by Ursula Bloom
Nonna did not nurse grievances, and Tony’s sudden visit interested her. It meant that the house was crowded (not that a crowd caused her much concern, she was too well used to it, and would share a bed with any of them, or all of them, if it was desirable).
Uncle Tony was larger than Uncle Luigi, fatter and taller, hale and hearty, and if anybody starved in the family it was only too apparent that it would not be Uncle Tony. His wife complained a lot; she had married Uncle Tony because she thought that he looked like a film-star with his sleek black hair and flashing dark eyes; but he was lazy, he never helped in the house, and, being ardently Catholic, wanted a large family which he could not support. He gambled too, and she was for ever nagging him about it; the three children, all born within four years, complained like their mother.
Nonna gathered them into her arms, with, ‘Ah, the bambini. Come to your own Nonna,’ but they screamed, because they were shy of strangers, and Nonna fell back on Madeline. ‘This is my carissima bimba,’ she said.
Uncle Tony made for bad feeling in the house, because within twenty-four hours the urgency of his financial crisis had made it necessary for him to waive the theory of waiting for a good day, and approach Nonna on what proved to be a very bad one.
‘So,’ said she, ‘all you come is to ask for moneys from your poor old mamma. A fine thing, not smart, not cleavairs. A fine thing.’
‘You wouldn’t see your first-born son starve?’
‘You won’t starve,’ said Nonna, looking meaningly at the waistcoat which bulged just where the enormous watch chain dangled. ‘Work! Work ’ard. I ’ave to.’
‘I’ve done everything I know how with that damned delicatessen,’ said Uncle Tony, ‘and it’s broken me. I haven’t a bob.’
‘I ’ave no money,’ said Nonna, turning to greet a customer. Mario Lugo had come in; he was always a favourite, and recently his custom had increased so that he employed Yolanda for longer hours. Nonna greeted him amiably.
‘How Tony has grown!’ said Mario.
‘Not in wiseness,’ said Nonna, shaking her head with the sparse hair parted down the middle and held back in a severe little knot. ‘No, not in the wiseness!’
‘That is sad,’ said Mario, very smart in his chic restaurant suit and striped trousers. The Venezia was making money these days. It had become fashionable during the war to eat in Soho ‒ even the aristocracy came to the Venezia. Mario declared that a famous duke came often, left handsome tips, and was always so very well satisfied. Nonna thought that all this boded excellently for Madeline’s future.
Uncle Tony realised that with the advent of Mario there was no chance of continuing his argument to dun Nonna for money; he went out into the street and propped himself gloomily against the wall, his hands thrust down into the pockets of his not-so-smart suit.
‘Well, have you got it?’ asked his wife, popping her head round the door.
‘Hell, no!’ said Uncle Tony.
Naturally the purport of this visit provoked family controversies of an unpleasant nature. Nonna was angry.
Piqued by her refusal, Uncle Tony pressed his point, losing all consciousness of the propitiousness of the moment. His wife nagged him, the children howled, the whole place was in a turmoil of confusion. Madeline loathed it, and she thought that Mamma must loathe it too, because she was continually absent from the shop, and seemed unable to account for her movements.
She’s making excuses, thought Madeline.
Mamma had perked up very much since she had come back to Soho. She and Madeline still shared the frowsty back room on the stairs, sleeping on a dirty flock mattress which was laid on the floor because Nonna thought it extravagant to buy a proper bed. As she had grown up it had struck Madeline that Mamma had only loved her as a doll in infancy, and now was tired of her. She never wanted to know what her daughter was doing.
One night Madeline said, ‘You do love me, don’t you?’ And Mamma answered, ‘Yes, yes of course,’ but impatiently.
Madeline started talking about Luca. ‘Nonna thinks we shall marry, but we shan’t. You see (only this is a deadly secret), he loves somebody else.’
‘Surely not? Whoever told you that?’
‘He did. It’s a secret, and he is terrified that his father may find out, because she’s an actress at the Shaftesbury Theatre.’ For once Mamma roused herself thoroughly. She turned right over in the frowsty-smelling bed. ‘But he can’t have got to know anybody like that?’
Having broken the seal of the confessional, Madeline told Mamma how only the other week Luca had managed to scrape a little money together and take the actress out to dine. Not at the Venezia, of course, but to a smarter restaurant; and he had been amused that the waiter should be so impressed by his obvious knowledge of good food and wine, the lady too! Poppy l’Amour was her name ‒ a pseudonym, of course, but he thought that it was a really lovely name, and that she was a very lovely person.
‘What? You don’t mean that he goes behind the scenes and sees her in her dressing-room like the toffs do?’ asked Mamma.
‘No, not behind the scenes, because she is in the chorus, and has to share a dressing-room with lots of others. She isn’t a star yet, but she’s going to be, and he waits outside the stage door for her. He is always terrified that his father will catch him.’
‘And I don’t wonder, the silly boy!’ said Mamma. ‘What in the name of fortune does he want to go about making a fool of himself like that for?’
‘Perhaps he loves her,’ said Madeline.
‘Rubbish!’ said Mamma.
The next day Madeline forgot that she had ever mentioned it, because Uncle Tony was in the process of returning to the delicatessen in Bristol. He had not got the money that he had come for, so he made a last frantic attempt to melt Nonna’s hard heart, and, failing in this effort, delivered to her several home-truths, to which she replied with violent animosity, getting the better of the argument.
Madeline left for Rozanne’s, her young cousins screaming, and her Protestant aunt cursing all Italians, which was unlikely to add to the harmony of the situation, though none of this really mattered whilst Nonna and Uncle Tony hurled abuse of a most personal nature at one another.
At Rozanne’s, Isobel Joyce was the only arrival. She was opening up in a melancholy manner, and Madeline told her something of what was happening at Gorrenzi’s.
‘I tell you, you ought never to stay on in the home after you’re sixteen,’ said Isobel Joyce; ‘all the old folks do is try and make it unbearable for you. Know that song, “The Old Folks at Home”? Well, that’s where they ought to be left, and alone.’
‘I shall try to get away the moment that I can, but it’ll be ages before I earn enough.’
‘I’d wander round and look at digs, and see what price they’re asking. I used to amuse myself that way. If you make plans it feels as if you were doing something.’
Then the shop bell went, and an overdressed client appeared, to say that she was coming in with a gentleman a little later on, as he had promised her an arctic fox fur and would they get some in, charge him more than it really was, and let her collect the difference after? Isobel Joyce agreed.
‘Like her cheek!’ she said, as the door shut again.
The idea of looking at digs appealed to Madeline, for now she was full of the longing to get right away, somewhere cleaner and brighter, with the flower scents of her infancy rather than the spicy scents of her adolescence. As she played with the idea she recalled with startling clarity the cottage in Hertfordshire where the air had smelt so different, and the flowers had been so exquisite; Miss Sheila, with her flaxen eyelashes, and her gay little tin watering-pot, and in spring the fragrant plumes on the old spindly-trunked lilac tree.
The others came in.
Miss Bates had had an upset with her husband, and had obviously been crying, for her face was blotchy. Mr. Rozanne had gone very quiet, for last night he had been bitten by the borzoi, and had told his wife that he would have the creature de
stroyed, to which Lilith had replied that if he did, then she would leave him. The row had been gruelling, and her argument of there being as good fish in the sea as ever came out (referring to husbands, not borzois) had left him flouted. He knew that he dare not have the dog destroyed, and might very easily be bitten again by it, but matters seemed to be at an impasse.
The business of the never-ending day continued; there was a long line of customers, and Madeline had to content herself with sandwiches behind the tailor’s dummy, and Mr. Rozanne had no time to ring up Lilith, as he had meant to do, and ask if she was all right. He was perspiringly anxious on her behalf, though he need not have worried. She and the borzoi had gone off to have coffee in a smart draper’s café, where the leader of the band was paying her attention. He always took coffee with her, and made surreptitious love to her, going back to the dais and playing as a violin solo ‘Pale Hands I Love,’ or ‘I’ll Sing Thee Songs of Araby,’ looking at her all the time.
Lilith was quite happy.
For his part, poor Mr. Rozanne was far too miserable, even though they managed to dispose of two fourrures and the old blue frock with the gilt beads, which had been on their hands for a twelvemonth, and had got the moth in one corner, which the customer hadn’t noticed. He dreaded going home to-night. He dreaded meeting Lilith again more than meeting the borzoi, which of itself was an awful thought. During the afternoon Madeline mentioned the problem of her salary, and Mr. Rozanne did not know why he raised it, save that she was a good-looking kid, and he was so utterly miserable about Lilith that he hardly knew what he was doing. Madeline couldn’t believe her luck. She told Isobel Joyce in a quiet moment when she and Miss Bates were making tea over the gas-ring round the corner. Here the shop was shabby, the carpet ceased abruptly and became linoleum with the pattern long trodden off it, and holes the size of heels in it; there were two broken chairs expelled from the shop proper, an enamel cup, and a china handleless mug. The tea-pot was of terra-cotta enamel speckled with a dim grey, its spout too slender, its handle too gaunt, and its appearance was that of a pregnant woman, whose arms and legs are unchanged, whilst her actual body becomes hideously round. Isobel Joyce and Miss Bates were perched uneasily on two broken chairs, which afforded them no proper relaxation, and they listened to Madeline’s story.
‘Well now,’ said Miss Bates, ‘whatever’s come over him? You could knock me down with a feather, reely, you could! He must be feeling ill.’
‘He’s realised he’s overworking her,’ said Isobel Joyce. ‘Now you take a tip from me, start looking for some decent digs. Get away from that family of yours, they’re no good to you.’
It would be thrilling to go round looking at rooms, and like that she would get some idea of the sort of place offered. It must be somewhere pretty, with flowers, with a glimpse of the sky.
‘You’ll never get another mother,’ said the melancholy Miss Bates, ‘that’s what I always say. You stick to your mum, my girl, because you’ll never get another one.’
‘If you ask me, that’s a damned good thing,’ said Isobel Joyce. ‘All this sentimental mother-talk, and half of us would be better if we could be born orphans.’
‘Oh, I say!’ said Miss Bates, almost as though she had sudden colic. ‘Oh, my goodness! What a thing to say!’
‘Well, I’d have been better without mine.’ Miss Joyce was emphatic. ‘She was nothing but a leech; she oughtn’t to have had me really, never wanted me.’ The shop bell clanged and she got up. ‘That’s it! Just when I did think as how I was going to have a moment’s peace.’
Within five minutes Madeline was dispatched to Elfrida’s for ‘something in white evening frock (Madam would prefer satin with crystal trimmings) … and,’ Miss Joyce ran after her on the step, ‘if Elfrida's got nothing, pop into Cecil’s, and see what you can bring along, but for Christ’s sake don’t come home with nix.’
At Elfrida's Miss White was in a good mood; the man of the moment had given her a diamond bracelet (at least for the time being she supposed the small white stones to be diamonds, the disillusionment would come later). Madeline staggered back to the shop with an armful draped in drab dust-sheet, and Madam bought the cheapest of the lot haggling until the guineas had become pounds, and finally half a guinea extra had been knocked off. Then she disappeared with the frock packed in a pale-blue box, with ROZANNE on it in enormous letters.
Mr. Rozanne came out of the cubby-hole, his moist forehead wrinkled, his short-sighted eyes troubled, like the perplexed and furtive eyes of the pig that sees the abbatoire before it, and as yet does not grasp the meaning.
‘I’ll be getting back,’ he said.
He had taken a couple of aspirins with his tea, knowing that either there would be a scene with Lilith, or that she would be out, which would be even worse, for he would wait hour after hour, with all self-confidence diminishing. He wished that she did not delight his physical senses so much. The absurd passion called love lured him on and on; he suspected the band leader in the café, he suspected every man that she knew, yet he could do nothing about it because he loved her so much.
‘I’ll be getting back,’ he said, and shuffled out of the door.
Two girls were looking in at the window. He heard one say, ‘I like that blue thing, but I bet he wouldn’t come down to my price for it, the horrid little Jew!’
Isobel Joyce closed the shop. It was almost dark outside, and she thought that she’d go along to the Palais and dance to-night. She could always rely on a good time at the Palais.
Madeline went along the Avenue past the theatre, and as she drew level she saw Luca and his blonde chorus-girl. He was excited, far too excited to notice Madeline, and he made little quick movements, bustling the girl into a taxi, something that he would never have afforded for himself. The girl had good shoes and expensive stockings, and she wore one of the new chemise frocks in pale grey with a lot of chenille on it. Regretfully Madeline knew that Poppy would be no good to Luca, who was a nice boy, the faithful kind and quite unsuitable to this butterfly type of girl.
The shop in Old Compton Street was garishly lit with a hard white light, but it was doing brisk business. Nonna and Uncle Luigi were busily serving customers as fast as they could, and Nonna signalled to Madeline.
‘Ah, my bimba,’ said she, ‘come and help your poor old Nonna and your Uncle Luigi.’
‘I’m tired.’
‘But your Nonna is old, and you are young. Help your Nonna, and she will give you something pewtiful for yourself.’ She pushed an apron towards Madeline, determined to take no nay. The girl felt like a bee in a honeycomb: no matter how far she flew away, she always had to come back to this hive; she wondered what her father would have thought of it, the father who had been so entirely different and who she remembered had laid on the cottage sofa with his cream-coloured cotton trousers, his eyes bemused with pain. He had said that she was a good girl, and she drew some comfort and pride from that now, but wished that he had lived longer. She served the groceries, pimentos and chives, the tinned fish and the merluzzo with its strong smell. The shop
closed at nine, and would not have shut then, only that, custom having ebbed from it, Nonna lost interest.
‘And all those pewtiful Vienna rolls,’ said Nonna, looking at the basket which was still a third full, ‘who would think that night comes; and I have so many Vienna rolls?’
‘In the morning nobody will know but that they are to-morrow’s bread,’ said Luigi brightly.
‘Si, I know, and then the customers bring them back. They bring them back and scream at me “Stale!” Stale, they say, and they are true! Not, of course, that I say so. I scream at them.’ She shrugged her shoulders.
They went into the sitting-room, Nonna, Uncle Luigi and the girl, with the spiced sausages lying on the disorderly table, and the general odour of food, and frowst, and messiness, that Madeline hated so much. The heaviness of the air weighed her down. Nonna went to the stove to stir the macaroni, the other two sat down by the table,
and as they did so they heard a sharp knock on the shop door.
‘Maybe it’s one of the boys,’ said Uncle Luigi, and went to open it. ‘It’s only Luca,’ he said disappointedly, ‘wanting Madeline, I suppose. Well, I must say that it’s a nice time to come round after her.’
Nonna, however, beamed; any encouragement she could give these two, she offered generously. ‘A very good supper, Luca,’ said she, ‘enough for everybody; you sit down.’
Luca came into the sitting-room, his thin face intensely pale with a sallow pallor that was additionally jaundiced by the light. His eyes were fiercely dark, they glittered like black marble. He didn’t look at Nonna, he looked only at Madeline. ‘You told on me?’ he said.
‘I ‒ what?’
‘It must have been you, because you were the only one that knew about it, and you gave it away! There’s been a hell of a row.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Like a girl to pretend that she doesn’t know what a chap means. Just like a girl! But that isn’t going to work with me, so don’t you think it. I went out this afternoon.’
‘I saw you.’
‘So you told on that too?’
‘I came straight here and helped in the shop, I haven’t told anybody anything.’
‘That’s a lie! When I got home Papa was waiting for me. He was furious, he knew everything about it, everything that I’d told you, and did he make a scene?’
Madeline broke in, ‘But who could have told him?’
‘If you think I don’t know who told him, you’re mistaken. I know. You told him. There’s never been a scene in the Venezia like there was to-night. I won’t be treated that way, I tell you that. I’m going to sea, I’ll die, but I’ll never go back to the Venezia, and it’s your fault! All your fault!’ He brought his fist down with a bang on the table, setting the crockery jumping.
‘Here, stop that!’ said Uncle Luigi, his mouth full of macaroni.
Luca paid no heed. ‘I was a fool to trust you; never trust a woman, my own father told me that, and he’s right. Look what’s happened. He’s stopped my money, says I’ve got to give her up, but I won’t. Nothing’ll make me do that. I’ll go away and get my own restaurant; one of these days I’ll be rich and famous, and in spite of you. Hear what I say, you little cat? My own restaurant. You spoilt it because you were jealous, that was what it was.’