Love You Two

by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli

  Over the last month I’ve had a recurring dream of a heart – ventricles and aortas, valves pumping and throbbing with love and life – tied up with a rainbow-coloured ribbon. I’ve had a dream in which the landscapes of two hearts blur and become one and yet many. In this dream, I’m many-mirrored, standing on bridges in the fine lines where the landscapes superimpose on each other. Then I’ll wake, smiling and sad, and look out my bedroom window into the vast blackness of night sky with its multiple needlepoints of stars and threads of moonbeam. Colourful light refracts from the stone John gave me, which I keep on my windowsill.

  John died four days after Christmas. I spent a day holding his crystal and ID while I cried in my room. Mick moved in with Wei Lee and Zi Don while they sorted out John’s family, funeral and the life Mick would need to begin without John.

  New Year’s Eve was its usual frenzy of all-night partying but instead of resolutions, I offered a list of questions I hope the year answers for me.

  Will Mum and Nat work it out? I know they’ve been catching up sometimes because she gave him my present and I got his, a beautiful diary with a key. Go figure out that coincidence … or strega magic! I don’t know where they’re at. I don’t want to ask Mum anything ’cos I don’t know how much I want to know. I’ll just let them be, and get to know Gianna as my mum again.

  But I asked Dad one question. ‘Why do you still love her, Dad?’ He was watering the garden on a warm January evening as the sun set.

  He’d shrugged and smiled reflectively. ‘Because I do. And I can understand how someone else can too. I was very hurt at first. Everything I knew about relationships was coming apart. And the jealousy tooks its time to work through. There was lots of talking with Nat and your mum, that’s for sure, Pina. Yeah, it was tough, but it was worthwhile. She’s incredibly loveable, a happy spirit who makes your own soul soar if she’s left to love the way she can.’ He’d looked at me as we strolled over the lawn, the water making leaves shine. ‘It’s not always easy, Peanut. But after all these years, I still can’t imagine my life without her. She still makes each day feel like a honeymoon, whether she’s with me or not, and I don’t see that in a lot of marriages, twenty years in.’ He’d turned to me again with his mushy smile. ‘Does that sound weird to you? Am I what you call a loser?’

  There’s another question: are my parents losers in their weirdness? I’d shrugged and looked at him shyly, just as Mum came out with glasses of lemonade. ‘Yeah, well, you are. And it’s hard out there for me with you. But I love you t(w)oo,’ I’d said softly. ‘And I can’t imagine my life without my wacko parentals.’

  And what’s in store in my own love-life? The week Andrew came to Adelaide was awesome. He stayed over, no questions asked, but we didn’t tell the nonni, and they didn’t get to meet him. Maybe next time. Will there be a next time? Mum, Dad and Leo just took to him. My friends just lapped him up. We found that we really felt something getting stronger between us. We’re going to link up again in the Easter holidays in Melbourne. That’s as far as I’m willing to think into the future.

  Ralph’s been on MSN telling me about the break-up with his girlfriend, so I’m going to catch up with him too when I get back to Melbourne. Am I heading down my mother’s track with two guys? Don’t think so. Just the thought creeps me out! I’ll be happy, and I think most people would be happy, if just one relationship worked out in this life. I’m not doing any serious committing with Andrew, and I’ve told him I want to catch up with Ralph, that Scott’s possessiveness and pushiness, which I had naively, so stupidly, mistaken for love – no, desperately wanted to believe was love – is what I never want to deal with again. At this stage, with so much schoolwork looming, and decisions about my future to be made based on numbers attached to my name at the end of this year, I’m just taking it slowly. All I’m certain I want is to have a special guy like my dad, or, yeah okay, Nat. Someone who’ll treasure me and respect me, with whom I can argue and debate and disagree without feeling he’ll do a runner, and who’ll be horny for me – and me for him in return, of course.

  What will happen to my nonni this year? I spent quite a bit of time with them over the holidays. I found I was a little more patient and understanding. And somehow they were both a little more relaxed and resigned to what’s real. They never mentioned anything about Christmas Day or Nathan or Zi Don, or their own pasts. But maybe, because it was now finally said, fished out and prodded, it was able to sink again to where it no longer bobs unexpectedly to the surface. I live with them in the present, helping Nonna and Nonno do their shopping, or acting as their interpreter at the weekly doctors’ visits.

  I notice Nonna’s stopped being so spiteful and agitated, just shrugs her shoulders and says, ‘Che vita, ha? I don’t know. Non si capisce niente,’ when something threatens to spill over into sad or confusing or figura stuff. I also notice Nonno doesn’t sleep as much, has even started taking walks around the block and sitting out the back with Nonna in a kind of peace-treaty silence, both staring straight ahead at their garden. Now and again, he pats her hand. Now and again, she’ll turn to him, sniff and slowly nod.

  One day, while Nonna was chatting over the backyard fence with a neighbour about how incomprehensible this new generation is and I was filling in their latest Medicare forms, Nonno took my hand and whispered, ‘Max.’

  ‘What, Nonno? Who’s Max?’

  ‘When I die and Nonna dies,’ he continued, ‘in my wardrobe, at the back, under the broken piece of wood, you’ll find … about … Max. But not before we die.’ His cloudy eyes had got all teary, his smile strong and shaky.

  So that’s another question: who is this other uncle I have out there? But I was too scared to give Nonno a heart attack about it by even mentioning him. After he told me this, I was tempted to sneak into their bedroom and discover who this Max was. After all, I’d become quite an expert at doing archaeological digs in homes. But then I knew I might not be able to stay silent, and that I needed to obey Nonno’s wishes. This wish of his, whispered to me, was out of his respect, and yes, his love for Nonna. For the sake of giving Nonna some peace in this world, finally, in these last few years, Max would have to wait.

  In the meantime, as I try to cram every single book into my tiny metal locker, I’ve got Year Twelve to start. I hear my name being called. Rosie and Laura rush up to me, Rosie with her dress hitched up, shiny black hair flying, and looking her usual sultry sexy self with thick black eyeliner, thick black mascara and luscious red lips. ‘You look so awesome!’ I tell her, ‘like a wog-chick-goth!’

  ‘A happy wog-goth, thanks very much. Check out my nails,’ and she lightly scratches my arm with her black talons.

  ‘As our mums asked this morning, have you factored in the uniform policy?’ Laura comments, with an affectionate smile at her.

  ‘BS policy! I’m in Year Twelve and I’ll be such a goodie-goodie girl wonder, they’ll let me get away with it. Pina, check out her Giuza get-up,’ and she smirks disdainfully at Laura. ‘She looks so gay in her neat and proper uniform. Our lesbian ladies were so proud of her this morning.’ This is the chick who finally emailed her brother Antonio in January – lucky Facebook can find you on a dairy farm in Spain – and told him it was time he grew up, got over their Mum’s love-life, and came home for a visit. Then she reduced the size of the text to sneak in: ‘I do miss you, big brother, and I don’t usually get this mushy over guys lately.’

  We’re stacking our books into the lockers when Lisa jogs over with the latest instalment. Lisa’s got stronger over the holidays, even trying to quit smoking although she’s now fretting over gaining a kilo so she’s taken to jogging everywhere and chewing gum incessantly. But still, it’s like she’s been released from having to react to her parents. So she tells us about them now, in between organising her locker and chewing.

  ‘Dad’s been sprung cheating again, shock, horror, and Mum burnt his work shirt with the iron this morning. Then he cried like a baby and kissed her, and she screamed
at him, off her nut, so before he left for work he showed us the burn on his shirt, saying in this wounded Romeo voice to her, like he’s on a stage or something, “I will wear this shirt today as a symbol of my shame and love for you.” Then they had this huge tonguey at the front door. Honestly, it’s straight out of one of those Fellini movies of pukey Italian passion. I swear my mother loves it. Jesus, I should get Jerry Springer on to them. Husbands who cheat and wives who get off on the drama of it.’ She’s finished stacking her books and now makes a tidy pile of ten chewing gum packets, refreshing the two pieces in her mouth.

  Is this my cue? Not today. So many opening lines over the last month, but I just can’t go there.

  The bell’s gone, four booms that crash into your head. Wouldn’t it be more chilled if we could start the year, the school day, with some funky music? The four of us look at each other and look around us. The locker area’s emptying as students do their optimistic ‘I’m going to make a good start to the year’ scurry to classrooms. We hesitate. We stand closer together and stare at the classroom door we’re supposed to go through.

  ‘The wardrobe,’ I mutter. They turn to me, curious. This last month has seen our friendship go back to what it was before it took the nosedive. Or is it that it’s really blossoming into something better as we become more and more who we want to be? So when will I trust them enough to test our friendship by leading them through my wardrobe?

  I take another book out of my bag, one I’ve taken to carrying, and turn to the last page, bookmarked by John’s ID card. My friends are freaking out over their timetables, especially after Lisa accidentally spits chewing gum on Rosie’s, and Laura informs them there were updates on the school webpage that they were supposed to download over the weekend. So I sneak a look at the cover and remember how the Professor wonders what schools are actually teaching children. I wonder when the time will be right to tell my friends more about my adventures, and the new Narnia in my home.

  ‘Let’s go babes,’ Rosie now announces. I shut the book and store it at the back of my locker. We do this loserish Giuza march into the classroom, and then do a double-Giuzy-loser by sitting at the front.

  My heart’s pumping so hard.

  Will I get through this year? Will I get into uni?

  Will my family be outed? Will I want to out them?

  Will something really special keep developing between Andrew and me? How will I feel when I see Ralph again?

  Will I run into Scott at some event? How many dudes at school know what happened? Does his little brother know? Will he make school hell for me and Leo? Will my little brother be courageously nerdy at school?

  Will I ever meet my other uncle, Zi Max? And how do I stop myself wanting to meet him when it means almost hanging out for my nonni’s death?

  What if Zi Don falls in love with a guy? Will he still love Wei Lee? Will Wei Lee stay with him?

  How’s Nat’s first day back teaching? What if he falls in love with someone else? What if Dad cracks it with Mum after all? What if I do?

  So many what-if’s, and either/or’s, and no definites! My fingers go towards my breast pocket and I calm down. I’ve got John’s ID card next to my own ID card in my uniform. I’ve stopped snooping into Mum’s emails but I’m on the internet a lot more, talking to other young people like me around the world who have my kind of family or bisexual parents, like my uncle will one day be. I didn’t know I was part of such a community out there. I’m learning heaps, so I’m more of a student than my school would want to know.

  I think of my dad’s lunch in my locker: a full-on salami-tomato-mozarella-oregano panino. It’s got the note Mum left next to Leo’s and my lunches this morning before she left for work, well before we woke up, the note with ‘Love you t(w)oo’ on it. I feel strangely happy, in a hurt kind of way.

  At the end of this school day of edits and erasures, the first of way too many, I’ll be going home.

  Italian glossary

  basta

  enough

  bella faccia

  beautiful face

  bella figura

  beautiful impression/socially approved

  bellino

  cute, (or ‘sweetheart’ or similar)

  Buonasera, belle donne!

  Good evening, beautiful women!

  cara

  dear/beloved

  carissima

  dearest

  Che croce!

  What a cross (to bear)!

  Che figura!

  What a (poor) impression!/How embarrassing!/How shameful!

  Che vita, ha?

  What a life, huh?

  cuore

  heart

  doveres

  duties

  faccia pulita

  clean face

  facciamo una bella figura

  make a good impression

  Fa la brava!

  Be a good girl!

  famiglia

  family

  fidanzata

  fiancée

  figura

  figure (often in the sense of the impression one gives)

  finocchio

  literally ‘fennel’, also slang for ‘gay man’

  fortuna

  fortune

  forza

  strength, force

  fratello

  brother

  giornale

  newspaper

  grazie Dio

  thank God

  I panni sporchi romanini nella famiglia.

  Dirty washing stays in the family.

  la Germanesa

  the German woman

  mal’occhio

  evil eye

  mangia

  eat

  Ma no mi capisce?

  Don’t you understand me?’

  Maria Vergine, Mamma di Dio!

  Virgin Maria, mother of God!

  Mettiamo una bella faccia.

  Let’s put on a good face./Let’s put up a good front.

  mio amore

  my love

  non e famiglia

  not family

  paesani

  countrymen

  passeggiata

  walk

  Pezzi di pane!

  Pieces of bread! (‘Perfect!’)

  pranzo

  lunch

  principessa

  princess

  puttana

  prostitute/slut

  schivo

  disgusting

  sfogare

  to vent

  sorella

  sister

  strega

  witch

  stupidona

  stupid girl

  vergogna

  shame

  Tapestry

  Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli

  I was born and raised in Adelaide, Australia; but the Maria that was to be had already come into existence in the villages of the Campania region of Italy. Their names were as familiar to me as the name of my own street. I grew up as part of a tapestry, rich with the colours of many realities, woven with the threads of many places, spaces and times.

  This is Maria’s exploration of the tapestry embroidered from five generations of women and men in her family, from the turn of the twentieth century to its final years, from the poor villages of Italy to the cities of Australia, and back to a nineties Italy that is both alien and home.

  Shortlisted for the 2000 CBCA Eve Pownall Award

  for Information Books

  Shortlisted for the 2000 NSW Premier’s Literary

  Award in the Ethnic Affairs Commission Category

  Author’s note

  Hi Readers,

  ‘Lots of scraps from lots of cupboards make up a story.’

  Annie Proulx

  Although this is a work of fiction, I wish to acknowledge the many young people and their families I’ve met over the years in my research into cultural diversity, gender diversity, sexual diversity and family diversity. These ordinary extraordinary people have provided me w
ith the plots, the characters and the issues. In particular, I wish to thank Naomi and Alan, who allowed me to draw so much from their lives, families and friends in the creation of this novel. Yes, everything and everyone in this book is ‘real’, woven into a work of fiction. I wanted to make academic research and academic theory accessible to the very people who are living these rainbow realities that we research and theorise about. I hope I have come some distance in achieving this.

  I also wish to acknowledge the work of the Australian Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Intersexed, Queer and Questioning (GLBTIQ) Multicultural Council Inc (AGMC) and the many multicultural GLBTIQ groups that support so many Australians in living their rainbows. Sharing work, activism and friendships with you is a privilege and an honour.

  I wish to thank my incredible family and inspirational friends who supported me, as always, through the developing and writing of this novel. For someone so steeped in reporting research and theorising reality, the task of constructing a piece of fiction was a major challenge. So thank you for your patience and encouragement, even when what I was trying to achieve didn’t make sense, and even if what I’m trying to say about love, families and social diversity isn’t how you see it.

  In particular, I wish to thank my number one reader, daughter and friend Steph Chiarolli. Her questions and suggestions regarding any ‘feralness’ in the manuscript – which she delivered with good humour and beautiful encouragement – added very important touches. To my other three main readers, Madeleine, John and Bryan, thanx so much for wading through the manuscript in its earlier stages.