by Angela Petch
‘I know, tesoro, but your life is us now: me and the children and you. The past is over…’
‘…it wasn’t easy…it has its repercussions.’ She put down her fork, no longer hungry.
‘I don’t want us to quarrel and I’m not judging you. But it’s important to bring things into the open.’
‘Like about you and Donna?’ she blurted out, annoyed with him for spoiling the holiday mood. He wasn’t Signor Perfetto either and shouldn’t be lecturing her.
He stopped chewing and raised his eyebrows. ‘What did you say?’
‘You and Donna! I’m sure you were having an affair. Classic scenario: man in his fifties working with a nubile, long-legged young blonde with frumpy, stressed wife back at home…’
He roared with laughter. ‘Are you being serious? Donna? She’s only two years older than Alba!’
‘Exactly!’ She took a huge swig of the strong wine.
‘If you think such rubbish, Anna, then that’s all the more reason to open up to me about what’s going on in that head of yours.’
‘Don’t be so patronising!’
The young waiter reappeared and hovered near their table. He cleared his throat. ‘Signori. Can I clear away your plates?’
Anna had left all her meat but Francesco told him to come back in five minutes. She watched him eat. Her kind, patient husband’s hair was even more salt and pepper now, the lines round his eyes and mouth more pronounced but he still made her stomach flip. She wasn’t really angry with him. She was angry with herself - for being catty and shutting him out.
‘Deep down I knew there was nothing going on between you,’ she told him eventually as she folded and re-folded her serviette. ‘But I wasn’t in a good place. I am sorry, really I am. I’ll try to open up more.’
He took both her hands in his, stroking her palms with his thumbs. ‘It makes me smile when I think of your imagining me and Donna having an affair. Mind you, I’m flattered you think I’ve still got pulling power!’ He gave her a wicked wolfish wink and she pulled her hands away and picked up a knife, pretending to stab him. ‘Oh, yuck, Romeo!’ she said.
‘I’ll come clean,’ he said and for a moment she was worried. ‘She wasn’t tall and blonde, Anna. She was short with shaved hair and she didn’t believe in wearing deodorant, even on the hottest of days. Not my type at all!’
And then they both laughed.
A huge clap of thunder followed by fat drops of rain sent them scurrying inside the restaurant for shelter. As they stood waiting in the doorway the storm intensified, until channels of water flowed past on the cobbles like a mountain stream. The proprietor, a handsome young man in tight, fashionably-ripped jeans and crisp, tailored shirt, assured them it would soon pass and, after they’d settled their bill he offered them coffee and liquori on the house. They chatted for a while, comparing notes on the state of the tourist industry.
When the rain stopped, they decided to chance the walk back to Agriturismo Girasole. They were half-way down the drive when there was another intense downpour and they broke into a run, arriving at their room soaked through and out of breath.
‘You have the shower first, tesoro,’ Francesco said.
‘We could have one together?’
She suddenly felt shy at her suggestion and as they undressed, she knew her embarrassment was ridiculous. They’d been married for more than ten years. But it had been a while since they’d had quality time on their own. At night their door was always kept slightly ajar in case one of the children should cry out and need them. When they made love it was with controlled passion, with the light off and the concern of early starts in the morning impeding any adventure in their intimacy.
Francesco turned on the shower and when the temperature was right he held out his hand and pulled her into the cubicle. He poured bath gel into his hands and gently rubbed soap into her shoulders, moving down slowly to her breasts. She gasped at the sensations his hands were playing up deep inside and pressed herself against him, kissing him passionately. He grew hard against her and then it was her turn to massage him, pleasuring him with soapy fingers until they could wait no longer.
Afterwards they laughed as they used towels to mop up the pools of water they’d managed to splash outside the shower tray.
Lying entwined on the bed, he stroked her tummy lazily. ‘I love your curves - your undulating crete senesi...’
‘…I have definitely more undulations and hills than when we first got together,’ she giggled before feeling his stomach, ‘but is this the beginnings of a paunch, tesoro mio?’
‘But I especially love your tummy that has carried three beautiful bambini for us to cherish,’ he moved down to plant a dozen kisses on that part of her.
She pulled his hand to her mouth and kissed each finger in turn. ‘I love you so much,’ she whispered.
Propping himself up on one elbow, he looked down on her. ‘I love you too.’
She envied his ability to fall asleep so quickly. Before switching off the bedside light, she lay for a while on her side watching the rise and fall of his chest as he drifted into sleep, thinking how precious this break was proving to be; how important it was to work at keeping their magic from fading. A prayer her own mother, Ines, used to recite to her at night before she tucked Anna under her bedcovers suddenly came to her:
“I lay my body down to sleep, I pray to God my soul to keep. And if I die before I wake, I pray to God my soul to take.”
She shivered, thinking how terrifying it had sounded to her as a little girl and how terrifying it still was. She didn’t want to die for a long while yet. There was too much life to live with Francesco and her adored children. And for starters, there was the whole of tomorrow to enjoy before returning to La Stalla. She smiled as she switched off the light, thinking that maybe they could spend the morning in this king-size bed.
Chapter 27
Christmas Eve 1932
Marisa
Life followed the pattern that mountain folk from the Apennines had kept to since Etruscan times. Each year our men, boys and sometimes whole families continued to leave for the Tuscan coast, as autumn deepened its hold on the peaks.
Old saying are founded on truth and experience and the elderly would mutter as they cast their gaze to the mountains: ‘Quando l’Alpe mette il cappello, vendi la capra e compra il mantello’. And indeed, when the Alp of the Moon donned its hat of snow, peasants who knew they were bound for the coast would sell a goat to buy a cloak and prepare for their journey.
They would return with the swallows in early May to let sheep and cattle loose on a mix of wild flowers and fresh grass sprouting on our mountain slopes. And families had to learn to get to know each other again after months of separation. While the men had been away, women had grown used to independence, chopping kindling and logs for the hearth and shovelling paths through metres of snow. On cold grey days, which we called ‘wolf season’, we locked up hens and roosters early on crisp nights and took to carrying stout sticks in case predators should venture near.
At first it was strange for us when these tasks were resumed by our men in the summer months. In turn, they felt hemmed in by white-washed ceilings instead of open skies. As a result of homecomings, babies were conceived. After the desire of first urgent couplings were satisfied, a few shepherds would decide to sleep once again in the freedom of open meadows above their villages, together with their sheep and dogs. And there were some women who breathed sighs of relief when the men departed from their beds. They fingered rosary beads in church and prayed for forgiveness from Our Lady whilst beseeching Her to send their monthly periods, for there were already too many mouths to feed.
At thirty eight years of age I still hoped for a child of my own. So far it hadn’t happened. But Dario was my pride and joy and I thanked God each day for our little son.
Giuseppe was away in the Maremma again and I was putting the finishing touches to Christmas gifts for Dario, humming as I worked. I’d unpicked an old ju
mper of Giuseppe’s that he no longer wore because the elbows and cuffs were worn. I’d dyed the wool a deep emerald green from the leaves of sweet reseda gathered from the slopes of Montebotolino. Before sewing the pieces together, I planned to embroider a line of steam engines across the chest from new wool I’d combed out with teasel heads.
Despite never ever having set foot near a railway station, our son was train mad. At the end of autumn Giuseppe had carved a tiny steam engine from a log of soft wood found floating in the river and we’d concealed it at the bottom of the trunk at the end of our bed. I’d also knitted a pair of cosy bright red socks and, later on I would stuff walnuts and biscuits into the toes. It was a shame Giuseppe was always away over Christmas and couldn’t see the joy on his little son’s face as he found his gifts.
December had been unseasonably mild. Usually Montebotolino was cut off from the rest of the world by snow and the roads became impassable even for the little horses of San Francesco, as we liked to call our donkeys. Mountain people enjoyed a special affinity with snow. It was harsh but precious at the same time, beautifying our landscape, turning it soft and dreamlike. Icicles hung from gutters like crystals and snowfalls were plentiful, bringing a silence and enchantment that gratified the soul. Children used planks of wood to slide down the shaggy slopes, tying them to their feet with laces ‘borrowed’ from adults’ boots to fashion makeshift skis. And woe betide if laces weren’t replaced. It was an interlude of innocent fun snatched by little people usually occupied with household chores. When snow impeded the routine of fetching water in heavy copper jugs, setting snares for pole cats for their highly prized fur or looking after animals up in the meadows, our children could enjoy a brief taste of freedom. For a while they could own the mountains instead of the other way round.
But this year snow had still not fallen. The sun shone. Primroses had started to open yellow faces prematurely to the sky and there was spinach beet still being harvested from summer vegetable plots.
I planned to finish Dario’s jumper later, after I had rolled out pasta for the first course of our Christmas lunch. In the larder I’d left chunks of boar to marinade in rosemary, garlic, olive oil and white wine. Last week I’d baked a panettone which was sitting on the shelf below. Borlotti beans were ready in a round bottomed bottle to cook overnight in the embers of the hearth. All that remained was a trip into the woods to hunt for our Christmas log.
Dario was playing football with a pig’s bladder on the grass in front of our house.
‘Come with me to look for the ceppo,’ I called. But he was having too much fun with his little cousins, Stefano and Simone, so I told him I would take Chicco the dog, instead. ‘I won’t be long. Be good and don’t make a nuisance of yourself,’ I called.
Giuseppe’s youngest sister, Maria Rosa, waved me off, telling me not to worry. ‘He’s a treasure, aren’t you, Dario?’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, Marisa. He’ll be as good as gold with us.’
I smiled as Dario’s cousins started to tease him, pretending to kiss him, ‘as he was such a good tesoro,’ asking me when they should change his nappy and wipe his nose. It was good natured fun and I liked to see him playing with other children. He was too often in the company of old people. That was the way it was with our style of life in those days. There was insufficient work during winter months and more and more families were leaving villages to find work elsewhere. Giuseppe’s other sister, Nadia, and his younger brother Angelo had departed a couple of years ago, taking my mother-in-law with them. Life on the coast was easier now that malaria was almost eradicated, they said, and they’d found permanent work and a house to share on a big farm near Alberese. We only saw them when they returned in August for the summer holiday.
But this Christmas was a special treat for they had come up to stay, hearing about the mild weather. The village had come alive again. I hadn’t appreciated how much I’d missed ordinary sounds of other families’ routines until they weren’t there: mothers calling to their children to come to table, the scraping of chairs on stone floors, the clatter of a saucepan being dropped, followed by ripe swear words. I feared the mountains themselves would also become an echo of the past. The landscape was changing, reverting to woodland, with pockets of untended meadows slowly swallowed by untamed undergrowth and saplings.
Wrapping my shawl around my waist, I fetched a length of rope to drag the Christmas ceppo home. This Christmas log would be ceremoniously burnt as we gathered round our fire. Then, calling Chicco to heel, I set off for the beech woods.
In November whilst foraging for nuts and acorns for our pig, I’d earmarked an unusual log, half covered in moss. When it first caught my eye I’d stopped, heart hammering in my bosom, legs turning to jelly, thinking it was a corpse. One end resembled an outstretched arm, twiggy skeletal fingers pointing to the sky. When I realised it was my imagination playing tricks, I’d laughed out loud in relief. With its protuberances and strange shapes, it would be perfect once flames started to lick at it. The more fantastical and mysterious its form, the better the flames would dance. I imagined sitting by the hearth on Christmas Eve taking it in turns to blindfold Dario and his cousins and guiding them towards the fire. Then they would beat the log with sticks, chanting: ‘Caca ceppo, caca ceppo…’ urging it to cough up in the hope that when they opened their eyes, the log would magically have produced little gifts for them all.
Afterwards we would climb the steps to our church for midnight mass sung in Latin. Last Christmas Dario had been fascinated by everybody’s breath in the cold stone chapel and asked me why they were smoking invisible cigarettes. But this year it was too warm.
I’d left a pile of stones as a marker to remind me of the turning. It was darker here under the trees, the undergrowth musty. Mouldy fallen leaves were slippery underfoot. I had to bend to avoid snagging myself in a bramble bush and I stumbled. My left hip made contact with a boulder and I screamed in pain. Winded, I stayed where I was for a minute or so, biting my lip in agony, tears stinging my eyes. When I tried to get up, I couldn’t put weight on my legs. Chicco came over, licking my face and whining. To try and right myself, I grabbed hold of his neck. ‘Good boy, Chicco. Stay and help me.’ My old companion waited as I tried to heave myself up, but the pain was excruciating and I passed out.
I don’t know for how long I fainted but when I came to, darkness was falling. I tugged my shawl from around my waist to wrap around my shoulders. Even that was an effort. And Chicco was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 28
Christmas 1932
Giuseppe
My old friend and mentor Paolo passed away half way through December. The malaria fevers he’d dreaded so much had returned to his body. We had a saying, we mountain people, that it took one whole year to grow rich in the Maremma, but only six months to die - “In Maremma si arricchisce in un anno e si muore in sei mesi”. Paolo’s holiday in the Maremma, his vacanza maremmana, as we sarcastically described it, had come to an end.
I made up my mind. Word had filtered down about the lack of snow in Montebotolino. For this reason and because of Paolo’s death, I decided to surprise Marisa and travel up for Christmas Eve. I would also be able to offer personal condolences to Paolo’s widow, Rossella. The journey to the mountains was normally out of the question at this time of year because of ice and snowdrifts, but with the tracks being clear, I would be able to visit Rossella and tell her how peacefully Paolo had met his end. I’d omit the truth about his suffering: the fevers, delirium and painful stomach cramping he’d endured. By the time the priest had arrived to administer Extreme Unction, Paolo was unconscious, the malaria had taken its evil hold. I’d stayed with him to the end trying to offer comfort, holding his hand and talking to him about old times in case he could hear.
I packed up the couple of tins of salted herrings he had purchased at Grosseto market before falling ill, as well as two lengths of cotton material for his twin daughters. For myself I kept his bastone del febbricone, the special stick he’d prou
dly and successfully used several times on sick sheep. It was a shame he’d been able to use its powers to cure animals but not on himself.
Christmas in the camp was normally celebrated without fuss. Don Mario would come down a few days before the feast to say Mass for us if he could, and we would spend the day itself resting. If we were lucky, polenta would be supplemented with a hunk of sausage or Cotechino. In the evening as we relaxed round the brazier, a couple of shepherds might play tunes on their mournful zampogne bagpipes made from sheep’s hide, and if there were any spare chestnuts, we would roast them in the embers. How good it would be instead to be home sitting at my hearth with the people I loved best.
I managed to hitch part of the ride home on the back of a cart laden with cheeses and hams bound for the festive season in Arezzo. The driver had known Paolo and, as we parted at the edge of the city, handed me a whole Pecorino cheese, telling me to give it to his widow and daughters. The city was bustling with shoppers and travellers, people were in good spirits and the smell of roasting meat and spice filled the air.
As luck would have it, I spotted the son of the owner of the osteria at Viamaggio Pass, his cart laden with casks of sweet Vinsanto, and he made a space for me on the back. I nodded off for much of the journey as the horses pulled us up the winding roads. The fresh mountain air woke me as we arrived at the top of the pass and I spent an hour inside the hostelry warming up and chatting to old acquaintances. Everybody was commenting on the strangely mild weather, wondering what we were in for afterwards. After lingering over a couple of glasses of red wine, I decided to walk the rest of the way home. I loved my mountains, their peaks sketched against a clear sky and I breathed in the crisp air with greedy gulps, smiling as I imagined how surprised Marisa and Dario would be to see me. I couldn’t wait to see the look on their faces.