by Paige Toon
‘Is he still with Marta?’ The question bursts from my mouth before I can think about it, and a second later, blood flows back up to my face and burns me from the inside out.
Louise sits forward and stares at me with horror. It’s clear to both of us that I don’t have the faintest idea what I’m doing.
‘Marta passed away many years ago,’ the man replies after a long pause. ‘Who is this?’ he asks again, and this time his tone is more demanding.
‘My name is Angela Samuels,’ I reply, blundering forth like a bull in a china shop. ‘I believe Giulio is my father.’
Chapter 7
Nerves dance around my stomach, pulling my insides into knots. I check my seat belt again to make sure it’s tight enough and look out of the window at the airport staff loading the last of the bags onto the plane. How can something so big take off from the ground and fly through the air to the other side of the world? It defies belief. I glance around at the dozens of people in the cabin, but nobody seems worried. The teenage boy beside me is engrossed in his game on his iPad while his dad, to his right, casually flicks through a magazine. The small children in the row directly in front of us are chattering away to their mother, practically bouncing on their seats with excitement. They’re all taking it in their stride, completely unfazed by the journey ahead.
Did my mum take it all in her stride too? Or was she terrified like I am? I’m not sure how much of my anxiety can be apportioned to a fear of flying and how much is because I’m on my way to meet my father for the first time.
*
The last few weeks have been surreal. Alessandro from Serafina’s called me back the morning after we spoke and introduced me to my father by speakerphone.
‘Angela?’ Alessandro asked when I answered.
‘Please, call me Angie,’ I replied.
And then another deeper voice came on the line. ‘You sound just like your mother.’ His accent was thicker than Alessandro’s, but his shock was clearly detectable.
‘Angie, this is Giulio,’ Alessandro interjected, and for a moment, we were all speechless.
Giulio broke the silence. ‘My Angie… She never tell me. How could this happen? I cannot believe I have a daughter!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why she never write or call?’
‘She tried,’ I told him. ‘She wrote to you before I was born, but I don’t think my grandparents ever sent the letter. I’ve just uncovered it.’
‘But where is Angie now?’ Giulio asked.
I paused. ‘She… She died three days after I was born. She developed an infection. There was nothing anyone could do.’
The silence that followed was deafening. It was Alessandro who next spoke and his tone was gentle. ‘What did your mother’s letter say? Perhaps you could read it aloud?’
I did, and afterwards, Giulio exhaled heavily. I had a feeling he was trying to take it all in.
‘Will you come to Italy?’ Alessandro asked.
‘Si! You must!’ Giulio interrupted before I could contemplate the question. ‘I send money for your ticket! How soon you come?’
‘It’s okay, I have money,’ I replied, dazed by the strangeness of it all.
‘Then when can you come?’ Giulio asked again.
I felt slightly railroaded into promising, ‘Soon.’
I think Bonnie would have had me take a while to come to terms with Nan’s death before jetting off, alone, to the other side of the world, but Jimmy encouraged me to ‘just get on with it’.
I’ve known Jimmy all my life, but we’ve become close in recent years. He damaged his leg and an eye in the same accident that killed Grandad and I became quite protective of him after that. Only a year earlier he’d lost his wife Vicky to cancer.
‘The longer you spend thinking about it, the scarier it’ll become,’ he said in his usual no-nonsense manner. ‘Go ahead and book your ticket and the rest will fall into place.’
I did book my ticket, but much of what else has fallen into place has come down to Alessandro, who seems to have taken the reins in getting everything ready for my arrival. He’s arranged for me to stay with one of Serafina’s’ long-term waitresses – a girl called Cristina, who has a spare room. Giulio has only a one-bedroom apartment above the restaurant, and living with him would certainly have felt like too much too soon.
I’ve spoken to Giulio three times since our initial conversation, once only briefly because Alessandro was not around. I find speaking to my father quite daunting, not least because his accent is strong and he can be overly exuberant, but I’m hoping it’ll be easier face-to-face. Giulio and Alessandro have told me a little about the rest of my family. I have two aunts, Eliana and Loreta, who are married to Enzo and Boris respectively. Between them, they have four children aged between seventeen and thirty-five. My cousins’ names, and it has taken me a while to memorise them after asking Alessandro to write them down in an email, are Valentina, Jacopo, Melissa and Francesca.
Loreta runs a hotel with her husband in Venice, and Eliana lives in Tivoli, a town outside Rome.
I also have another grandmother who is alive and well and living in Tivoli with Eliana. Serafina’s was actually named after her by my grandfather, Andrea, and inherited by Giulio when Andrea passed away. I can’t wait to meet her.
I’m still not entirely sure where Alessandro fits in. His email address revealed that his full name is Alessandro Mancini, but I have a feeling he’s more than a simple employee. When I thanked him for his part in getting everything organised, he replied that he was happy to help, adding that he owed Giulio a great deal. He didn’t elaborate further than that.
*
The plane is moving now. The engines are so loud. They make my whole body vibrate. Needing a distraction, I hook my foot beneath the handle of my bag and drag it towards me. Soon I have it in my hand: my opal.
The teenage boy beside me is too distracted with his game to pay me any attention, but I turn towards the window anyway and rotate the opal under the sunlight.
Mick’s friend Trev, a licensed opal valuer, valued this opal alone at nine thousand dollars – worth more than any others in the pouch by a mile. But when it came to handing it over for sale along with the rest, I couldn’t let it go.
‘Can I keep this one?’ I blurted.
‘You can do anything you like, dear, it’s yours,’ came Trev’s wily reply.
I stare down at it now, mesmerised by the colours that flash from brilliant red and orange to gold, green and blue. If I needed to, I could sell it at any time, but until then, it will remind me of home wherever in the world I am.
I can’t believe I’m going to Rome for the summer.
Ever since seeing the stamp in my mother’s passport, Italy has been one of the places I’ve dreamed about visiting. She spent four months there – longer than in any other country, according to her immigration stamps – and left only to go to Spain for a few weeks before heading home.
Giulio says that my mother can’t have known she was pregnant when she fled Italy because they were ‘together only once’, right before she left. It’s likely she found out after she’d returned to Coober Pedy and we know from her letter that it took her several months to pluck up the courage to write to my father. I can’t imagine how alone she must have felt during that time.
I feel closer to her right now than I ever have, going on this journey to the country where I was conceived. Mum claimed in her letter that she would do everything she could to help Giulio have a relationship with me if that was what he wanted. The fact that I’m seeing her wishes through makes my heart ache in an unfamiliar way.
It was hard saying goodbye to everyone in Coober Pedy, but especially Bonnie, Mick and Jimmy, who all came to wave me off.
Bonnie was emotional. ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she said for the umpteenth time as she squeezed me hard. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.’
‘Please, Bonnie. You really have no need to apologise,’ I tried to reassure her. ‘I understand.’
&nb
sp; But I sense she’ll give herself grief for a good while to come.
As for Jimmy. . .
‘Go on, off you pop,’ he urged, shoving me towards the bus.
‘You’re acting like you’re glad to see the back of me!’ I cried indignantly.
‘I am!’ he shouted, hooting with laughter and stamping his walking stick on the dusty ground.
I know he loves me really, the old codger.
I’ve spent the last few days in Adelaide with Louise and her lovely family. We never did make it to any travel agents – there wasn’t any point because I’m destined to go to Italy – but we did hit the shops and I have several new outfits in my suitcase as well as the skinny jeans and blue and white striped jumper that I’m wearing.
My friend also sorted me out for make-up and frizz-controlling hair products, but after approximately twenty-four hours of intensive air travel, I pop to the loo for a final freshen up and am mortified to come face to face with a wild-haired cave woman. Singapore’s tropical flora and fauna was amazing, but the humidity has done my hair no favours. My head has been crackling and fizzing with static electricity against the plane seat over the course of this horribly long flight and now I realise I don’t even have a hair tie with me.
I’m bouncing between exhaustion, an irrational urge to cry, relief that the flight is finally over and debilitating nervousness at the thought that my father is picking me up from the airport.
When the plane touches down on Roman soil, the long wait to get off the aircraft is followed by an even longer delay at passport control and yet more time spent waiting for my suitcase. The airport is crammed with people – it’s even busier than Adelaide and Singapore – and when I finally trek out through customs, I’m feeling a bit beside myself.
I’ve only seen one picture of Giulio, which he emailed at my request. Bonnie thinks we have the same milk-chocolate eyes and eyebrow shape, but to me, he looks like a dark-haired, mahogany-skinned, fifty-something stranger.
I scan the crowd for this stranger.
But my attention is captured by a younger man, holding a white sign that reads Angie.
Could it be Alessandro?
One of his hands is raised as he shields his eyes from the bright morning sunlight streaming into the airport terminal behind me. When our gazes collide, he smiles and lets his hand drop, coming out from behind the barrier.
I’m a little taken aback. Alessandro sounded nice on the phone, but I didn’t think too much about what he might look like. He’s lean and attractive with green eyes and chestnut-brown hair that has been tied back into a small knot, the rest of it falling free at the nape of his neck. He has dark stubble that is not quite a beard, and although he’s not very tall, he’s still taller than me by almost half a foot.
I smooth down my bird’s nest with my free hand and hold out my palm. His grin widens at the sight of my attempted handshake, but he obliges, and our skin connects with an almighty shock.
‘I’m so sorry!’ I cry, pain zipping up my arm and, no doubt, his too from the look on his face. ‘My hair is full of static electricity!’
He throws his head back and laughs while I stand there, wondering how on earth those words found their way out of my mouth.
‘In Italy, we greet each other with kisses, but I’m not sure I dare touch you again,’ he teases, before bending down to kiss my flaming cheeks, one after the other. ‘I’m Alessandro,’ he adds, extracting my suitcase from my hand.
‘Angie.’
‘I gathered.’
‘Where’s Giulio?’
His amusement vanishes, and when he speaks, it’s with regret. ‘I’m afraid he couldn’t come. He had to go to hospital last night.’
My stomach drops.
‘But he’ll be out later today,’ he quickly assures me.
‘Is he okay? What’s wrong with him?’
‘High blood pressure. He works too hard,’ he mutters. ‘He wasn’t feeling well last night so I insisted he get checked out and they kept him in for observation. He was very angry. Angry with me,’ he clarifies, flashing me a meaningful look. ‘He really wanted to be here. That man is as stubborn as an ox,’ he adds darkly, but I detect an undercurrent of affection. ‘You’ll see for yourself. Come. My van is this way.’
I assumed he meant a worker’s van of some sort, but when we reach the car park, he leads me to a high-top VW campervan.
It’s olive green in colour and utilitarian in appearance, sort of chunky with a big, black grille. It’s not one of the 1960s vintage ones – this is more 80s in style.
‘This is cool,’ I comment.
‘My humble abode,’ Alessandro replies casually, opening the front passenger door for me and sliding open the side door to put down my suitcase.
Over his shoulder, I notice a bench seat with a quilted orange throw and built-in cupboards facing the door. Clothes spill out of a cubbyhole at the back.
‘You actually live in this?’ I ask, spying a crumpled sleeping bag lying flat out in the roof space.
He nods proudly. ‘1985 VW T3 Westfalia Synchro.’
‘I have no idea what you just said.’
He smiles and shrugs. ‘She’s my baby.’ He pats the van fondly and goes to slide the door shut so I step out of his way.
‘But how do you manage in such a confined space?’
‘I don’t need much room,’ he replies, walking around to the driver’s door. ‘I have the essentials: a cooker, fridge, solar power.’ He climbs into the van and I do the same, buckling up while he turns on the ignition and raises his voice over the loud rumble of the diesel engine. ‘When in Roma, I usually eat at Serafina’s and if I want a hot shower or need to do my washing, Giulio lets me use his facilities.’
‘And when you’re not in Rome?’ I ask. Where else does he spend his time?
‘I make do.’
He looks over his shoulder as he reverses out of the parking space. He’s wearing faded black jeans, partly worn through at the knees, and a black shirt with white buttons, rolled up at the sleeves and layered over a black T-shirt underneath. I catch a glimpse of a thin gold chain around his neck as he turns to face forward again.
‘I will take you straight to Cristina’s so you can get some rest,’ he says as he sets off in search of the exit.
‘Thank you. Do you know her well?’
‘Too well,’ he replies wryly, leaning across me to open the glove box. I move my knees to the side. ‘She likes to boss me around like a big sister, even though she’s five years younger than me.’ He finds the sunglasses he’s after and slots them onto his nose.
‘How old are you?’ I ask with interest.
‘Thirty-five,’ he replies. ‘Cristina’s a good person. I think you’ll like her.’
‘We haven’t actually talked about the rent, yet.’ I hope it’s not too expensive. ‘Do you know how much she’s charging?’
He waves me away dismissively. ‘Giulio is covering it. You don’t need to worry.’
‘No, no, no, I’ll pay!’
‘He won’t hear of it. He feels it’s the very least he can do,’ Alessandro continues over the sound of my protestations. ‘You will insult him if you do not allow him to do this one thing,’ he says firmly.
I’m distracted by the fact that we’re driving on the wrong side of the road – or should that be the right side? We drive on the left in Australia.
‘I will bring Giulio over this evening and we will take you out for dinner,’ Alessandro says as he joins a busy motorway.
‘Will he be well enough?’ Concern overrides my surprise that Alessandro will be joining us.
‘I think so. He wanted you to come to Serafina’s, but I thought you might prefer somewhere quieter.’
‘Thank you.’ He’s right. I can’t imagine meeting my father for the first time in front of a bunch of strangers: customers or employees.
Speaking of employees. . . I need to get to the bottom of who Alessandro is and what he means to my father.
&
nbsp; ‘How long have you known Giulio?’ I ask.
His eyebrows jump up. ‘All my life. Giulio didn’t explain on the phone?’
‘No.’
I presume he means during the last conversation that Giulio and I had when Alessandro wasn’t around. We didn’t speak long because, frankly, it was awkward.
‘Ah.’ He sighs. ‘He was supposed to.’ He pauses before continuing. ‘Marta was my mother.’
My mouth drops open. Alessandro is my half-brother?
‘Giulio is my stepfather,’ he clarifies, letting me know that we’re not related. ‘He married my mother when I was young.’
‘I see!’ Now it all makes sense: Alessandro is a part of the family, not an employee.
But hang on a second. . . Giulio cheated on his mother with my mum. Isn’t he bitter? He’s been nothing but nice to me since he found out I exist.
Perhaps he can sense my confusion.
‘It was complicated between Giulio and my mother.’ He sounds jaded. ‘My mother wasn’t well. I’m sure Giulio will tell you all about it sometime.’
I think that’s my cue to leave it there for now.
Respecting his wishes, I change the subject. ‘Do you work at Serafina’s too?’
‘Yes, but only for part of the year.’
‘What do you do the rest of the time?’
‘I roam,’ he replies.
‘Roam?’
‘Roam,’ he repeats.
‘In this?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wow. Where have you been?’
He laughs wryly. ‘It would probably be easier to tell you where we haven’t been.’
‘We?’
‘Frida and me,’ he replies, tapping the steering wheel.
Oh. Is that his girlfriend? Or his wife? He’s not wearing a wedding ring, but that doesn’t mean he’s not married.
‘Is Frida your. . .?’
‘My baby,’ he replies, tapping the steering wheel again and waving his hand around the interior of the van.
‘Wait. This is Frida?’