The Gulf Between

by Maxine Alterio

  ‘You’re not. Sergio’s your father.’

  ‘So what are you on about?’ He let me go and pounded the trunk of a tree with his fists.

  I retreated to a safe distance. ‘That’s why she rejected you, why she favoured Ernesto, why your parents had separate bedrooms.’

  ‘A husband can’t rape his wife. It’s impossible.’

  I ran towards him, handbag raised, shouting, ‘Rape is rape, whether you’re married or not!’ The clasp broke as he snatched it from me. A lipstick, compact and comb fell to the ground. A couple walking towards us changed direction.

  ‘The law doesn’t see it that way,’ Ben said. He shook his fists at me.

  As I backed away, I rolled my foot on the lipstick tube. A sharp pain shot through my ankle. ‘Then it should,’ I said, hopping about. ‘It bloody well should!’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘I’m not making it up. Talk to her before it’s too late.’

  We carried on arguing until the caretaker asked us to leave so he could lock the gates.

  Out on the street Ben vacillated between believing and disbelieving me, reviling Sergio and defending him, minimising Alessia’s ordeal and viewing her as a martyr. Each waver knocked another nail into the coffin of our marriage.

  As we neared the villa, he said, ‘I’ll sleep in the guestroom tonight.’

  ‘Stay there for all I care,’ I said. ‘And give Francesca her supper and put her to bed. I’m tired of being a drudge. Rosa can see to your mother tonight. I’m going for a soak.’

  ‘You English and your baths,’ Ben said in a disparaging tone.

  The house was quiet when I left the bathroom and crossed the passage in a robe. Atop a pile of books on the floor were an apple and a cheese sandwich. No new note from Matteo but on the handle of Francesca’s closed door was a ‘Keep Out’ sign, bordered with black rats drawn in crayon. Who was this aimed at, I wondered as I flopped onto the bed. The chandelier above me no longer looked fabulous or the brocade drapes luxurious. Everything had lost its shine.

  I couldn’t sleep. Nor was I in the mood to read. As a distraction, I envisaged walking across Hampstead Heath, through the rolling woodlands and meadows over to Kenwood House. But I still couldn’t drop off. So I got up and walked across to a side window open to the elements and insects. I was inhaling the cool night air, slowly growing calmer, when a high-pitched whimper shattered the peace. I leaned out and saw that, two storeys below, Alessia’s window was also open. Ernesto was with her. He would see to her if she was in pain. Or that’s what I thought until another cry rang out, this one louder and urgent.

  I slipped on a skirt and top and in bare feet snuck down the stairs. Her door was ajar. Ernesto towered above Alessia’s bed, one hand holding her medicine out of reach, the other waving a sheaf of papers. Judging from the way his feet were planted wide apart, he was furious. ‘Sign,’ he said, ‘or I’ll tip your pills down the sink.’

  Alessia gave a low, mournful moan.

  ‘I did as you suggested, got him over to handle the riskiest branch of the business. But no way is he getting half my inheritance.’ He thrust the papers at her. ‘That fucking lawyer won’t get another chance to alter a will.’

  A bony arm flailed into view. I couldn’t see her face.

  Ernesto bent his right knee and positioned it in line with what had to be his mother’s mouth. I clamped a hand over mine, and crept back to bed, ashamed at leaving her with him and petrified at what he had pushed on Ben. Alessia must have softened towards her younger son and made him a beneficiary in her new will. That’s why the lawyer had come. Ernesto had found out and was bullying her into changing it. I slipped on my sandals, slammed the door behind me, and noisily retraced my steps.

  When I pushed open Alessia’s door, Ernesto was standing at her bedside, pen in his shirt pocket, no papers in sight, counting out two tablets. There was a glass of water on the table. ‘Toothpick,’ he said. Stecchetto. ‘Why are you awake?’

  I forced the corners of my mouth to turn up, my eyes to radiate warmth. ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘We’re waiting for Our Good Lord,’ he said and pressed Alessia’s hand to his lips. She riveted her eyes to mine.

  ‘It’s easier for her to swallow her pills if you moisten her mouth with water,’ I said.

  Ernesto waved me out. ‘I know what she needs.’

  Within the hour, Alessia entered a permanent unconscious state. We gathered at her bedside as the priest gave a final blessing and led the prayers. Mucus pooling at the back of her throat changed her breathing to a rattle. Her skin paled due to the slowing circulation of blood. As her organs shut down, she released bodily fluids with a distinctive acetone odour. In the darkest depths of the night she gave three outward pants. That was it. Her life was over. The opportunity for her to talk to Ben had passed. There would be no apology, no reconciliation, and no forgiveness.

  43

  In keeping with tradition, posters went up all over the neighbourhood announcing Alessia’s death and providing details of her funeral. Rosa and Ernesto insisted that if her soul was to rest in peace, we had to bury her with objects chosen before her passing: a gold wristwatch from Ernesto, the photograph of her and Sergio, and a sprig of lavender.

  Rain bucketed down on the day of the service. Mourners clad head-to-toe in black entered the church, shaking raindrops from their hats or umbrellas before taking their places in the pews. We sat at the front, close to the altar and the open casket.

  ‘Do you think she’d be pleased with the turnout?’ I whispered to Ben.

  ‘No, she’d find fault in something or someone, probably me.’

  I fingered the red felt star I had put in my pocket from the box of Christmas decorations.

  The mass included a prayer vigil and a funeral liturgy, rituals that signified the gravitas of the occasion. In the closing stages, the priest invited the congregation to come forward and pay their respects. For adults this meant kissing Alessia’s cheek or forehead; children were expected to touch her hand. When my turn came I leaned over, rested my lips on her cold, waxy face, and slipped my right hand between her ribcage and arm, tucking the red star close to her heart but out of sight of those yet to view her. ‘Peace hereafter, Alessia,’ I murmured.

  The pallbearers — Ernesto, Ben, Carlo and three chunky men unknown to me — carried the now-closed casket to the hearse. The driver drove at a slow pace, allowing us to walk behind the shiny black vehicle taking her to the cemetery.

  In the grounds, we huddled under our umbrellas, sombre and strained. Ben remained impassive beside me as two workers hoisted up Alessia’s coffin and stowed her in the burial chamber next to Sergio’s remains.

  Their reunification set off outpourings of grief from overfed men in dark suits and black-veiled women, none of whom, to my knowledge, had visited Alessia during her decline. They filed in front of us in small groups, uttering ‘I’m sorry for your loss’, a hollow phrase to my ear. Throughout this sham, Matteo, head bowed, poked the tips of his shoes into a puddle, clearly wanting to disappear. Even Francesca was subdued. Only the condolences from Alphonse and his family and those from Salvatore and his eldest football-mad son came across as genuine.

  Ben and I were talking to the priest when Ernesto joined us. ‘Frannie,’ he said, ‘I want you to meet a comrade of mine.’

  He gestured towards a bald man with a cold-eyed stare and a face to match. By chance, an elderly mourner distracted Ernesto with overwrought condolences. While this performance took place, the ominous chap looked directly at me, raised his right hand, palm inwards, and squeezed his erect fingers open and shut. I knew from Ilaria the gesture meant ‘You’re afraid, huh?’ Automatically I threw back my head and clicked my tongue. A faint tightening of the bully’s cheeks showed he was taken aback with this emphatic ‘No.’ If he told Ernesto, my brother-in-law would realise I was taking instructions.

  A pubescent girl with gold ear-piercings gawked at Francesca’s patent-leathe
r shoes. As Ernesto broke away from the verbose mourner and redirected his attention to us, I slipped my arms across my daughter’s chest, pulling her closer to me. ‘She stays here, Ernesto.’

  He pressed his forehead against mine, swamping Francesca. ‘For the time being,’ he murmured. His breath smelt of salami and savagery.

  November rain and darkness descending around 5 p.m. forced us to seek the warmth of the kitchen where wood crackled in the stove. I was frying chicken with onions, green peppers and tomatoes. A large moth batted against the window, lured by the electric light bathing the room. Francesca, who had been setting the table, clambered onto the bench and peered through the glass. ‘A Saturnia pyri,’ she said.

  Ben looked up from the letters of condolence he was reading. ‘A what?’

  ‘A giant peacock moth,’ she said. ‘We’re learning the Latin names in class. I can recite every variety native to southern Italy.’

  Ben flapped a couple of pages at her as if they were wings. ‘Don’t bother, clever-clogs,’ he said. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

  Rosa was cooking for Carlo and Ernesto at the cottage. ‘The men, they want to talk,’ she’d told me at breakfast.

  ‘Leave them to it,’ I suggested. ‘Come and dine with us.’

  ‘Best you see to Benito and the children.’ She rubbed the side of her shoe, where a bunion the size of a pheasant’s egg caused her ongoing discomfort. ‘Big problem,’ she said, nudging the door open with her bottom. She could have been referring to all manner of things.

  Since rowing in the park, Ben and I had been speaking to each other in a stilted, formal style. He couldn’t forgive me for withholding his mother’s secret until it was too late. ‘Why did she confide in you and not me? It’s not right,’ he said repeatedly.

  The chicken done, I put the pan on a breadboard on the table and gave a short sharp clap. ‘Take your places.’

  Ben mocked me with a bow. ‘Certainly, madam.’

  ‘Would you be so kind as to pass me the salt?’ I said.

  ‘Why are you talking posh?’ Matteo asked.

  ‘We’re silly duffers,’ I said, thinking it wouldn’t hurt Ben and me to be friendlier for the sake of our children. He went along with the charade, chatting normally, telling jokes and praising the wisdom of the city football coach who, Matteo revealed, had devised shrewd set-moves for the team to master. Caught up in the excitement, Mattie said, ‘Come and watch Sunday’s game, Mamma.’

  ‘I promise,’ I said quickly, not giving him a chance to retract the invitation.

  Francesca pulled on his arm. ‘And me. I won’t be a pest, Mattie. Truly.’ She clamped her lips together, folded her arms, and stared at him.

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘if you behave.’

  ‘Cheering’s fine, isn’t it?’

  ‘Only if we’re winning,’ he said, tossing a bread roll at her.

  It hit her on the nose. She squealed and threw it back. Ben joined in. Before I knew what was happening we were paired up, Matteo and me against Ben and Francesca. The bread bun employed as our ball, we ducked and dived, tackled and whistled, held up serviettes as penalty cards. Francesca argued with the ref, a rolling pin Ben had propped up in a corner. The back door served as our goalpost; theirs was the open oven, slightly warm because I had baked an apple tart in it an hour earlier. Matteo and I were plotting a move, and Ben was diverting attention from Francesca, who had lined up the bun to score a goal, when we were interrupted.

  ‘This is a house of mourning,’ Ernesto hollered from the doorway. ‘Show some respect.’

  ‘They’re helping me practise a new move, Uncle Ernesto.’

  ‘That’s all very well, Matteo,’ he said, ‘but you’re half-Italian. Remember this when you’re tempted to behave like an ill-mannered English boy.’ He huffed off outside again. Matteo retrieved the bun from the floor and threw it at the door his uncle had pulled shut. No point reviving the game: the mood had been lost.

  Midway through pegging the morning wash on the line I spied a hen, legs bound with string, and Francesca perched cross-legged on top of a wooden barrel watching it tumble about squawking. ‘Frannie, who’s responsible for this indignity?’

  ‘It was my doll’s idea,’ she said. ‘Uncle Ernesto loaned me his stopwatch to record how long it takes the hen to peck free.’

  ‘I’ll ban you from keeping animals, domestic or otherwise, if you don’t untie the poor creature. And don’t think you can blame Mirabelle for your bad behaviour,’ I said, though it seemed clear that her uncle was involved.

  ‘Scientists carry out experiments. Why can’t I?’

  ‘Don’t argue.’

  For close to a fortnight I pleaded with Ben to set a date for us to return home. His evasive responses strung me tighter and tighter. My fuse became so short that when I caught Francesca holding Mirabella upside down and licking her bottom, I wrenched the doll from her and flung it across the room. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I shouted. She ran over to a full-length curtain and hid behind it. I unfurled the linen, hauled her out. ‘Answer me.’

  Between sobs, she said, ‘Mirabella got honey on her. I was cleaning her.’

  ‘With your tongue?’

  ‘It worked.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have washed her in the sink?’

  ‘Why are you always grumpy with me?’

  ‘I want you to behave like a well-brought up girl, Francesca.’

  ‘You’re not the boss of me.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘Uncle Ernesto, of course.’

  ‘Go to your room!’

  She wouldn’t budge. I had to drag her, protesting all the way. We tussled on the landing and in the doorway of her room. I dumped her on the bed. She clung to me. I prised her off and made a dash for it. She gave chase. I slammed the door in her face and shouted, ‘Don’t think of coming out.’

  She battered the wooden slats with her fists.

  I found another note that evening. This one taped to my hand mirror: A man is taking photographs of a child in bed. My blood ran cold. Whatever this was about had to stop. If Ben wouldn’t take us home, I had to make it happen.

  Since the reading of Alessia’s will he’d fallen into a blue funk. The lawyer had asked Ernesto to stay on and sign another set of papers. When Ben stood up to leave, I detected a treacherous glint in Ernesto’s eyes.

  ‘No mention of me,’ Ben had said as we reached the street. He kicked an empty tobacco pouch from the footpath into the gutter. ‘Excluding me from her will and leaving nothing for you or the children, not even the necklace Francesca wanted, is the last straw.’

  ‘We’re better off without her money,’ I’d said.

  ‘It’s not about the fucking money, Julia.’

  As Ben had marched down the street badmouthing Ernesto and the lawyer, I couldn’t decide whether to mention what I had seen and heard through the crack in Alessia’s bedroom door. It could just make everything worse, for all of us.

  44

  Since Alessia’s funeral, as well as seeing Ilaria at the flat we met in the public gardens every Wednesday, another day she was rostered on for an early lunch break. We reasoned that if I couldn’t make Mondays, it offered an alternative. I also thought the pipe-smoker would think we were harmless if we met in a public place and not report us to Ernesto. Yes, I was naïve right to the end.

  On the morning of the first of these extra meetings, I woke excited and a trifle nervous, sensations similar to those I had when dating Ben behind my parents’ backs. Secret love and clandestine plotting start from a similar place.

  Francesca came downstairs and found me in the kitchen slicing bread. ‘Mamma,’ she said, ‘my tummy’s sore.’

  I fussed over her, thinking she would perk up, but she carried on grizzling. ‘Tell me about the pain. Is it a wave or a pinch?’ I put a hand on her forehead, ruled out a temperature.

  ‘It feels like there’s a monster inside stirring me with a big spoon.’

  I phoned
the school secretary and excused her from class.

  By mid-afternoon she was tearing around in her usual fashion. At this stage, I eliminated appendicitis and settled on a bellyache, compliments of a twenty-four-hour bug.

  The following Monday, and again on the Wednesday, her symptoms reappeared. I hid my disappointment and took her to a doctor with rooms on Via Menzinger. On hearing our surname, the receptionist ushered us into the surgery ahead of a queue of patients. ‘What do we have here?’ asked the doctor.

  ‘My daughter has developed intermittent stomach pains.’

  ‘Up on the bed, little one,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t leave me, Mamma.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere. Do as the doctor asks.’ I held her hand while he prodded and pushed her tummy. Each time he bent over, his glasses slipped down his long, thin nose. ‘Bloods,’ he said, looking at me.

  Was he asking if Francesca’s periods had started? Ludicrous for a girl her age, then I saw the syringe. As a distraction, I chatted about Topo Gigio, a puppet mouse with dreamy eyes and a childlike personality, a TV character she adored. The doctor filled three vials from a vein in her arm. ‘I’ll have the results in a week,’ he said. ‘Make a Friday appointment.’

  On our second trip we found again a waiting room full of coughing men, squalling babies and pregnant women. The same receptionist ushered us in ahead of these people. I wondered if she was a lady friend of Ernesto’s.

  ‘Mrs Moretti, nothing showed up in the tests,’ the doctor said, fondling his beard as if it were alive. ‘Check your daughter’s stools daily for a week. Note the colour, texture and frequency, and jot down what she eats.’

  Unsure of his reasons, I frowned.

  ‘I want to establish if there’s a connection between certain foods and her stomach ache,’ he said. ‘In the meantime I’ll prescribe a tonic.’

  It was a battle to get Francesca to take this concoction half an hour before meals. ‘Open wide,’ I pleaded one morning.

  ‘It tastes like cat pee,’ she said, stamping her foot. ‘You’re the meanest mother in the whole world.’