by Paige Toon
‘That’s Jimmy,’ I say.
‘Your grandfather’s mining partner and Patricia Cornwell fan.’ He remembers the postcard.
‘Some of the girls at school used to say he was my dad.’
He gives me a funny look.
Jimmy is an Antakirinja Matu-Yankunytjatjara man.
The land Coober Pedy sits on belongs to his people. The town name itself comes from the Aboriginal word: kupa-piti, meaning white man’s hole or burrow. The miners used to sleep down the shafts to escape the desert heat, and of course, they – we – still do.
‘I know, it doesn’t really stack up. My skin is even lighter than yours.’ I pull up the sleeve of my cardigan and press my arm against his. We both stare at our connected skin and then I pull my sleeve down again. ‘But Jimmy’s hair is kinda similar to mine. Nan cut my hair off when I was at primary school. She said it was too hard to drag a comb through, but it didn’t stop the teasing. If anything, it made it worse because I ended up looking like a scrawny boy.’
‘These girls sound horrible,’ Alessandro comments darkly.
I shrug. ‘They’re not really. They were only kids. We’re friends now.’
He glances at me with surprise. ‘You’re friends with them?’
‘With some. Others left town.’ I take the album from him and flick through until I come to a picture of Trudy and Rita on their wedding day. ‘This is Trudy and Rita with Jan and Jakub, the Polish brothers that I told you about.’
‘These are the two couples you brought together?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You have a big heart, Angel.’
‘Not really. I just don’t bear grudges.’
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I think of Nan.
‘Not usually, anyway,’ I mutter.
His brow knits together. ‘Who do you bear a grudge against?’
‘I’m finding it hard to forgive my grandparents for hiding the truth about Giulio,’ I admit.
‘Ah, I see,’ he replies gravely.
‘How do you cope, knowing nothing about your biological father?’
I’ve been wondering this, wondering what nationality his father is, wondering where he got his green eyes from. . .
‘I’ve come to terms with it,’ he replies. ‘My mother was not proud of the fact that she had had many lovers. In Italy, children take their father’s family name even if their parents are not married, and when women marry, they keep their own surnames. My mother was embarrassed that I had to take her family name, Mancini, but she did not regret the consequences of falling pregnant with me. She regretted only not being able to tell me who my father was. As there was nothing she could do to change that, I had no choice but to let it go. In some ways this made it easier to accept the way things were.’
I pick up my tea and take a sip, deep in thought. I will never know what my grandparents were thinking when they withheld the truth about my father. Will I also learn to let it go?
‘Have you considered how different your life might have been if your grandparents had told you the truth?’ Alessandro asks, as though sensing the direction my thoughts are taking. ‘Giulio would still have been married,’ he points out. ‘If your grandparents had contacted him after you were born, when your mother had passed away, I’m not sure he would have reacted very well.’
‘My grandparents would have never let me go to live on the other side of the world, in any case,’ I say.
‘So they still would have raised you.’
‘I wonder what would have happened if my mother hadn’t died.’
‘Maybe Giulio would have asked her to come back to Italy,’ he speculates. ‘But if he had, Carlotta would never have been born.’
I turn to look at him. Only now do I realise that my half-sister and I could not have existed together in the same orbit. I thought my grandparents had robbed me of any chance I might’ve had to know her.
‘I am glad your mother didn’t return to Italy,’ Alessandro says solemnly.
He’s thankful for his sister’s existence, even though he had to suffer the excruciating pain of losing her.
‘I know it hurts that your grandparents didn’t tell you about Giulio, even when you were older, but what could you have done?’ he asks me. ‘You would have left them behind? No. Your heart would have been torn in two.’
‘I couldn’t have left Nan once she’d been diagnosed,’ I agree. ‘And if Bonnie had told me what she knew, it would have crushed me to learn that my father was out there somewhere and there was no way I could leave to go and find him. I wouldn’t have had any idea where to start; I needed the letter to tell me where he was.’
‘So maybe this all happened in the best way for you.’
Everything he’s saying is making sense.
‘Do you have photos of your grandparents?’ he asks.
I nod and take the album, going straight to the end where there’s a shot of the three of us sitting under the shade of the palm trees at the front of our dugout.
Alessandro studies it. ‘When was this taken?’
‘On my sixteenth birthday,’ I reply.
We’re all beaming at Vicky, Jimmy’s wife. She fell ill soon after taking this picture.
‘I like your grandad’s beard,’ he says with a smile.
‘Me too.’
It was long and wiry, a mottled patchwork of grey, white and tan-brown. As a child, I used to try to straighten out his whiskers and my hands would come away coated in mine dust. I can picture my grandfather now, his blue-brown eyes merry with laughter as I clean my palms on his shirt. We both knew full well that Nan would’ve scolded me for getting my own clothes dirty, but she’d long given up on her husband.
I still feel a pang whenever I think about my grandfather. Maybe it’s because of the way that we lost him – he was taken from us so suddenly and in such a brutal manner that I’m not sure it will ever stop hurting. I don’t feel guilty about his death because there’s no relief tied to it. And I’m not as upset with him as I’ve been at Nan, maybe because he never gave me a hard time about longing to go travelling in the first place. Nan made me feel wretched for wanting to leave her, so when she fell ill, I suppose it almost felt as if she was trapping me on purpose.
There are so many emotions battling it out inside me – I think it’s going to be a long time before I can come to terms with them all.
‘Are you tired?’ Alessandro asks.
‘No. Are you?’
‘No. Do you want to watch a movie, the one they filmed in Coober Pedy?’
I assume he’s talking about Pitch Black. ‘I don’t have it with me,’ I reply regretfully.
‘Technology, Angel,’ Alessandro says. ‘I can download the film.’
My eyes light up. Of course!
I change into my PJs and drag my duvet out from my bedroom while Alessandro whacks some popcorn in the microwave. He smiles when he sees me all snuggled up on the sofa.
I used to love going to the movies. Saturday night at the drive-in. . . Warm desert nights, parking up beneath a sky full of stars, the smell of popcorn filling the car and the tinny sound of the film coming through the stereo. Grandad used to take me as a child and in later years I’d take Nan – until she started refusing to get in the car and it all became too hard.
I still remember seeing Up with Pieter, shortly before he left Coober Pedy. I loved it, but, boy, did it make me cry. Grandad had passed away not long before and my travel plans had been put on hold, so it had a double whammy of grief packed into one and a half hours. A sad old man with wanderlust being carried away by balloons. . . How I wished I had a big bunch of balloons that could take me away like that.
I wanted it even more in the ensuing years, but I was rooted to Coober Pedy.
It’s ironic that I’m missing it so much now.
*
At some point during the film, I must have drifted off because I wake to Alessandro laying me down on my bed. He disappears out of the room without a
word and returns with my duvet.
‘Stay,’ I whisper. It’s too late to walk back to Serafina’s where his van is parked. Remembering that he doesn’t have his sleeping bag, I pat the space beside me. ‘I don’t mind.’
He hesitates but then walks around to the other side of the bed. I tug on the duvet before he can think about lying on top of it – it’s much colder than it was a week ago.
‘I hope you’re not this trusting with anyone but me,’ he mutters, prompting me to smile and edge closer.
He takes the hint and opens his arm, gathering me into his warm, solid embrace.
My heart does a happy dance as I rest my cheek against his chest while my head stamps its foot and gives me an earful.
We fall asleep like that.
Chapter 30
When I wake up, Alessandro is gone.
No, I’m wrong. I can hear him out in the kitchen. By the time I’ve used the bathroom, he’s made me a milky coffee.
‘Buongiorno,’ he says, handing it to me.
‘Grazie.’
‘Did you sleep well?’ he asks.
‘Really well,’ I admit with surprise. ‘I usually wake up to the sound of a pin dropping. How on earth did you manage to carry me to my room? I’m not exactly light.’
‘Your wings helped me,’ he replies with a cheeky grin that reminds me of the boy from the picture of his mother’s wedding day.
I throw my head back and laugh. ‘You’re really happy with that one, aren’t you?’ I tease.
‘It was one of my greatest ever sentences.’
‘I’m still not sure about this name you’ve given me,’ I say wryly, enjoying his playfulness this morning. ‘I don’t think it suits me.’
He frowns, but doesn’t say anything.
‘Did you watch the rest of the film?’ I ask.
He nods. ‘It was entertaining.’
Coober Pedy stars early on when a spaceship crashes on a desert planet. After dark, the aliens come out. I must’ve closed my eyes in terror at one point and not opened them again.
I pick up my recipe book.
‘Lamingtons,’ Alessandro reads over my shoulder.
‘My nan’s recipe,’ I tell him, recalling how hard it was to get her to recount it. I could have looked it up online, but I wanted it in her words. ‘I’m going to make some for Cristina’s birthday.’
He reaches around me and flips to the front cover of the recipe book. ‘This is the one you put together?’
‘Yes.’
‘The Coober Pedy Bake Club’ is printed in large lettering over nine pastel-coloured squares, each one containing a small painting of a different cake or biscuit. There are more on the back.
‘Who painted these?’ Alessandro asks.
‘A few of us.’
He glances at me. ‘Us? You’re an artist too?’
‘I did the Monte Carlo biscuits and the Jammy Hearts.’ I point them out.
The painting was really an attempt to keep poor Astrid entertained in the lead-up to her hip operation. Even Nan enjoyed her stint with the watercolours. She had no idea who any of us were, but she still managed to paint a fairy cake.
‘I’ll let you get on,’ he says.
‘You have to rush off?’ I’m disappointed as he walks into the hall and grabs his jacket from a hook.
‘I’ve got to get to work.’
‘You work so much.’
I’m pretty sure he works every day of the week except Mondays.
‘I need the money.’
‘For your adventures?’ I ask with a sad smile that he doesn’t notice.
‘Exactly.’ His attention has been caught by a postcard that arrived yesterday. ‘Aada?’ he asks me, unsure if he’s reading her handwriting properly.
‘And Onni,’ I tell him. ‘One day I’ll make their Finnish Meringue cookies.’
‘What’s this about their residency?’
‘I helped them apply.’ They’re thanking me; thrilled because it has come through.
He stares at me steadily for a long moment.
‘They struggled to read the forms,’ I explain. Why is he regarding me like that? ‘What?’ I ask awkwardly.
‘And you don’t think your name suits you,’ he says with a significant look, before going out of the door and closing it behind him.
Chapter 31
I spend the day making Cristina’s birthday card and cake and thinking about Alessandro.
It’s hard to keep the joy from my heart, even though my head occasionally trots along to remind me that we’ll never be more than friends.
Maybe one day I’ll be okay with that. I just need to give my pheromones a chance to settle down, poor sex-starved girl that I am.
With Cristina’s love of snowboarding in mind, I come up with the idea of making her a mountain cake out of Lamingtons: ten-centimetre-long rectangular chunks of vanilla sponge, covered in chocolate icing and dipped in desiccated coconut. I make about thirty of these cakes, stacking them into the shape of a mountain peak and piling an insane amount of desiccated coconut on the top to make it look like snow.
I draw two very small snowboarding Cristinas onto paper – one a front view, the other a rear – and cut them out, sticking them together with a toothpick sandwiched between them. I pop the tiny piece of art into one of the Lamingtons to make it look like she’s snowboarding downhill.
Drawing another of these tiny Cristinas, I fix it to the white origami mountain that I’ve made and stick the whole thing onto a folded piece of sky-blue card.
I adore making cards for people. I’d even occasionally make them for friends to give to family members on special occasions.
Last but not least, I pen a birthday message inside:
Dear Cristina,
HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY!
I hope this year is your best yet! You deserve all the love, laughter and snowboarding that life can bring you. Can’t wait to celebrate with you later.
Lots of love, Angie xxx
When Cristina walks in at five thirty, the apartment is tidy, the cake and card are on the table surrounded by balloons and streamers, and I’m ready for a night out in skinny jeans, a black lace top and the highest heels I’m capable of wearing, which are not very high at all. I’ve washed my hair and have dried it with a diffuser, styling it with the green headscarf Valentina gave me. I’ve also prepared some snacks and there’s a bottle of prosecco chilling in the fridge.
‘Happy birthday!’ I cry when the door swings open.
Cristina emerges, red-eyed.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask her, my face falling.
She shakes her head, seemingly incapable of speech.
‘Is everyone at home okay?’ I ask.
She nods, miserably. ‘It’s Rebecca,’ she mumbles. ‘She just called to cancel. She’s having dinner with her boyfriend,’ she adds bitterly.
‘Oh, Cristina,’ I murmur, going to give her a hug.
She’s stiff beneath my grasp and withdraws awkwardly.
‘What do you want to do?’ I ask.
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t really feel like celebrating.’ Her bottom lip wobbles dangerously and I step forward to give her another hug. This time she accepts the comfort.
‘You don’t have to make a decision yet. If we end up in front of the telly with a bottle of prosecco and an obscene amount of birthday cake, that’s not a bad back-up plan.’
She smiles weakly and glances across at the dining room table. ‘You got me balloons?’ she asks with surprise.
She bursts into tears when she sees the cake and the card. But then she starts to laugh.
‘Cazzo,’ she curses tearfully, nodding at the two champagne glasses on the table. ‘Let’s get drunk.’
‘Put on some happy music,’ I urge as I grab the bottle of prosecco from the fridge and pour two glasses. A few minutes later, we’re sitting outside in the warm sunshine, a platter of nibbles on the table next to the Lamington mountain cake – Cristina insisted on bringing it
outside so she could look at it.
‘This is the best cake anyone has ever made me,’ she states.
‘You haven’t tried it, yet.’
‘Doesn’t matter what it tastes like. It’s the fact that you did it.’ She looks at me. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ I chink her glass.
‘You look nice,’ she says.
I glance down at my outfit. ‘Thought I’d make an effort for your birthday.’
‘Perhaps we should go out then.’
‘You can do whatever you feel like and I’ll go along with it, but I do think we should celebrate this milestone. Happy birthday!’ I repeat, chinking her glass again.
‘Thank you.’ Her smile is genuine.
‘You want to talk about it?’
‘There’s not much to say. Rebecca’s decided that she wants a nice, easy, straight life. Her boyfriend will never make her happy,’ she states adamantly.
‘Do you think Rebecca could have ever made you happy?’ I ask.
She thinks for a moment. ‘Probably not.’
I wait a little longer.
‘No. She’s not a very nice person, is she?’
‘I barely know her,’ I reply carefully. ‘But she hasn’t treated you at all well so far.’
‘I’m done with her,’ she states.
I chink her glass again and finally she grins at me. It’s followed by a heavy sigh.
‘She’s just so goddamn beautiful. I know, I know, beauty isn’t everything, but God. . . those eyes!’
‘All eyes are beautiful if you take the time to look at them,’ I point out. ‘Lindsey’s eyes, for example.’
‘Lindsey?’ Cristina is clearly perplexed as to why I’ve brought her snowboarding buddy into our conversation.
‘You don’t think her feelings run deeper than friendship?’
‘No. Why? Do you think that they do?’
‘There was something about the way she was watching you and Rebecca last Friday night that made me think she was jealous.’
I really hope I’m not overstepping the mark, here. I inwardly apologise to Lindsey if that is the case.