Prosecco and Promises

by Prosecco

  The last time I’d been to Ischia, it had been just after Mum died. My dad bought her ashes back to her home; he felt it was where she’d want to be. I’d met all these dark-haired people with clucking voices and sad looks. They’d stroked my hair and pinched my cheeks and paused their bursts of frantic Italian to call me a ‘poor little thing’. We spent a few weeks there, my dad hollow and echoing as he tried to show me the island, but was haunted by memories. He met my mother on Ischia. Stole her away back to England. Sometimes we’d walk past someone or some house, or he’d stop and pick up a shell on the beach, or stare past the pink sunset, like he wasn’t really there, but was back in the memory with her. It wasn’t the best time. And now he was sending me back, to the place I had been dragged to after my mother died, as my father drowned in his memories.

  Now I would drown in mine.

  * * *

  As I stepped out of the airport, suddenly missing the air conditioning, I saw a red, dusty car swerve up to the parking bays, in between taxis. Much beeping and swearing ensued, with a frizzy-haired Italian girl sticking her head out of the car to lift up her sunglasses and peer at me quizzically.

  ‘You Mia?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Mia from England?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘I’m Nikki – your cousin?’ She popped her gum and smiled toothily. I remembered. She was a few years younger than me, and I suddenly had the clear memory of her telling me not to be sad, and that I had very pretty hair. She had brushed my hair every day I was there, stroking it gently like it was a cat. That sweet little girl seemed nothing like the unholy terror in front of me now, with thin line-work tattoos snaking down her slender brown arms, shaking her fists vehemently as she swore back at the taxi drivers surrounding her.

  ‘Come on, get in!’ she yelled at me, in that aggressively normal Italian tone I suddenly recalled from somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind.

  I picked up the suitcase and heaved it into the boot, before jumping into the front seat, my hands up in apology to all the white-haired old men yelling at us.

  She zipped off immediately, the car moving at worrying speeds.

  ‘Seatbelt!’ Nikki grinned, popping her gum again. ‘Mama won’t like it if I kill you before we get home.’

  Thinking about it, Nicoletta must have been about five the last time I saw her. She had been quiet and gentle, the youngest child with four much older brothers who were raucous and rough in their games. I’d spent a lot of that week playing checkers and snap, and searching for shells on the beach to make friendship bracelets. She’d told me she was sorry I didn’t have a mama any more.

  ‘So, you’re quiet! Was it a long flight, are you tired? Should we get coffee? We don’t have a Starbucks, do you want a Starbucks?’ She took a breath and looked at me. ‘You’re not saying anything, I did pick up the right person, right? You’re my cousin, Mia, from England?’

  ‘Yes, Nicoletta, I’m your cousin Mia from England. Mia from England with a headache.’ I sighed, looking out of the window.

  ‘Jeez, Mia from England with an attitude problem.’ Nikki muttered to herself, blowing a strand of wild hair from across her face. She adopted a serious English accent. ‘Nice to see you, Nikki, it’s been a long time, how are you, we’ve grown up, we must have much to talk about!’

  I pressed my lips together. ‘Is there a reason I sound like Winston Churchill in that impersonation?’

  ‘Because you’re an old, grouchy Englishman?’ She grinned at me. ‘Come on, I know you’re tired, but we’ve got a drive to the village. Tell me about your life.’

  What should I tell her? I went to university to study archaeology, and then did nothing with it? That I wanted to be digging in the dirt, but instead I applied concealer to strangers’ faces, looking at my fingertips and wondering when there would be fresh earth beneath my nails again? Did I mention that my father had sent me here as a pretty place to sit around and wait to become an orphan, and that I was pretty pissed off about it? I didn’t want to talk about me. I didn’t want to talk at all, but I certainly didn’t want to talk about me.

  ‘Tell me about you first. What do you do, do you live at home?’ I threw questions at her in the same way she’d handed them to me – quick fire and with a demanding tone. I could tell she was flattered, and her shoulders lowered, her head held high as she told me about her life. Nicoletta lived on the island, she was studying midwifery, but she worked in a bar on the island four days a week, right on the beach. In the off-season it was fishermen and locals; in the summer they doubled the prices and served poncy cocktails and expensive starters.

  ‘You got a boyfriend?’ she asked me, holding out a pack of gum.

  I took a piece, shaking my head.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’ I growled, leaning out of the window. When I looked back, she peered over her sunglasses at me.

  ‘Oh, you know.’ Nicoletta’s tone suggested I was my own worst enemy. She wasn’t wrong.

  I pressed my lips together, silent for a few moments until it became clear that she expected an answer. The car swerved dangerously across lanes.

  ‘Well?’ Nicoletta said.

  ‘Okay, I’m difficult! I’m a loner, I work too much, I take care of my dad, and I didn’t want to put down roots. So I don’t have a boyfriend.’

  ‘Also, you’re grouchy. Boys don’t like grouchy.’

  ‘I don’t care what boys like,’ I said, staring out of the window at the passing landscape.

  ‘Which is why you’re single.’

  ‘Is there a point to this?’

  Nikki chewed her gum, grinning. ‘Just preparing you for Mama. You think I’m bad… wait.’

  ‘So you don’t have a boyfriend either?’

  ‘Oh, no, I do. Enzo.’ Nikki smiled at me. ‘He’s an idiot sailor, works at the docks. Takes tourists out on tour boats, sometimes teaches scuba diving. Drives me crazy, but his smile is like sunshine.’ Her grin was childlike and innocent, and I pitied her a little. She hadn’t had her heart broken yet.

  ‘So isn’t your mother pleased?’

  ‘You kidding? It’s “Nicoletta, when you gonna make me a nonna? When you gonna get married?” It’s endless. I’m still a child!’

  ‘You definitely are.’

  ‘Grazie, si, yes! Exactly!’ Her arms flailed as I willed her to put both hands on the steering wheel. ‘So be ready to answer questions about why no babies. And don’t try, “I just didn’t find the right one,” because she’ll say there is no right, only good enough.’

  I made a face. ‘What’s your dad say about that?’

  ‘Who knows, I think he stopped hearing any conversation that wasn’t about food or football in 2003.’ She shook her head. ‘Like all little girls dream of growing up to be ignored and talked over. They dream of a party and then life goes on.’

  ‘You think Enzo will ignore you if you get married?’ I found myself somehow drawn into this, an almost imaginary conversation about people I’d never met.

  ‘It happens!’ She squawked, indignant and angry. ‘All my friends. They go to sleep with the sweetest boyfriend – he’d crawl down the street for her, he gives speeches in her honour, gives her his grandmother’s ring… first day as a husband, he’s expecting dinner on the table and she’s not to speak unless spoken to. It’s a husband button, and I’m not switching it.’

  I tried to fight the smile at the idea of something so ridiculous, but I could feel the corners of my lips twitching. ‘And how does Enzo feel about this?’

  ‘He promises he’s different and asks me to marry him.’ Nikki sighed, using her indicator for the first time since I got in the car. ‘He does it every few weeks.’

  ‘That’s cute.’

  ‘It’s annoying. And every time, he makes an effort. Last week he brought me a hundred flowers, the week before he serenaded me by the docks. Before that he danced with me in the castle. Last year, he got every man on his boat to sing as he
drove up to me on a jet ski! Every time I say no, Mama looks like she’ll explode. That’s half the fun.’ Nikki stuck her tongue out at me.

  I found I enjoyed it as she talked on and on – she was easy to listen to, painting a picture of her life on the island. It seemed like a funny, noisy, simple way to live. A big family with expectations and dreams for you, who called you out on your bullshit, and picked you up when you fell. I assumed that was why Dad had sent me to them – a place to hunker down and disappear into. To be held and looked after, the way a big clucking family did. Otherwise, he had just sent me back to the place I had spent the worst summer of my life, and I couldn’t believe that would have been his goal, no matter how much pain he was in. Maybe he knew how awful it had been for me on Ischia after Mum died, how lonely I had felt, how I didn’t remember anything but feeling like I might burst with trying not to cry. This, I hoped, was his way of making it up to me. Showing me the place they had both loved, in a real way.

  ‘So, how’s your dad?’ Nikki’s casual words jolted me from my thoughts.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your dad? He’s good?’

  ‘Um, sure.’ Apart from the whole dying thing.

  Dad would have liked that one. Might be a bit too crass for everyone else, though; I should try and tone down what Dad called my ‘indubitable Mia-ness’. Savvy said I had the excellent ability to make her laugh so hard and feel like such a bad person, that once, at sixteen, she had spent a week considering joining a convent. Savannah was big on being the good girl. I preferred to say what I thought, even if it caused trouble.

  I was surprised Nikki didn’t know the reason for my visit, but if she hadn’t been told, I certainly didn’t want to get into it. It was shocking enough that I was there, breathing and existing and nodding along with my cousin’s stories. I couldn’t offer anything else. And I didn’t want those sad eyes.

  ‘He remarried, didn’t he?’

  I nodded. ‘Yup.’

  ‘You hate her?’

  ‘I did. I’m still not a big fan. She’s a vegan yoga teacher who talks about the healing power of crystals and positivity, and doesn’t drink alcohol because it poisons her aura. Everything she tries to do is with this sense of purity and goodness. It pisses me off.’

  Nikki grinned at me suddenly. ‘Tonight, we’re gonna sit looking out at the water, legs dangling over the dock, and drink some beers. We will not do this to be pure.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘No, not good, not good at all.’ She winked at me.

  The next little while passed more easily. Nicoletta seemed to find a more comfortable pace for her stories, and started to speak more slowly, peppering her tales with more detail and colour. She asked questions and waited for the answers. It wasn’t until we drove onto the ferry that I realized her chatter was all bravado, and she was nervous.

  ‘Your English is amazing,’ I said suddenly, realizing this might not be the case with all of my family.

  ‘I work at a tourist bar, summer is coming.’ Nikki laughed. ‘How’s your Italian?’

  ‘Not so good,’ I said, suddenly guilty again.

  Nikki didn’t look bothered. ‘It won’t matter much, except with Nonna. Everyone else speaks a little English. I think she secretly understands though. We used to speak in English when we didn’t want her to know something, and she still always found out. Stubborn old goat.’

  Nonna. Of course, I had a grandmother. My dad’s mother had died long before I was born, but here I had family. Real family. People who were blood ties and history. The grandmothers in my mind fussed and stroked your hair and gave you cake.

  I couldn’t remember her, though, my nonna. I couldn’t conjure her from my last visit here, all those grieving family members taking my hand or holding me close. She must have been there though, somewhere. What would I say to her?

  We stood side by side on the ferry, looking out on the water, the island fast approaching in a pinkish light. It was nice to be silent for a while, it felt like a balm. I dreaded walking into a family of loud, fast-talking Italians, admonishing me for not learning the language, for not visiting sooner, for not embracing my heritage. I remembered those comments from the last time I was here. I didn’t feel ready to face them again. They would talk about my mother, and as much as I was desperately curious, the idea of hearing about her just made me realize that soon enough they would be talking about my father in the past tense, and all I’d have of him were the stories other people told, the stories I told. I didn’t want to think about it.

  My phone rang, and I tensed, seeing Marjorie’s number flash up on the screen. Already? Had it happened the minute I left the house and I could go back before being forced to endure what he sent me for – a sun-soaked trip down memory lane?

  ‘Marjorie, has it—’

  She cut me off. ‘No, no, no!’ She tried for a soothing tone, her voice low and calm. Even that pissed me off. ‘Take a breath, Mia, all is well. Repeat it back, all is well…’

  ‘I am not fucking repeating that. Why are you calling?’

  ‘We just wanted to make sure you landed safely.’ The hurt echoed down the phone, but I didn’t have time to baby Marjorie. She was meant to be looking after my father. She said she was strong enough, and yet a snide comment from me sent her into a snit. I seriously doubted her ability to deal with this. More than I doubted my own.

  ‘Well, maybe a text message would be better, considering the circumstances?’ I huffed. There was silence on her end, and I snorted to myself that if she was waiting for an apology, she’d be waiting a while. I’d called her a heinous gold-digging bitch to her face when I met her for the first time, years ago. I still hadn’t apologized for that.

  ‘Tell him I landed safely, Marjorie.’

  ‘I will.’ The snotty response came quicker than expected, but she paused, letting the silence settle down the telephone line, before a quiet ‘bye’ and the double beep of a cancelled call.

  ‘The stepmonster?’

  I nodded my head, adjusting my sunglasses, staring out at the water.

  ‘You think maybe you’re a little old to act like a child who hates her wicked stepmother?’

  ‘You think you’re a little bit of a stranger to be giving me advice?’

  Nikki’s head jerked back, and then she nodded, once.

  I was curt, that was my thing. Most people, when they knew me, found it endearing. Well, Savvy, who’d known me since childhood, and Jacques, who’d known me a few months. And Dad, who’d known me for ever. I didn’t really let anyone else near enough to have much of an opinion.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m just… no, there’s no excuse, that’s just my personality.’ I shrugged. ‘Take it or leave it.’

  ‘Mia, we’re blood, strangers or not. And every damn person you meet on that island is going to give you advice you didn’t ask for. We’re Italian, and we’re your family.’

  I nodded once, saying nothing, wondering why that final sentence made my eyes water just a bit.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Mia!’ I recognized Aunt Allegra immediately, which surprised me. It surprised me almost as much as being immediately clasped against her bosom, but not quite. She was the same as she’d been twenty years ago, which said something for the Italian olive-oil-and-red-wine diet that everyone harped on about. Her cheeks were round and red, sitting beneath warm brown eyes. Her skin was sun-kissed, and her hair dark and lustrous, with a bounce like I remembered my mother having. My mother had been more elfin, slender, with sharper cheekbones and plump lips. My own round face resembled my aunt’s more than it had ever looked like those pictures of my mother I’d found. And yet…

  ‘My God!’ She grabbed me by the neck, jolting my head up to look at her. This was a woman who had clearly broken the necks of unsuspecting chickens before they even realized what was happening. Or she smothered them to death as she cuddled them. ‘You look just like her. Mama, doesn’t she look just like Isabella?’

  The tiny woman i
n the corner, dressed all in black, her white hair tied back severely, looked up from her paper to scan my face, considered it, then tilted her head to the side, shrugged, and went back to her paper. Apparently I had been dismissed. That woman was meant to be my grandmother? She didn’t seem to care at all. I didn’t remember her, and she knew I was staring, but still refused to meet my eyes. Well then, lovely. The unwanted English granddaughter. Of course.

  I was manoeuvred towards a seat at the kitchen table.

  ‘You must be hungry, Mia! Your flight was hours ago. You’ll eat, won’t you? I made a plate up because I didn’t know when you would get back. Your cousin drives like a lunatic, I’m relieved you got here in one piece!’ My aunt grasped my hands as I sat, her eyes tracing my face again in that distracting way. She was seeing past me, she was seeing her sister, and I watched as her eyes glossed over. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. She clapped her hands, off to fetch a plate from the kitchen.

  ‘Nicoletta, mangi?’

  Nikki nodded, falling into a seat next to me. ‘Mama, Mia doesn’t have a boyfriend.’

  Her mother clicked her teeth whilst I looked at my cousin in shock. ‘Betrayer!’

  ‘Better to get it over with early,’ she whispered, grinning.

  ‘And you don’t have a husband when the man begs you once a week – which of you is the fool?’ Nikki’s mother raised an eyebrow, before placing two huge bowls of pasta in front of us.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s only simple, I didn’t know what you ate. It’s been so long.’

  She clasped her hands in front of her, and I felt myself becoming tearful again, but reined it in. God, what was with me lately? Years of being stoic and laughing in the face of illness, and suddenly a bowl of pasta made me want to blub. It had been a long time since anyone but my dad was that happy to see me. Even if Allegra’s response was only due to the fact that I was a conduit to a dead sister.