I knew all about being a monella viziata as a child. Not as an adult, though. Ben’s explanation and forgiving attitude helped me view Ernesto through a sympathetic lens. I would have struggled if he was sharing our home, with or without a wife and children. It can’t be easy adapting to the noise and mess a family creates, I thought. He was making an effort. Last weekend he kicked a football about the property with Matteo and he took part in Francesca’s tea party, sipping iced-water infused with flower petals, pretending it was delicious.
For these reasons I made light of Ernesto’s peculiar switches and attributed the tension between him and Ben to birth order, different business approaches, and the complex relationship they had with their mother. Nevertheless, her constant sniping was hard to take.
Matteo was there the Saturday morning she berated Ben for taking too long to change the radio station. We were in the drawing room.
‘Can’t you do anything properly?’
A saje fa’ na cosa bona. That was a bit rough, I thought.
‘Papa was making sure there wasn’t any static, Nonna,’ Matteo said.
‘I haven’t got all day. My serial is about to begin.’
‘Give it to me,’ Ernesto said, grabbing the radio from Ben.
‘Anything else I can do for you, Mamma?’ Ben said.
‘Fetch me a cushion.’
He picked up one from the sofa and went to put it behind her back.
‘That’s too soft. Find another.’
He offered a substitute.
‘Short on stuffing.’
He chose a third.
‘Wrong shape.’ She flicked a liver-spotted hand at him. ‘Get out of my sight.’
I couldn’t believe she could be this vile. Matteo lowered his head and shuffled his feet. I said, ‘Tell me which cushion you want and I’ll get it.’
‘You think I asked for this illness, for him?’ she said, stabbing a finger at Ben as he went out the door.
The rage in her voice contrasted starkly with her miserable demeanour.
We congregated on the terrace late that afternoon. The children ate the fruit I had set out on a platter. Carlo was deadheading a bed of annuals. Ben’s mother ordered him to fetch her an orange. ‘One with no blemishes,’ she said. Meanwhile Rosa and I eased her into a comfy chair and lifted her feet onto a pouffe. Unimpressed with our efforts, she said, ‘I haven’t the legs of a giraffe. Move me closer!’ And on Ben’s return, ‘I didn’t tell you to peel it.’
‘Choke on it for all I care,’ he said, and he threw the segments into her lap.
Her face registered shock rather than anger.
‘What a butterfingers,’ I said, scooping the pieces onto a plate.
‘Shift me into the shade, Julia,’ she said as she edged forward in the chair.
Once I had repositioned her, I walked over to where Ben was standing beside a statue of an angel. I rubbed a hand across his back and said quietly, ‘It’s been one of those days. She’s been bitching at me as well.’
At dusk, we went upstairs to change for dinner. In no great hurry to re-enter the fray, we lay on the bed blowing smoke rings at the chandelier above us. ‘What do you think fuels her caustic comments?’ I asked.
‘I’m not sure. She behaves like she hates me. Nothing about her makes sense. She has never held me close to her miserly heart. I doubt the situation will change, no matter what I do for her while we’re here. I’m sure she wishes I hadn’t been born. If it wasn’t for Rosa, I might not have made it through infancy.’
‘Thank goodness she was on the payroll.’
He shied away from me as if ashamed.
‘Help me understand, Ben.’ I rummaged through my mind for plausible explanations. ‘Was your mother unwell after your birth? Were there complications?’
‘None that I know about. If I dared approach her, she shooed me away or told me to find Rosa. I trailed behind this good woman while she worked, more often than not clutching a train engine Carlo had carved for me, fantasising about boarding a real train and leaving Il Casino di Caccia.’
‘Tell me more.’
‘Whenever my mother praised Ernesto, I ran to the scullery, slapped my hands over my ears and recited a rhyme Rosa taught me to block out their nonsense.’
‘I can’t bear to think of you as a neglected and confused little boy.’
‘Her constant belittling of me was partly why I left.’
‘And the other reasons?’ I asked.
‘Mostly to do with Sergio’s reputation.’
His tendency to refer to his father by his Christian name had led me to think he wanted to distance himself from the man and what he stood for. Yet he had told me ages ago ‘I have phantom pains of the heart’, which at the time I thought meant he felt his father’s absence as deeply as an amputee feels the loss of a limb — though he never mentioned him unless I pried.
Like on the second night of our honeymoon, unaccustomed to sleeping in each other’s arms, we woke and lay tangled in luxurious hotel bedding, talking about our lives before we met. ‘What can you remember about your father,’ I said.
He ran his knuckles back and forth over the scar on his thigh. ‘Sergio came and went like a shadow, only he was less predictable.’ Nothing further until I pushed, then he added, ‘He had secrets.’ At which point he rolled onto his side and feigned sleep, leaving me to conclude that long after he was murdered Sergio remained a presence that his son couldn’t or wouldn’t go near.
I was lost in this thought when Ernesto hollered for us to come downstairs.
Ben sprang from the bed onto the floor. ‘Hurry, Julia.’
‘You don’t have to jump to his tune. Spend your time winning over your mother, prove your worth to her.’
‘How?’
‘Show her the man you are at home. The man I love.’
‘And if she refuses to alter her opinion of me, what then?’
‘Most afternoons, she chats happily with Matteo and Francesca. Join them.’
His eyes brightened at the thought. ‘You’re right. The fondness she shows towards the kids might extend to me. They can help me with the jobs she dishes out.’
‘And when they’re at school?’ I said, detecting a flaw.
‘I’ll make myself scarce.’
‘Leaving me and Rosa to do everything; I don’t think so.’
‘I won’t leave the property. Just stay out of sight.’
‘Perpetuating the same behaviour you resorted to as a child isn’t the answer.’
I wanted him to confront the challenge head-on. Otherwise, there was nothing to gain. I got up and walked to the wardrobe. From a hanger I took an apricot sheath, and from the bureau a pair of nylons. I sat on the edge of a chair and rolled them up, securing the tops to a suspender belt. ‘Think, Ben. Can you recall anything that might have turned her against you?’
He gazed at me ruefully. ‘I’ve always been a stone in her shoe.’
Well, damn well find out why, I wanted to yell at him but I hid my irritation behind a suggestion. ‘Have you thought of asking Rosa?’
‘Even if she knew she wouldn’t break a confidence. She and Carlo were living on the streets when my parents took them in.’
‘Is there anyone who would know? A relative, maybe.’
‘No one I trust.’
‘It’s not fair to expect the children or me to put up with this tosh.’
‘Stop hassling me.’
‘You have to sort it out, Ben. Confront her. Don’t be such a pushover.’
In a flash, he was at my side, gripping my arms. I gaped at him in shock. Pure malice stared back. ‘What’s going on, Ben? Let go.’ My voice tailed off to a whimper. He pressed his thumbs into my forearms, hard. I winced. ‘Take your hands off me!’ I kicked him with my stockinged feet. ‘Have you gone insane?’
He let me go.
‘Jesus, Julia, I’m sorry. It’s this revolting villa, my hideous brother, and her. They rub me up the wrong way. Forgive me. It won’t h
appen again.’
‘Damn right it won’t.’
We finished dressing in silence and made our way downstairs.
13
That same week Rosa taught Francesca to dust confectioner’s sugar evenly across cenci biscuits shaped like bow ties and set to cool on a rack.
‘Nice work,’ I said as Ben and I came into the kitchen with armfuls of lemons we’d picked from a tree in the lower garden.
‘Francesca, she learns well,’ Rosa said. ‘She does a nice job with the biscuits. And she feeds milk to the kitten through an eyedropper. I teach her good.’
‘I’ve named her Misty,’ Francesca said. She had found a bedraggled stray prowling around the front gate and smuggled it into the villa and up to her room in a shopping bag. Its pitiful meowing had given the game away.
‘You have my daughter pegged, Rosa,’ Ben said, with a smile. To me, ‘See she doesn’t adopt the entire litter.’
‘Signora Moretti and the others,’ said Rosa, ‘they wait for you in the dining room. Go through. I bring soon your dinner.’
The meal started with polenta and broad beans. ‘Delicious as always, Rosa,’ Ben said.
‘Thank you,’ she replied, and scuttled off to fetch the second course.
I cleared the first set of dishes and arranged another. Rosa reappeared with a serving platter stacked with chicken pieces swimming in a divine-smelling caper and lemon sauce. She placed the spread in front of Ben. ‘This will make you strong.’ She pierced the juiciest-looking thigh with a fork and edged it towards his plate.
‘Don’t give the best meat to a sponger,’ his mother said. ‘Ernesto’s the worker. He deserves it.’
Rosa’s amenable expression remained unchanged as she followed the order. However, after we began to tuck in, she said, ‘May I eat with Carlo in the cottage tonight?’ She meant their modest dwelling situated at the rear left-hand corner of the property.
‘Of course,’ said Ernesto. ‘Take the evening off. Julia can see to the dishes.’
‘Do you like it here?’ his mother asked me.
‘I’m getting the hang of things,’ I said. ‘I haven’t seen many sights, though.’
‘You’re staying rent-free. What more do you want?’
I doubt she expected an answer, because she broke into Ben and Ernesto’s discussion about a coterie of politicians featuring in Il Mattino. If the brothers had gone on about these men’s scandalous lifestyles instead of the size of their speedboats, I might have listened, not let my thoughts drift to the evenings Ben and I had spent with our London friends, debating everything under the sun.
Friday evenings when Muz could babysit, we dined with Clinty at her boyfriend Jasper’s restaurant, along with Oliver, and Marsha and Simon. Sometimes the Fulham Road pack joined us, and Diann and her Antipodean mates often dropped by. Over cocktails, we dissected the ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and other luminaries. If anyone mentioned a book I hadn’t read, I got a copy on loan from the library. Over time I realised I wasn’t as dim as I’d thought when I dismissed Oxford as too highbrow for me. None of the men among this circle of friends seemed to doubt their intellect, Ben included.
When I tuned into the brothers again, they were discussing a proposed highway that would start in Salerno and finish in Reggio Calabria. ‘The main obstacle is the geography,’ Ben was saying. ‘By necessity the road will be narrow and it has to span mountain ravines high above the sea.’
‘I think the biggest challenge is ensuring that the European funding coming in is spent on the project. Sounds like a job-for-votes culture is operating,’ I said, having read a newspaper article along those lines during the week.
‘Your wife’s only been in the country five minutes and already she knows more than you, Benito,’ his mother said. ‘Julia, keep me informed of developments while Ernesto works day and night to support his incompetent brother.’
After tidying up and getting the children to bed at a decent hour, I went outside and walked the length of the terrace, taking in the full sweep of the bay and a host of ruins and ugly post-war buildings, all of which looked in danger of slipping into the water. It felt to me that neither the city nor I had control over our destinies. A wave of panic rolled through me as I speculated, as I had on the train, whether we had made an unwise decision to come to the Vomero. I flung both arms around a stone pillar and hung on. My mother-in-law inflated Ernesto’s ego with ill-deserved praise and deflated Ben’s with equally unwarranted comments. At the moment of impact she appeared to watch the fallout with pride, but afterwards lapsed into a crestfallen state. I vacillated between viewing her as a bully and a weakling, until the lonely screech of an owl broke through the darkness. The desolate sound paralleled my despondency. I could give in or fight. As the whirr of wings faded, I let go of the pillar and marched inside, determined not to let the destructive patterns of the Moretti family derail my relationship with Ben.
Thereafter I studied with forensic intensity the interactions between the brothers and their mother. Much of what I witnessed bewildered me. For instance, I was clearing away the Sunday lunch dishes when Ben said, ‘Mamma, it’s a lovely day. Would you like to sit under the shade of a tree for an hour this afternoon? Julia and I could find you a nice spot and a comfortable chair.’
‘And have pollen destroy what’s left of my lungs. No thank you!’
Her sarcasm sent Ben and me outside to steady our nerves with a cigarette. We hadn’t been puffing long when she appeared on Ernesto’s arm, hobbling to a seat under an awning, cackling about whatever he was saying to her.
‘Are you sure she’s not descended from a long line of witches?’ I whispered to Ben, but he was already making tracks for the trees at the rear of the property, as far away as he could get from his mother and brother, and me.
Hours later, over a light supper, Ernesto and Matteo chatted about football, a safe topic I thought, until Ben praised the speed and ability of the Thirties football star Giuseppe Meazza.
‘The player everyone calls Il Balilla?’ Matteo said.
‘That’s right, son. No one has come close to breaking his records.’
Ernesto said, ‘The Argentine, Alfredo Di Stéfano, is about to end his reign.’
‘He’s not Italian,’ argued Ben.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Ernesto.
I sent Matteo and Francesca to bed and made a pot of coffee, which I took through to serve in the drawing room. The topic had changed to racing drivers. While the men taunted each other, I flicked through a fashion magazine Clinty had posted to me. It had a three-page spread of her latest line: tunics above the knee, striped dresses, flouncy skirts. The models had their hair piled up and fastened into place with bows. I glanced at my drab skirt and top. Lordy, I was turning into a drudge. I closed the magazine and listened to Ben, who was in full flow.
‘I rate young Cesare Perdisa. He’s a promising driver and a decent person by all accounts,’ he said. ‘Remember he handed over his car in the ’56 Belgian Grand Pix to Stirling Moss after he lost a wheel from his Maserati.’
‘Wimps never rise to the top,’ Ernesto said. ‘Perdisa should have driven to the finish line. He could learn a lot from Dorino Serafini. He still holds the record for highest percentage of podium places per race.’
‘He mostly competed in non-Champion Formula One events.’
‘Proves my point,’ Ernesto said. ‘He wasn’t up to the job.’
‘Stop it!’ I yelled. ‘You’re worse than the children.’
Ernesto’s eyes bulged like a bullfrog’s. He snatched a biscuit from the plate and left the room.
‘I think we should go to Positano for a break,’ Ben said.
Already regretting my outburst, I said, ‘We can’t leave your mother. What would the doctor and the priest think? And the children can’t miss their lessons.’
‘Please yourself,’ he said, ‘and stop nagging.’
‘You ought to make more effort to get along with Ernesto and her.’
‘Who do you think we’re dealing with? Mother Teresa and the Pope?’
Rather than work through our concerns as we had at home, I got huffy and Ben put a morose record on the turntable and turned up the volume. I wanted to kick the bloody thing over and trample the vinyl into tiny shards. But that wouldn’t solve anything. I had to discover what made his mother tick.
An opportunity arose on Friday after school to question Rosa on the quiet. The children were staging a gymnastic display outside for their nonna. Rosa and I were in the kitchen tidying up the lunch dishes.
‘Ben said his mother grew up in the Vicaria district. Do you know it, Rosa?’
‘Vicaria very bad.’
‘Did she have anything going for her there?’
‘Signora Moretti, she listened to the street singers.’
‘Did she have a good voice?’
‘Yes,’ said Rosa. She blew soap bubbles off the rim of a glass. ‘She made it into the clubs.’
‘Is that where she met Sergio?’
‘No more questions, I beg you. Ernesto, he not like.’ She crossed herself.
‘He and Ben won’t be back for ages. I’ve seen a photograph of Sergio. He’s the spitting image of Enrico Caruso. I bet he used this likeness to win her over. Did he promise her a better future?’
‘Sergio, he kept his word. They marry. Three years and he moves her and Ernesto up the hill. I say nothing else.’ She banged a plate down on the bench with such force it broke in two. ‘See what you made me do.’
After more kowtowing on my part, my mother-in-law allowed me to polish her bedroom furniture and dust her candles, statues and vases. As I worked, she spoke of Sergio travelling the length and breadth of Campania on business. ‘He’d be gone for weeks,’ she said, wheezing from her armchair. She had mild congestion in her chest. On the doctor’s instructions, Rosa was loosening the build-up of phlegm with hot poultices. ‘He probably had women everywhere.’
Going on what Ben had told me, Sergio put power and money above women. ‘Unexplained absences don’t necessarily signify adultery,’ I said.
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