Lena, who was sitting on a step behind the counter watching him, her baby brother snug on her knee. He handed her the cone.

  ‘Now, Lena, taste Papà’s ice cream. Is that not the best ice cream in the whole wide world?’

  Lena licked the cone then pushed the delicious ice cream onto her baby brother’s lips.

  ‘Taste Papà’s ice cream, Giovanni. It’s lovely.’

  Cesidio smiled at his wife and pulled her close to him. They looked lovingly at their children, thinking that they would each do everything they could to give them the best chance in life.

  Cesidio and Marietta didn’t realise it at the time, but they would enrich the lives of their neighbours and customers as well.

  The fishing families in the village had few home comforts, minimal cooking equipment, no running hot water; few houses had gas. They survived on potatoes, thick soups, mutton and smoked fish. Porridge, tea, bread and jam were the staples.

  A scoop of frozen, sweet, vanilla-flavoured ice cream between two thin wafer biscuits was an exotic treat, adding colour and luxury to their lives. For a halfpenny they could experience the taste of a different world. Pennies were keenly saved so that visits to the Di Ciacca’s shop could be more frequent.

  When the fishwives had a spare ha’penny they would buy a bottle of Dunn’s ginger beer or a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate to take home to last the week, a square of chocolate enjoyed every evening when the bairns were in bed.

  Marietta was in the shop in the afternoon. Two fisher-women came in. They were taken aback when they saw Marietta behind the counter. So this must be Sis’s wife.

  The first woman looked Marietta up and down, feeling slightly intimidated by her dark good looks, her beautiful thick black hair, her pretty brown eyes. She nudged her friend. ‘Yae tak,’ you speak, she whispered in broad Cockenzie dialect.

  ‘Na, yae dae it.’ Her friend nudged her back.

  Taking a deep breath the first woman spoke in a slow clear voice, trying to make herself understood. ‘Can … I,’ she pointed to herself then to the penny bar of Cadbury’s chocolate on the counter, ‘Can … I … have … cho … co … late?’

  She put her penny down on the counter and took a step back, frightened that the strange woman would do something. She whispered to her friend.

  ‘She disnae understand. What will I dae? I canny speak Eyetalian.’

  Maria picked up the chocolate bar and put it into a paper bag.

  ‘That’s a penny, thank you very much. I’m …’

  But before she could say another word the woman grabbed the chocolate and the two scuttled out of the shop, embarrassed. Nobody had said the Italian woman could speak English.

  The children in the village all did errands after school. On Saturdays they did chores, cleaning, helping in the fields to ‘houk tatties’ or pick peas or strawberries. The pennies they earned were mostly given to their mothers to augment the family budget, but spare farthings were excitedly spent in the shop. ‘Soor plooms’, Duncan’s toffee, a thirty-minute teeth-rotting chew, or a lucky tattie, a flat crunchy toffee sweet dipped in delicious-smelling powdered cinnamon. These were sucked and salivated over for hours of pleasure.

  Marietta, Cesidio, Johnny and Lena, c. 1920

  The young girls liked to spend their farthing on two strips of liquorice. They would pass it round their pals for a ‘sook’ before taking it home to make ‘sugar’ally’ water. They soaked the ‘liquorish’ in a jam-jar full of water and left it under the bed until it melted and left a sweet, murky sugary drink.

  By that evening Marietta had met most of the children in the vill
age. They were not worried that she was foreign. They had tripped in and out and hung around the shop all afternoon. They told her all about their favourite sweeties, giving her lots of the information she needed about her new customers, their fathers, mothers, aunts and uncles. They played with Lena and, when Marietta wasn’t looking, let the baby have a ‘sook’ of their sweeties.

  After an eventful day, Marietta was glad when her own children had settled for the night. Cesidio was sitting at the table, his jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled up, relaxing with the remains of their supper in front of him. He looked at his wife, who had stood up, ready to clear the table.

  ‘Well, cara, how do you like your new home?’

  Her new home was a room at the back of the shop with a bed in a recess and a mattress underneath, which was pulled out at night. A sturdy wooden table and four wooden chairs were the only furniture. A crucifix and a picture of the Sacred Heart hung on the wall. Beside the store room, where they prepared the fish and potatoes and made the ice cream, was a small kitchen, dark and window-less, with a two-ringed gas stove and a water boiler. In an ante-room was a toilet with a small sink.

  ‘Do you know what? I think it’s going to be just perfect.’

  ‘Are you happy?’

  Marietta came across and sat on her husband’s knee. He put his arm round her. She stroked his hair.

  ‘Happy, my darling. Very, very happy.’

  Cesidio smiled. ‘Jimmy will be in shortly. We’ll be busy tonight. The local women will have told everyone you’ve arrived. The men will be wanting to see what you look like.’

  Marietta stood up and, taking a step back, put her arms on her hips and looked at him.

  ‘And what do I look like, Signor Di Ciacca?’

  ‘Beautiful, my darling. Very, very beautiful.’

  Jimmy Caulder, a tough ex-army cook, had arrived and was lighting the coal fire under the fryer. Cesidio introduced him to his wife.

  Then he took Marietta through to the ice cream shop. They stood behind the wooden counter, both in spotlessly clean white cotton coats, waiting for customers.

  There was a wooden bench along the length of the shop for their customers to sit on. Usually, from first thing in the morning till last thing at night it was full. There was no extra room in any of the houses, so the local men, rather than stay at home with their wives, found the bench in Di Ciacca’s just the place for sitting, talking and placing the odd bet between each other.

  In the evenings they came after work. There were different groups: the miners, mucky and sooty off the trams from Prestongrange, in for a packet of Woodbine or a bag of chips. Or, if the boats were in, the fishermen came down before or after they visited the Thorntree, sometimes wild with drink, boisterous and rowdy. The unemployed and retired just sat around day and night.

  Few of them had been in during the day. Cesidio had been busy showing Marietta all the jobs, so hadn’t paid attention; tonight though, it was unusually quiet.

  He went through to the fish and chip shop. Everything was spotless. Jimmy Caulder was standing with his arms folded, with nothing to do. There were no customers.

  Cesidio in the shop at Cockenzie, c. 1920

  ‘I don’t know what’s wrong, Marietta. We’re usually busy by now.’

  They waited another half hour. Nothing.

  Cesidio went through again to the chip shop.

  ‘Jimmy, what’s wrong tonight? Where are all the lads?’

  ‘Have you not noticed, Sis? They’re all out in the street.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Have a look.’

  Cesidio went to the front window and peered through. Outside in the street, spilling off the pavement into the road, were his usual thirty or so regular customers. They were all spruced up with their best jackets on, clean shirts, ties and hats. They stood silently, not saying a word.

  ‘What’s going on, Jimmy? Why are they all dressed up? They look like they’re going to the kirk.’

  ‘They’ve heard your wife’s arrived. The word’s got round that she’s a braw lassie.’

  Cesidio burst out laughing. He felt a surge of pride. The men were shy of his wife.

  ‘Right, Jimmy. Get the fish frying. We’ll just have to persuade them to come in. Marietta!’

  Cesidio called his wife from the ice cream shop. He stood her behind the counter and showed her how to lay out a piece of old newspaper. Then he showed her how to scoop a generous serving of hot, crispy chips on to a smaller sheet of greasproof paper in her hand, put it onto the newspaper, then lay a piping hot, crispy battered haddock on top. He showed her how to use a clean wet cloth to wipe her fingers, then sprinkle the fish and chips with salt and vinegar.

  ‘Now, fold the newspaper like this, then close the parcel at the bottom end and pass it to me with the top end opened.’

  She did this perfectly.

  ‘Right, Jimmy, are you ready to go? I’ll get them in. You do the money, Marietta’ll wrap the suppers.’

  Cesidio winked at his wife, and with a thumbs-up to Jimmy Caulder he went outside.

  He stood among the men in the street. He nodded to them but said nothing. Putting his hand into the ‘poke’, he took out a piece of crunchy, white-fleshed, fried haddock. The warm smell of fat and salt was even more intense in the open air. His mouth watered. Their mouths watered.

  He took a mouthful, licking his lips, savouring it. ‘Mmm.’

  That did the trick. First one, then a second, and within minutes all the men were in the chip shop, their sixpence slapped on the counter, queuing for their turn to order their fish supper and gawp at the ‘braw Tally lassie’.

  That night most of them secretly fell in love with her. She was an alluring creature, full of fun, not shy, always with a ready answer. She had the disconcerting knack of encouraging them to be familiar while keeping them at arm’s length. She was so unlike their own women who in comparison were always worn down and exhausted. Life had suddenly become far more interesting.

  Months later, by the end of January, Marietta was expecting her third child; she was working in the shop as usual. As she served the queue of customers, she felt a sharp pain in her back. She looked at Cesidio.

  ‘The baby?’ Cesidio knew by her look that it was time. Without saying a word, she went into the back of the shop.

  ‘I’ll go and fetch Nurse Swan.’ One of the customers ran along to the midwife’s house to get help.

  The men eating their fish suppers stood anxiously outside the shop.

  Nurse Swan arrived. It was just past midnight. The men waited. They were like twenty waiting fathers, pacing up and down in the cold and dark.

  Marietta, Lena, Johnny and Cesidio outside the shop at Cockenzie, c. 1921

  After one o’clock, some of the wives came out looking for their men. They stood around, like sisters and mothers, rubbing their hands in the cold, determined to wait for news.

  Sis came out at five minutes to two. ‘Marietta’s had a baby girl!’

  The waiting crowd cheered and patted Cesidio on the back. He looked around with tears in his eyes. This crowd of locals around him, wishing him and his family well, had become his friends. At that moment, he felt that he had arrived and that their future was secure.

  Cesidio owed Zio Benny some money. He would have to go to Edinburgh.

  ‘Marietta, would you like to go up to Edinburgh with me? We can take the children in the tram. You can see Alfonso and Maria.’

  Alfonso and Maria had also had a fourth child, who was now nearly two years old.

  ‘That would be lovely. Lena and Giovanni can play with their cousins. I haven’t seen their young Olivia since Anna was born. I’ll bring Maria some really nice baccalà I saw in the fishmonger’s. I don’t think she has been able to find it in town.’

  In Edinburgh they got down from the tram at the top of Easter Road and walked to the shop.

  When he saw them approaching, Alfonso came out to greet them, handsome and charming as always. He kisse
d Marietta and made the children giggle, nipping them affectionately on the cheek. He shook Cesidio’s hand, kissed him and patted him warmly on the back.

  ‘Auguri! Congratulations, my friends. You’re looking great. Come in. Maria’s inside. What a lovely surprise!’

  Maria was sitting in the back shop with little Olivia on her lap. The little girl was beautiful, full-faced and dark skinned. She smiled at her aunt and held out her hand. She wanted to play with the new baby and kept reaching over to pat Anna’s head. The children all endured kisses from their relatives, then settled to play with the new baby.

  Marietta gave Maria the dried cod she had been carrying in her bag. It was wrapped in brown paper and in newspaper. As soon as Maria unwrapped it, Alfonso burst out laughing.

  ‘Is that what the smell was? I thought you were all smelling like fishermen because you’re living so near the sea!’

  The baccalà had a strong smell of old fish, salt and smelly socks. Domenico and Margherita came in from school. They looked at the dried fish and held their noses and moaned.

  Johnny, Anna and Lena, August 1922

  ‘Take it away, Mamma. Ugh!’

  ‘You are all very rude.’ Alfonso apologised to Marietta. ‘Forgive them, Marietta. They’re town children! Come, we’ll go across to the house for some lunch. We’re just about to eat.’

  Maria had made some ’sagne e fagioli, home-made pasta and bean soup. It was thick and creamy, and the pasta was cut roughly into strips, making it easy to slip down. The children loved it. They ate it with some heavy bread. Maria had also baked some shadoon, half-moon pastries stuffed with home-made ricotta and baked in the oven with a brush of egg yolk so that they were crispy and lightly golden in colour. The pastry was as light as a feather and crumbled as you bit into it to reveal the creamy sweet ricotta inside.

  ‘Grazie, Maria. These are just like my mother used to make.’