Kal

by Judy Nunn

  Now Enrico sat staring at his untouched soup, no longer hungry, wishing that he could leave the table.

  ‘And if the coward does not come back,’ Rico continued, pushing his emptied soup bowl to one side, ‘then I will find him.’

  ‘I’m going for a walk.’ Giovanni rose from the table. He’d listened to as much as he possibly could in silence. He knew if he said anything it would start an argument and that was the last thing Teresa wanted. He had sensed her tension. It was palpable as she toyed with her food and stared at the tablecloth.

  Now she looked up. ‘But the pasta…’

  ‘I am not hungry, Teresa. The soup was excellent. Thank you.’

  ‘Giovanni …’ But Giovanni was already out the door.

  ‘He wants to walk,’ Rico growled dismissively. ‘Let the man go. I tell you, Teresa, when I am mended I will hunt Harry Brearley down. I will hunt him down and …’

  Giovanni had been wrong. An argument was exactly what Teresa wanted. More than an argument. Far more. She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw Rico’s soup bowl across the room and watch it smash against the yellow daisy wallpaper. She wanted to hit Rico as hard as she could, to feel the palm of her hand sting as it slammed against his cheek. Anything to shut him up. She’d been quiet too long and she could take no more.

  ‘Enrico, Carmelina, put Salvatore to bed please.’ She wiped the toddler’s face and lifted him from the bench.

  Enrico knew something was about to happen. He rose, circled the table and took the child from her. The little boy squirmed and squealed, insisting he be put down so that he could walk on his own.

  ‘But, Mamma,’ Carmelina protested, ‘the pasta.’

  ‘You can have some pasta when you have put Salvatore to bed.’

  Carmelina recognised the steel in her mother’s tone and offered no further argument. The two children, Salvatore toddling clumsily between them, walked to the door of their parents’ room where the toddler slept.

  ‘Close the door,’ Teresa instructed, ‘and stay there until I call you.’

  Rico drained his glass of wine. It was his fifth but he was not at all drunk. ‘What is going on, Teresa?’ he asked as he reached for the wine jug. ‘Why have you sent the children away?’

  ‘We need to talk.’ She said it as evenly as she could although, watching the wine spill from the corner of his mouth as he guzzled from the glass, she wanted to hit him again.

  ‘Mmm? What about?’ He didn’t appear remotely interested. ‘Where’s the pasta?’

  She wanted to throw the pasta in his face. ‘We need to talk about Harry Brearley,’ she said instead. And she watched his face cloud over as she knew it would.

  ‘I will kill him,’ Rico muttered, and his fingers tightened around the glass. Any minute it would break. ‘Just you wait and see. Very slowly, I will kill him.’

  Teresa leaned across the table until her face was barely inches from her husband’s and there was a madness in her eyes to equal his. ‘If you kill Harry Brearley, I will kill you,’ she said.

  ‘Eh?’ Rico looked back at her dumbly, the glass poised in mid-air.

  ‘If you kill Harry Brearley then I will take the children and I will leave you. And that will kill you, Rico.’

  ‘What is the matter with you? The man ruins our family and you try to protect him. What is the matter with you, woman?’

  ‘I am not protecting Harry Brearley. When I think of what he did I could kill him myself. But it is not Harry Brearley who is ruining this family. It is you! You, Rico!’

  ‘Me!’ Rico’s face was a picture of comic innocence. ‘What have I done?’

  The very expression that once beguiled her now irritated her beyond control. ‘Giovanni works to support us and you drive him from the house.’

  Rico looked exasperated. ‘The man went for a walk…’

  ‘I would not blame him if he left us all to starve. And as for the rest of your family…’ Rico was about to interrupt again but Teresa continued. ‘Your son lives in fear of you. Even your daughter—’

  ‘My daughter does not fear me.’ Rico would not have his relationship with his precious Carmelina questioned. ‘She fears nothing.’

  Teresa wasn’t listening. She barely drew breath. ‘But I do not fear you, Rico.’ She reached out and wiped her hand across his mouth. ‘Look at you,’ she said disgustedly, ‘you dribble your food like Salvatore. You are a pig.’

  Rico froze.

  ‘You are a pig, do you hear me?’ she repeated, her face distorted now with anger.

  Slowly, Rico rose from the table.

  Teresa rose also. ‘You have the manners of a pig!’ Her voice was becoming shrill as her anger found its release. He walked around the table towards her. ‘You drink like a pig! You eat like a pig!’

  He reached out and she felt his hand clasp the side of her head. She felt his fingers closing on her thick hair, locking into a fist. She grabbed at his wrist but couldn’t release his grip.

  ‘I have always eaten like a pig, Teresa.’ As the hand held her firm, the eyes drilled into hers. ‘Always…’

  ‘You cannot frighten me, Rico.’ She stopped struggling and stared back at him. ‘You will never frighten me.’

  ‘…and always you have liked it.’ His voice was quiet and he seemed not to have heard her as he continued. ‘You have told me before that I eat like a pig,’ he said. ‘And you have laughed and called me an animal. And you have kissed me and taken the food from my mouth into your own. And we have made love.’

  Teresa continued to stare into his eyes. And realised that it was not anger she saw there. It was shock. And hurt. She stood motionless as he ran his hand down the side of her face, resting his thumb for a moment against her lips before continuing on to her throat.

  ‘Do you no longer love me, Teresa?’ he whispered. ‘Do you no longer love me?’ His voice was bewildered, and the look in his eyes was one of utter confusion.

  Teresa was lost for words, mesmerised. She had never seen him so vulnerable.

  With his fingertips, he stroked her neck and her hair, thoughtfully, studying his own hand as he did so. ‘If you no longer loved me because there was another man, then I would have to kill that man, and I would have to kill you too. But if you no longer loved me because your love had died, Teresa, then I would kill myself.’ He stopped stroking her and his hand rested lightly upon the base of her throat. ‘I would kill myself so that I would never have to see you with another man.’

  Teresa took his face in both her hands. ‘There is no other man, Rico,’ she whispered. She ran her fingers across the massive shoulders, then clasped the hand which rested upon her throat. ‘There will never be another man.’ And she glided his hand to her breast. ‘I love my pig the way he is.’ Her open mouth was upon his and she could taste the wine and the soup in his beard. She ground her body against him and felt herself grow moist with desire.

  Rico’s arm circled her waist and, in one movement, lifted her onto the table. He pushed her legs apart and buried his head between her thighs.

  Several plates smashed to the floor and Teresa laughed as he growled and pulled her dress up to her waist. ‘No, Rico, stop it. The children.’

  She squirmed away, ran to the bedroom and threw open the door. Salvatore was already asleep in his cot but, having heard the sound of breaking crockery, Enrico and Carmelina were standing together staring up at her apprehensively. Teresa was quick to reassure them.

  ‘An accident, that is all,’ she said a little breathlessly. ‘Now come along and eat your pasta.’ She returned to the dining table, grabbing the broom from the corner by the sink, and started to sweep up the broken plates. From the corner of her eye she could see Rico standing beside the door to Giovanni’s room, his erection conspicuous beneath his light cotton trousers.

  ‘Carmelina,’ she ordered, ‘fetch fresh plates. Enrico, serve the pasta.’ Teresa swept the debris into a corner of the room away from the children’s two small beds which were against one of the wa
lls. ‘Papa and I will be with you soon,’ she said as she joined Rico. ‘You may start to eat without us.’

  Together they disappeared into Giovanni’s bedroom and it was only seconds later that the children heard the guttural moans and the squeaking bed.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Carmelina asked as she carefully put the plates on the table.

  ‘They have stopped fighting,’ her brother explained. Enrico had heard the sounds many times before. He did not know what his parents were doing but he knew that, afterwards, his father would be in a good mood. Enrico was always glad when he heard the sounds. ‘Everything will be all right,’ he smiled. And he served himself an extra spoonful of pasta. Suddenly he was very, very hungry.

  Harry stood on the upper terrace and looked out over the sculptured hedges, the carved stone steps, the marble statues and intricate fountains. He looked beyond the formal gardens, across the gentle hills and sand dunes to the Indian Ocean barely a quarter of a mile away and Rottnest Island on the far horizen. It was a fine autumn day and he had enjoyed a brisk walk to the beach followed by a hearty breakfast, and now, as he sipped the last of the excellent coffee he’d brought onto the terrace with him, he wondered how much longer Gaston would be. The Frenchman had made an early visit into the city and had promised that, upon his return, they would talk business. ‘Today is the day, mon ami,’ he had said. ‘The holiday is over. Today we talk business.’

  ‘Would you like more coffee, sir?’

  Harry turned to the housekeeper who, as usual, had appeared magically beside him. At the Picot mansion one’s every whim was anticipated.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ He handed his cup to her and she just as magically disappeared.

  Harry tingled with anticipation. He had been staying at Maison Picot for nearly six weeks now and each time he had broached the business proposition, Gaston had been evasive. ‘All in good time, Harry,’ he would say expansively, ‘all in good time. First you must holiday. Besides,’ he would add with a twinkle, ‘how can a man discuss business without his teeth?’

  To begin with Harry had welcomed the opportunity to relax and regain his strength. He hadn’t realised how severely he had been affected by his humiliation at the hands of Giovanni, or how haunted he had been by his fear of the madman Rico. He put the Italians out of his mind and concentrated instead on having fun with Jack.

  The boy had never before seen the ocean and his reaction was a joy to behold. He swam daily, throwing himself headlong into the pounding surf and swimming out well beyond the breakers. Harry’s initial alarm turned to amazement at the lad’s strength and confidence in the water.

  ‘Where did you learn to do that?’ he asked.

  Jack grinned. ‘You can’t touch the bottom in the vats, Pa,’ he answered. ‘If you can’t stay afloat there you’re a goner.’

  Harry laughed. Of course. The vats were out of bounds, Maudie put her foot down firmly about that. He should have known.

  With Gaston away daily on business and his wife Gabrielle spending most of her time with their five-year-old daughter, Harry and Jack were left very much to their own devices. They played tennis on Gaston’s finely tended, sunken grass tennis court. They played billiards in his jarrah-panelled, parquetry-floored games room. They played hide-and-seek amongst the cypress hedges and rose bushes and statues. And when they walked across the sand dunes to frolic together on Cottesloe Beach, Harry, who loathed the water, even allowed Jack to try and teach him to swim.

  Little Simone tried desperately to join them on their daily adventures but Jack didn’t have much time for five-year-old girls, which more than suited Gabrielle Picot as she didn’t quite approve of either Harry or Jack. Oh, Harry Brearley was certainly handsome, she thought, and she was sure he’d have a way with the ladies, but his manner was just a shade too brash for refined circles. And he should really do something about the manners of his boisterous son.

  After a week of fun together, interrupted only by Harry’s visits to the dentist, it was time for Jack to return to Kalgoorlie.

  ‘Let him stay for one more week,’ Gaston insisted. ‘Louis will be home from boarding school for the weekend; the boys must meet.’

  Harry didn’t need much persuading, although he was fully aware that the meeting between the boys was a flimsy excuse. Jack may have been mature for his age but a boy of barely nine could hardly be of interest to a fourteen-year-old lad.

  Harry was right. Louis Picot scarcely deigned to notice young Jack as he chatted on endlessly about his friends at school and the rugby team. Fourteen seemed a ludicrously young age for a person to become a snob, Harry thought.

  ‘Like mother like son,’ he whispered encouragingly to Jack, hoping that the boy wasn’t feeling hurt or humiliated. But nothing could spoil the grand time Jack was having with his father, least of all the airs and graces of silly Louis Picot.

  A week later Jack boarded the train having had the best time of his entire life. And the train trip was an extension of the adventure. He waved goodbye to Harry, sat up straight on the seat of the dog carriage, his feet dangling a good twelve inches from the floor, his packed lunch clasped in his lap, and stared out of the window. He pretended that Maudie wasn’t meeting him at the other end. He was travelling the entire breadth of Australia. All on his own.

  Harry started to miss him the moment the train pulled out of the station.

  ‘Your coffee, Mr Brearley.’

  The housekeeper’s voice snapped him back to the present. ‘Thank you,’ he said, taking the cup from her. ‘It is magnificent coffee.’ He flashed her his most winning smile. He’d had his new ivory teeth for nearly a fortnight now and his confidence was totally restored. Gaston had been right, the dentist was a genius.

  The housekeeper instinctively beamed back—it was difficult not to respond to Mr Brearley’s charm. ‘Call me if there’s anything else you want,’ she said.

  Harry sipped the steaming brew. He’d never tasted coffee like it.

  Yes, he missed Jack. He missed Jack and he missed Maudie too. As soon as he had finalised his business with Gaston he would return to Kalgoorlie. But the time spent at the Picot mansion had been invaluable. Harry Brearley now knew what he wanted.

  This was what he wanted. He looked about at the spectacular terraces and sunken gardens, the rose bushes, cultivated lawns and rows of immaculate cypress hedges with not a leaf out of place. ‘Topiary is considered an art form in France,’ Gabrielle had patronisingly informed him. ‘Our man was taught by a topiarist from the gardens of the Palace of Versailles.’ Harry had no idea what a topiarist was until Gaston explained.

  ‘Just a man who cuts hedges,’ the Frenchman had said, darting a look of annoyance at his wife. Gabrielle was being particularly irritating lately and she had no right to be. She couldn’t possibly know of his latest peccadillo; he had been even more discreet than usual.

  Harry turned his attention toward the house. That’s what Gaston had called it. ‘It is just a house, Harry,’ he had said with a shrug of indifference. It wasn’t just a house at all, it was a mansion. In fact it wasn’t even a mansion, Harry thought. Damn it all, the place was a palace. All arches and columns and courtyards.

  ‘Mediterranean style,’ Gaston had explained with an airy wave of his hand. ‘It is nothing very special. They are everywhere in France. And Italy and Spain.’

  Gaston knew Maison Picot was impressive. Even by Mediterranean standards it was impressive, but in Perth—in the whole of Australia for that matter-the like of it had never been seen. Maison Picot was Gaston’s pride and joy. It was also a powerful business asset and he was fully aware of the effect it was having on Harry Brearley. That was part of his plan.

  Yes, this was what he wanted, Harry thought as he looked about him. He wanted arches and fountains. He wanted hedges, and topiarists to tend them. Well, maybe not hedges, he thought, maybe hedges would look silly in Kalgoorlie. Maybe not even fountains and arches; there wasn’t the water in Kalgoorlie for fountains anyway. But he wan
ted money. He wanted enough money to live like this. To give Maudie a life like this.

  ‘Harry, my dear friend, I am so sorry.’ Gaston had arrived. ‘The business meeting lasted a full hour longer than I had expected. Anne-Marie,’ he called, ‘café s’il vous plait.’

  Gaston launched immediately into his proposal—his timing was perfect and he knew it. He knew that Harry was hungry and ready for business, that was the way he had planned it. He had replaced the man’s teeth, rebuilt his confidence and watched whilst the magic of affluence cast its spell.

  He got straight to the point. His various businesses were allowing him less and less time to travel to and from Kalgoorlie, he said, but he didn’t want to sell up his interests there. Kalgoorlie real estate was, in his opinion, a very sound investment. Besides which he had a soft spot for the place.

  ‘I am even contemplating a further purchase,’ he said. ‘A property in the very centre of Hannan Street. A property which, if all goes according to plan, will bear my name,’ he added enigmatically. ‘But more of that later.’

  He needed an overseer, someone to safeguard his interests in his absence. ‘Jeanne Renoir has been keeping an eye on things for me over the past several years, but … merci, Anne-Marie.’ The housekeeper had magically appeared again and was placing a tray on the table. ‘No, no, I will pour. Ah, bon, pralines,’ he said, noticing the bowl of sweets. He seated himself at the table. ‘Come, Harry, come and have some coffee.’

  Harry sat. ‘No more coffee for me thank you, I have already had three cups. It’s delicious.’

  ‘A praline then.’ Gaston pushed the bowl of sugar-coated almonds in Harry’s direction. ‘They must have arrived this morning, there have been none for a month or more.’ Harry declined. ‘They are very good,’ Gaston assured him. ‘Gabrielle has them sent from France.’

  ‘So she told me,’ Harry nodded. And she had, when they’d finished dining awkwardly together in the breakfast room and she’d suggested he take his second cup of coffee onto the terrace whilst Anne-Marie cleared the table. ‘Have a praline, Mr Brearley,’ she’d said. Why couldn’t she call him Harry? He’d feel much more comfortable if she did. ‘I have them specially imported. From Paris.’