The Gulf Between

by Maxine Alterio

  Matteo jumped off his bed. ‘Get out.’

  I didn’t budge.

  He flung the comic he had been reading across the room. By chance, I caught it. In a blind rage, I shredded several pages and threw the pieces at him. ‘Grow up!’ I shouted and marched out, failing to see the irony of replicating the obnoxious behaviour of a troubled child.

  At daybreak I went looking for Ben. He hadn’t come to bed again. I found him in a dishevelled state on the telephone berating the chap in his London office whom he had left in charge of consigning goods to their destinations. There’d been a mix-up. A shipment had ended up at the wrong wharf. When he hung up, I said, ‘Why is it such a big deal?’

  ‘Certain. People. Are. Waiting.’ He hammered out each word to make it clear.

  If I’d been wiser and less stressed, I would have viewed it as the catastrophe he clearly thought it was. Upset over my latest row with Matteo and not thinking logically, instead of being supportive I said, ‘Ben, bloody well make Mattie see sense.’

  He lunched forward, grabbed hold of my top and pulled me towards him. His eyes were bloodshot. A bruise darkened the skin on his cheekbone. ‘Matteo is almost a man,’ he said. ‘Quit smothering him.’ He stank of alcohol.

  ‘Alessia could have smothered you.’

  As soon as the words were out, I regretted them.

  His fingers closed over my face like a visor. He shoved me against the wall. Smudgy black spots formed in my eyes. ‘Keep your nose out of matters you know nothing about!’ he said, saturating me with spit.

  I rushed upstairs to our bathroom, locked the door, put in the plug and ran a bath. The taps on full, I undressed and got into the water. With a flannel pressed to my face I wept for everything we were losing, for all of us diverging in ways I had once considered unimaginable, for treating each other as the enemy.

  38

  I was hesitant about celebrating Matteo’s team winning an important football match due to our strained circumstances, but that evening at Ben’s insistence I agreed to roast a fowl with pumpkin and potatoes and serve a side dish of beans. Rosa made ricotta e pere with pan di spagna, a scrumptious sponge cake. I had Francesca set the dining table with the best china. Alessia’s silk dress already swamped her, so I punched another notch in a thin leather belt and pouched the fabric a little more at her waist.

  She joined us for the cutting of the cake. As I handed Matteo the first slice, Francesca spied the violet quartz necklace Alessia wore to camouflage the wasting flesh and protruding bones. She leant over and fingered the stones. ‘Nonna, can I have this when you die?’

  ‘Francesca, that’s very rude,’ I said. ‘Apologise please.’

  I was prepared to wait for her to do so, but Alessia intervened. ‘Amethysts protect the wearer from seduction, Francesca,’ she said, her voice reedy as though she was under water. ‘You won’t get a husband if you put it on.’

  ‘What’s seduction, Mamma?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten, Francesca,’ I said, downing my glass of wine. It was not my first.

  Ben glowered at me, I assumed because we were no longer intimate. Actually, I was embarrassed and had uttered the first thing that popped into my head. In the uncomfortable silence, Ernesto poured Matteo a wine he didn’t water down and he also refilled my glass, almost to the brim. I didn’t object, although I noticed Matteo push his aside.

  Sometime afterwards, I met him on the stairs. ‘Don’t you care if I end up a drunk like you?’ he said.

  I slapped his face. He ran to his room, banged the door shut.

  Devastated that I had lashed out at his adolescent contempt a second time, I shouted out an apology. He was right: I was drunk, but I was miserable and scared and confused as well. Waiting in the hallway for his response, feeling like shit, brought up memories of previous transgressions such as the disdain I had showed to Muz in the lead-up to my wedding. The longer I lingered outside Matteo’s room the sadder I became. Unable to hold back my tears I headed to the guestroom and crept beneath the covers of a single bed, chest heaving with panicky sobs.

  ‘Where’s Matteo?’ I asked Rosa when I came down for breakfast, my head throbbing, my mouth dry. I was holding Misty, Francesca’s almost fully grown cat. It had jumped onto my bed during the night, providing unexpected comfort. I kissed the top of its head and put it out the door.

  Rosa clicked her tongue. ‘I tell Matteo he must eat, but he leaves with an empty belly. And Francesca, she won’t finish her milk.’

  ‘Drink up, Frannie, and I’ll drop you off,’ Ernesto said, reaching into his pocket for the car keys and jangling them in front of her.

  ‘Mamma, I want you to take me.’

  I looked at her carefully, trying to see what was behind her demand — mere contrariness or something more?

  ‘Please yourself, princess,’ her uncle said and picked up the newspaper.

  She edged over to me. ‘Come on, then,’ I said, ‘we need to get there before the bell rings.’

  We were almost at the villa gate when Rosa hailed us from the front steps. She was waving two paper bags in the air. We waited for her to reach us.

  ‘Francesca’s snacks,’ she said, handing one to her and the other to me. ‘Matteo, he also forgot.’

  ‘The idiot,’ I muttered under my breath, and louder, ‘Thank you, Rosa.’

  A quick tweak of Francesca’s ribbons and Rosa hurried back up the driveway, skirt flapping, apron ties fluttering. I wondered if she regretted devoting herself to the Morettis, if she and Carlo had ever wanted children.

  Not that I considered raising a family the ultimate fulfilment for everyone. Shortly after marrying, I’d read in an art magazine of Marsha’s that creative people needed long spells of solitude, a rare luxury for women with husbands and children, an impediment that might explain my failure as an actress. Unless — and I had to consider the possibility — I lacked talent. I’d had the contacts, so why not the contracts? Then I recalled the restrictions Ben had placed on the parts he allowed me to play and the hours I could work. No wonder my career had fizzled out.

  I delivered Francesca to her classroom and headed to Matteo’s school. Far too het up to talk to him, I left his biscuits and fruit with the office secretary.

  I was still in an irascible state the following Sunday as we milled about the church grounds, waiting to enter the vestibule. In no mood for small talk, I wandered over to a noticeboard to read the messages. Matteo was on the steps preening and guffawing with a couple of boys from his football team. As I drew closer I became infuriated at their macho display, and stalked over and said, ‘Matteo, follow me.’ Ignoring his scowl, I steered him towards Ben and Francesca, flattening his ridiculous quaffed hairstyle as we went.

  Out of sight of his mates, he detonated like a bomb. ‘Get your stupid hands off me. You’re useless!’ Contempt darkened his eyes. He shoved me aside and marched up to Ben, shouting. Ben yelled back. Next thing I knew, Matteo was leaving the grounds with his friends. Together they formed a sullen, heaving mass. Their afternoon match had been cancelled, another source of resentment. If they couldn’t run off their energy they were as crabby as big cats in cages.

  At dinnertime, he slid into his chair without speaking. Rosa filled his plate with spaghetti alle vongole and shavings of Parmesan, which he flipped to the side with a forefinger. ‘Manners, Matteo,’ I said.

  ‘Get lost, cow.’

  Ben, who had been pouring Francesca a glass of water, picked up the saltshaker and threw it at Matteo. It glanced off his shoulder and bounced onto the floor, breaking into smithereens. ‘Shut up and eat,’ Ben said.

  I was sweeping up the mess when Ernesto came in. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Mattie needs a Grizzly Bear pill,’ said Francesca, referring to the chewing gum Ben carried in his shirt pocket to stave off the urge to smoke. On the strength of Alessia’s doctor’s warning, he’d reduced from one pack to a half pack a day. I’d dropped to a single smoke last thing at night and a couple whenever I
was with Ilaria.

  ‘They’re not real medicine, Frannie,’ Mattie said, glaring at her.

  ‘Yes, they are, aren’t they, Papa?’

  ‘They must be,’ Ben said. ‘They stop your grumps.’

  ‘See, Mattie? Give him one, Papa.’

  After we had eaten, I cleared the dishes and filled the sink with soapy water. Ernesto came over and put his empty coffee cup on the bench. Leaning in he said, ‘There’s a surprise for you in the toolshed. Leave the washing up and see what it is. Go, Julia.’ He gave me a firm push.

  Fortunately, he didn’t follow, though he switched on the outside lights to mark the path. The shed was in darkness. I pushed open the door, reached for the cord that operated the light. What the hell? I pressed my hands to my mouth, not quite believing what I was seeing. In front of me, dangling from a beam, her head in a noose, Misty hung limp, eyes protruding, mouth slack, little pink tongue drooping. I took in a huge intake of breath. Screams snagged in my throat. I backed out horrified. Had Ernesto committed this vicious act? And sent me to find the cat on purpose? Why? What had I done? Or not done?

  I splashed handfuls of water on my face from the rain barrel. Afterwards, for lack of a better alternative, I walked in circles, grappling over what to tell Francesca, how to behave in front of Ernesto, whether to involve Alessia, Ben, anyone. I didn’t know who to trust. It occurred to me that it might be safer for everyone, Ben included, if I kept quiet. Especially if Ernesto valued silence as much as he did money. When no clear answers came to mind I decided that if I had to carry this burden alone, so be it. Pulling my tumultuous emotions into line, I returned to the villa. As I entered the drawing room, Ernesto increased the volume on the radiogram, drowning out anything I wanted to say or ask with cheesy music.

  While I didn’t forget Matteo’s notes, they dropped down my list of priorities. Naturally, Alessia’s impending death remained my main focus, although my heart went out to Francesca, who prowled around the grounds for days calling for Misty. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth. Kinder to let her think the animal had disappeared of its own accord.

  However, I resolved to let Ben know what Ernesto had sent me to find in the shed no matter what excuses he gave to avoid me. He and Ernesto had installed nightlights so Matteo could practise football moves before crucial city games. It was all they could talk about as they shovelled Friday’s dinner into their mouths.

  ‘Hurry up, Papa.’ Matteo sprang to his feet and tugged on his father’s shirt.

  ‘I’ll come and watch,’ I said, hoping for a chance to get Ben alone.

  ‘No females allowed,’ Matteo said. He hadn’t forgiven me for slapping him or shaming him in front of his friends at church.

  ‘Stay where you are, Julia,’ Ben said, placing a firm hand on my shoulder.

  Ernesto picked up the wine jug and poured what was left into my glass. ‘A consolation prize, Julia.’

  I drank it like medicine.

  39

  ‘Were your sons anything like Matteo when they were his age?’ I asked Alessia as I slid a clean nightgown over her head and edged her arms through the cap sleeves. She had lost more weight. ‘Did they do as they were told?’

  ‘You can’t compare them with an English boy. Mine worked from an early age and grew up fast. By the time they were in their teens they had seen unimaginable sights. Remember that we were under Fascist rule long before the war started. And once it was underway the danger increased, especially for males in their teens like Benito or their early twenties like Ernesto. The war forced boys to become men before their time. Females didn’t come away unscathed either.’ She let out a phlegmatic rumble. Hands to her barrelled chest, she crackled out, ‘The Germans destroyed the city’s water supply before retreating, and dropped sticks of dynamite into the main sewer lines.’

  Was there no end to the indignities armies were capable of inflicting on a population? ‘I can’t fathom the thinking that leads to such acts.’

  She groped at her cannula. I took her hand in mine, felt her fingers flutter. ‘Take your time, Alessia.’ Her eyes watered. She wheezed.

  I fought back angry tears on her behalf. There was a lengthy pause as she regained her ability to speak, now in agitated bursts. ‘Typhus caught hold,’ she said. ‘The coffin-makers couldn’t keep up. People dropped like flies, if not from disease then from hunger. Our railway lines and power stations were either damaged or destroyed. Likewise, every vessel in the bay.’ Wracked by a bout of coughing, the capillaries beneath her skin swelled like gorging leeches.

  I handed her a handkerchief, which she hoiked into while I fetched a replacement from the bureau. Her eyes slid over mine. ‘Hardened fishermen fell to their knees and wept. Others went to sea in drums or barrels, anything that stayed afloat long enough for them to drop a line and hook a fish. Many of these makeshift crafts sank and the elderly occupants drowned. Suicides were common too.’

  I hid my distress behind a platitude. ‘The innocent always suffer.’

  Alessia picked up her rosary beads and fingered them until she was able to carry on. ‘Not far from here three hunger-crazed mothers smothered their babies and hanged themselves.’ Her chest heaved beneath her nightgown. ‘Looters rampaged through the streets. We herded our livestock inside, bolted the windows and doors.’ She dropped her beads onto the bed and pulled at her hair, as if this were where the looters had set up camp.

  I was tossing up whether to intervene when she rammed her fists into the base of her throat. Was she trying to gag herself? Netting her hands in mine, I eased them onto her chest.

  ‘Women who had come to my home to play cards spat at me on the street. All because we had food on our table and they didn’t.’

  With some trepidation I said, ‘Ben told me Sergio was murdered.’

  ‘What would he know? He was practically on the first boat out. Left Ernesto to deal with the repercussions. Your husband thought of no one but himself.’

  This was rich coming from her. I curbed my inclination to tell her so. In the most neutral of tones, I said, ‘He spent what should have been his carefree years scrambling to survive. Aren’t you the tiniest bit proud of him wanting a better future, setting up at twenty in another country without anyone’s help?’

  ‘That’s what you think. He’s ungrateful and disloyal.’

  ‘He didn’t forget you. He wired money over every month.’

  She gave a scornful snort. ‘Whatever he made was down to Ernesto.’

  ‘Ben has his own business in London.’

  ‘With arms and legs back here.’

  I splayed my fingers on the edge of her bed. ‘What do you mean?’

  She slapped my wrist. ‘Don’t play the innocent, Julia. We all turn a blind eye where money is concerned.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  She braced as chest pain struck. Unable to unscrew the top off a bottle of pills she kept within reach on the bedside table, she flung the container at me. ‘Open it.’

  ‘Ask nicely.’

  She shook her head.

  In a short space of time, I had swung from anger to sympathy to fear to fury. The gall of her implying that Ben’s London business had connections to Ernesto’s Naples enterprise! I wanted to shove the lie down her scrawny throat. Already on my feet, I was leaning over her when fragments of the conversation I’d overheard between the two brothers flickered at the edges of my mind. If what she said was correct, I had lived on tainted money from the moment Ben had slipped a ring on my finger — and we’d raised the children on it, as well.

  ‘You’re a fantasist!’ I screamed.

  Ben had already gone to bed, but hadn’t bothered to pull the curtains in our room. Attached to brass rings they tended to trundle noisily along a matching rod. Chary of disturbing him, I left them as they were and slipped into bed. He was lying on his side, hands under his face, out cold. I couldn’t bear to look at him. Not if my marriage had been founded on a pack of lies. Perhaps
Sergio had duped Alessia to a certain extent, too. It was all such a mess. I tracked the partial eclipse of the moon until the guilt I felt at leaving her without medication got the better of me.

  I returned to her room and give her a painkiller and a sleeping pill.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  I kissed her on the forehead.

  Puffy-eyed and strung-out from lack of sleep, I was subdued over breakfast. Ben and Ernesto were going to the city. They offered to drop off Matteo and Francesca at their schools. I had forgotten it was Monday. Rosa had to remind me.

  In my rush to get to Ilaria’s, I barely registered a pipe-smoker with his back to me standing in the doorway of a shop two blocks from her flat. Until I was knocking on her door I didn’t give him a thought. But now that I was here, his shadowy presence came back to me. Too late. I was inside.

  Coffee percolated on the stove. As usual, I sat by the window. Below on the street, people screeched and whistled like birds in an aviary. Directly opposite, a truck driver was delivering sacks of flour to the baker who wore his hair brushed forward in a fringe. We called him The Monk, though judging from the females who left his premises with floury paw-prints on their clothing he was far from virtuous.

  Ilaria handed me a coffee. ‘You look like you need it.’

  ‘Thanks. I do.’

  ‘A trouble shared,’ she said, and sat beside me.

  I started with the circumstances surrounding Ben’s conception. ‘If someone spoke to you in confidence about a horrendous situation resulting in the birth of a person you thought deserved to know the facts, what would you do?’

  She wrapped both hands around her cup and lifted it to her face.

  My head throbbed as she inhaled a spiral of steam.

  ‘I’d ask whose interests were served if I kept quiet, and whether the fallout would outweigh the benefits if I spoke up.’

  I considered this advice. ‘As far as I can tell there’ll be no winners.’