The Italian Romance (3 page)

I slide into my chair. ‘Yes,' I say, a little winded by the sound of it. ‘It's me.'

She doesn't speak. ‘Hello,' I say. ‘Hello.'

‘You asked me to ring.'

‘Yes, thank you. Thank you for ringing. Because I was wondering if you'd like to, perhaps, come over. For dinner, say?'

Again, she does not speak.

‘Or whatever you like. Lunch? Or coffee? Or dinner? Whatever you like.' My hand is in a fist. I bang it silently on my desktop.

‘When?'

My fist loosens. I am overcome with relief. ‘Friday evening. Say about eight. Suit you?'

‘Who else will be there?' she says. Her tone is quite clipped.

I hadn't thought of that. I hadn't thought of anything beyond her. ‘Well,' I say. ‘Who would you like? Is there anyone you'd like to bring?' I ask because I am intensely curious, that's all.

She gives away no secrets, however. Like her mother in that regard. ‘Whatever you think,' she says. ‘Friday at eight.'

‘Yes,' I say and the phone clicks. ‘Goodbye,' I say into it, nonetheless.

‘Am I the first?' the bushman says. He's examining my bookshelves, which line the lobby on all four sides.

‘Indeed you are. Do you want to go outside and wait on the footpath for some company?'

‘I'll just have to talk to you,' he says, and he follows me in. He puts a tissue-wrapped bottle on the table.

I do like this boy. ‘You needn't say a word if you don't want to. I don't mind. Can you make gnocchi?'

‘Are we having gnocchi?' He sounds quite pleased.

‘Only if you can make it. I don't suppose you have a kilo or two of spuds on you?'

He slaps his pockets. ‘No, doesn't look like it.'

‘Never mind. We'll just have to make do. How about some red wine?'

‘Do I have to make that, too?' He sits himself down at the table.

‘I made some earlier,' I say. I pour from the open bottle into
two sparkling glasses. ‘Be honest. What do you think?' and I hand one to him.

He salutes me with it and takes a mouthful. ‘Ah,' he says. ‘Very plummy.'

I am caught off-guard by him. I laugh out loud. I suppose I am a bit plummy, after all this time away from my own bit of bush.

‘So where are you from, Lilian?'

I turn to the sink and run my thumb down the bloodied imprint of the fish's backbone. The water is very cold. My fingers are going numb. I say, ‘Out west.'

He is silent. I haven't answered him and he knows it.

‘You escaped,' he says then.

‘Ah, well.' He is going to get sick of this game, and so I throw him a sop. I say, ‘I did dream of running off to Sydney to join a daily newspaper.'

‘And did you?'

‘I got married, you know. And the rest is history.' I wipe my reddened hands on the tea cloth and pick up my glass from the draining board. ‘Here's to thwarted ambition,' I say.

He was just about to say something, too, when the doorbell chimes again. He closes his mouth as if the matter is settled. Something disappointed about this man.

‘Excuse me,' I say softly.

There are five of us now, awaiting the sixth. Or to be precise, one of us is awaiting the sixth. I announce, yet again, that I won't serve until the final guest arrives. How many times can I say it before arousing suspicion?

I am worried that she has done a runner. For all I know, she may have abandoned Rome altogether, flown out to London, or Sydney. I wonder if she'd leave me a note? Would she leave it at the reception desk in her hotel? Of course, I don't know which hotel.

‘What year did you arrive, Lilian? Wasn't it nineteen fifty?'
Dora may have been talking to me for some time; I've only just heard her voice.

‘No, no, before then. Forty-seven,' I say.

The bushman says, ‘That must have been hard.'

I have my reasons for not wanting this conversation. The only blessing is that Francesca isn't sitting at the table watching me squirm while I answer.

‘It was difficult all over Europe at the time, that's for sure.' That is bland enough.

He nods as if I have explained everything. That seems to be the end of it. I am just about to ask Vincenzo how his vineyard is doing since the earthquake shook it up. I tear a piece of bread as I formulate the question. And Johnny says, ‘Our people are leaving in droves, off to America, Australia, and she is catching a boat over here. Don't ask me why.'

Let's not ask me why. I almost didn't invite Johnny. He always does this. No wonder his wife left him.

‘Well, there's an interesting point,' I say. ‘Why did you come back from the States? He spent twenty-eight years of his life in New York.' I am looking directly at the bushman, signalling him to catch the ball.

Vincenzo gets it first, bless him. ‘Culture, culture, culture – that is the reason. We are at the heart of civilisation. They may have all the Metropolitans and their Guggenheims,' he holds up a hand to stop Johnny who wishes to protest, ‘but nevertheless it is here we find the treasure without seeking it.'

‘That is not why I returned,' Johnny says. ‘No.' He looks around at his new-world dinner companions, worried at the insult delivered to us. Whether or not he'd be so chivalrous in exclusively Roman company, I will never know. As it is, I am well aware of why Johnny came home but I defy him to reveal his very personal reasons this evening, and I hope that will teach him a lesson.

‘Romans live a multi-temporal life,' I say. I am talking to the
newcomer, Jim. That is what newcomers are for, to listen to old-timers trumpeting their pet theories and advanced state of knowledge. ‘We live in almost every age at one and the same time. It doesn't cost us a thought. It's as natural as breathing.'

‘Ah, yes,' Johnny says, and I could recite his next piece, for he will of course pour a courteous degree of scorn on his own in order to placate the foreigner. ‘Only because, cara, we have the props. Props everywhere. If you walk out of your air-conditioned apartment and on to the sidewalk, take a deep breath of car exhalations,' and he beats his chest, opens his arms and does a good imitation of breathing, ‘and if your eye falls here on the few stones left of a temple dedicated to the goddess of war, and there on the Senate where Caesar trod, and further along the street,' his fingers trot across the table, ‘here is an excavation of an Etruscan site, there a Versace suit in the window of a discreet boutique, overhead a satellite hangs in space,' his eyes grow wide with astonishment, ‘my God! We would be blind if we did not live as you say.' He can't quite remember what it was I did say.

‘In every age at once,' I supply, helpfully.

He nods, case won.

‘In our country,' Jim says, ‘the Aboriginal people live in that light. The dreamtime remains always alive. The props, as you call them, are different, that's all. I don't really understand it, do you, Lilian? Or Dora?' He looks to me, and I shake my head. ‘It's not easy for us to understand this strange way of looking,' he says. ‘It seems they look outwards to a particular rock, for example, or waterhole, and this is the way of gazing within to the world that is not made up of solidities. One and the same thing.'

I feel a silence in me. Who is this man?

Dora is watching me. I raise my eyebrows at her, questioning her curiosity. She lifts her glass and smiles secretly at me. I attempt to dissuade her with a narrowing of my eyes – she has it wrong.

And the bell rings for the final time. My hands begin to shake, and I hope to God no one notices. ‘Excuse me,' I say, ‘that will be
Francesca.' Even the saying of her name surely gives me away. My breath is behind it, and the tug of my raised palate and at last the teeth coming together just before the release, the sigh.

I hurry to the intercom. ‘Is that you, Francesca?' I say briskly.

‘I got lost,' she says.

‘Ask the portiere to show you the way.'

I put my door on the latch. I can't stand here waiting so I open the door to the roof terrace. It's actually a bit cold. The bats have settled on the vine pergola; they particularly enjoy the passion-fruit, but they're a bit early for that. One darts across the darkness to my neighbour's roof garden as if she suddenly remembered something she forgot to do there.

‘Cool evening,' I say as I make myself turn to the room, for the truth is that I completely forgot about the rest of them. Perhaps they didn't notice.

‘We were just saying that.' Dora's voice is almost lost in the traffic sound, still so raucous even eight storeys up. ‘Spring is quite cool this year, don't you think?'

I find myself walking outside on to the terrace. A misplaced chair has beckoned me and I have picked it up before I realise I haven't answered Dora. There's not much I can do about it. I tuck the chair in under the garden table. I've forgotten about the bats, too. I don't like them, as a rule, and I'd usually switch on the light, which scatters them.

‘Yes,' I say as I casually reappear in the doorway. ‘It's unseasonal, all right. Did she knock?'

And on cue, she does. ‘Ah, there she is,' I say.

I am hidden from them in the lobby. I lean against the door, almost collapse against it. I may cry; I am not sure because the tears are so deep down I don't know what they are for.

When I turn the handle, I am myself. ‘Hello, there,' I say, bright.

‘Not too late, I hope,' she says, also fairly bright. Maybe she doesn't get much brighter, how should I know?

‘Well. This is my home.' I stand back so she may view it. I pretend to us both that she is consumed with curiosity about my lifestyle, as they call it these days.

I am so stupidly unworthy of her curiosity that the tears almost break through. Her anger towards me, her well-founded resentment, are so startlingly real compared to my little idiocies. How on earth am I going to continue with this performance tonight?

She hands me her bag and red jacket and simply walks by me into the living room. ‘Hello, there,' she says to them all.

The three men rise to their feet. Poor Johnny nearly capsizes his chair.

I see it then, but I don't know if they do. They are each registering our resemblance. It's as clear as day to me. Their senses sniff the answer. I don't believe it has hit anyone's cerebral cortex. I move away, breaking the genetic pattern we have set up in front of their eyes. ‘Do you all know Francesca? Johnny, you don't. You weren't at the do the other day. Johnny has lived in New York for many years. He thinks he's a foreigner here himself.'

Johnny begins his usual protest, delighted to be given the opportunity. As Francesca approaches the table, he bows. She offers her hand, he bends and touches his lips to her fingers. She seems to accept this old-world courtesy quite easily.

‘And Vincenzo and Dora Rinaldi, whom you did meet, I believe, at the ambassador's. Dora is from Adelaide originally.'

Dora says, ‘Lovely to see you again, my dear. We were hoping we'd get the chance, weren't we, Vince?'

‘Absolutely,' Vincenzo replies. He gestures her to the chair which has been waiting for her. He is a terrible flirt, but entirely harmless. ‘How charming you look this evening,' he says as she sits under his charge.

It's only as I light the gas under the pasta pot that I realise I forgot to introduce Jim, my bushman. He hasn't said a word. He is seated beside her, fiddling with the napkin on his lap, picking at the hem of the linen square. I lean across him to place the
antipasto plate on the table. They can amuse themselves with ham and melon while the taglietelle cooks.

‘Jim,' I say, to make up for my unpardonable lack, ‘would you pour some of the lovely red you brought with you, for Francesca? If you like red wine?' I ask her. How utterly absurd it all is. I still don't know her surname.

‘Thank you,' she says.

‘Someone recommended a shop in town,' Jim says. ‘I hope this is okay.'

‘Pricey,' she says. She has leaned towards him to read the label and there, sure enough, is the price tag.

‘Sorry,' he says. I think he is genuinely embarrassed. His thumbnail scrapes at it, and he peels it off.

‘Do you know Adelaide?' Dora asks. She's a kind soul. She directs us from Jim and his sudden awkwardness.

‘Not too well,' Francesca replies. ‘If you're talking about the wine district, I'm more familiar with the Hunter Valley.'

‘Now you're talking,' Jim says.

‘Oh, are you from there, possibly?' she says. I almost drop the basket of bread. She has turned into a young girl. She has mislaid her guard. I was beginning to think she had surrendered to her fifty years without a fight. But no, there is the clear brow, the sincere and perhaps painfully intense gaze in her eyes, and even, I hardly believe it, a slight lisp as she says, inappropriate as a child, ‘possibly?' How innocent that lisp sounds on her lips. I think it was once innocent on mine.

‘Possibly I am,' Jim says. And his humour has an intimate edge to it. I am not sure I like it. I have the urge to seat her safely between Vincenzo and Johnny, neither of whom would hurt a fly. And Johnny certainly couldn't catch one, not these days.

I insinuate myself between Jim and herself as I deposit the bread. ‘Who'd like butter?' I say, immobilised there. I can literally feel Jim's frustration at the wall of my torso. Blow him. ‘How about you, Dora?'

‘Trying to give it up. Again,' she says. She's also given up dyeing her hair, and as a result has had to cut it very short. It doesn't really suit her. Her face is too soft and rounded for it.

‘Again,' Vincenzo echoes. ‘Always she is giving up butter, milk, meat, even cheese sometimes. I don't know why! She is delectable, butter or no butter.'

Dora beams. No wonder she always smiles. Lucky, lucky woman. Vincenzo, unlike most flirts, flatters his wife above all others.